During the orientation for the nine residents sitting in a circle in the Playa Commons, the program manager mentioned that the distance across Summer Lake was 7 miles. I immediately thought about walking across the playa as a performative art piece. Instead, I chose to ride my bike in a straight line across its width that very afternoon.

Before leaving for Oregon, the one work that I wanted to do while at Playa was to ride my bike 365 times in a circle on Summer Lake. I’m not sure why I wanted to do this. It was something that I just felt I needed to do and necessary. Me, my bike, and my camera documenting my ride. 

After I finished circling the track 366 times (one more because of leap year), I was walking back to my cabin with Portland-based interdisciplinary artist, Rebecca Burrell. Rebecca, who had wanted to participate and document the artwork, asked me how I would define what I had just done. I told her I wasn’t sure, but that it didn’t really feel like a performance piece. Now, as I look back, I am confident that indeed it wasn’t a performance. It felt more like my installation Convergence that I had just done a few weeks earlier at Wupatki National Monument. Though the event there included a piano performance, the piano, its player, and the music, these were just components to the installation. Likewise, my body, my bike, and the circular movement in time on the playa were not part of a performance but, instead, part of a kinetic sculpture. 

Rebecca’s project at Playa was to deconstruct time and to be clockless for the length and duration of her time there, by taking and reclaiming time from the consumer capitalist paradigm we are all a part of and cogs within. I was enthralled by her project and what she was doing to make that happen: covering the time on her iPhone and laptop with tape, not wearing her watch, and completely not knowing what time it was for twelve days by spending her residency at Playa in clock-lessness. As I shared with Rebecca my idea about riding in a circle on the playa 365 times, she found it fascinating and wanted to somehow participate. But if she indeed wanted to participate in my project, would it be an antithesis to her project? Didn’t my circular ride symbolize moving through time? 

When I originally imagined myself doing this, I thought I would automatically be going clockwise, but once I got on the playa and laid out the diameter of my circular path, it felt natural to move counterclockwise. It now makes sense to me why I originally thought of this idea, and why I had to do it, and why Rebecca wanted to be involved and participate in this work. Creating this work of art wasn’t just for me but, for her, and the conversations we were having together each day. I now look back on why this installation was so important to me and, how different my residency would have been had I not gone through it. For me, I saw the playa as a sheet of textured drawing paper and the use of my bike as a drawing utensil, one that feels like a worn glove, moving counter to a system we are all a part of.