Monday, May 15, 2023

The New Island Guidebook is now on Amazon

The Ministry of Trade formally announces the release of  The New Island Guidebook.















Since the second edition was printed in 2015, the island has seen some new dream-place projects, and  Islanders are beginning to experience the effects of climate change.  

The Third edition is now available on Amazon, which has done a superb job of printing this 205-page guidebook in full color. 

--Wainwright Stevens, Minister of Trade

Sunday, April 2, 2023

Third Edition of The New Island Guidebook to be released soon

The complete guide to New Island is undergoing a rewrite, and it will be published soon on Amazon. 



A layout for the third edition cover...

The 205-page Guidebook will cover the island's history, geography, culture and its various quirks. It will include more pictures and updates about a mysterious energy source the locals call The Hum, plus notes on how to claim a building site on the island.

I'll post again with a link to order the book on Amazon, either in a print or e-book format.

Cheers,

Lee


Monday, October 10, 2022

Cafe-bar-supply center opens in the Sheffield Desert

On New Island's wild northern coast, where the Sheffield and North Bight Paths meet, a combination café, bar, store and restaurant called Sheffield Corner, has opened. Now travelers on the Paths can get a fresh coffee, drinks, or a full meal along with trekking supplies and water.

In the evenings, the proprietor, Jason, hosts as DJ on the main terrace, offering weary hikers a break for refreshments, music and dancing. This promises to be THE spot to hang out and meet other wanderers on the desert.






Sunday, July 10, 2022

New Island visited the Trout Museum in Appleton, Wisconsin, USA



On November 18th, 2021, the Trout Museum of Art in Appleton, Wisconsin hosted the entire New Island project consisting of over 25 years of paintings, drawings, maps, books, and many other artifacts including property owned by real people.



233A new island from space 1998 300dpi
"New Island from 450 Miles Up", watercolor.


The entire mezzanine floor at the museum was devoted to New Island. The show ran to February 6, 2022.


360 Traincars
"New Island Railway Cars", watercolor.


Poppies and Red Miandra 2
"Poppies and Red Miandra", watercolor.


Soltaire Gary Gresl Thistledown with view and floor plan
"Atelier Thistledown - a studio-residence with inset view and floor plan". 22" by 30" watercolor 
(For Soltaire the Assembler, New Island)



Here is a link to the museum's announcement: https://troutmuseum.org/event/new-island/

I hope you were able to see it.

Wednesday, August 11, 2021

"The Hum" - a Synopsis in Pictures


"The Hum" is about 15-year-old Gordy Broome 
who blacks out into another reality, 
and finds himself on a little-known island 
in the Southern Indian Ocean.


The Island's location...



...and what it looks like from 400 miles up.



Gordy's story begins in a California Beach town in 1964.

Gordy enjoys comic books, 
and a soothing sound he calls The Hum. 
As far as he knows,
he is the only one who can hear it.

But then...


A week after this newspaper article appeared, 
Gordy Broome witnesses a family crisis so horrible he passes out on his bed.
 
He falls into a very strange dream where his neighbor, Mr. Barnes, 
tells him to get on a raft waiting on the street because 
a huge tidal wave (now called a tsunami) is about to overwhelm 
his coastal neighborhood.




Mr. Barnes had supplied the raft with food, water, and maps. 
The map above showed Gordy his progress across three oceans.
(Mr. Barnes is a cartographer far ahead of his time.)


After Gordy washes ashore, 
this more-ordinary map causes him no end of trouble 
when a Soviet navy shore patrol finds it.



Gordy is taken to Soviet navy headquarters,
in what is now Victoria Harbor. 
He is accused of spying for the Americans.

Navy-headquarters cafeteria workers Janie and Louise 
see The Hum in Gordy's eyes, 
and they help him escape.

                       

 
Janie takes Gordy on a six-day hike up the Island's eastern coast.
The map above shows their route to her home town of Gifford Haven.





First they have to climb over the Highlands...



                   

...before they reach the eastern coast and places like Alison's Beach.



...the settlement of Ostend...



                   ...and the cliffs near Ignatz.
  
                                  
                             

On his journey, 
Gordy learns the ways of Islander culture and celebrations, 
such as the Wave Dance.



 He hikes across the north coast to Samantha's Wild North, 
where he meets Roselin, a brilliant witch-scientist.



As an archeology student at Putney University, 
Roselin had found an ancient text in these ruins. 




