2 posts tagged “division iii”

1. foot-baths. my feet get really really dirty when i walk around barefooted, especially in the wet-floor dishroom. as anthony and i discussed, it's really good that my feet are small and fit in small buckets.
   
2. more doing, less planning. as many of you know, i do a lot of scheduling, planning, making planners, making schedules, reworking, list-ing, etc. in fact, i would go so far to say that I am really quite a master spreadsheet maker (really learned from the best -- my grandfather). They are my specialty. BUT. one problem is that I end up spending a lot of time making lists, and then the time is gone and I have yet to accomplish something. strange. So this week I have experimented with the phrase, "more doing less planning" to much success i think. examples:
3. i finally did my room installation! it's a full-forced fort (ya hear that will!?!)!! so much so, that in combination with anthony's fort-esque installation, we're really ready for full-blow friendship-wars between our two basecamps. ideas for what to throw at each other, please drop a comment.
   
4. kitchen labels. i might learn how to spell "labels" someday. i finally took it on and am looking at my role as Kitchen Kommando as an art piece exploring domesticity within a necessarily highly functional context. Any ideas or recommendations about food-artists or kitchen-artists please send them my way.
5. working on my website! ok, still nothing to show. i know i know. but i also have reassessed my goals and i'm going to be making a very basic one first, and upgrading it as i go and as i figure out how to do more web-coding-internetz stuff. 
6. organizing my digital life. i moved to an ELECTRONIC CALENDAR. what?!?! and organized my internet bookmarks to not be so centered around my hampshire life (tear). AND, i joined twitter. i'm not sure what this really is useful for, or if it's a good idea or not, but whatevs. now you can follow more random online thoughts of mine. ok, this is a slightly boring #6, but i know you all are really interested in what i've organized recently, and my digital social life.
   
7. posting on my blog. and my more professional blog. which is a little intimidating trying to blog professionally.
   
8. looking up residencies and places to go for next year... hub-bub in spartanburg SC? working within the miami school district as an art person project maker leader teacher? setting up a art-workshops-community-building-organizing-recycled-sustainability-bike-coop-mobile-old-school-bus tour/project with mr. J gamble using the bus from this project!!?! going to israel?
9. applying to go to israel. on birthright free trips gift wow! possible idea: extend the trip and stay in israel and do a residency there or something. ideas?
10. maybe i should rename this post: "ideas?" or "please talk to me?" or "leave some comments dudes!"

i've also been missing everyone who i don't see everyday, and even some of them i do see everyday, a lot. so, i miss you. i know it's dangerous when i start reminiscing about first semester division 3... cause i know how hard and upsetting that was too. it's kinda scary taking on your life and doing stuff with it. declaring that i'm up to something big and i'm out to make a difference. i almost couldn't even write that cause now you all know and will hold me up to that. darn.

i'm really really really excited for my upcoming visitors: my parents!! and then, allison!! wow! what a treat! oh man, so excited. in fact, i made a map of greensboro aliya hot spots (ok, some of them are specifically for my dad, and some are just kinda lame, but.) for their visits! Look how cool this place is! look how much fun you'll have if you come to visit me! limited time only. i head south november 7th. ish.

OFF TO MAKE SOME LUNCH!
(note: we as a collective have finally become slightly tired of eating so many frozen black bean veggie burgers. they have been the staple of all of our diets for at least the past 4 months, and i love them, but i am also slightly over-burgered-out...)

Wow. What a dirty day. Filled with black, dust filled boogers.

