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It's done! All of the pictures have been taken (967 in total) and the video edited (2min 45sec)! After a month of my self imposed stop-motion crash course, I have more ideas and have learned a ton. But am certainly ready for a break. At the last minute I decided to add a flip-book to the mix. I choose 100 pictures and printed them in both black and white and color. Funny thing is this is the thing I think I'll do again soon, it's very fun to have a tangible little book to play with! The opening, where all 25 or so artists involved displayed what they made,was amazing. All in all, it was a hysterical party. As group shows often are, it was packed, barely room to breath, and tons of energy. But as people came and went a lot of the artists hung around, watching people interact and react to our work, but mostly releasing the energy we'd all been building up alone in our studios all month long. By the end of the night we were grabbing at our cheeks in pain from laughing so much. It turns out, as my friend Jenny pointed out, that fun-a-day didn't refer to all of the fun we had in our studios, alone, day after day, but to the month's worth of fun that exploded that night. read more about this project on my projects and collaborations page
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I'm ending the third week of my fun-a-day. I've actually stuck with it! It's funny, how things are never really what you expect them to be. Every day at work I can't fathom going home and working on it yet again, but I do. It keeps moving forward. And though it is taking up quite a bit of time in the evenings, I seem to have more time and energy for the rest of my life. Maybe woking in the studio is similar to working out in that way? At the first of the year I was teetering on the edge of quitting my job (which wouldn't be that simple, but it was what I wanted on most days), barely had the energy to come home and make dinner, and the house was turning into a complete disaster. I just couldn't keep up. Now, three weeks into this I'm on top of the world at work, I've completely rearranged my house and attic (I didn't see that one coming), I'm getting rid of things, clearing out the cob-webs metaphorically and actually, and producing this video and installation. Could it be because of the time I'm spending in the studio? It just seems too simple. What ever it is, I'm rolling with it. Here is week two of the video, I'm posting this special for Danni, I'm keeping you hanggin with the third week and all of the smoke and fire. I've got to keep you coming back somehow! I'm still having an issue with the first few seconds of the video. I'll have to really figure out how to use youtube soon...
Okay, so the reverb challenge was a bit of a flop. Not a total waste, but truth be told, writing is not my "thing". It's part of all of the good stuff, there is writing involved in everything I do but writing to write, not so much. So, staying true to form and not knowing when to say no, I've taken on a new challenge. I can obsess with the best of them, it just has to be the right subject, I guess. The writing didn't hook me (it may have been to reminiscent of homework) but the art has. Fun-a-day is being organized locally, there are something like 60 people signed up for it. Similar to reverb, the challenge is to make one piece of art a day, everyday in January. To start the year off right! Logically it makes no sense, I could write a blog post in 1/2 and hour, but this little project has me hunched over my studio table for several hours every night after work. But somehow, it speaks to me. At first I thought of making a small object every night, adding them together so that by the end of the month I would have a small installation, much like the 12x12 I did a couple years back for the Harwood. But no, finally being hit with the creative bug that I've been waiting for, I had to make it complicated. Rather than making something new each night, I chose to document my creative process of making, technically, one thing. Okay so I'm stretching the meaning of this one-a-day idea, but I'm an artist, I'm allowed right? So I'm making a doll (which I haven't done since I was 10) and creating a stop motion video of the process (which I have essentially never done- I did get stop motion in the brain because of a blog I read from a reverb link, so reverb did play it's part!). Every night I take 50 pictures of my little doll. She's set up in a box on my desk with my camera set up a few feet away. As you may have predicted (a fun creative idea leaves me blind to reality) this is turning out to be a lot of work. On top of the work itself, is the learning curve. 50 pictures equals about 9 seconds of actual video time. So an hour or twos work of little movements and improvements to the doll should seem like a lot has to transpire, but if I make too much happen in a nights work, it's lost in the blink of an eye in the actual video. Anyway, this is way too much detail. The point is I'm learning as I go, you can see it in the documentation. It's humbling. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, if I'm going to display something, I don't want to show my process or in other words, my mistakes. With this, there is no going back, once a change has been made and the picture taken I can't undo it! So, this is a sure way to whip myself into shape, learn something about creating stop motion, or at least creating my own little techniques. By the end of the month I'll have a four minute (give or take) documentation of my learning, my creative process, inspired and uninspired nights. Here I am at day nine, this is what I have so far. Something is wrong with the first couple seconds of this video, but you get the idea.