From the text, which she calls the Kwanlin Codex, 
Roselin had discovered a method to harness Hum energy. 

Gordy is there when Roselin's research triggers a destructive two-dimensional 
explosion seventy miles away.
 
Roselin realizes what caused it, and she is devastated.




They must travel to Putney, the Island's biggest city, 
to retrieve the now-dangerous Codex from Roselin's old University Professor.

They stay at the Westend Hotel, at the end of this street.



Having stolen the Codex, 
Gordy accompanies Roselin to mysteriously haunted Gottfried Island, 
several miles offshore, to hide out for a while.
 
Roselin must come to terms with the explosion, 
and the Hum's dark side. 
She must also prevent her notes and the ancient Codex, 
from ever getting into the hands of the Russian military. 

Gordy is severely tested.



Roselin finds a solution.
Roger's Dreamland is only accessible only through 
the Three-Rocks Portal, 
those rocks in the surf. 
It is another reality altogether, 
and a place where secrets can be kept.


Throughout the story, 
Gordy explores much of the Island...



...on the mail boats... 


...around Putney on the trains...



...and on foot over the Island's Path System.




Several maps, like this one,
show Gordy's progress.


And there's more.


Gordy meets Lane, an adventurous girl his age, 
who also likes comic books. 

She takes him on a hike to Hopp's Store, above, in the desert, 
where they find a trove of comic books from all over the world.



Later, Gordy and Lane hike into the Coast of Nevermore, 
where they discover each other.


 

Thursday, December 26, 2019

Announcing The Hum

"The Hum" - a full-length young-adult magical-realism novel 
will be released at some point in 2021.

The Beatty Ruins - where Roselin discovers the secret behind the Hum

Twenty years before the story begins, brilliant Islander archaeology student Roselin Bell discovers an ancient library in the Beatty Ruins (above) on New Island's northwestern coast. She and two other students find 88 books and 34 scrolls wonderfully preserved in a tomb-like room under an ancient tower.

She is drawn to a certain thin book in the library, that explains, after years of research, the secrets behind the Hum. The Hum is a pleasant, sometimes melodic, sometimes very deep, often healing sound that Islanders have heard ever since their ancestors arrived in 1799. 

Roselin further learns that The Hum is where matter and energy intersect among the tiniest subatomic particles throughout the Universe. Her knowledge of this leads to unfortunate consequences.

In 1964, fifteen-year-old Gordy Broome is in shock over the possible self-inflicted loss of his mother. He passes out in his bed, and suddenly finds himself on a raft, which seems to know where it is going. It takes him from his hometown in Southern California, below South America, then east to the south Indian Ocean. A storm wrecks the raft, and he wakes up, barely alive, on the shore of an unknown island. 

Back then the Russians controlled the Island, and Gordy is immediately captured by a Soviet navy shore patrol, interrogated as a possible spy for the Americans, and put in a holding cell. Two civilian food service workers recognize that he can hear The Hum! They also see Hum energy in his eyes, and realize that Roselin will definitely want to meet him. They have to get him out.

Thus begins the narrative - Gordy learns about Hum energy, about Love, and the people and culture of New Island.

More later...

Saturday, February 2, 2019

About New Island

New Island is...


a 12,600-square-mile art project, 
> a fictional island-nation consisting of a road map,
> many many pictures of the island’s landscape,
> a history and detailed geography,
> documentation including a 200-page color guidebook, 
> plat maps and deeds describing owner's claims on the island and
> artifacts such as postage stamps, coins, and a national flag. 

This is also an interactive art project – real people can claim a building site on New Island, build a dream house or retreat, and thus own a part of this island-nation. 

How it came to be:

With an increasing desire to be someplace else, Lee Mothes began to visualize the island in 1995. Lee wanted a place with a lot of beaches, an agreeable climate, and friendly, English-speaking locals.  He found an ideal site west of Australia after researching the geography, climate and history of the south Indian Ocean. Once the site was chosen, He was then able to write the island's history, and create a detailed road map. Lee then wrote a guide book, produced coins, a flag, and then more maps, many landscape paintings, a few stories about local events and about a visitor named Alan Faramond.

People have found delight in the fact that they can create what they want here - an unleashing of creativity that can be very liberating!


Where it is, and what it is:


New Island from 450 miles up.

