A Mile for Your Penny

A Mile for your Penny is an extension of The Lincoln Project, a painting exhibition that appeared at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum in 2009. The research project was begun in 2002 after meeting in the Old State Capitol with the Illinois State Historian, Thomas Schwartz in Springfield, Illinois and viewing the Abraham Lincoln archives.

A Mile for your Penny is as an outline for a body of work that will address the interrelationships between the power of a cultural icon, well being in a civil society, contemporary aesthetics, and the individual process of conceptually and artistically mapping a landscape. By retracing the route Abraham Lincoln traveled from Springfield, Illinois to Washington D.C. after he was elected, it is my intent to explore this journey as a symbolic path investigating the impact Lincoln has had on public and personal mythologies in American history and to survey the present conditions of these landscapes.

In order to understand the landscape and to sensitize myself to the spaces along the 1600 mile route, I intend to travel by bicycle in a self supported manner. A fundraising aspect to the project will also be included, thus I will be collecting "A Mile for Your Penny" and donating 100% of the proceeds to the "Livestrong" campaign to help fund Cancer research and to help find the 'cure'. This site will become a log book entry site in July 2010.