Even in Kyoto

Each papercut animal by itself is a fairly simple project, as long as Emma doesn't sit on the paper while I'm in the middle of making it.

I have two standing ravens and a hanging bat so far. They're difficult to photograph but they seem to be working pretty well, so I might not make any changes to make them more photogenic. During the day S says he notices them when he's inside on the porch, with the light shining in from outside. At night with the front porch light on, they're definitely noticeable from the outside.

I think it's now time to find some flying animal photos to work off of, to add in some flying ravens and bats.

S thinks I should get some reflective spraypaint to use with my new stencils. I'm not sure I'm ready yet to embrace a life of crime, even if the crime is very shiny and beautiful. Suggestions for legal locations to apply stencils are welcome. (hmm, sides of dresser??).

Maybe once these animals are done I'll be ready to continue with the stained glass style papercuts. Those are a bit more ambitious, but really not all that more involved.

I also made a teeny bit of progress on the top-of-stack manuscript. More than anything I now just need to get a regular schedule going for myself.

So now. If you ever have the chance, VISIT.

I took so many photos, but they can't do justice to the full experience of coming here and walking around in the space.

Somehow, the monsoon rains bypassed this spot this afternoon, so I could walk around and even go swimming in the pool. And this evening I can watch the flashes of lightning from my guest room. Incredible.



This is the last photo in the series. The pool is located above the guest rooms. It is top-notch.

In the pool, I met a couple of the other people staying here tonight, one of whom was much more familiar with Arcosanti and says that Form is an especially amazing time to come here.

The workshops also sound phenomenal.

Now I know.

The weekend was devoted to rowing-related stuff and crafting. I can't share photos yet of the crafting because it was for holiday cards and gifts.

But! In the midst of it all, I think I'm starting to finally resolve my Winter Tree dilemma for the long-term. A month or two ago, I became aware of a really awesome Phoenix-area business known as Frozen Phoenix Art that makes sculptures out of old bike parts. I'd been trying to think of ways to construct a 3D tree out of bike parts but my imagination was getting stuck. The FPA trees, though, look so great and tickle my art senses both because of the reused bike parts AND because I like stained-glass type things.

They're a bit out of my budget right this moment, but I also came up with an interim plan, which I will show you if I manage it.

For some reason I find certain kinds of film installation art incredibly compelling.

There aren't good versions of this online, but an all-time favorite by Shaun Gladwell, called Storm Sequence, randomly came to mind yesterday. (there's a crappy version of it on You-Boob if you want to get an idea. Doesn't give you a sense of setting or of the soundtrack, which contribute to the experience).

A common theme to what I am most attracted to is probably "bodies in a landscape." Other examples:

Steven Yazzie's work: http://www.stevenyazzie.com/drawing-and-driving

Echo at Satstop (Itsuko Itchikawa): http://vimeo.com/71666244

Fracked, North Dakota (aka Boom, by Susie Lee): http://vimeo.com/63868173

What about you? Do you have favorites? I'll confess to watching these over and over again.

Walked around a bunch today. I first headed up to Broadway, thinking it might be nice to visit the Sunday farmer's market. But it paled in comparison to the Saturday market in the U-District. Then I took the light rail back over to the U-District because I wanted to see the MFA and MD thesis exhibition at the Henry Art Gallery. sytharin, slydevil, and I had stopped in on Friday, but almost the entire gallery was in a state of preparation, so there wasn't much to see.

Walking in today, I was greeted by the sounds of Mungo Thomson's "Composition for 52 keys," in which a grand piano plays the 52 white keys in an order determined by the shuffling of a deck of 52 cards. Pleasingly atmospheric. No two songs alike.

Among works from the MFA/MD show, there were multiple that I appreciated, but I don't feel that a verbal description can capture the experience in a satisfying manner. There's one project that I'm still mulling over in particular: an MD project (that's a Master's in Design) where the creator grappled with how humans and computers interact with the thousands of photos that smartphone owners take these days (computer memory has become so inexpensive). In the first part, the creator simply presented printouts of thumbnails of all the photos they took between 2016 and the time of the show. Next, there were pairs of slides from a trip to San Francisco, and slide viewers. One slide of each pair showed the photo as a human observer would view it. The other slide depicted what a computer would "see" in the image - e.g. clouds, bridges, people, and if close enough, a reading of the person's facial expression and body language. So one could compare one's interpretation of the scene with the computer's interpretation.

