Walking 120 Miles in the Gulf of Mexico: 2011 Special Guest Drew Ludwig

Drew Ludwig, a photographer and expedition leader, is one of our special guests this year, presenting an exhibit of photos shot last summer during a solo walk of 120 miles from the Ninth Ward of New Orleans to the Gulf Of Mexico in Louisiana.

During August of 2010, I walked 120 miles from the Ninth Ward of New Orleans to the Gulf Of Mexico in Louisiana. It was the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the oil spill in the Gulf was about to be capped.

I came to help. I came to work. I held lofty goals of an activist, and I wanted to use my hands. What transpired was far more etherial and bordering upon obscurity. I walked, I listened and I came to pick up the work gloves of others rather than my own.

I believe gloves connect a hand with purpose and as I walked, I began to see the story of Louisiana between the marks, the scars and the holes of the discarded gloves I found beside the highway. I became a collector of these gloves.

My eye quickly turned to the strangers I met along those roads; towards the helping hands that invited me into their homes and fed me after those twelve hour days of walking. These are the faces that came to gaze into my camera, and it was their gloves that I carried across the state of Louisiana.

The show will be a sampling of the gloves and photos I collected along the way.

On the eve of the anniversary I am thinking about the people I met along the way. I am wondering if they found that place to live, upped their quotas, found their water's clean and had a good football season? I am lucky enough to call a few Louisianan locals friends and I am sending them all my best on a somber day.