Broken Wall


For most of the Landscape Lottery painting spots, a GPS location is specified, but I leave myself a good deal of leeway. I try to get reasonably close to the exact point. If it happens to be in someone's back yard or on a cliff, I might allow myself to find a convenient vantage point within a stone's throw. In some cases, practicality or other considerations have compelled me to take greater liberties.

For one of the GPS picks, however, I wanted to specify not only a precise spot to stand, but also where I'd be looking - within tight limits. So for location # 11 my collaborator, Lars, and I used a random number generator to select from a range of values not only for latitude and longitude, but also azimuth (compass direction for sighting), angle (looking up or down), and field of vision. The idea was to remove almost all of the choice involved in finding a subject and simply respond to whatever met my eyes - which turned out to be a broken cinder block wall behind a car repair shop in one of the rougher parts of Tucson.