Meet Alex Wand

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Wand.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in Michigan. In 2010, I moved to California to attend graduate school at CalArts. I currently live in LA where I perform with several bands including Desert Magic and Partch and write music for film and dance. I also founded an online music community: songadayforamonth.com. It’s a challenge to write and submit one original song a day for a month with sessions every January and July.

In the fall of 2018, I completed a 2,000-mile bicycle trip that followed migratory paths of the monarch butterfly from Los Angeles to Michoacan, Mexico. Throughout the trip, I posted annotated videos each day on my blog, Camino de las Monarcas. The videos contain stories of ecological discovery, bike adventure tales, field recordings, original music, and investigate non-anthropocentric outlooks on ecology. My landing point was the Guapamacátaro Residency in Michoacan, where I was artist-in-residence during January of 2019.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I faced a good deal of obstacles on my bike trip: flat tires, getting lost, almost running out of food, getting inflamed eyes as a result of biking through desert winds, loneliness here and there, being chased by dogs, almost getting arrested by the Mexican police, etc. Some of these stories are documented in a film I will be releasing about my monarch adventure. Look out for it sometime in the summer of 2019.

We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I’m happy that I did what I set out to do on this monarch bike trip. I was able to sow a lot of milkweed seeds and see the thousands upon thousands of overwintering monarchs in the Oyamel forest of Michoacan, Mexico.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about a concept in Taoism that is often translated as “non-doing” or “non-action.” It’s a mode of being in which actions are effortlessly in alignment with the ebb and flow of the earth’s cycles and critters. This is part of the reason why I went on my monarch butterfly bike trip. To be aligned with the migration of this species. Not just to look at the monarchs but to look with the monarchs.

If a composition or project I do can somehow embody this concept in a way that inspires or intrigues people, then I would consider it “successful.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://caminodelasmonarcas.alexwand.com/
• Email: rufusdumont@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/rufusdumont
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alexandermichaelwand
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexmichaelwand

Image Credit:
Anita Back

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