Today we (resident Brian and I mostly) tackled the last of the stuff in the way (i.e. everything that was obstructing the way to the second and first floors four years ago when the elsewhere project began and they had to start organizing/ clearing somewhere) on the third floor and moved it around so it was more compact and cleared a space. And then we went to this warehouse and picked up some old industrial shelving (think home depot orange), disassembled it, brought it here, brought it up three flights of stairs (with some help of some really great volunteers and haulers), busted holes in the ceiling because the shelves were too tall, and then reassembled them. Then, tonight after dinner, a crew of guilford college students showed up (george and yuri, another intern, kept calling it "the crew will roll in" "they'll roll from this bbq and then roll out to this person's party after and then the crew will all roll back here" everyone's rolling everywhere.) and we just hauled ass! We picked up all the wood that was put in this room on the second floor that for four years has been called "the wood room" and we brought it upstairs! Right now it's all over the floor, in piles. But tomorrow Brian and maybe me too will keep moving it around and organizing it and putting it on the shelves! So exciting! Then Brian can start his installation in the former wood room! It's going to involve this really old fabric (I guess they all are technically) which is shedding it's fibers, making this sticky-ish (it must be polyester or something) beautiful red dust. It's just amazing. I'm so excited to see what he does with the red dust.

Today during dinner (omg. such a great southern dinner. Collards, fried tomatoes and fried mushrooms, black-eyed peas and coleslaw. It was just so delicious) Brian gave his informal artist talk, where he introduced himself to us and showed us pictures/talked about his previous work. It was so great. I just loved seeing his work and it got me so excited to work with him and also to just start making work again. All day I kept bothering him with a million questions, asking about how he ended up where he is right now. And we talked about Harrell Fletcher and community art and artist residencies and how it took until grad school or an artist residency where someone was refering to you and looking at you as "the artist" and not just some person who might be doing art for him to rise to the occasion and become the artist and stop thinking that he's just messing around or doing whatever. So that was exciting. Exciting to think about my division III (like a senior thesis at Hampshire college) as my time to think of myself as "the artist" and just be that. I'm so excited.

My parents suggested another way I can use my last two weeks here. They suggested that I come up with a new division III idea every day and test it out with the people around me or talk to them about it or get feedback from this great artist community around me who's doing such cool stuff and has mostly been in this kind of boat before. So here's my suggestion for tonight: (oh man, i might not post them all because then I'd feel they have to be important and good. so don't judge my first one. I thought of this during Brian's artist talk)

I could make a ton of stuffed animals and then place them in mass quantities in places there aren't really usually lots of those animals. Or they could be made up animals, or weird versions, not dead, but maybe really small or really big. Also, maybe they could be hanging. or have a lot of parts inside. I like the idea of people holding the stuffed animals-things. or taking them around and taking them on adventures. or adding stories to things that have their own stories inherently.

I feel self conscious about posting that, because it doesn't seem involved in community enough or involved in a specific cause, but i think I just need to stop stressing out that i wont make a difference or that my project will be dumb. So I'll just keep brainstorming and generating ideas and hopefully they'll get better. Hopefully you my faithful reader won't have to hear all my stupid ideas before I get to some good ones.

This just in: I have some misinformation in one of my earlier posts. Danna just told me that she is not in fact certified to teach pilates anywhere. She's on her way to be certified in Raleigh, but not yet. So, if she teaches a class here (yes she will. before she leaves. next week. ahhhh. she's leaving next week) it won't be official, but she has a book. So it'll be amazing.

Another important update: I tried, yet again, to have a plain white shirt (got one at the big hospice sale last week) and what do you know, I end up dying things saffron, and now I have a saffron shirt and no white shirt. But I really like the saffron. It's just so pretty and vibrant. Not as good as onion skin dye, but whatever. I didn't want to do the creepy weird artist thing again where I go from grocery store to grocery store sweeping up the onion skins from the bottom of the onion display into a plastic bag and leaving.

Dental hygiene update! Yesterday I just felt the urge to floss. Yes. I did. So I flossed, and brushed my teeth, and then Eliza walked into the bathroom, and so I inspired her to do a face mask, and then she brushed her teeth, and we just had a great little mid-day hygiene break! better than a cigarette break! I just felt great afterwards. I love impromptu cleaning.

I feel so excited! I'm so excited for my last weeks here! And art making! I think that sitting here on the fire escape makes me feel like I'm flying. I'm not scared to be up here anymore. It just feels nice like flying. So I think my stuff hanging off of this thing will involve flying.

I think danna is making biscuits right now. That sounds so good.