AN INTENTIONAL ACT

ACTION: moving one cord of wood approximately 30 feet.
DATE: 10/28/09
DURATION: 90 minutes
TRANSFORMATION: energy, shape, location, functionality, properties

On October 28, 2009 at 11:15 AM, approximately one cord of firewood was delivered and dumped in my driveway at 525 Waterville Road, Avon, CT. For one hour and fifteen minutes I proceeded to move the pile of wood from the driveway to the side of the house near the basement bulkhead door for easy access and use for the winter. The weather was wet and raining hard and approximately 50 degrees. Wearing a light cotton jacket and work gloves I worked to stack the wood for 90 minutes.

During this process I focused on the kinesthetic qualities of the activity; the movements of my body, the amount of leverage needed to lift the pieces of wood with each hand into a wheelbarrow, judging the capacity of the wheelbarrow and my capacity to move it, the relative inflation of the tire which was under-inflated and inhibited the ease of movement, the muscles needed in the variety of actions from bending to lifting to throwing to rolling the wheelbarrow to dumping it to re-lifting and stacking each piece into a stack measuring approximately 4' x 4' x 8'.

I also considered the amount of energy used in the entire arc of this process; from felling the trees, cutting the logs to length (between 18" and 24"), splitting them, transporting them from the woods to a location for sale, loading them to transport, transporting them to my home, unloading them into my driveway and moving and stacking them, then the eventual restacking them in my basement, then bringing them in small quantities up into the house and then burning them for heat/entertainment. I have absolutely no metric to judge this transfer of energy. It seems an inordinate amount of energy transfer to create a contained moment of fire and heat for comfort and pleasure.

Once the stack was completed and the wood moved approximately thirty feet from its original location, I covered it with a tarp. After completing the task I realized I was soaking wet from the rain and the amount of body heat I was generating was creating a cloud of steam rising off of my clothes, fogging my glasses, prohibiting me from seeing anything and insulating me from what was around me.