What do you do each day that doesn't contribute to your writing
The answer to this question is probably the same as the answer to a lot of questions that I ask myself. It's me, I keep myself from writing. Okay so I'm not a wrighter per- say, but fill in the blank. It's the same thing that keeps me from sitting in my studio and getting through this "block", from moving on in areas in my life that need some movin on from. I do it by being busy. Anyone in my life can tell you, I'm eternally busy. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, I've been involved with some great projects and met tons of people along the way, which is part of what keeps me going. But the follow up part is were I'm lacking. The part where I sit down and reflect and process. I've had times in my life when I've missed out. I felt like everything was going faster and better than me, that I couldnt catch up, I let everything pass me by. I had to change everything and with that went the stopping. I want to take-in as much as I can, I missed enough. But now I'm questioning if my method is working. If I can't take the time to enjoy what I've done, to sit with myself, to call one of those people that I met and have an actual connection with them. Is it working? I've learned about myself that I'm a Person of extremes. I always have been, it's just one of those things that took me a long time to learn, and I need to keep learning it. The first of the daily prompts:
-Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word- Swampy. Not really sure what it means to have a swampy year, just it's not bad but hard to trudge through. Great things have happened, frustrating things have happened, there has been some sadness, but over all I feel like there has been a fog around my head. Like one of those days that you just never quite wake up. This has nothing to do with the fact that I'm on my way to New Orleans and just finished watching Harry Potter, both very swamp-sentric. If I could choose a word for the new year, maybe "bright", just a reprieve from the fog. (I'll be able to come up with a better word next year) In my quest to become inspired I've found stop motion photography. I fell asleep thinking of it after I saw a great little video on wholly jeanne's blog. I decided to start off with something simple before I ran away with it. I took 182 photos of this little plastic model tonight and put this first little video togehter. I'm kinda excited about the possibilities!  Okay, I took a challenge today.... not sure what has possessed me, apparently I need a little stirrin up. #reverb10 is an annual online event to reflect on the year. They will have daily prompts to write on and that's where I take over. I leave for a 10 day trip on the 2nd, then holidays which come with more work than usual. So we'll see how I hold up with the daily challenge.
I've hit a creative wall lately. I've hit walls and had peaks, always, but this time it seems to run deeper. I've had to back out of things, leave people hanging for things that had very little create guidlines (which is my favorite type), because I drew a blank. Blank over and over. The more I work, the less creative I feel. The more I sign up for the less time I have to be in the studio, and maybe that's just why I'm so busy. On top of all of the stressers in my life right now, the fact that being alone in the studio sounds stressful to me makes it easier to avoid. So, i'll write. Writing has pulled me out of many holes, creative and emotional. And though it's literally been years since I've written, the urge to pick up a pen (or keyboard) has overwhelmed me while I can't seem to sculpt or draw. My friend, Pilates teacher, and co-circus performer recently came to a few of us proposing that we put a little stilt act together for an upcoming show. Missing the circus and our summer of creative expression and being in amazing shape we all agreed! Then came the details, how would we choreograph a piece that fit with the show's theme, shadows? What are we called, we need costumes... oh and of course stilts! Our small Albuquerque stilt troupe would be called "present Company" which ended up suiting us really well considering that between the two performances and throughout the whole process our group fluctuated between 3-5 people.  I performed this piece with; Jessie Rogers, Colleen Cummins, and Jenny Hipsher. Sarah Wright did our costumes. The performance was done for both the gallery opening and closing. Shadows - a performative exhibition curated by Joyce Neimanas. October 15 - November 12  Building the stilts ended up taking up most of the time we thought we'd be coming up with choreography and practicing.
If I "did art" the way I "do" other things I get involved in I may be a prolific artist. Not that that is the be all end all, but it's something I've never been able to say about myself. It may be nice to be a prolific artist! I'm noticing this as I see the projects and collaborations page of my web-site growing faster than I see the sculpture page growing. One of the projects I'm heavily involved in right now is One Million Bones (and glad for it, if I weren't doing this there would be something else keeping me out of the studio). I'm co-head of the merchandise committee, and though that may seem like a big job, well I don't have a whole lot of merch to handle at the moment. I'm workin on a few things, one of which is a good lookin t-shirt. So we decided, what better way to get one than to hold a contest! So here it is, a t-shirt design contest. We're doin a quick one and mostly publicizing it through social media. The due date for submissions is September 13th. Images should be e-mailed to me at [email protected]. Winner gets a link and a bio on our web-site, some talk on twitter and facebook, oh and a t-shirt they designed! I'm liking this idea. The designs come rolling in to me, so we can choose one when the time comes. In the mean time, I'll try to squeeze some time in my studio!  |
MeSculptor and jeweler, just trying to keep my head above water. That is, in the art world. Archives
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