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I don’t know what it means to be an artist, but I know it makes it easy to use meaning like a cheap perfume, liberally

doused over everything... That meaning, too, is an author-ity. That it can’t be avoided; at best, maybe, it can be per-

verted. So really, to say I don’t know what it means to be an artist is disingenuous—I don’t think it means anything.

Rather, its value—container-like—is in its capacity to be filled and emptied.

-Colleen Asper*

drive, later providing a window through which I could view my experience of the highway.

In 2010 I returned to the Alcan to record the locations of each gasoline station. It was while making preparations for this sec-ond trip, one which coincided with the first leg of Return To Me*, a meandering drive from Anchorage to New York, that I began to “liberally douse” the project with meaning. The pumps were now “artifacts of an often romanticized heyday in American car culture.” The project addressed “issues of fuel, the homogenization of service stations, and the chang-ing role and meaning of the road-trip in America.” References were made to CO2 emissions, the collapse of the auto industry, Route 66, the roadside attraction and even Jack Kerouac**.

This winter, as a continuation of Return to Me, I traveled to Europe. On New Years Day I visited the birth place and grave of Francis Jammes, along with Maison Chrestia in Orthez, France, the house in which Jammes wrote Le Roman du Lievre***. Across the street from Maison Chrestia stood the remains of an abandoned gasoline station. It was this coinci-dence that stripped away all the other layers of meaning. Such associations were no longer needed. I had become aware of a subtle, but more powerful rhythm. The gas pumps were again just pumps, each picture documenting a point on a map of where I had stood.

* Return To Me, the follow-up to an exhibit inspired by my translation of Le Roman du Lievre***, is documented in Marginalia: Appendix G.**Quotes taken from the project proposal preceding my 2010 return to the Alaska Highway. *** I translated Le Roman du Lievre from French into English n 2008. Even before this Jammes and his book had been at the center of much of my art making. More informa-tion can be found at www.leromandulievre.com.

Cover: Mile 1255, just North of Port Alcan and quote from Le Roman du Lievre by Francis Jammes, translated by James Riordan. *Quote from the short story Wedding by Colleen Asper, as printed in Marginalia: Appendix G. ** Ed Ruscha is the artist responsible for the artist book Twentysix Gasoline Sations, a dead-pan documentation of every gasoline station between LA and Oklahoma City.

A ppen d i x Hby James Riordan

This document, along with the exhibition it accompanies, be-gan in 2008 as a series of travel photographs inspired by the work of Ed Ruscha**. Driving north along the Alaska Highway I decided to photograph every gasoline station between Dawson Creek, B.C and Delta Junction, Alaska. The scope was quickly limited to those stations that were abandoned or out of service, but even so, the initial intention stayed the same. Homage to Ruscha and documentation of a trip. More than anything else the act of photographing these stations served to punctuate the

I don’t know what it means to be an artist, but I know it makes it easy to use meaning like a cheap perfume, liberally

doused over everything... That meaning, too, is an author-ity. That it can’t be avoided; at best, maybe, it can be per-

verted. So really, to say I don’t know what it means to be an artist is disingenuous—I don’t think it means anything.

Rather, its value—container-like—is in its capacity to be filled and emptied.

-Colleen Asper*

drive, later providing a window through which I could view my experience of the highway.

In 2010 I returned to the Alcan to record the locations of each gasoline station. It was while making preparations for this sec-ond trip, one which coincided with the first leg of Return To Me*, a meandering drive from Anchorage to New York, that I began to “liberally douse” the project with meaning. The pumps were now “artifacts of an often romanticized heyday in American car culture.” The project addressed “issues of fuel, the homogenization of service stations, and the chang-ing role and meaning of the road-trip in America.” References were made to CO2 emissions, the collapse of the auto industry, Route 66, the roadside attraction and even Jack Kerouac**.

This winter, as a continuation of Return to Me, I traveled to Europe. On New Years Day I visited the birth place and grave of Francis Jammes, along with Maison Chrestia in Orthez, France, the house in which Jammes wrote Le Roman du Lievre***. Across the street from Maison Chrestia stood the remains of an abandoned gasoline station. It was this coinci-dence that stripped away all the other layers of meaning. Such associations were no longer needed. I had become aware of a subtle, but more powerful rhythm. The gas pumps were again just pumps, each picture documenting a point on a map of where I had stood.

* Return To Me, the follow-up to an exhibit inspired by my translation of Le Roman du Lievre***, is documented in Marginalia: Appendix G.**Quotes taken from the project proposal preceding my 2010 return to the Alaska Highway. *** I translated Le Roman du Lievre from French into English n 2008. Even before this Jammes and his book had been at the center of much of my art making. More informa-tion can be found at www.leromandulievre.com.

Cover: Mile 1255, just North of Port Alcan and quote from Le Roman du Lievre by Francis Jammes, translated by James Riordan. *Quote from the short story Wedding by Colleen Asper, as printed in Marginalia: Appendix G. ** Ed Ruscha is the artist responsible for the artist book Twentysix Gasoline Sations, a dead-pan documentation of every gasoline station between LA and Oklahoma City.