The third component was a set of three books from the trip to San Francisco - the whole photo grouping had been suggested by some photo hosting software, based on cues like the dates when the photos were taken. One of the three books included captions written by the creator, which told the stories associated with each photo. The second book (which I didn't pick up) contained only the photos, without any captions. In the third book, the photos were replaced by captions written by software designed to interpret the content of photos. Altogether, the project was effective in illustrating how much of what goes on with photographs has to do with the human interaction with the photo - the specific stories and memories we attach to the captured image.

The lower part of the Henry was still undergoing modifications, so after that I decided to head to a bead store to see about some bead tips for a necklace. Bead World has relocated closer to Northgate, so I decided to walk up to 65th and Roosevelt anyway to investigate Alexander's Bead Bazaar. And what a shop! Lots of interesting and unusual beads, nothing cheap and plastic. The clerk helped me with the bead tips, and then was super excited to demonstrate technique to me.

From there, I walked back home, which the Goog estimates is a 3-mile walk. It was a beautiful day to be out walking around. Postcard-perfect.

So last weekend, scrottie and I took the train up to Seattle. Our visit had two three main goals ("fear, surprise, and a ruthless efficiency!...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope!"):

-Go skiing
-Visit annikusrex and enjoy some primo baby-viewing
-Haul the rest of my belongings and a couple of sytharin's things back to California

Oh, also visiting my parents. I keep getting confused about the proper terminology for this, but during our visit my dad was at the low point following his second 5-FU infusion during this set of chemotherapy treatments for his now-chronic liver cancer. Even though he was tired, he managed to share a story with us about a childhood experience with the Madison River ice gorge, and even managed to finish his Saturday chore routine (albeit on Sunday). A short but sweet chance to check in with him and my mom.

Anyway, skiing was successful, to judge by S's grin here:


And also I did not die and I might even consider going downhill skiing again sometime in the future.

Baby-viewing was also successful, and especially satisfying given that F just now fits into the chicken hat that had arrived when I visited last October, 2 days before he got ejected from the womb.

(of course, my smart-o-phone photography still leaves much to be desired. sigh)

Stuff-hauling was mostly* successful. I only had around 6-7 boxes of things left at my parents' house, which isn't a huge amount, and yet on our last visit it was clear that my parents would appreciate the extra free space and peace of mind. My mom has been one of the ringleaders for clearing out stuff from both my great-grandma's house and my grandpa's house and barn, so she's no stranger to dealing with other people's stuff. But to me that also suggests that she's extra appreciative when other people take the initiative to tackle stuff management.

Some items went straight to the Goodwill pile, after a brief farewell:

I don't know if anyone really wants ratty old stuffed animals or the velvety shawl, but at least Goodwill knows what to do with them?

Including three t-shirts kept for purely sentimental reasons:

Size XXL from my Freshman year of high school, yeesh


A favorite shirt from my trip to El Salvador in high school


Shirt for the main political party leading the resistance to the Salvadoran government during the Salvadoran Civil War - Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front

I dispatched some old, bad art from college as well. This painting was the least-worst item:


...And then we loaded the rest into the back of a rental car and drove it back to California.

So, now what? I think that, for the next phase of things, Project-Land will have two fronts. One front will involve continuing to go through those six or so boxes and deciding what to keep and what to move along. I suspect that, for instance, I will get rid of the Girl Scout manuals, because I didn't quite like Girl Scouts anyway and mostly kept the manuals as evidence for why. I also discovered that the worst object out of the lot, a neon light shaped like an abstract rowing shell, has burned out, and so now I'm free to dispose of it according to local disposal guidelines. Hallelujah and whew. I am still scratching my head over what I will do with the fine china from my grandma that was rarely/never used. We will potentially take it out for an Extreme Picnic.

The second front for Project-Land is the acquisition and creation of new objects. At the moment, I have slightly too many ideas and ambitions, but really that's my default mode. I need to read and learn more about quilting options other than hand-quilting. I'm also getting ready to start knitting something again (a hat, specifically). And there are a half-dozen things I want to make/sew. It has been helpful to look back on all of the older objects, while thinking about future ones, for the sake of deciding to put time and care into planning for the future items.


*Unsuccessful part: sytharin had asked us to bring down two of her sculptures, plus her scythe. I remembered the scythe, but didn't remember the sculptures until we had already driven all the way to Portland. Sigh.

I've been playing a Scrabble-like game online with a friend about once a week or so. She generally completely kicks my butt, but somehow or another I picked up some good tiles yesterday, including all four high-scoring ones (J, Q, X, Z). In addition, I managed to put together a bingo, and I even had a second one in my rack (LUMPERS or RUMPLERS) but I couldn't put it anywhere. S also managed a bingo, and so in the end I won with 396 points to her 378. Maybe I should start keeping track of game totals.

