Gully Jimson, meet John Muir

My name is Tim, and I'm a 29 year old Artist working towards a Bachelors in Arts degree from Empire State College in NY. In two weeks, I move to Alaska.

Gully Jimson is the protagonist from the Novel and Film "The Horses' Mouth". He's a gnarly aging bachelor who, after leaving prison, lives in his studio (a house boat). He calls rich people on the telephone, haranging them for monetary donations for the perpetually unfinished homage to his own body of work, the Gulley Jimson Mural Project.

While I do not live on a houseboat and have never been to prison, I do "secretly" live in my studio - an old barn in western NY state, USA. I am not as Ballsy as Gulley, I only harang poor people to fund my projects. I am a gnarly bachelor (less gnarly now that I've de-maned myself).

John Muir was a Scottish immigrant in the nineteenth and early twentieth century who helped establish the national park system, thoroughly exploring Yosemite and many other sites which would eventually become parks.

This blog is my photo and textual diary of my trip to Alaska. My auto-documentary of the things I will see and the paintings I will make.

Primarily, I intend to use this as means to catalogue and complete my Spring 2010 semester studies in Drawing and Painting, but also to communicate with the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. (and the Southern end of Japan). Please comment as I am a glutton for human contact.

So, Without further ado, I present to you chapter one: "preflight" jitters (except I'm driving).