ArtLifeEtcetera

I just got invited to this, by a Maine friend of a friend! So...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:08:56 -0500

I just got invited to this, by a Maine friend of a friend! So sweet, I’m excited.

Nick Hornby writes about sadness being better than happiness

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:55:42 -0500

Nick Hornby writes about sadness being better than happiness:

I’m not sure I agree but this is a pretty good quote from the article: “Some people are at their best when they’re miserable. Ryan Adams’s beautiful Heartbreaker album is, I suspect, the product of a great deal of pain, and “Oh My Sweet Carolina” is its perfect, still centre, its faint heartbeat, a song so quiet that you don’t want to breathe throughout its duration.”

I agree with that, at least.

I can’t get over this. So much of what I’m feeling,...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 17:54:28 -0500

I can’t get over this.

So much of what I’m feeling, and even separate from me it’s amazing.

What are the chances? The artist Nami Kurita, from California...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:10:00 -0500

What are the chances? The artist Nami Kurita, from California College of the Arts (a place I’ve been scoping out for some time now) designed the Spring ‘12 program that I happened to pick up… with all the speakers coming this Spring to both San Francisco and Oakland campuses, which is pretty cool. And the graphic she happened to design is titled “Mythical Creatures” which is basically my as yet unmade artists’ design and relational artworks collective I am planning to set up later in life.

Whoever does these things, he/she/they certainly have a sense of humor.

Check out the artist via the graphic. She’s pretty cool.

this is too beautiful. the sea, raw and freshly wild harvested...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:07:13 -0500

this is too beautiful. the sea, raw and freshly wild harvested food sprinkled with flowers and sea salt, a father and a son… the love here is so tangible. Reminds me of some really good fathers I’ve known. Especially being around kids lets me see these relationships as they unfold.

Some kids are really lucky. Some parents really delve into being there for their kids, and that I love. It doesn’t matter what you do with your kids, it’s how you do it. The quality of presence and love you bring. Turn up the volume on the video- it’s a little quiet.

Earthlings

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 23:01:42 -0500

Earthlings:

is a documentary I’ve been meaning to watch, about human’s reliance and yet complete disrespect of other animals, and I may have my class watch it (maybe as a homework) but I can’t stomach it right now. It’s on the list for the week though. So… if you watch it, let me know what you think.

A guy took polaroids for a year

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:59:22 -0500

A guy took polaroids for a year:

And some of them are pretty sweet.

There’s something to a project you do piece by piece… and the overall effect is usually a wow. Like taking one Polaroid a day, for a whole year. What project would you do for a whole year if you could?

I want to make this with a friend. One of my favorite food...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:56:28 -0500

I want to make this with a friend.

One of my favorite food blogs, Honey & Jam’s Peach Blueberry Pie…. mmmm

(click on photo for blog + recipe)

Photo by the lovely Hannah of Honey & Jam.

Last night my friend Katherine and I were doing restorative...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:47:53 -0500

Last night my friend Katherine and I were doing restorative yoga, listening to this, a candle glowing orange. It was lovely. The last couple days have been a little stressful, moving, and flying all day, not a lot of sleep, transitioning to new things, letting go of old things, of expectations, and missing friends the whole time. Sometimes it’s good to know that things will be ok, but none of us ever really do know that, do we?

Teaching class starts in a week, on the 15th. I think one of our activities will be listening to this rain with our eyes closed, writing about what comes up for us…

And of course, a good reminder how lovely and important friends really are.

Photos from Nepal

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:43:31 -0500

Photos from Nepal:

Fullbright scholarships are so cool! And these photos are amazing. The one of the mountains especially, and the one of the woman cleaning rice in her house, with the shaft of light coming through, the way she is so focused on what she’s doing, and how she’s probably lived there her entire life, and that light.. that shaft angling in… is probably it. Something indescribable happens, the feeling in that…

Sometimes I need to remember this. graphic from: Walt Whitman...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:35:43 -0500

Sometimes I need to remember this.

graphic from: Walt Whitman Is in My Moleskine (by Katie Rose Clausen)

Moving into new places is strange. Not quite here, nor there. So...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:34:20 -0500

Moving into new places is strange. Not quite here, nor there. So much in between-ness of feeling not quite at home. Listening to Greg Laswell, catching up on good films and vimeo documentary shorts, and some good recipes. Applying for things… life sometimes feels like one long application.

and:

the walls still echo.