A ppen d i x Hby James Riordan

This document, along with the exhibition it accompanies, be-gan in 2008 as a series of travel photographs inspired by the work of Ed Ruscha**. Driving north along the Alaska Highway I decided to photograph every gasoline station between Dawson Creek, B.C and Delta Junction, Alaska. The scope was quickly limited to those stations that were abandoned or out of service, but even so, the initial intention stayed the same. Homage to Ruscha and documentation of a trip. More than anything else the act of photographing these stations served to punctuate the

MILEPOSTS

This was the last pump photographed before descending into Dawson Creek in 2010.

100th Street at the north end of Tay-lor.

Halls Food and Gas was torn down be-tween 2008 and 2010, at which point its sign was still standing.

No longer providing fuel in 2008 due to the cost, this pump is on the west side of the Highway, across from the Buckinghorse Campsite.

This point on the map was labeled 290 km from (DC crossed out) Fort Saint John with a question mark.

K i l o m e t e r 1 5 :

K i l o m e t e r 5 8 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 6 2 :

K i l o m e t e r 2 7 9 :

K i l o m e t e r 2 9 0 :

Material was collected for this project in the fall of 2008 and then again in the spring of 2010. In 2008 I was in the pro-cess of relocating to Anchorage and in so doing was traveling north. In 2010 I began in Delta Junction. Though it was on this second, southward drive that the location of each sta-tion was recorded, the following list begins at Dawson Creek, heading north towards Alaska.

The Alaska Highway was completed in 1942. At that time it was approximately 1700 miles long. Since then it has been steadily shortened. Originally marked with mileposts, the Canadian section of the road switched to kilometers in the 1970s. As the Highway continues to shorten, occasional ef-forts are made to re-calibrate markers. At this time the high-way is marked in kilometers, miles, and historic mileposts. I utilize all three forms of measurement to record the location of each pump, miles in Alaska, and kilometers along with his-toric miles in Canada. Though you might believe that these markers are translatable, they are not*. Which I used was dependent on the availability of actual road markers. These markers, the AK Milepost, and the trucks odometer were the only tools at my disposal.

There were a few stations photographed in 2008 that I ei-ther missed, or that had been leveled before the spring of 2010. The first of these was a set of relatively modern pumps,

lacking any distinguishing characteristics such as an awning or sign. One of these pumps was lying on its back. This was the first station photographed on the 2008 drive. I believe it was on the north side of town, just before ascending out of Dawson Creek. The location of the second of these mystery pumps, an older setup next to a log cabin, is entirely unknown. The third, distinguished by a box van with the words “Discount Fuel” written on its side was most likely in or near Beaver Creek and still may have been in service, closed only seasonally.

*At Port Alcan, upon entering Alaska, the markers somehow jump from 1969km to 1966km and from 1190mi to 1222mi.

MILEPOSTS

This was the last pump photographed before descending into Dawson Creek in 2010.

100th Street at the north end of Tay-lor.

Halls Food and Gas was torn down be-tween 2008 and 2010, at which point its sign was still standing.

No longer providing fuel in 2008 due to the cost, this pump is on the west side of the Highway, across from the Buckinghorse Campsite.

This point on the map was labeled 290 km from (DC crossed out) Fort Saint John with a question mark.

K i l o m e t e r 1 5 :

K i l o m e t e r 5 8 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 6 2 :

K i l o m e t e r 2 7 9 :

K i l o m e t e r 2 9 0 :

Material was collected for this project in the fall of 2008 and then again in the spring of 2010. In 2008 I was in the pro-cess of relocating to Anchorage and in so doing was traveling north. In 2010 I began in Delta Junction. Though it was on this second, southward drive that the location of each sta-tion was recorded, the following list begins at Dawson Creek, heading north towards Alaska.

The Alaska Highway was completed in 1942. At that time it was approximately 1700 miles long. Since then it has been steadily shortened. Originally marked with mileposts, the Canadian section of the road switched to kilometers in the 1970s. As the Highway continues to shorten, occasional ef-forts are made to re-calibrate markers. At this time the high-way is marked in kilometers, miles, and historic mileposts. I utilize all three forms of measurement to record the location of each pump, miles in Alaska, and kilometers along with his-toric miles in Canada. Though you might believe that these markers are translatable, they are not*. Which I used was dependent on the availability of actual road markers. These markers, the AK Milepost, and the trucks odometer were the only tools at my disposal.

There were a few stations photographed in 2008 that I ei-ther missed, or that had been leveled before the spring of 2010. The first of these was a set of relatively modern pumps,

lacking any distinguishing characteristics such as an awning or sign. One of these pumps was lying on its back. This was the first station photographed on the 2008 drive. I believe it was on the north side of town, just before ascending out of Dawson Creek. The location of the second of these mystery pumps, an older setup next to a log cabin, is entirely unknown. The third, distinguished by a box van with the words “Discount Fuel” written on its side was most likely in or near Beaver Creek and still may have been in service, closed only seasonally.

