In part one I had left off early in my development of my second environmental integration ‘People Going Nowhere’

This location was fun to build because I was making a seat surrounded by 4 trees, so you have to shape your things to the shapes that are there. That’s similar in process to my philosophy on teaching; we should be fostering as much as we can from what’s naturally there, and not arrogantly asserting ourselves.

There’s an enjoyable process of shaping a piece of wood to fit in a custom made place; the more odd the shape, the more satisfying it will look.  It sounds kind of hard because you literally have to hold the wood’s straight side against the tree and holding a marker in your hand, and sometimes guesstimating for initial cuts that you are sure do not go too far. You cut out your marks and again hold the piece up to what’s to be mirrored, fit it in location and again mark the wood.  I usually used my own hand as a guide to trace the curves of the tree, …onto the cardboard!  Yes, you can use card board as I did to make a template and trace it onto the wood surface; then you can sometimes make a single cut with a Jig-Saw in the much tougher wood. This picture is not too clear but is a good example of how I cut my things to fit in with what was already there. And I eventually would have lights in all of these places as you’ll see if you read every part of this blog.

Making the foot-rest was a little bit of a fun challenge. I began with the base of the foot-rest on the tree’s base, it required considerable shaping but that allowed the nails to penetrate deeply into the tree, and would later even survive a large tree falling on it!  As I built up the layers of the foot rest, I had to “eye-ball-it” as they call it, and drove 2X4 stakes in just enough that the foot rest was sitting on the stakes as I built it out from the tree.

The layers of 2X4 that I nailed together to make the foot rest had what I call, an ‘Eagle-Claw’ nailing technique added to them. While some nails are straight into the wood for shear-strength, some are in at opposing angles to the anticipated load direction, in this case 45% down from the face of each piece to fight against it peeling apart over time. I remember some of the teens who used these places had wondered how it was that everything was so solidly built.

Also, when driving in the stakes I accidentally clipped the right corner of the seat, breaking loose that corner.  Damage I didn’t need to repair so was kind of like a small character mark that would always remind me of exactly how it broke, so the next time I could adapt and protect aspects such as the other things around what I’m currently working on.

Many of the Teens used to regularly verbally thank me when they saw me for making these spots; so I was a bit of a celebrity when I could see someone learn that they were present with the person who made these places.  One teen said once that it was like being at Dysneyland, (not this particular location) a place I guess he thought was, out-of-this-world.  Many would almost always immediately offer to smoke-me-up, and were very pleased that they could! Here’s some pic’s of some young visitors who’s faces I’ve obscured.

In the development of this place it happened once in a wind-storm that a dead tree fell from across the creek, it fell in pieces right through this spot and completely flattened it, sparing the seat. You don’t want to be in the forest during a windstorm!  The falling tree broke the tip off of this tree and sheared off every branch on its north side.

This is the tree! That big chunk of tree down there is what was lying in front of the seat. Most of the pieces were still in-tact so it was a quick rebuild. In this picture you can see how some visitors could be quite destructive, and would all-too-often do stupid things like rip a huge piece of bark from the tree. These kinds of damaging influences made me angry because it was me who brought the people there.  What I would usually do at these little damages was to write a painful note as to why do you hurt me? Or as in this case I drew a few first aid crosses on the damaged area.  And now the fallen tree had created a bridge across the creek here which increased foot traffic such as dog walkers on the trail, and therefore more awareness of this place.

As I’ve learned, with much practice by now, a collapse or destruction can and eventually will happen. What’s interesting is that in rebuilding it I’m able to learn from the experience, and improve on deficiencies that were there in its previous state.  Because I was following a free flowing style wherein I would simply wait for a relationship to reveal itself to me, and not try to force design myself onto the environment.

These places were always in development, and what had the biggest impact that forced changes to them were the people who would visit.  It was very rare that I would see new footprints in the mud and not also see the garbage they left behind. This amount in the picture below was quite consistently left behind on a daily basis. I had estimated that I had collected 5 or 6 full bags of garbage that summer from all 4 locations.

