Hey guys, for today’s blog, I decided to go a little off topic. I would like to talk about this Nature Camp I went to for a week in Mid-July, and my experiences with that. At first I just wanted to join because I thought it would be a fun experience. But mostly I wanted to wood carve. That was my biggest incentive. I thought it would be fun to make a sword or a weapon of some kind out of wood.
I packed my bags and drove to Sebastopol on July 12th. When I got there I learned the camp was rather deep in the forest. We were greeted by the camp directors who were very friendly and supportive. We mostly spent the first day going over the rules of the camp. We also hiked a little bit and we learned how to be safe in the forest.
Day-to-day activities
You may be interested in what I did everyday in the camp. First day, we hiked in the forest and we did a bit of wood carving. When we were allowed to carve, I started on this sword from Japanese history called a katana. It’s this cool looking sword which most samurais use. I had taken with me a stick I found near my house. The stick is from a maple tree from our front yard. The bark was particularly hard to cut through but it was very satisfying when I cut it all off. I had to then sand it with sandpaper and make it smooth using a rasp. A kind of saw that you use not to cut but to scrap small pieces of wood and sawdust.
On the second day, we did this really fun exercise called camouflage. It was where we rubbed mud on ourselves, or whatever natural thing we can find. We had to hide in the forest within a one mile radius and not get found by the camp directors. I got found pretty late not because I was camouflaged very well, but because if I saw someone I ran like hell in the opposite direction.
After that it was back to carving. Well it was carving for me at least. We had free time where we could do whatever we wanted and I was super dead set on my sword. So, I spent all my free time carving while chatting with the camp directors and the campers. One of the things we did was something called a Sit Spot. This is where you go out into the wild and you find a place to sit or meditate for 40 minutes. This didn’t work out so well for me because I can’t sit still for more than 4 seconds, let alone meditate. One of the directors noticed this and so they let me carve instead of doing the sit spot.
The next day we started the day by tracking. Meaning, we went out into the forest very early in the morning looking for animal tracks. If we found any, we had to present our theory on what made those footprints. We found deer, raccoons, coyotes, snakes, and millipede tracks. We did a lot of fun stuff that day. We went into the woods to build little houses out of sticks and we made baskets out of straw. We also went backpacking. After three days of work, at this point my sword was smooth and ready to take shape. This was by far the hardest part. Before I started to carve on the sword I made a little knife as a kind of practice for the sword. And the knife actually turned out looking very good. You can see a picture of the knife here below.
Caption: This is my "experimental" knife, carved out of a piece of stick.
The thing I really wanted to do was to ‘burn in’ Japanese writing into my sword. I wrote down the words in pencil and used a magnifying glass and pointed it toward the sun so it would burn letters into my sword. Slowly but surely, it worked. Not only that, it turned out very nicely. After this, there was one final step. That was to braid little strands of coir on the hilt of my sword to make the grip for the handle. I taught myself how to do a triple braid, I braided the coir around the hilt of my sword. And slowly I made a handle around the hilt of my sword. Although we were allowed at the end to trade our carvings with each other, I made it clear I’m going to keep my sword, since I wanted to keep what I had made. The final product can be seen in the picture given below. This is the first time I have ever used a carving knife.
Caption: The sword. Top to Bottom -- (1) The handle made of coir, (2) The characters etched by focusing the sunlight by a lens, (3) The sword.
After this at around 10 in the night the camp counselors gathered us and told us till 3:00 in the morning we are going to do the highlight of our camp. In groups of three we had to sneak around the entirety of the woods and not get caught by the camp counselors more than three times. And if we do, we won’t be able to continue the activity because we are out. So I got paired with two of my friends and we went off into the woods. It was fun though, hiding in various places, which included the 'porta potty'. On the last day I packed up my tent and stuff and left for a long driving trip with my parents. I enjoyed my experience and I hope it will happen again.
Food Scene at the Camp
Every morning, we woke up at 6:30 at the sound of a drum. Literally, they brought out a bong and started banging it, yelling “wake up”. Anyway, we were expected to make our own breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Otherwise we would not eat at all. I know it’s kind of harsh, right? Oh, and did I mention that we had to make food for others as well? We had to make scrambled eggs, hot chocolate, and sausages. We had to make our own cereal as well. We sun dried the grains, and then proceeded to wash them. Then we let them dry again and we ate them with milk. And naturally, they tasted like doo doo! We enjoyed it nonetheless.
What is Art?
You are probably wondering what this whole blog has got to do with art. Let me explain. I made the sword with my own two hands and worked very hard on it. I made it from a material found in nature and used that raw coarse material to make something beautiful, smooth. I made a sculpture out of what I found in nature. To me, this is ART. Even all kinds of abstract art forms are found in nature. The colors you see in the sky and on the ground, the way the leaves are formed, rock formations all of it is a part of art in some way or another. This is what I learned. To see art everywhere.
Comments