Aimee Good and her husband Josh met me close to their apartment on the Gowanus Canal.
It was their anniversary,
and although they have lived in New York for years, they had never been out on the water here before.
It was a pretty morning and life along the canal was just getting started.
I guess I had never been here on a weekday morning.
It was the first time I had seen the grapples working at the metal salvage yard,
picking and pulling among the wrecked cars and junk,
like huge hands. The sound was tremendous,
and we floated quietly by.
We began to see large oil deposits bubbling up in the water.
This is the site of an underground oil spill.
The water was literally skinned with oil.
A jellyfish was taking its last gasps of polluted water.
The surface of the water looked like cellophane and peeled back against the bow.
Up ahead we saw why the water was so bad today.
Equipment under the bridge was clogging the entrance of the canal.
We slipped past around the side,
and came out into the Gowanus Bay.
I asked Aimee about her artwork.
Before her daughter was born, she made big installations and performances that centered around the farming community where she grew up.
She has never felt completely at home in the city.
We looked for a place to slip into the Red Hook Marina.
There is a small break in the pier just big enough for a boat.
The current pushed us up between the big oil tankers moored at the marina.
We drifted under the ships,
and caught a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty,
and the newest addition to Red Hook industrial landscape – IKEA.
We were going to the New York Water Taxi pier.
Aimee is the Director of Education and Community Programs at the Drawing Center in New York.
We are working on a project for the ‘River to River Festival’Â this year in collaboration with the New York Water Taxi (the other water taxi).
The Drawing Center does it every year, but ‘Big Draw’ has been Aimee’s focus for the past three. In fact it has begun to feel to her as an extension of her own artistic practice, which if she thinks about it, was always about facilitating happenings.
Aimee tied us up at the Red Hook pier.
That should work!
We ate breakfast in the sun.
-Marie Lorenz
I had a meeting with Aimee later that day to plan for our project, and we both agreed that it was a perfect way to start the day.
↑ Return to Top of Page ↑