Movin'

I decided to fuse my 2 blogs together. So from now on, please go to http://caseandpoint.wordpress.com. And speak no more of this blog. It's dead to me now. Dead! You hear?!

I Was There

I know this amounts to me showing off, and, as far as showing off goes, it's really sad since it's something that happened 4 years ago. Still, I was looking through some old links for some contact info and came across this. I think this piece is the most photogenic things I've made.

"You Are Here", Sweeney Art Gallery at UC Riverside

Intersection 2008

I am trying to figure out what Facebook is good for, other than to waste time and write on people's walls like we're back in senior year of high school, yearbooks and ready phrases like "Have a great summer. K.I.T." in tow. I did a search and started becoming friends with art-minded people and organizations. One organization I discovered, as it turns out, is right in my backyard. Outpost for Contemporary Art is located in Highland Park and develops international art projects and has a residency program. They have a show right now called Installation 2008. It brings together local artists with local businesses in Eagle Rock -- various artists partnered with store owners on Eagle Rock Blvd. to create site-specific/relevant work in or around the stores. My friend and sometime-cohort Shannon and I did the art walk on opening day 2 weekends ago.

There were some hits and misses, as would be the case in any group show but one of the things that mesmerized me the most was not art but the shop itself.

Pets with Fez is an antique store/weaving studio with all these cool looms in the back. This is where Shannon and I came upon the owner and weaver extraordinaire Babajan, hard (but happy) at work on a loom. How amazing it was to see an old craft like this come alive right before my eyes! It'd be great to learn to make my own rug or even a scarf (there are intricate patterns possible with weaving that would be a nightmare, if possible at all, with knitting or crocheting) ... But who has the time for ancient traditions these days? Especially when bombarded with the all-important sitting around?

Beep, Beep! The Woodworking Bus

Side Street Projects is this awesome organization created to be a resource for artists as well as to offer art programs for kids in the L.A. area. I look a course called "Get Your Sh*t Together" that covered everything from taxes to grant-writing to portfolio cataloging for fine artists. One of the coolest things they have is a traveling school bus that houses a woodworking studio. How great it is to see all these kids so enthralled with the tactile and creative process of woodworking!

the Why Cheap Art? manifesto

Bread and Puppet: breadandpuppet.org. Nuff said.

Video Fun

My partner-in-crime Shannon and I went to see the California video show at the Getty last week. That may not sound like a big deal to you but it's a big to me/us ... I don't think I've been to the Getty in a couple of years. It's daunting to try to take in a show that's entirely made up of video work. It sort of made me feel bad for people who have to see my video work -- it's a HUGE time commitment and there isn't much in terms of pay-off at the end, which is what people normally expect when seeing something in the moving pictures vein. Not that all video art is obtuse. I definitely saw several pieces that were very accessible, whether it be on a visceral or narrative level. I don't know why I feel responsible for my audience enjoying themselves, especially when this isn't necessarily the objective when I'm making the pieces. I suppose I just want to be a good hostess. Anyway, Shannon and I are going to start working on stuff at our next meeting. Well, we're going to revisit an old piece anyway. It was finished off pretty quickly because of our then pending art show but it may need to be fleshed out a bit more. I don't have a web-friendly version of it but here are a couple of photo stills ...

Color Pencil Pal

List of things I pleasantly surprised myself by doing in the last few days:

1. Take a morning walk in Griffith Park with my roommate
2. Go to the Getty Museum to see the California Video show
3. Bake my first-ever vegan cupcakes
4. Write my resume
5. Write a poem, sort of
6. Draw

To specifically address #5 and #6, I've been working on an on-going project with a friend and the help of the US Postal Service. It goes like this: Brande started with a journal. I started with a journal. The first week, we each drew and/or wrote something on the first page. We then mailed our respective journals to the other person and we had a week to come up with something on the next page. And so on and so forth. We are 6-weeks in, and the following are images from Brande's journal (meaning the first image is by Brande). When I get "my" journal in a few days, I'll post images from that as well.

Brande

Me

Brande

Me

Brande

Me

TED Conference 2003

Brazilian-born, NY-based artist Vik Muniz spoke on creativity at the 2003 TED Conference in Monterey, CA. It's 15 minutes but I assure you it's worth your time! You'll be amused and touched and challenged/inspired about what it means to be creative, what it means to negotiate that space between audience and artist. It's not as straight-forward as we often make it seem. This is the sort of thing I think I aspire to do ... Maybe some day soon?

Farmer in the Mac

I am so over Dell, especially seeing what my roommate had to go through with their customer service. Ew. Anyway, after much ... inactivity ... I powered through and put together a much more presentable online portfolio for The Think Farm. I always knew this would have to be priority before I did anything with my art practice on the web. TTF is still a work in progress -- a whole section is missing -- but it feels nice to have something decent up there at least!

Every Great Idea I Have Is Awsome

I came across this on my friend Brande Jackson's Flickr site and thought it was just about the best thing I've seen in a long time. It's the first page of a journal by one of her 4th grade students named Chris. You can read more about Brande's afterschool art program here.

I am going to use this as my mantra from now on. So often I don't honor or give credence to the ideas that I have and, really, why not? If I don't back my great ideas and see them through to their appropriate ends, who will? I'd rather take a chance on an idea than have it poured down the drain into the crevices of my mind -- that place forlorn Great Ideas go to die.

Zambia

Old news but still .... I was in Zambia, Africa, for about 3 weeks last summer. You can read about some of my adventures here. It's wasn't officially an art venture but a friend of mine reminded me today that there are no delineations in The Process. It's one and the same. This informs my stance in the world and that in turn informs my voice as an artist (I hope).

This video clip is from a women's conference we participated in while in Kabwe. Thanks to Young Mi Chi for providing this footage. For some beautiful photos of Zambians, visit Jess Barnard's website: www.jessbarnard.com.

Brazil in Time

Wow, I can't believe it's been a whole year since my last post. I guess the search for art has not been very fruitful in my case. Which brings me to this: for someone who considers herself an artist and general creative creature, it's amazing how lacking I am in the culture department. Back in March, thanks to my good friend Hank, I made my way to the Armand Hammer Museum for the first time in Y-E-A-R-S. I still mean to go check out the Kara Walker show (please do check it out -- it looks A-mazing) but I did get to see a documentary called Brazil in Time. It is late in the day, it was awhile ago but it is worth mentioning. Unfortunately, it had a limited showing and there isn't much info out there. The film was about many things -- most obviously about DJs and percussionists coming together in Sao Paulo, Brazil -- but the thing that struck me was the way in which the creative process transcends age, generation, cultures and aesthetics/genre. I don't know of many other processes in our day and age that allows for such synergy. A bit more info here.

Oh, and something else worth mentioning: stay tuned for some p(r)etty photos from a project I'm attempting (please, USPS, be good to us) with fellow artist Brande Jackson.