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Ibrahiam works as a busser at Snow Goose Restaurant who immigrated to Alaska with his family 10 years ago from Guniea, Africa.

One year ago today I was pedaling my bike down the Oregon coast, in route to the country where I was born. A year later, here I am back home in Alaska recalling the complexities and challenges of a nomadic lifestyle.

Memories from the day-to-day life of a nomad seem unfathomable when I contrast it with my current urban life in the northernmost state of a first world country.

While traveling the Americas, I would find myself reflecting on the lifestyle of the people I encountered in contrast with my life on the bike, as well as the life I left behind in Alaska. The few similarities that I noticed between myself as a migrating traveler, and those of the immigrant worker, were compelling enough that I found myself itching to return to Alaska.

My growing curiosity about migration and Alaska is officially taking shape in the form of an ongoing documentation of the people and the stories of those who have migrated to this state and within the state. I am convinced that Alaska’s mesmerizing landscape is nowhere near as rich and beautiful as the diversity of the stories people who live here.

So, between photo shoots, work, and getting married, I will be sharing the faces and stories about migration and the forty-ninth state.

My cousin's daughter Juanna took this photo of us so that Laura could use it as part of her design

Laura’s month longish visit to Colombia brought with it a slew of personal projects relating to the wedding. More specifically though, it was the wedding art that was our priority to complete before Laura returned to Alaska to help out with her mom Barbara’s campaign for State House . We had managed to stay on top of this project during the course of her stay, but I could feel the stress of the deadline looming during the last few days of her visit. Despite the deadline, the last five days were enjoy full and incredibly rewarding as we shared our lives and responsibilities with my family in Palmira.

This is the rough sketch of what my design will look like. Disregard the wedding date in the peice. I had it wrong.

The anatomical heart in the design originates from Guadalajara when Laura and I purchased our first home decoration; a tin pressed shrine with a similar anatomic heart. The wedding art project itself was to represent our love as artists for working with our hands, with the idea that the art piece would be used on the wedding invitation and labels for the home brew beer and wine Laura’s dad Brad is making. At first I wasn’t sure how well a collaborative art piece would turn out knowing how meticulous the two of us can get. In the end however process of creation turned out be a lot of fun and the end result shows this.

Laura’s initial rough sketch laid the foundation for both the final pieces. When designing it is vital visualize how the final product will appear and work on it’s final medium. It was for this very reason that I broke away from using Alaska as the background for my design because Alaska is super tough to contain in anything but a square. With the bottle in mind, I decided that a vertical rectangle would work best. With a little imagination and a few minutes of sketching, I had my vision solidified on paper. Even though Laura and I had originally decided on Alaska as the background I choose instead to use a globe for two reasons:

1. Our love for one another has transcended the Americas while in route to Colombia by bike.

2. A globe fit so much better in the vertical format.

Living in AK I always hated how our gorgeous state has been misrepresented due to poor planning or poor designing of layouts. This unexpected breakaway from our original plans turned out to work in our favor, because Laura’s design too underwent a change in format. Having had put an incredible amount of thought and detail into the Alaska element, Laura decided to switch from rectangle to square format for the wedding invitation. This turned out to be an awesome change because we both love strength of squares and Alaska gets all the space it deserves. What’s even cooler is that both the finished designs incorporate two elements that not only serve in branding, but that also represent our favorite colors and symbol of our love for one another.

Laura and I grew closer by sharing this experience and process of creation with one another. Embracing the challenges of this project we both got to share and learn. Laura taught me hows to mix and work with water colors. I in return taught Laura how to layer mask in Photoshop. What do the final designs look like? You will just have to wait and see.

Chipping away on our project in La Candelaria aka downtown Bogota, Colombia.

Im not posting to this blog till I finish my journey.

Shana Sheehy interviews me and Autumn at the LeadOn! Youth leadership conference back in October.

Way back in August I took part co-facilitating a program called Photovoice in Mt.View with my partner Laura. Photovoice is a form of community based participatory research. Long story short, six excellent teens stuck through the program and have really become a part of our lives. They shared with us their thoughts, feelings and a few tears, about what they experience and what they long for. Tomorrow is the exhibition for their show and it feels like were gonna have an excellent turn out. Im proud of each of them.

Autumn Meloy

Cystal Luddington

Denisha Crowe

Edward Washington II

Megan Johnson

Chester Matai

This past weekend was amazing. After building bikes at boys and girls club I hung out with my buddy Evan from the bike Co Op. This kid is an artist and an amazingly true human being. He too is in life to change the world. We discussed life, politics, zines, and over Colombiana’s that we picked up from Red Apple. After ward we hung out at his home and I went into production mode on a handful of these hearts. They are for the bike to help promote the bike tour if your curious. Evan shared with me his Russian made 120 SLR, and I took a photo of him and his fixie with my  Hassie. I’ll post it once I get the film developed.

Super busy.

Qué Hubo: a bicycle expedition of the Alaskan-grown, Colombian-born immigrant across the Americas.

Orion Collective: a collective of photographers. Named after a constellation visible across the northern hemisphere, we are Alaskan-based but world-minded.

My favorite part about taking off on a plane is seeing the micro communities. Every time i leave some where i start thinking about how all those moving vehicles have living persons who go about their day. My thoughts are usually a combination of  wonder for who they are and what their story will be for that day. I am incredibly fascinated by this idea that people can exist all at different times and yet at the same time. My goal is to someday be able to see these parallels in a GUI multi media way. For now I’ll just keep collecting the stills, audio, and video.

Hollywood Blvd. is video made from still images put to real time audio. Fascinating place, people & sounds.

My fascination with Avedon’s work began in high school  after a good teacher introduced me to a book of his larger than life images. I was ancy as hell to see iconic images of his in magzines & books i collected over the years. After buying tickets, climbing the stairs to the fourth floor, and firing off a quick tweet of the entrance to the show; I ended up being mostly disappointed. Reason is, whoever currated the exhibit left out some of his most powerful work from The American West series. Avedon photographed many people in the public eye despite being mostly known for his fashion work. His simple direct approach to shooting on a white background with an 8X10 camera produced crisp clean images that communicated the subjects character. By taking his show on the road, Avedon was able to transform an everyday Joe into a celebrity. That’s the core of what I wan to do for the rest of my life. Validate and affirm a beings existence.