*At Port Alcan, upon entering Alaska, the markers somehow jump from 1969km to 1966km and from 1190mi to 1222mi.

4444 50th Ave N. Fort Nelson.

The Steamboat Café.

The Summit Cafe.

A pair of hollow gas pumps.

A crude map of the Alcan is painted on the side of the Village Service garage.

Muncho Lake.

J&H and Friendly Gas are found next to one another. The smiling Friendly’s sign fell between 2008 and 2010.

Iron Creek.

In 2010 we encountered buffalo at the Fireside Truck Stop and discovered a live bear in its dumpster.

An overgrown station between Seagull and Screw Creek.

Near Morley Lake, south of Teslin.

The Swift River Nor Gas.

A set of pumps 5km north of Teslin.

K i l o m e t e r 4 5 4 :

H i s t o r i c M i l e 3 5 1 :

H i s t o r i c M i l e 3 9 1 :

H i s t o r i c M i l e 4 0 8 :

K i l o m e t e r 6 5 5 :

K i l o m e t e r 6 9 7 :

K i l o m e t e r 7 1 0 :

H i s t o r i c M i l e 5 4 3 :

K i l o m e t e r 9 1 0 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 1 3 6 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 2 0 4 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 2 3 2 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 24 8 :

This station is just south of White-horse.

The Experience Lodge. Previously of-fering helicopter sightseeing.

Race Trac Gas near Kluane Wilderness Village, positioned next to an old wood-en lookout tower.

Near the Donjek river, just south of Beaver creek.

Shell pumps stored next to a cabin on the Alaska side of Port Alcan.

A water tower and the remains of a burnt down gas station.

A Texaco just south of Northway Junc-tion.

The melted awning of a large Texaco station on the South end of Tok now serves as cover for a scrap yard.

K i l o m e t e r 1 41 2 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 6 3 5 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 7 3 6 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 8 1 4 :

M i l e 1 2 5 5 :

M i l e 1 2 6 0 :

M i l e 1 2 6 3 :

M i l e 1 3 1 4 :

This project would not have been possible without the support of the Rasmuson Founda-tion and The International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, AK. The former providing financial support through a 2010 Individual Artist Grant and the later provid-ing space for the exhibition of the series of prints that this publication coincides with. I would also like to thank Lindsay Clark and Emily Foden for their involvement. It was with Lindsay that I made the drive in 2008. Emily kept track of the station locations in 2010.

4444 50th Ave N. Fort Nelson.

The Steamboat Café.

The Summit Cafe.

A pair of hollow gas pumps.

A crude map of the Alcan is painted on the side of the Village Service garage.

Muncho Lake.

J&H and Friendly Gas are found next to one another. The smiling Friendly’s sign fell between 2008 and 2010.

Iron Creek.

In 2010 we encountered buffalo at the Fireside Truck Stop and discovered a live bear in its dumpster.

An overgrown station between Seagull and Screw Creek.

Near Morley Lake, south of Teslin.

The Swift River Nor Gas.

A set of pumps 5km north of Teslin.

K i l o m e t e r 4 5 4 :

H i s t o r i c M i l e 3 5 1 :

H i s t o r i c M i l e 3 9 1 :

H i s t o r i c M i l e 4 0 8 :

K i l o m e t e r 6 5 5 :

K i l o m e t e r 6 9 7 :

K i l o m e t e r 7 1 0 :

H i s t o r i c M i l e 5 4 3 :

K i l o m e t e r 9 1 0 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 1 3 6 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 2 0 4 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 2 3 2 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 24 8 :

This station is just south of White-horse.

The Experience Lodge. Previously of-fering helicopter sightseeing.

Race Trac Gas near Kluane Wilderness Village, positioned next to an old wood-en lookout tower.

Near the Donjek river, just south of Beaver creek.

Shell pumps stored next to a cabin on the Alaska side of Port Alcan.

A water tower and the remains of a burnt down gas station.

A Texaco just south of Northway Junc-tion.

The melted awning of a large Texaco station on the South end of Tok now serves as cover for a scrap yard.

K i l o m e t e r 1 41 2 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 6 3 5 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 7 3 6 :

K i l o m e t e r 1 8 1 4 :

M i l e 1 2 5 5 :

M i l e 1 2 6 0 :

M i l e 1 2 6 3 :

M i l e 1 3 1 4 :

This project would not have been possible without the support of the Rasmuson Founda-tion and The International Gallery of Contemporary Art in Anchorage, AK. The former providing financial support through a 2010 Individual Artist Grant and the later provid-ing space for the exhibition of the series of prints that this publication coincides with. I would also like to thank Lindsay Clark and Emily Foden for their involvement. It was with Lindsay that I made the drive in 2008. Emily kept track of the station locations in 2010.

#12 2012 Rabbit Rabbit Press, Anchorage, AlaskaPrinted at Alaska Tab and Bind, Anchorage, AKwww.leromandulievre.com