The Commonwealth of New Island is situated in the southern Indian Ocean some 950 miles west of Cape LeeuwinWestern Australia.  Known more commonly as New Island, the island stretches 140 miles north to south and about 90 miles east to west, with a total land area of some 12,600 square miles, including its offshore islands. 


Here is where it is!


The official New Island travel map.

New Island’s climate is blessed with sea breezes and seasons similar to those of California or South Africa. The land-forms are old and have weathered long enough to create sandy shorelines, varied high-country, bird-filled marshlands, and fertile hillsides and valleys.
New Islanders are primarily of English, Scottish and Irish origin, with some Russian and Japanese influence in the island's history. The locals have rediscovered ways of living with each other and with nature that go back thousands of years. Mostly emerging from shipwrecks, they arose to provide well for themselves with their gardens, farms and creative ventures; and they have learned to find a relaxed sense of joy. Their cities and towns provide modern amenities, including running water and electricity, but have a peculiar old-world look to them.
Everyone on the island has an equal say through local representation; regulatory government is minimal. Because of their long isolation, New Islanders have learned to protect the island’s forests, rivers, and wetlands. The island’s residents have their quirks, oddities, and unusual points-of-view; while they willingly help each other, live sustainably, and sometimes find joy.


A typical New Island landscape, on the eastern coast at Wave Point.


Contemplating What If...

New Island is based on a "What if" premise, based on the real-world history and politics of what did occur in that part of the Indian Ocean:


What if there was one more island out there, situated in the southern Indian Ocean about 950 miles west of Cape LeeuwinWestern Australia? Suppose it was rather large, with varied climate zones, an ancient geography, and capable of supporting a self-sustaining human population of several thousand.

Given the region’s actual climate, history, and surrounding geography, what animals, birds, plants and sea-life would be found there? And who might live there?

Every place has a history, and where people are involved, some kind of a culture. New Island is no different. The real history of this part of the world would determine what might have occurred on an island situated here.
An early nautical map, originally from the Russian explorer Fabian von Bellingshausen.

There could have been a long-lost paleo-culture that left ruins and riddles. There could havebeen two ships loaded with petty-crime convicts and supplies that wrecked on the island’s southeast shore in 1799. At least one ship could have been predominantly filled with women on their way from England to the penal colonies of Australia. A large bamboo raft bearing nineteen Japanese fishing families could have, over three years’ time, found its way from Kyushu, Japan, to the island’s eastern shore in 1807.

There could have been an arrangement, in 1820, with the Russian government and the island’s residents, to allow the island’s culture to develop on its own, and meanwhile keep the British navy, as well as other European powers, at bay.  The Russians, and later the American CIA, could have conspired to remove the island from nearly every map of the region. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the islanders could have negotiated their independence with a hoard of gold salvaged from a Spanish ship burned in 1830.

These what-ifs and could-haves make up the Commonwealth of New Island today. The place-names in the maps and guidebook, the historical artifacts and documents, and the landscape of the island are all the result of what could or might have occurred from the Late Jurassic period to this day.

New Island wants to be explored...



Sunday, October 7, 2018

A Scene Along New Island's East Coast Path

This is somewhere near Sixheads, towards South Cape. Clouds are building up, and squalls are moving along offshore. The wind is a bit chilly as it is still early spring here.


Courtesy New Island Path System

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

What would you like to see happen on New Island?

    A back road going somewhere on New Island's eastern coast...

New Island has been sort of my alternative residence since the mid 1990s. I've had a lot of fun writing the island's history, drawing the maps, creating the coins, flag and all the other documentation from paintings of the landscape to the land-claim deeds. 

I've also enjoyed sharing stories here about events on New Island and about some of its residents and visitors, such as Alan Faramond.

Now I've come to a weird place - where should New Island go from here? What should happen to or on New Island that would be REALLY COOL?  

What would you like to see happen there?

--more stories, such as Alan F. goes to Roger's Dreamland?
--a major geologic change, such as volcanic Mt. Hayes erupting?
--a major discovery, such as finding out who the Old People were? and what happened to them?
--a deeper look into the mysteries of New Island's existance, of Roger's Dreamland?  
--more on the spirituality of New Island? The politics? The locals?
--tell me something that you might want to see: ___________________________.

Also,

--Does New Island feel, on some level, like a real place to you?

--If you somehow "knew" it was real, what would you do there?

I'd really like to hear your thoughts or questions! Use the comment box or send me a note to mothesart@gmail.com.

Thanks,  

Lee

Friday, August 19, 2016

Everyone Should Have Their Own Private Beach House


               Create your own home or retreat on New Island!





