At my father, John Hersey's fiftieth birthday party at his home/studio in Millbrook, New York, I was telling Peter Bradley about my previous summer's bicycle trip from Vienna to Paris.

"You don't know shit until you've gone to Africa," was Peter's blunt response. I never questioned his dare. After painting a house to raise money, I left for the Johannesburg Art Foundation on July 4th, 1997.

Fieke Ainslie, Path artist Sholto Ainslie's mother, picked me up at the airport. Her car windows were kept shut and the doors locked because a week before, through three inches of a window left open, a hand had grabbed her glasses from her face while she was driving. That afternoon we went to visit a black former groundskeeper from the art foundation who had been taken to prison after being asked to leave the foundation because of theft and drug problems. Fieke remarked on the clarity of his eyes before he went to prison. After a two hour wait, we were allowed to see a beaten man.

Four weeks later, after hitchhiking for thirty hours through the deserts of Namibia, I got stuck on the side of the road in Rundu, Namibia from 2 A.M. till 6 A.M. Twenty miles from civil war torn Angola, twenty children with torn clothes and empty stomachs begged for food and money. Twenty five adult men who left everything they had in Angola stared at my suitcases and dryly laughed. That moment showed me exactly what Peter was talking about.

The artists in Path's inaugural issue, "far from home," have all found their voice through a juxtaposition of opposites and a comparison of similarities between cultures during travel and relocation. By both creating and exhibiting their work in an international arena, these artists have established a presence which represents their individuality within the art world.

Path aims to exhibit artists from all parts of the globe through online its publication and onsite exhibitions. The second edition of Path, "an examination of the I," will be released in late January, and is currently accepting submissions.

Cannon Hersey
Editor
15 October 1999

Editorial Staff:

Editor: Cannon Hersey

Assitant Editors: Christopher Angell, David Griffin