I decided that I wanted to challenge myself as an artist by taking a solo trip to the Head of the Charles in Boston with just a backpack of gear for this project, and I got so much out of it. It was the first vacation that I had taken in about five years, and with a secure job that gives me vacation time, I decided that a trip to the Head of the Charles was perfect, I couldn’t think of anything else better, and it was for the purpose of art, I don’t know what else I would go on vacation to do!
I needed to go to the Head of the Charles because it was my personal peak in rowing, I had rowed in it twice about twenty years ago, and it was such a spectacular experience that I gained so much from, and it is probably the greatest regatta in America (tell me if I’m wrong), with so many athletes and organizations participating for 55 years! That makes it pretty much iconic!
Get as many photos of the Head of the Charles as possible for reference for artwork
Because the Head of the Charles is a two-day event, plus a rowing practice day before the event starts, I decided the best use of my time in Boston would be to get as many photos as I could each day, from all over the course, and as many boats and observable rowing-related experiences as possible. I was taking photos from nearly 8am to 5:30pm every day, I walked non-stop all over the course, my limitations turned out to be battery life on my phone and camera, and at the very end I suffered exhaustion/sickness.
With these photos, I could bring them back to Madison, find the best of them, and use them in a variety of ways to produce great rowing art!
Photographically, I wanted to catch races, equipment, spectators, practices, landmarks, the river, traffic, rowers on and off the water, people carrying boats and oars, the festivities, generally, and anything else that occurred.
Artistically, I want to create modern impressionist paintings like Degas’ Ballet Dancers, or my version of Georges Seurat‘s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte.
By Georges Seurat – twGyqq52R-lYpA at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, Link
Preparing for the trip to make art based on the Head of the Charles
I bought a lot of stuff, but purposefully, and took an agile approach to preparing for it, since it was about developing this series of artworks. Many of my purchases were errors or missteps, which I will share 🙂
Preparing an Art Studio in a Backpack
The components of the trip were the actual travel logistics and arrangements, and the most efficient way to carry my art studio with me while I was there.
Bad Backpack Planning for Travel
I bought a backpack for the trip to hold my camera and lenses (I’m hardly a serious photographer, except for this trip), it had flexible, specialized padding for the camera, special pockets, ergonomics, straps, and a pocket for my laptop and iPad, and it was very reasonably priced. Then I checked my super-economy airplane ticket restrictions two days before the flight, the backpack was two inches too thick! I had been using this backpack for practicing my photography for two weeks, and now I had to buy a smaller backpack, pare down my art studio. I debated not getting a smaller backpack, but I couldn’t risk checking and losing my camera equipment and other hardware (see $1300 rented lens below). I bought a cutesy overpriced schoolbag that my friend Sarah approved of, it was cute, and she was “shocked” that I picked it out (truth is that it was the only bag that would fit the plane criteria at the first store I found one at, so I didn’t pick it out, SARAH.). I was able to cram the essentials into the bag for travel.
The Impressive and Massive Lens
I borrowed a $1300 lens online; it was very heavy, and very stressful, but I got great photos and experience out of it. Next time I would have it sent to where I am going, instead of hauling it round-trip on my back, but the first time, I wanted to try it out before I got to the main event, and I wasn’t confident about picking it up when I got to Boston, considering it was my first time using that service, and going to Boston in twenty years.
Having an extremely heavy and expensive lens in tow while traveling is stressful enough, but then the airBnB had the crumbiest security in the world (they were nice, and trusted their neighborhood), but having a keybox with a simple code, and a flimsy slide-lock on bedroom doors had me worried that I would be robbed and murdered in the middle of the night, and that I couldn’t leave anything at the airBnB that I cared about during the day. Very challenging.