3places we never beenPLACES WE HAVE NEVER BEEN TO BEFORE AND PROMISE TO NEVER RETURN

PLACES WE HAVE NEVER BEEN TO BEFORE AND PROMISE TO NEVER RETURN

An Experiential Project By 8 Artists of North Carolina

An unedited account of nine unrepeatable aesthetic experiences at nine unique locations

Donna Wyatt Noah McDonald Ezra Weiss Malek Williams Ulric Ariside Danita Lewis Guohang Wang Scott Lewis Yuki St. Amour

June 2015 Guilford College

Special Thanks to Dhanraj Emanual, Jarrett Knepper and Katherine Shields

Thick Foliage of Bushes and Trees

There is part in my backyard that nothing but a thick foliage of bushes and trees. It is so thick that it's impossible to see the border between ours and the next door neighbor's territory. My mother has always told us that there are snakes beneath these bushes. As a matter of fact she recently killed one while doing her gardening not too far from the bushes. It was a little one but we all assume there are much bigger ones hiding under the bushes just waiting for someone to step into their territory. Well, I did just that. In order to fulfill the part of the project that requires going to a place I've never been before and never plan on returning, I stepped into the bushes. When I stepped into it I felt my foot sinking deeper and deeper. I just knew I was going to step on a snake and get bitten. The mere thought of standing in the middle of all those and expecting to get bitten by a snake was frightening, but to a certain extent I felt a certain amount of bravery for finally stepping in that bush.

After standing there for a few moments and realizing I hadn't gotten bitten I grabbed a piece of twig and thankfully jumped right out. Maybe I was just confused between being stupid and being brave but it felt good. It felt good to do something I have always been so afraid of doing, and for a good reason too. No one wants to get bitten by a snake.

That's if there really are any snakes in those bushes. However, just a few weeks ago, a car drove over a snake that was well over four feet long on a street not too far from my house. Maybe it came from those same bushes behind my house, maybe it didn't. Well, I'm not worried about ever stepping on into these bushes because my Art 100 professor has made me promise never to ever go back to that place and I always keep my promises.

-­‐ Ulric Ariside

Place: High Point University, High Point NC Zip Code 27260 Median household income of zip code: $22,624 Percentage of college grads in zip code: 7% Endowment $42 million President Nido Qubein’s annual salary: $1,355,777

I went on a ‘prospective student’ tour of High Point University on Saturday June 20th. It was a bright and warm sunny day with a brief rain shower that added comical effect to the tour. The president has the highest salary of any college president in North Carolina.

The University grounds are designed by the college as a spectacle for all visitors and incoming students. To me, it is bordering on the absurd; a movie theater, a statue of Atlas holding up the world (to represent the task of High Point students), a student center with an escalator, two-­‐story fountain, steakhouse, and self-­‐playing piano. To me, the visit was one part comical, one part grotesque. The entire campus is a spectacle of white privilege bordering on the absurd. It’s a self-­‐parody. There’s a fence separating the University from the rest of the community. It serves as a material barrier. One hundred yards from campus there are corner liquor/tobacco stores and laundromats.

The school lauded its ‘philanthropic’ efforts in the community by Greek life there and has a computer room where ‘underprivileged’ kids get a taste of the good life.

Object: Poncho with High Point University logo and website on back. An epidode in a multi-­‐part series.

Promise: I, Noah McDonald, promise to never return to High Point University.

Devils Tramping Ground

I decided to go to Devil’s Tramping Ground in Bear Creek, North Carolina. This is supposedly the spot where the Devil comes to pace at night. It is a giant circle of bare earth amidst a field a few hundred feet of the road. I’ve lived around there for a while but never visited, I tried once but could not find it, so GPS helped with that. My first impression as I went late Saturday night, to add effect, was how trashed the place is.

Kids hanging out over the years and drinking without any maintenance to the site made the place easily confused with a dump. Legend holds that if something was put inside the circle the Devil would move it out within the night, if true, he did this A LOT and the people were too afraid to pick it back up. Being someone with an active imagination, as well as a little paranoia, I picked up one of the first weapon like items I could find. It was a small metal bar that looks as though it may have been used to hit something already. I walked the tramping ground twirling it, after I decided this was as good a piece as any for my item to bring back, instead of some more conventional trash.

-­‐Scott Lewis

A New Place yet a Familiar Feeling

For the place to visit that I had never been to before, I decided to take a walk through the parking lot behind the apartments. One of the things that I particularly liked about this area was its layout. The lot started off being a bit wide and open, but as I walked further, it became more small and narrow, which usually made me wonder how far the parking lot would go on for. This may partially be because there were trees and large bushes on both sides of the parking lot, which made the area almost feel like a forest, and the shadows against the trees gave the area a mysterious feel. The object that I collected in the process was a large leaf, which caught my attention because its bright colors made it stand out against the grass. However, the major reason I enjoyed the experience of walking through the parking lot was that it made feel like I was back at my old house in Chapel Hill, walking through the woods behind the cul-­‐de-­‐sac. Overall, my walk in the parking lot served as a good reminder of how college can make you feel at home.

