mills here, long time blog admin lurker first time temple post’er!
First truck leaving AmSteel
What a smoooooth load out – big props to the Catbird and her load crew and those STILL at AmSteel cleaning up through the weekend and beyond (love you Thwen, Brian and crew). It warmed the cockles of my heart to see such a ‘stackable and modular’ load! I was helping with the load and after years of trying to stuff huge spiky metal sculptures on a truck it made a nice change to have Gary’s wonderfully organized load.
Frame bundles
The surveying began from the moment the first team landed on the playa on Thursday (or was it Wednesday, last week is all a little hazy), I arrived Friday pre-dawn to a small temple site with the first dune flagged out. The trucks arrived on playa Friday with just enough time for Gary to unload one and be ready for another, it was like clockwork and before you knew we had piles of a temple! Off course big thanks also have to go to the Burning Man heavy equipment and artery folks for helping us out on that one with all our needs just a ride to the esplanade away.
Temple in the desert!
We continued with the survey all of Friday. Lots and lots of math, spray paint and flags. Big thanks to the architects, PK and Ben for giving us such detailed drawings, kinda amazing really – ring-bound, laminated site diagrams with numbers and everything!! A seriously long way from that time Rbca lost our only site map and found it again stuffed down the back side of her truck seat just as the trencher pulled away (no honey, I will never let you forget that, but I still love you)!
Temple survey flags
Jonny's Moroccan tent
As for camp Eva’s kitchen took shape on Saturday and it was wonderful to see the look on her face when that HUGE shade went over her container and she got her dream princess playa kitchen.
Putting the cover on the dome!
The common area’s also started to take shape – tables in the eating shade, the Moroccan tent went up, as did my dome (thank you guys for putting that up so Joshy gets a year off from it)
Horse Power!
Horse, Mark and the boys worked on the temple power grid and by the end of Saturday night survey was done and we had a functioning camp and job site!
Diggin in the playa
Sunday was a big day. Heavy equipment – trenching for the power grid, bobcat with the auger for the burn preparations and installation of the temple ‘foundations’, lots and lots of digging, grading and stomping to make sure our temple doesn’t dig into the ground and start to lean. As that was happening our resident Rockstar Lou had a crew and before I knew it I turned around and Dumont was on it’s way up! Within a couple of hours they had the whole frame erected – So exciting I actually l yelped when I turned around and saw it.
Lou raising the temple
That is it for me, I had to leave around 3pm Sunday – Josh and I jumped in the truck and I actually started to blub when I got to the gate – I was leaving….BOOOOOOOO…..I knew they could totally do it without me but I wanted to be there too – stoooopid default world job. I took this feeling to solidify the fact that we have such an amazing project and an amazing crew – everyone is wonderful and have worked together so well to get this built and it is well on its way to being up!
Jax and Peter
Dumont!
Last but not least I have another call out for donations to help us push through the end of this project. We are looking just a little short of our budget and could do with some donations to bring us out even on this crazy project. We have dumped paypal due to our issues last week (see previous blog posts) and am now using wepay: http://www.wepay.com/donate/add/5443
we’re sitting here together on the porch at the Saloon in Gerlach, NV, and we just finished watching this fantastic profile of our favorite architect, PK. We are rockin and rollin in the desert. All our trucks have arrived, and we are moving at the speed of light out here–on playa time of course:)
PK is an amazing visionary, a tremendous architect and a wonderful person I have had the privilege of working with for the past 5 months. Check out the video and get to know him a little. And wait till you see what we’re building our here.
amazing. the past 24 hours have been a whirlwind. after our post yesterday. we received a call from a Paypal account executive about our account status. They agreed to a one-time release of our funds but will not allow us to use our account until we received word from the State of California about our incorporation as a nonprofit. While standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart Super Store, i got a call from Steve Jones from the San Francisco Bay Guardian about the events of the morning. Shortly thereafter, Steve wrote another blog post and we hit the road. finally. as we pulled in Gerlach, i got word that our Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $8,000 in less than 7 hours. and that Fast Company wanted to do an interview with us.
so, we checked in with the lovely Sherry at the Burning Man office, and headed to Bruno’s Country Club where we did a conference call interview with the Fast Company write, Lizette Chapman. surreal, indeed, sitting inside the diner, talking about the last few weeks and all that led up to yesterday.
i’m sitting in the gerlach office now, blogging, catching up on email, while Jess & PK take care of business on the porch outside. this morning, we hit the Temple site and started surveying! in the midst of all the chaos that has been swirling around us, it’s actually happening! stay tuned for more pics and updates!
Hello Friends!
