Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Black Rock City, Nevada
:: This is the day my digital camera died by night. Part of this day is with disposable cameras and shots from friends. ::

Me and Bonefinder
Diva Garden, Burning Man 2008

I purposely made an effort to escape the Body Painting station today with no intent on going back. Primarily because I wanted to go wandering and see if I could find my friends. Of course, that didn’t really happen as a handful came in the morning and nabbed me just as I was about to bike off. I’m glad they did, they were fun designs, and from the Cirque deux Soleil tribal mask, to the little girls as a pink cat and a geisha, to the river up a woman’s leg; and a handful of others who were camera shy; I had my fill, and finally escaped leaving the tent full of people painting one another. Once again, I heard rumors of this chap from Britain pretending to be me and painting people. Someone said he was from the bodypainting camp down the road. I finally found Bonefinder and Spook’s camp at Diva Garden and had a reunion with them. (Soooo good to see you all again and to meet your campmates.)
Wandered over to Center Camp with Bonefinder as she was about to start her shift, then had a chai … thank you! Then wandered over to where Will and Valerie said they were camping, and after walking around in circles, finally found their camp and Valerie. They had this cool chair that hung you upside down. We then wandered in the afternoon to see if we could find Fawn at the Crop Circle Cantina … they had the Cantina built, but weren’t going to open till evening. So we went to the “Whiskey n’ Insults” bar. They insulted you, then had you roll the dice, and depending on your roll, depended what shot of what kind of whiskey you’d get. From there, we hit some strip club that had pole dancing, and I ran into Alex, a guy I knew from Sin City in Vancouver, B.C. From there we rode over to Mal-Mart where a full bar gave us many choices of mixed drinks. I stuck with Margaritas. A little dancing, and past the giant robotic creature walker that looked like some battle walker from Star Wars … that was stuck in the road due to mechanical issues with the robotic legs. We found this clown on the Esplanade that was giving away frozen ice cream for tricks. I gave her a swig of my margarita and she gave me a ice cream bar. (Deep frozen with dry ice of course) Ran into Mangor and Tara, and we wandered to the Afterglow Lounge. (Little did I know that it was my friend Heather’s club) Ran into Denise who seemed upset I hadn’t come to find her, but I had, just so crazy lost in this mass of population. Looking at art, drinking, dancing, finding friends was the bulk of the day. Ran into Hot Rod at the Camp Mischief. Tried to find Ben at Energy Riders, but he wasn’t at camp. Tried to find Juniper, no luck.

Tarotist training Camp

Evening I made grilled chicken and stir fried veggies. Dr. Mangor and Tara were thrilled. We then all went night biking with one another. Difficult driving in the sand, especially at night for some reason. Hit Center Camp, then a couple of clubs, Death Guild, and hung out for drinks in AfterGlow. As we were looking the the shipwreck lounge, not even 5 minutes away from the bikes … someone stole Dr. Mangor’s custom-made German warbike. He was pissed. We parted ways after hitting club after club that he wasn’t sure where he wanted to stay and I got tired of constantly messing with the bike lock. I decided I was just gonna lock the bike up at camp and not use it at night. Kinda surprised they took his bike because if they were just looking for a free ride, mine was a basic undecorated green bike that could have been mistaken for the free yellow community bikes (that were green not yellow just called yellow bikes to confuse people I guess). So this was a deliberate theft “borrowing”. More drunken wandering that night … heading off to trouble I suppose.

Tree Leaves’ Body Painting Station * Corner of 5:00 and B streets * Black Rock City, Nevada * Burning Man 2008 / American Dream * DAY TWO

A Theme station for bodypainting and body art for costuming, fun, adoration, and entertainment. Whether being painted by professionals in the camp or a do-it-yourself-paint station … Tree Leaves gifts the Burning Man community its paint, art, style, ideas, motifs, decorations, brushes, and encouragement for self-expression, self-decorating, and fun with designs whether on oneself or each other. Tree Leaves’ opened on Tuesday, 8/26/08 and shut down Saturday, 8/30/08 as a service and gift to Black Rock City. Each day, droves of playful playa-goers came and used themselves or each other as canvases for creative art. Following in day-to-day installments are some examples of that art and play – for those that didn’t mind having us take their pictures for our portfolio. Enjoy! While in almost all regards, “paint” is seen as “body clothing” legally in many instances, there are different discretions and debates amongst mainstreamers and restrictive online networks like Myspace and Facebook as to what is termed “nudity” and what is not. For that matter, any photo that does not have actual clothing over what mainstream American society terms as a ‘private area’ will not be displayed on Myspace or Facebook. These photos will only appear on Livejournal: Thomasrymour (private blog) / techno_gypsy (semi-private) (under a NSFW cut) or on the technogypsie.net Bodypainting portfolio pages.

Cirque deux Soleil royal mask motif
hand painted Acryllic
by Leaf McGowan

incomplete Geisha and Pink Cat motif
hand painted Acryllic
by Leaf McGowan

Cirque deux Soleil royal mask motif
acryllic, hand painted by Leaf
Burning Man 2008 * 8/26/08

Following Will and Valerie on our bike ride

Black Rock Roller Disco

Giant Sun and Moon puppets walking down the Esplanade

Giant shopping bag art exhibit

Bonefinder dressed up to the Nines …

Bonefinder

The Playa

The Man at a distance on the Playa

The Esplanade

THe Playa

Art Cars gearing up for the evening

The Esplanade

Black Rock City Ballet

Sunset on the Playa

Party Art Bus

Sunset