Fish Story Launch and first responders

These are the first stories in response to today's launch of Fish Story:

From Mo Dawley:

On Oct 24, 2012, at 2:32 PM, Mo Dawley wrote:

I was resting by a small pond one day at Beechwood  Farms Nature Reserve near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when I happened to notice two fish swimming together near the water's edge. One of the fish was having a hard time staying afloat without beginning to lean sideways as if on its way to turning belly-up. Each time the fish began to lean, every few seconds the other fish gently guided its companion upright with the side of its body or with a gentle nudge with its nose. It was the first time I had ever seen a fish practice loving kindness.

Mo Dawley
Pittsburgh PA

from Susan Knight: 

      When our families got together at a cottage on Spring Lake in Michigan    

      my friend Jack and I fished off the dock and from an aluminum rowboat with   

      a nine horsepower motor.  On simple bamboo poles we pulled up bluegill, bass, perch and turtles.               

      We noted their size and color and most of the time threw them back. When a hideous looking fish took our bate we excitedly brought it up to show our parents.  It was a bullhead.  Perhaps it was the fish’s menacing face and whiskers; perhaps it was its sinister color and scaleless body that determined its fate.  We bludgeoned it with shovels.

      Susan Knight

This was the launch:
Ghost of bluegill past Aviva Rahmani, 2012

Tell me a fish story

    Artist Aviva Rahmani, guest artist Susan Leibovitz Steinman, the Gulf to Gulf team and friends invite you to add your fish story to the Fish Story project, part of Memphis Social, May 2013 in Memphis, TN, a citywide exhibition and presentation of art and cultural events at the intersection of art and social issues. We are beginning a new fundraising campaign to launch this fresh phase of Gulf to Gulf. We invite you to consider donating your financial support to the launch of Fish Story. Your tax deductible donation will go to planning and implementing an ambitious community project. Please circulate this invitation to colleagues to help us expand our support base. Detailed information on how to submit your story and contribute financially is at the end of this letter.  

    Right now, we are collecting fish stories, images and experiences for web publication.Your story may open a point of entry for our new friends in Memphis. Depending on your support, our wish list includes: a series of visits to the Memphis community; several webcasts for public discourse, including one on-site in May; a dedicated collection website; local workshops and gatherings to analyze and assess our experiences; a "fish-in" on the banks of the river; an installation and evening events with a nationally streamed webcast and breaking ground on an agreed upon local "trigger point" site of restoration, to affect the future of fish and people!

Here is Aviva's fish story:

I remember the only time my Father invited me go fishing with him. It was a sunny, warm day. I was four. In our rowboat out on the water, he had a can of worms, from which he pulled a fat candidate with one hand, while lifting a hook with the other. Suddenly, I realized he meant to thread the sharp, steel point through that small, soft, helpless creature's body and I began shrieking, sobbing uncontrollably and inconsolably, as, shocked and confused, he stared into my face. That was how I first learned where dinner came from. - Aviva Rahmani, October 2012

    Our November goal is to send Aviva to Memphis, to meet people, deepening our research phase, connecting land and water, people and fish. She will document her observations with photography, drawings, maps and text and post them on line. Please visit her new blog for progress reports: http://pushingrocks.blogspot.com/.

 Do you have a fish story to share?

    Please send your fish stories and related material to Aviva @ ghostnets@ghostnets.com, with the subject line: fish story and indicate whether you give permission for publication. Fish Story is being created for Memphis Social at the invitation of curator Tom McGlynn of Beautiful Fields. Memphis Social is sponsored by apexart. Fish Story is part of Gulf to Gulf, a fiscally sponsored project of Artspire, a program of the New York Foundation for the Art (NYFA). NYFA is a 501©3, tax exempt organization. Contributions to Gulf to Gulf for Fish Story are tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. To donate please visit our page here:http://artspire.org/DirectoryDetail/tabid/95/id/143/Default.aspx 

Thank you for your participation and support!

Sincerely,

Aviva and the Gulf to Gulf team

                                                                                                                

The Gulf to Gulf team includes:

James Bradley, technology consultant, Executive Director at WebServes, New York, NY http://webserves.org/ 

Emily Caigan, Director, Legacy Arts Management, www.legacyartsmgt.com 

Daisy Morton, studio manager to Aviva Rahmani, Vinalhaven ME

Aviva Rahmani, ecological artist, University of Plymouth and INSTAAR affiliate Vinalhaven ME and New York, NY: ghostnets.com, avivarahmani.com 

Susan Steinman, Director of WEAD, ecological artist, Berkeley, CA:http://www.steinmanstudio.com/ 

R. Eugene Turner, 'dead zone' and wetland ecologist, Distinguished Research Master and Professor, Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA: http://www.oceanography.lsu.edu/turner.shtm 

James White, paleoecologist, Professor of Geological Sciences, Fellow and Director of the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the University of Colorado at Boulder, CO: instaar.colorado.edu/index.html.

 We would like to thank Louisiana State University and University of Colorado at Boulder for their ongoing support of the Gulf to Gulf project.