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Sick Pilgrim Interview: Dave and llyssa Kyu and their National Park Story Project

Sick Pilgrim Interview: Dave and llyssa Kyu and their National Park Story Project

Last updated on: March 13, 2016 at 9:15 pm by Jonathan Ryan

Sick Pilgrim Interview: Dave and llyssa Kyu and their National Park Story Project 2016-03-13T21:15:17-05:00 Jonathan Ryan

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(We at Sick Pilgrim love pilgrimages, stories and the National Parks. So, when we came across Dave and llyssa, we had to interview them, especially in light of Jonathan’s upcoming pilgrimage with his hooligans in a few weeks. They had some really cool things to say about art, story, the National Parks and being a pilgrim. Please read the interview and support their Kickstarter campaign. We did!).

As artists, why do you feel like its important to create beauty in our world?

Art helps us frame and focus our attention on different parts of the experience of living. We feel that we live in a world capable of both incredible beauty and immense sadness. We’ve always appreciated art that can reflect back to us the world as it is – not just beautiful, but also as an ugly place. It’s important to know that the idea of the National Parks gained its greatest political support when president Woodrow Wilson signed legislation to flood the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite.

Art holds a unique space in our culture – it is a space to create, without the pressure of commercial motives. It’s hard to define what art is or is not, and that’s what makes it so powerful. This open space allows art and artists to share insight on the experience of living, as it changes from generation to generation. This space to reflect on all that makes up our lives, helps us understand our world, and our place in it.

What inspired you both to start this project?

The direct cause/effect version:
Neither of us grew up camping – we discovered the joy of the outdoors as adults. So sitting around a campfire, Ilyssa found herself disappointed in her impulse to pull out her smartphone. Without stories of our own, we looked for a book of campfire stories, but couldn’t find it. So, we decided to make it ourselves! When we though more about how to begin selecting stories, we realized we needed a starting point, and solid research. That’s when the idea of selecting the National Parks as a framework for the stories, and traveling to each one to do hands-on research, emerged as the best, and most fun, way forward.

The abstract “how do we live a good life?” version:
We were both pretty far in our art & design careers, respectively. Like many professionals, we never found enough time to get outdoors, spending our weekends and vacations hiking and camping. Our curiosity for the natural world kept growing, alongside a dissatisfaction of the pace of our lives. We decided that we wanted to find a way to explore our curiosity of the natural world. It sounds so simple in hindsight, so it’s important to point out that Campfire Stories spent a long time on our “to-do” list: to be developed as an idea, and then even longer for us to decide to drop everything to pursue it.

Rocky Mountain National Park

Tell us about the journey you’re taking to the parks and how it will affect the book.

In May 2016, we are hitting the road and will be spending two weeks in each of these five National Parks, meeting people and camping in these parks, for the research and collection of stories for the book.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park (May 4 – May 19)
Rocky Mountain National Park (May 24 – June 8)
Zion National Park (June 15 – June 30)
Yosemite National Park (July 3 – July 18)
Yellowstone National Park (July 29 – August 13)

By being able to meet face-to-face with all these individuals and organizations, we:

Demonstrate our eagerness to listen and share the importance of working with the community in selecting stories
Establish our presence in the region to build credibility and trust
Hear directly from individuals to uncover stories or points of view that are not immediately evident about the region

This process is vital for us to responsibly select the stories that we hope to share with readers. It’s not a historical, or scientific, or even a folklorists process, but it is our journey to understand and then accurately represent these places to a broader audience.

What do you hope people get out of it?

Stories play a powerful role in creating emotional connections necessary in creating individual connections to nature.Because these stories have been collected from the communities in and around the parks, they will capture the diverse history, cultures, people, and experiences of those that that have collectively built, shared and enjoyed these parks across the country. We hope these short stories will reignite our imagination about the wild.

Whether somebody is reading Campfire Stories from their living room, a local city park or around a campfire in a state or national park, we hope these stories create new individual connections to and positive experiences with nature, especially younger generations who are increasingly disconnected from the outdoors—generations of people who, one day, will be responsible for protecting it.

Do you feel like our National Parks can be places of pilgrimage? If so, why?

Pilgrimage is so important for us to find perspective – I expect you agree? (We do! -ed) We overestimate how much we can change our perspective, without changing our surroundings. Making a voyage to places like a National Park allows us to experience some of the most beautiful landscapes in our country, but it also changes the set of daily problems one faces and must solve. Here, you’re presented with problems like: how long is this trail? Did I bring enough water? Where will I sleep tonight? Giving yourself these concrete tasks to solve opens up your mind to see clearly the pieces of your life.

National Parks serve as a great introduction to the outdoors—providing modern amenities and comforts of home in unfamiliar places. Even when confronted with those questions above, one feels relatively safe in a National Park. And while some parks at certain times of the year can be overrun, an adventurous spirit and a trek off the beaten path can often find you solitude, if that’s what you’re after.

(You can find out more about llyssa and Dave on their Kickstarter site and their own personal website.)

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