Anyway, here was our final board:


Later in the day, I told sytharin that I would lend her a hand with projects out in the garden. First things first, I went on a quick trip over to the store to pick up more potting soil to replace the soil I'd used up, so she can start a bunch of interesting seeds. Things like a pink banana plant, for example.

When I returned, she was underway with another project, mixing and pouring plaster for a ceramics wedging table:



Have you ever mixed and poured plaster before? I've dealt with it a lot, in the context of making ant nests. So I was a touch nervous when RAC said she'd been mixing the plaster and water for about 5 minutes by that point. So then she got ready to pour:


...slightly more liquid than she'd hoped...



...kind of thick towards the bottom...and you can see how it's starting to leak out of the mold, too...



After things reached this stage, I stopped taking pictures and started helping out. A spare board helped reduce the leak rate, and then we managed to scoop a bunch of the plaster back into the mold. If you ever find yourself wanting to make a plaster clay wedging table, I have a small piece of advice: put a small strip of clay along the seams, to seal them off.

Oh, actually, multiple pieces of advice. I think the mixing ratio that RAC used was probably okay. It was the ratio on the package. Anyway, other advice. Do what she did and get one of those drill attachments for mixing paint. Always add plaster to water, not the other way around. And maybe put the form onto something that's slightly easier to tap/vibrate/relocate to knock out as many of the bubbles as possible. In this case it would have helped to have something like a moving dolly. That would have helped with the splashing, too.

For clean-up, have a bucket of water ready to go for immediately after you pour. Use the water to rinse out and dilute the plaster that remains in your mixing vessel and on your mixing equipment. You don't need a ton of water, but enough to loosen things up. Removing hardened plaster is often more difficult, but another alternative is to work with a flexible mixing vessel. If you generate a bunch of waste liquid, pour it into a big bucket and let it sit for a week or more. The plaster residue will sink to the bottom and you will be able to pour off the water. Then, once things have dried out, you'll have an easier time disposing of the residue. I believe there's actually a way to recharge it, but it might involve temperatures that are too high for doing this at home.

Then I did some cooking, and I have no idea where the rest of the day went.

I think I was largely introduced to the whole Riot Grrrl movement through friends in high school. That was a funny period. I didn't care for grunge, so I basically ignored it and most other popular music from the time, concentrating on classical music instead. But some feminist elements leaked through; I can remember going to hear Ani DiFranco (and Utah Phillips!) at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival, and encountering Riot Grrrl elements while there, and shortly thereafter annikusrex got really into Sleater-Kinney and Miranda July, so I got into all of it by proxy. Empowering stuff for teenage girls in high school and the beginnings of college.

That said - the Alien She exhibit of artefacts from the Riot Grrrl movement made me aware of additional things about the movement that have affected my view of the world, from the feminist perspective on boy band culture to the ways that women have taken ownership in the DIY movement. This is my cultural heritage, in ways that I can never quite articulate to people when I live in places like Boston, Arizona, Texas, and Nebraska.

I wasn't in the right space to fully take in the show, but I suspect few people have been in that kind of space, because aspects of the movement were prolific. There's a huge collection of zines, for instance, many of which can be taken down off a shelf and read. There was a panel collage of someone's mixed tape collection covers, and there were multiple short films running on loops that would take an hour or more to view. I can only say, try and watch some of Miranda July's other films to get some idea as to the distinct approaches she has taken to the medium that challenge conventional ways of doing things (although Me and You and Everyone We Know will give you a taste, at least).

But here - have a few pictures. I don't even necessarily want to put a lot of words around the photos because a lot of these things just want to interact directly with YOU. Maybe you'll get something of a sense of who these people are and what they're trying to say to you.

I suspect if I ever return to the Portland Museum of Contemporary Craft, I'll have a completely different experience. Most likely another good one.

Pieces created for The Counterfeit Crochet Project, started by Stephanie Syjuco (read more here):


Work by Allyson Mitchell and others:


These figures seek to challenge your assumptions about beauty and the feminine.