*(the photo is from Torrey Pines National Park from a couple days in San Diego I once spent… feels like a lifetime ago, even though it was only last Fall)

To close up this night’s postings, a last look at...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:17:17 -0500

To close up this night’s postings, a last look at Fall/Winter. As the New Year begins, the Winter Solstice has passed, and so much has changed yet stayed the same. The thoughts for the new year are ones of bark, of paper-making, print-making, setting up creative spaces in a new home, nurturing both my self and families that I am beginning to love, and my home-space. Curling bark, rotting on the forest floor… the smell of moulding matter, breaking down to become something else. That’s what we’re all doing, isn’t it? Every day?

Tomorrow, scanning readings for my class, most of the day to be spent in the Library, then maybe the art museum at Cornell with my dad, and then a lot of packing/organizing.

Ithaca has been good, restful, a place to be with my sister (she left yesterday) and my family. Learning to be around my parents without driving them (too) crazy.

Happy New Year’s!

Mary Oliver, one of my favorite poets, writes that it is her “job to love the world”

May it be all our jobs, and may we embrace our role with lightheartedness, joy, and a whole lot of love, in this, the year 2012, and all the years following.

My new housemate Remy is in this! It’s a sweet structure,...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:09:45 -0500

My new housemate Remy is in this! It’s a sweet structure, reminds me of Ethan Hayes-Chute’s work (I don’t think he made it, but if you click on this, you’ll get to Ethan’s site, so… not trying to false-advertise you, so you know what you’re getting into*)

Making structures that are this fun is a yes. Making structures that don’t have to make sense, but that ask to be climbed on, inhabited, that bring you in… maybe I need a studio/workshop/woodshop. Hmmm..

* To be more specific, this link will take you to my favorite EHC piece: Hermitage

This was taken by a really cool artist living in Finland. Click...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:53:45 -0500

This was taken by a really cool artist living in Finland. Click on the link and you’ll get to his page. Mr Oliver Blank, a composer who makes beautiful music and takes beautiful walks to forage in the Finnish woods. It’s heartening to know that wherever one is, one can forage in the woods, and that it is being done.

Check him out, listen to his music, read his journal entries. People being creative everywhere… it gives us hope, it does.

For the class, a foraging walk! Basically, being the teacher of this class allows me to go out and do all the things I really like to do anyway. With other people. Pretty spectacular, that.

my friend Lily lying down in the woods. Brings Nostalgia, and...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:49:12 -0500

my friend Lily lying down in the woods. Brings Nostalgia, and the eagerness for winter to be over, to be able to walk the woods barefoot again, to not have the snow, and the cold. I tried to go out without shoes on the other day, and my feet got frozen so fast (in upstate New York)

it took a while getting the feeling back into them, and it was painful, so I don’t really advise it. But it was also kind of fun, a “what if?” kind of thing, or “what’s going to happen?” a mix of sincere curiosity, stupidity and not caring. A disregard for physicality. Something like that. It makes me miss Maine. Always missing that place, it seems.

Ok So I guess you can tell that I’ve got a Birdy thing...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:42:58 -0500

Ok So I guess you can tell that I’ve got a Birdy thing going on, yeah? I’m kind of on a loop right now between this, some James Vincent McMorrow, and James Blake. Hmm… I’m not sure what that’s saying right about now, but the snow has been coming down, and most of today consisted of a walk in the woods by a gorge in Ithaca. Something about that light snowfall, and the 5 minute squall on our way out… lots of lone people out with their dogs.

Her voice!

This beautiful white ink tattoo done by Maine Tattoo Artist...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:38:51 -0500

This beautiful white ink tattoo done by Maine Tattoo Artist Watson Atkinson (click on the photo and it will take you there)

He does amazing work (a lot of sleeves) and while I don’t love it all, I do love some of it, and see potential should I ever want some ink.

Inspiring for: botanical elements, something I come back to again and again in my own (non tattoo) work.

The Blind Cafe

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:35:58 -0500

The Blind Cafe:

This cafe is a social change for good, so it tells me. And I’ve heard so much about it.. it needs to come to San Francisco- right now it’s pretty much Denver, Boulder, Portland OR, and Seattle. and soon to come to Austin. So… San Francisco soon? Come on! Listening to music in the dark! Dining! Getting people to really pay attention to the felt sensations of their bodies. Maybe I will use this for one of my “wild within us” classes- make a meal to eat, and music to play, to jam to, in the dark. hmmm… yes. I like it!

So. This. Haunted/abandoned house. A Piano. What more could you...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 00:33:39 -0500

So. This. Haunted/abandoned house. A Piano. What more could you want? And this Bon Iver cover by Birdy is pretty much my favorite song right now. And, that’s saying something since there’s a lot of good new music out there. (I just discovered Skrillex. right?)

Inspiring for a couple different reasons, but the main one is to take what you love and make it yours, and love doing it. And when you have it at the end, it is as much yours as it was the other person’s. Creative freedom. All great artists steal from each other, after all… something Picasso said.