The Temple survey team are now safely on the playa and preparing for the truckloads of the structure to arrive. The playa build team has just 17 days until the Burning Man Festival officially opens the dusty gate. The shop team are still working away at American Steel loading trucks and finishing a few projects.
Needless to say, we’ve have had an eventful week. We are all collectively happy to return to the work of creating the big, beautiful Art!
As of today, we are getting closer to reaching our fundraising goal.
A special thanks to the team over at WePay for helping us get our financial transactions back to operating capacity. Simply put – they Rock!
We are still in need of donations to help us cover the costs of the Temple..
Many, many thanks to all of you who made donations this week. Some folks even gave again. Feels good, doesn’t it? https://www.wepay.com/donate/add/5443
I can hardly believe it was just two days ago that I was contemplating how I could maybe print some Flux Foundation Fun Bucks as I bought a lotto ticket. Since then, our longtime pal Steve Jones from SFBG posted the article heard ’round the world, friends of the Temple rallied for us with mind boggling results, Paypal “allowed” us to make a withdrawal, I joined Facebook (yep, I said it) and we are back on schedule.
There is still plenty to do. I had better get back to work.
Cheers!
Colinne
Temple of Flux 2010 Fun Bucks-ter
During our PayPal debacle, we were contacted by one of the founders of WePay, Richard Aberman, who has come to the rescue with an alternative online donation solution! Our account is now active, so please feel free to donate directly to The Flux Foundation via WePay! Thanks so much to Richard and the WePay team for reaching out and working with us during the PayPal curve ball/crunch time/ playa departure madness!
After several days of dealing with Paypal and watching the incredible response from the community, we have finally had a moment to breath and respond to what’s been happening as we sit in the Circus Circus hotel in Reno on our way out to the playa.
Thank you for all your support. This is Jess one of the Temple designers. We are here in Reno about to head out to start building this amazing Temple. All the offers of help with the Paypal snafu have raised our spirits and reminded us why we decided to build the Temple in the first place; for you, this amazing community. This is your Temple we are just the humble designers and builders. You have inspired it. You are the reason we create it.
The offers of bridge loans are so generous. But I fear what is not being seen is this last minute Paypal debacle has derailed our fundraising efforts. As we go out to the playa we are still looking at a 15 to 20k deficit. This is the hidden complication behind the Paypal snafu.
We have been working behind the scenes for more than three weeks with Paypal to no avail. In our non-profit filing earlier this year we worked with a well respected lawyer to properly set-up the 501c3. The IRS is currently taking at minimum six to nine months to approve requests. During this pending time it is legal for us to accept donations. Our bank is happy and satisfied with our documentation, kickstarter was fine with it and even paypal was happy. Suddenly over three weeks ago paypal put our account into review. They assured us all that was needed was a bit more documentation. We have sent them all of our documentation multiple times. We questioned if our “pending” non-profit status was the problem. We were assured by many of their accounts review staff that it was NOT an issue. Their stance as of yesterday is “We are happy to continue to accept your donations, but until your non-profit status finalizes we cannot release your funds”. This is a direct quote from the Paypal supervisor I spoke with yesterday.
so, it seems that after 5 months of accepting donations via paypal, they have decided to freeze our account. as you may know, we are applying for non-profit status for the Flux Foundation with the intention of building community through art with the Temple of Flux and beyond. As a pending non-profit, it is within our legal right to accept donations as long as donors are informed of that status.
Though we have provided Paypal with all the information they need, they have chosen to keep our account frozen until we hear from the IRS. Let me say that again. Until we hear from the IRS.
For anyone who has ever dealt wit the IRS, you know this is a timeline of total unknown scale. It typically takes at least 9 months to get an answer on non-profit status. We are on month five. You do the math.
This has put us in a very precarious position. Despite our best efforts to answer their questions and act in accordance with the legal gudelines for non-profits, we are left with no access to the funds that so many of you have intended go towards this work. It is incredibly disappointing.
This is particularly challenging as we are literally packing up the trucks to leave for building now. We are, indeed, in a crunch. While this is a frustrating and stressful situation, we know we will prevail. We could use your help, though.
Consider making a donation of cash or check to the Temple today. COME BY American Steel or the Shipyard in Berkeley. We need some Angel funders now!
We have been in awe of the support the community has given to us. Thank you. We will prevail.
Please spread this info far and wide! You can contact us at info (at) temple2010 (dot) org.
oh wow! the first truck is loaded up and ready to go! We’re packing away this weekend at American Steel! It’s incredible how close weare to leaving! There’s a flurry of activity all around. Thank you to everyone who has made this possible and continues to support this work. We are still inching towards our fundraising goal and are about $10,000 away from it! Consider making a donation today to support the Flux Foundation and the Temple of Flux.