Down closer to the water I noticed that the brush on the bank of the creek had been flattened and was leaning in the water now. I later found out that it was in their desperation for water to use in their bongs for smoking weed! This is in a Vancouver, BC suburb mind you; where they intended to assume and provide stock for the black market user (non-medicinal); only because the market had reached a level where the profit potential could not be ignored any longer.  Anyway, I lifted up the branches, and used a thick string to tie it back because there was nothing else to hook the plants on.  I later made a long thin piece of wood into a swiveled bottle holder for retrieving water, so they would not disturb the edge of the creek.  It was things such as this that would cause me to increase production temporarily.  Here’s a pic of the seat, and another of the view from the seat.  This picture of the seat is a good example of how I started using disruptive coloring camouflage in my work.

This is one of the compliments from this place that I would often find left behind in different ways.  Often I would see that they had noted their “Contact date” that they first discovered it.

I have not mentioned that in getting to know this particular forest area that I had witnessed all of the old signs of homelessness there.  Sometimes I would find a newspaper or flattened cardboard box or a piece of wood along with some clothing usually, always under a large tree.  Or other small items under a tree where the wind could not have blown them; occasionally a spot where they had maintained a small fire for a single night. The problem is much worse now.

I came across this camp of 1, one day, when searching for my materials that went missing.  Coming up to this place I had announced myself as I approached, and as I walked around the other side I could see that someone was in there, throwing bits of wood onto a small fire. He never answered me! I could see my wood there but left it, seeing his need was much more urgent than mine. You can see a slight orange glow from his fire behind the plastic that’s hanging down over the front.  Many homeless and mentally-ill gravitate towards nature to get away from people.

On one occasion I came upon COG2 as the teens had nick-named them in sequence; there was a guy  in the seat, and I asked permission to join him, and he agreed to let me sit.  After a few short minutes he said he had to leave, so whatever I thought.  Later, on my way back up the trail I was surprised to come across him squatting at the base of a tree, alone in the dark of night!  It kind of reminded me of an episode of the TV show Sienfeld; wherein a male would dig a hole in the forest and just sit in it.  After that meeting I had nick-named him ‘Sketchers’ because he truly was sketchy.

Can you believe someone spent the night in here?

Here’s an image of a back-rest I made because the tree would get very wet here, this would keep you clean and dry, comfortably leaning against the tree.

Here are some more images of the additions that I added to this place over time. The addition of more shelves made the place more user friendly.  This is also a photo of the incense that I frequently burned; my favorite being named ‘Vampire Blood’.  This picture also shows two nails inserted just above the shelf, in the middle, beside the incense.  It happened on one occasion that someone asked me what these nails were for?  So I slid my cellphone between the nails where it was held in position.

Out of my desire to add lights and needing to conceal them; I stapled a small string of battery operated lights underneath this armrest. Along with a common assortment of bush tools and the incense box in this pic.

The stairs I made became a requirement caused by the muddy and slippery substrate.  These broken paving stones were left over from a nearby construction site, and had been thrown into the bushes. You can use a small spade shovel to dig the stone’s shape into the hill-side, I would use my framing hammer to do a job like this, it has a straighter claw shape than old style hammers that had a very curved claw, as you can see in the above picture.

This is perhaps the last picture of this sheltered spot, as I had always anticipated that they would eventually be removed, and they all were in a single day, save except the first location, it lasted a little longer but would eventually be dismantled to. I have one still but that won’t be until Part 5 of this blog.  Coincidentally this spot would later become the entrance to the trail of my 5th place.

Now what remains there are a few seats that I made after a while. I also pulled out nails and screws that were left behind from the old structure.

The next spot I discovered by spending time exploring the forest, and wait and look for something to reveal itself to me. And it would become this, some 60 feet further down the trail: that I had to open up through blackberries to get here. I discovered that this has been an area where people came to dump their refuse for many years, and may have even been a farm at one time! Now its a homeless forest in the middle of the modern city.

 Stay tuned for Part III of my blog following my experimental environmental integrations, coming soon because I have a lot of free time coming up temporarily.