"And then, outside a greengrocer's, it happened - something that sooner or later always happens to me on a long trip away from home. It is a moment I dread.
"I started asking myself unanswerable questions.
"Prolonged solitary travel, you see, affects people in different ways. It is an unnatural business to find yourself in a strange place with an underutilized brain and no particular reason for being there, and eventually it makes you go a little crazy. I've seen it in others often. Some solitary travelers start talking to themselves: little silently murmured conversations that they think no one else notices. Some desperately seek the company of strangers, striking up small talk at shop counters and hotel reception desks and then lingering awkwardly after it has become clear that the conversation has finished. Some become ravenous, obsessive sightseers, tramping from sight to sight with a guidebook in a lonely quest to see everything. Me, I get a sort of interrogative diarrhea. I ask private questions for which I cannot supply an answer. And so as I stood by a greengrocer's in Thurso, looking at its darkened interior with pursed lips and a more or less empty head, from out of nowhere I thought, Why do they call it a grapefruit? and I knew that the process had started."

-Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island


Bill Bryson is an excellent traveling companion. Initially I had only carried along an intense book by Simone de Beauvoir for my trip to Europe, but on the extra day in Chicago I decided to track down a local bookstore to find slightly lighter fare. Bryson's book hit the spot, especially because it's about adventures around England and English culture.

I read the above passage on the train during a point in the trip where I could relate all to easily to it. In addition to traveling all the way to Europe for the sake of a one-of-a-kind bicycling experience, I wanted to see other cities and their sights and sounds, to get a feel for what this whole human experience is all about. To get perspective.

The first time we visited Paris, some of the immigrant neighborhoods caught me by surprise. Sure, we have Chinatowns in the US, but there's nothing quite like walking down a huge city block filled with narrow shops all specializing in African weaves, each with a guy standing out front to entice you inside. There were drifts of hair blowing along the sidewalk on that street. Then there are parks that consist of small patches of gravel, completely overrun by people (men, mostly) just lounging around, looking like they have nothing to do and nowhere to go (not necessarily homeless, just without purpose). Even the crowded US cities don't feel like this.

The human experience can be uplifting, inspiring, discouraging, depressing, the whole gamut. I know I wrote briefly about feeling like London was soul-crushing without elaborating much on the sensation. If I was traveling for a sense of perspective, London and Paris both gave me that, just not the sort of perspective I'd expected. I left London with a sense of my own unimportance. It's a city that doesn't care about you and your petty aspirations, especially if you lack social class. So, why even bother? How can I continue to churn out blog entry after blog entry, knowing that most of the subject matter is trivial and will gradually disappear into a dusty corner of the Internet? Wouldn't it be better to take a more refined approach, only putting out and sharing maybe one or two all-time incredible gems, cultivated and polished over a lifetime? Could I channel my energies in that fashion? It's not that I have any wish to be famous, whatsoever. I just want to feel purposeful.

On that train trip, reading Bryson's book, however, I remembered something else.

Practice.

Magnum opuses don't come out of thin air. They are born out of hundreds of small attempts and failures. I *do* need to keep at it, even when things seem utterly futile and I don't have any idea what the future holds (by the way, this is also related to gearing up for another round of job applications). The act of writing keeps me in touch with myself, and this is necessary for the sake of channeling my voice and using it for good. Besides, the demons compel me to write, and I have a hard time ignoring them, which means I probably shouldn't ignore them.

Shortly after I returned from Europe, my ceramics instructor from Tempe passed away. She had been diagnosed with an inoperable form of brain cancer a year or two prior. I haven't seen her since moving away, only heard the news indirectly. She lived such a public life, as a teacher, and yet I have also always had the sense that she was also a very private person, perhaps as a defense mechanism. Only every once and a while would this side of herself slip out. Just a few days after I learned that she had died, I received an alumni magazine with an article about her and her work, talking about the ceramic sculptures she's had exhibited around the world - the list of her accolades. What's most striking to me, however, is the photo showing her in her home studio space, putting on a bright face and smile even while the ravages of cancer are evident (but only to those who know). Despite the smile and warm, loving attitude, B did not have an easy life. Everything she has accomplished has been the result of tireless persistence and dedication. Porcelain clay is an unforgiving medium in an artform that is often overlooked because it's traditionally in the female "craft" arena. She was also one of the people who was a consistent champion of the things I did as a graduate student, and I know she will continue to be a source of inspiration through the low points.

And so, onward.

Here are three videos from art-installation pieces that I could sit and watch for hours, or days. The first one is difficult to find online because of how this artist handles his work, but it gives at least a tiny sense of what the installation is like to experience. I think the full video is closer to 10 minutes. I cannot fully describe what it does to me.

Storm Sequence, by Shaun Gladwell. (for some reason, the flash plugin crashes when I try to load this through YouTube, but I could get it to play through Facebook...not sure what's going on there with Australian-based videos)

Echo at Satsop, by Etsuko Ichikawa

boom. by Susie Lee