A cottage of your own with a patio and plenty of private beachfront is easily attainable.


Or  you might like a place right over the waves! 
Any kind of house or retreat is possible - you are the architect.

Of course not everyone has $1 million to spend on such a place, not to mention the cost of taxes, upkeep, insurance, utilities and all the rest to maintain the place. So...

New Island is a place that allows you to build your own dream home, beach house or retreat. You may claim a building site on the island and create your own place there. You will get a deed and a custom-drawn plat map for your site, plus a painting of your second home, farm, shop, studio or other retreat. Your site is unique, and YOU choose where to locate it on the island

Here's how this works:

1. Explore the island. To get started, go to New Island! This website has a ton of information about the island and some of the things that go on here. The Citizen Package has everything you'll need to help you further explore New Island, and to decide where you want to claim a site of your own. Follow the link below to receive the New Island Guidebook, maps, boat and train tickets, a New Island coin, postage stamps, and a green card to prove you are a New Island citizen!

http://www.oceansanddreams.com/booksmaps/the-new-island-citizenship-package


The Citizen Package ($65) contains all the materials you need to start 
exploring and enjoying New Island.


2. Claim your site. Once you become a citizen, Lee will help you locate the right building site for you by answering any questions you might have. You can then let him know what size painting(s) you prefer. 

3. Build your Dream Home. From the location you have chosen, Lee can then help you create your Dream Home. Once we consult on the type of house or other place you might want to create, he will then make a sketch of your place based on your desires. When you approve of the sketch, he will proceed with your painting. 

Your dream house or other retreat will be pictured on the site you have chosen. We can include an insert of the view from your site and a floor plan in the painting as well.  See the examples below.

Once your painting is completed and shipped, Lee may include your project, with your permission, on the Owners' Page on this website. You'll see what others have built on the island as well!


Here's how to get there:

The Citizen Package includes the New Island Road Map, the Guidebook, tickets, a roger coin, a green card, and other artifacts as shown above. Use the link below to order yours for $65:

http://www.oceansanddreams.com/booksmaps/the-new-island-citizenship-package


If you wish to claim a building site, up to 20 acres, on New Island, get the Claim Package 1, which includes your deed and a hand-drawn plat map of your site. The other Claim Packages include one or more original watercolor paintings of your dream place. All packages include consultation with Lee to help you select your site on the island, and to design your dream home.

Package prices vary with the size of the original watercolor painting you choose:

Citizen Package - everything but the deed, plat map and the painting: $65.
Claim Package 1  a deed, plat map of your site, up to 20 acres: $400. 
Claim Package 2 with deed, plat map and an 11" by 15" painting - 900. 
Claim package 3 with deed, plat map and a 15" by 21" painting - 1200.
Claim package 4 with deed, plat map and a 21" by 30" painting - 2400.
For each additional rendering, such as of the view from your house, and a floor plan, add $400.


Here are some projects on New Island:


A larger stone house, with veggie garden and cat,
on the eastern coast near the settlement of Sunrise.
(a 15" by 21" watercolor)

Another view of the same house, with the Wicklow Mountains in the background.
(a 15" by 21" watercolor)


A sculptor built his dream residence, studio and gallery further up 
in the Wicklow Mountains, overlooking Otter Bay.
This 21" by 30" watercolor includes the view from his house and its floor plan.


This 8" by 12" concept sketch, in pencil, was included in the package.


A Wisconsin couple wanted their dream home on New Island's northwestern coast,
overlooking the ocean, and adjacent to the Yellow Hills Wandering preserve.




Here is the pencil concept sketch completed before beginning the painting.



Sophia St. Andrew, who actually lives in Tasmania, 
established her own mansion and museum
near the town of Skegness, on Putney Bay. 
(detail of the original 21" by 30" watercolor)



                            Here are a sample deed and plat map:




Trish de Beaupre claimed a site near New Island's northernmost point, 
and received this Grant Deed.




Ms. de Beaupre's chose a site in Section 1, Plat 2 at the northern end of New Island.
Her building site is described on the deed above.
This plat was drawn up specifically for her, 
since she was the first to claim a site in that area.

All 34 sections are described in the New Island Guidebook.



Contact Lee Mothes with any questions, or to claim your New Island building site and to create your dream house or retreat.  

Email: mothesart@gmail   Call/text: +1 920-858-2636.

Thank you!