-­‐Ezra Weiss

Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The place that I experienced this weekend was the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in Raleigh, North Carolina. The event I was working was the Miss North Carolina Scholarship Pageant, so I would be working mainly backstage during the performances. Normally, you are sitting down facing the stage, but for this, I was standing up looking at the performance from a side view. This was my first pageant I had ever been to, and seeing it from a different perspective really opened my mind. When working “behind the scenes”, you get to see all the hard work and effort put out by the contestants, pageant coordinators, stage crew staff, and families. The object I took from the event was a media/tv crew all-­‐access pass. I wasn't sure if I needed to return the lanyard, but I didn’t. The reason I chose this object, is that a media pass gives you power allows you to see things differently. A lot of artist create work that alters one’s view or thought about something and I think the lanyard serves the same purpose. I believe the lanyard is a form art.

-­‐ Malek Williams

I LOVE PHO’

I like to try different foods. I have the traditional Japanese, Chinese, French, Italian, Greek, Cajun and of course the good ol’ American southern cooking.

So I decided to choose Vietnamese food. I found a small little restaurant in Greensboro on High Point Road. I haven’t been there before because it didn’t look very creditable on the outside. So as I opened the door in looked in. I was greeted by a young blonde male teenager. He was very polite and there were very few people there.

I sat down at a table and began to look around. Two of the four walls consisted of the traditional frame pictorial artwork, this particular piece consisted of lilies within the main picture frames and the two frames that accompanied the décor consisted of metal frame structures that contained a metal shaped vined flower on each side. On the other wall consisted of the same. The only difference was the main center picture was and oil painting.

As I was reading the menu I noticed the gloomy presence of silence. I didn't hear or see any activity going on to support that the place was, for lack of better words; "real". The ambience was less than attractive, so the decision was to never return to this specific restaurant

-­‐ Danita Lewis

The Edge at Wet ‘n Wild

I arrived at Wet & Wild Water Park Friday morning for a relaxing day. I had been thinking about this assignment and was contemplating visiting a Buddhist temple or something. Finding a place I had never been before was the easy part-­‐ how could I be sure I would never go back? The kids took off on their own and left me to fend for myself. I usually lounge by the wave pool or visit the lazy river. About this time I looked up and and saw a sign that read… THE EDGE. What? Five stories high, and it was rated a 5 on a thrill rating of 1-­‐5.

I’m afraid of heights, always have been but I decided this would be the place that I had never been before. I got in line and saw several single floats on the ground, and seized my chance. As I climbed the stairs, I made a decision to not look down. I had come too far to turn back….At last it was my turn, I was pushed forward, hanging on for dear life and plunged over THE EDGE! I prayed and prayed until my float finally came to a semi rest. I was shaking so bad and my adrenaline was pumping so hard I could barely manage to exit the ride. I wanted to tell everybody I did it……so yes I did it….and I want be doing it again.

-­‐ Donna Wyatt

Carolinas Aviation Museum

On this weekend, I have been to a museum named Carolinas Aviation Museum. This museum is the history of aircraft. As we know, Wrights brothers have driven their airplane and did the first powered flight in Northern Carolina, so the museum put their introduction with a model of the Wright Flyer

After the room of the presentations of the museum, I moved into the hanger, and there are a lot of airplanes and every one shows a part of history of aviation industry. For the example, people would see a simple aircraft when they moved in the hanger, and it is a kind of early airplane. Next people could look at the F-­‐14D Tom Car which was the mainstay of US Navy. In the middle part of that hanger, it is a big airplane, which was scraped in an accident. It has been talking of a story of security. At last, this museum showed a lot of interesting things such as the R-­‐2800 Double Wasp Engine -­‐ which was using in WWII, cockpit of Phantom fighter, and the Chinook Helicopter.

In conclusion, I think I have learned some knowledge about the aviation history and those airplane also show the artistic of it, because the door of the exit said that powerful aircrafts always be beautiful.

-­‐ Guohang Wang

The Wood Of Guilford

I went to a spot I found when exploring through the woods of Guilford and found the canned pasta. During my time there, it was humid and muggy, but the can had a cool feeling and somewhat strange feeling to it when looking at it. My assumption is that the reason the object felt strange to me is because of it's unnatural existence in a natural environment. The dirty and beaten up metal with the partially torn wrapper was something that one could easily have spotted when walking along the dirt paths. While my thoughts at the time were strangely about food, I find that when I look at this can closely, I can see a bit more of how and why it was designed the way it was. The ridges in the can remind me of the dirt and rocks on the path that I was walking along at the time. The colors stuck out like a sore thumb, the bright red and white an obvious eye catcher amongst the dark brown and green of the woods. While I can't quite figure out what it's doing all the way out in the woods, I can at least appreciate the strange sign that I should go eat.

-­‐ Yuki St. Amour