In Search of the Frightening & Beautiful: To the Bottom of the World

My name is Heather Johnson. I've been a working visual artist for close to 25 years, inspired by the landscape and the feeling I get when I travel through it.

It's been nearly two years since I first launched In Search of the Frightening and Beautiful, my ongoing motorcycle journey and visual art project. It all started in 2012 with an invitation to the BoxoHOUSE artist residency program in Joshua Tree, CA. The invitation became a departure point for something massive. Since then, I have ridden alone over 25,000 miles and have left 30 small gifts everywhere in the form of hand-embroidered art works, dropped in the landscapes of the United States and Mexico, for random folks to encounter and keep. 

I have had experiences too profound to describe. I've ridden through monsoons. Met total strangers who've saved my life. Crashed several times on muddy, rocky, rutted dirt roads. And made many new friends, whose words and actions will stay with me for the rest of my life. (Read about much of this on the project blog, here.)

IN SEARCH OF THE FRIGHTENING & BEAUTIFUL is motivated by a need for connection and understanding in a world governed too frequently by fear, ignorance and mistrust. It crosses geographic and cultural boundaries,  leaving bits of humanity in its wake in the form of intimate, painstakingly-made gestures let loose in the landscape, set adrift in the world to change hands, context and meaning.

Since March 2013, I have made 25 new works of art based on experiences from my journey, which have been shown in four exhibitions in New York, Mexico and California. (For more information about my work and art practice, see  http://heatherLjohnson.com.)

I've given lectures at two universities, conducting a workshop for students at one of them. I've just completed the first frightening and beautiful book, hot off the press and ready to ship. Articles have been written, the Facebook page is active and the project's audience is growing, confirming the need to keep it alive. You could say I have unfinished business to take care of.

NEXT MONTH I WILL HEAD SOUTH AGAIN, this time much farther, as far as resources will allow, toward the bottom of the southern hemisphere. I will venture back down through Mexico, into Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and with a little luck, across the Darien Gap into Colombia and beyond. I'll leave in my wake a trail of new pieces, embroidered with motorcycle body parts and bits of text describing observations I've collected so far on the journey... small bits of humanity intended to coincide with the lives of total strangers, whose cultures and languages different from my own. When I return, I'll continue to grow what I've started, incorporating what I've learned into new books, embroideries and other media that build upon the story I've only just started to tell.

I need your help.

This is not something I can do without the financial and moral support of every person who believes in me and wants me to keep it going. The fundraising goal is a big one. In Central and South America, food and lodging are cheap, and gas is cheaper than it was two years ago.. but motorcycle parts in these regions are expensive, as are vehicle importation permits, inoculations, travelers' health and bike insurance. The minimum cost of transporting myself and my motorcycle once across the Darien Gap - that impenetrable break in the Pan American Highway - is $900. Then there's the return home... human/moto transport from Buenos Aires back to North America will run twice that much.

$17,500 is a drop in the bucket, then, if you let your imagination go... but the last two years have shown me how to make money stretch. My current motorcycle is small, simple, easy to repair and gas efficient. I'll be gone for a long time, which means I won't have a home to pay rent for. And I've already sold or given away most of my possessions, so there will be no monthly storage fees to worry about. (Most of my art work is in the loving hands of Gallery Aferro in New Jersey, by the way.. and it'll still be for sale while I'm gone ;) ).

If I don't reach my goal, I'll still go as far south as I possibly can, as far as down as the money I have raised will allow me. I am determined to make this work, no matter what it takes.

For your Generosity..

I have fantastic perks, already finished or being made right now... meaning the pieces you see here will be shipped before I leave, as supplies last. 

There are brand-new ISoftheF&B t-shirts, in white and heather grey, in unisex and women's sizes. And limited edition tabloid-sized posters for the Frightening and Beautiful book launch party, featuring 5 of the best bands in the Mojave Desert (where I've been holing up for the last several months). There are original art works available: watercolors based on images from the journey and hand-sewn second editions of embroideries I left in the Mexican landscape.

The most important of these is my book. This is a labor of love. It's the essence of what is, to me, "frightening" and "beautiful", filled with images that compliment and clash from the various corners of the northern hemisphere I've seen so far. It is the guts of my project - all of the experiences, simple but explosive, compacted into 4x6 inches and 112 pages. I'm also making hard bound, hand-stitched versions, a limited edition of 20 only, signed and numbered (these are special.. they take about 5 hours each to make!).

Other ways to help

Not everyone can contribute financially.. such is the reality of the world we live in. If you'd like to help but are strapped for cash, there are other ways. Since I'll be doing most, if not all of this journey solo, I'll be looking for more contacts throughout Mexico, Central and South America - folks I can turn to if I get into trouble, need a place to stay, or a dirty floor upon which to change my oil. I'm always grateful for route and site suggestions as well, from those of you in the know.

Please feel free to share the hell out of this thing on Facebook or Twitter! The more people who know I'm out there, the better. Moral support and the strength I draw from friends is critical.. without it I'll stop dead in my tracks.

Conceived through the act of riding a motorcycle, In Search of the Frightening & Beautiful embraces risk and vulnerability to record and testify to the “frightening and beautiful” - to the coincidences, contradictions and struggles that reveal the essence of human experience. 

With a little bit of luck and a lot of help from folks like you, it will eventually make its way around the world.

Thank you.

http://heatherLjohnson.com