5 posts tagged “elsewhere”

These streets will make you feel brand new,
the lights will inspire you.

I went to NYC last week! I made it to this awesome conference! I didn't have a ticket, but I made it in... AND got to see some awesome galleries and friends new and old! what a packed weekend.

I wore Harrell Fletcher's wrist band to get in! Suzanne Lacy indirectly bought me a beer! I was part of one of the most incredible critical social-practice-art-intense theory/practical conversations since/including all my art classes and it lasted forever but was so good for every minute.

Here is my powerpoint that I gave to the other Elsewherians when we returned:

Here are some key points i'm taking back with me.

• utilizing under-appreciated resources in a community - how can we bring value to these non-monetary exchanges?
• where are the non-art people in these conversations? how can we engage in this type of art conversation outside of an art circle -- is it necessary to be considered an artist in order to have the freedom to do these types of projects/get funding within our current system of understanding and advocating art in public practices?
• must get involved with the grassroots groups already tackling the project/ideas i want to consider in my artwork: they are the ones already connected and trusted by the community
• an ongoing need for a revolution: is academia a "safe zone" for us (artists) to develop ideas and projects that go back out into the "war zone" of real life?
• legislative art? does it give more structure/results than more esoteric art pieces? a way of having art take responsibility for it's power and the issues it responds to (benefits from?)
• how do you measure the success of a project -- is it art because it is measureless? does that lead to esoteric and meaningless art pieces? is that ok -- isn't it ok to dream and create without creating measurable results? what if the results are un-measurable and yet still have just as profound an effect as any other act and effort?
• distinct, political goal oriented projects can still have esoteric, indeterminable artistic moments.
  
• how do i avoid over-thinking and critiquing my work to the point that my theory paralyzes my action and making?
• there are always consequences to your practice: but where, and how, and who has control over those ideas once they are out in the world? We have to stop thinking we don't impact -- even if it is only impacting yourself.
  
• "If artists felt like they could do anything, why are 95% making paintings?"
• how can artists instrumentalize their cultural capital?
• do long-term goals paralyze immediate action that could be considered merely a "bandaid" to the larger issue? are the smaller projects still valid? necessary! how can they be incorporated and a valid contribution to/acknowledgment of the larger picture?
• be present to your human condition, compassion, feelings, thoughts, authenticity.
  
  

first proposal deadline: November 6!

Call for Performance Proposals
The Art Shanty Projects and mnartists.org are seeking individuals or groups interested in producing programs on frozen Medicine Lake in Plymouth, MN from January 16 through February 14, 2010.

• bags of trash
• bagging, bundling, storing, hiding things away
• secrets
• cocoons
• sleeping bag brigades/forts/fortresses/armies
• sewing circles
• ice cream making
• ice-dying
• slowly made tiny ice igloos/sculptures
• freezing things into the ice
• carnival
• country faire
• rallying point
• a flag pole
• flag-making
• lots of flags all over the place like post-it notes.
  
• claiming lands; making continents; making forts; making a place /territory/rules/games/ways of speaking/walking/doing
• ice-risk?
• drawing maps on the ice
• dress making
• ice-dress-fashion-show
• ice-project-runway
• ice-iron-chef
• ice-friday-night-lights
• ice-freaks-and-geeks
• disney on ice
• installations all over the place
• mousetrap, the human ice-version
• making shish-kebobs
• fax machine games x 100
• ticket to ride out the wazoo
• letter writing
• movie making
• home movie reenactments
• olympics on ice!
• Childhood sleeping bags
• tea parties
• snow cones
• gladiators
• elaborate structures for random competitions(rock paper scissors, jumping jacks, shortest, thumbwars): get evan scofield involved.
• Mobiles... of ice?
• truck-ice-skiing
• sitting in a cool truck.
• trucks in general.
• hauling stuff.
  
• puppies! kittens! ice-pet shop! Stuffed animal making!!!!!!!
• locally-inspired play: bring a basically created plot with lots of open spots and involve local volunteers and local issues into the cast/plot: create the props and parts, have easily jump-in-a-ble roles and positions, be flexible to the community's needs.
• People's living rooms. Grandma's living rooms. Memories of grandmas living rooms. What happens in living rooms. What is a living room.
• Canadian border? Where the hell is minneapolis anyway (talk to athena?)
• Written as an outsider looking for a place to be.

some magical things happened on the vacation drive home. I was talking with some of the residents (molly, rachelle, and eliza, the esteemed riders in my car) about elsewhere and i could all of a sudden see outside of myself. They talked about how amazed they were to step into this community, one which was so incredibly generous, so enthusiastic, so positive and excited. How they'd never seen a group be so much of a group, so intensely together and dedicated to doing things together, to taking care of each other, to welcoming the new residents in and making them feel a part of the family. How they'd overhear a meeting in the kitchen, and realize that we actually were having a 45 minute conversation and debate about whether or not to cook frozen pizzas on friday (public event) night dinners -- were they easier to make? easier to clean up? easier to eat? cheaper? or just as much trouble as other food? do we even like pizza? They said how amazed they were to see that actually happening with such dedication and seriousness.

And eliza said how seeing that, and seeing everyone jump in so whole-heartedly into molly's performance last friday (which involved all of us performing as some body-system-part --- i was the mouth chomping in the digestive system! it was an incredibly sweaty costume and a really bizzarre experience interacting with people in body-sacks as a chomping/bowing mouth...) inspired her to make bathing suits for everyone in the community, even though it would be a lot of work. that she was totally willing to give as much as we were because she knew it would be reciprocated.

I'm trying to figure out what it is about elsewhere that i have fallen in love with -- and get frustrated by and confused by and discombobulated and inspired and lost in. what is the essence that i am so drawn to, that makes this place -- certainly not greensboro of which i know very very little about -- feel like home? how can this be entirely beautiful, rewarding, real, visceral, tangible as i can reach out and touch my roommate's foot, sweaty and stinking, bubbling and delicious, but also entirely removed, in a world of its own, un-real and imagined. temporary but forever?

i'm not a poet, but i'm an artist so i can say these things. also, i mean them. i am learning to bathe in my confusion and thoughts, instead of continuing to struggle and drown in them.

tonight, a mysterious person added to my art installation over my bed! They put little nests of blue ribbons on parts of my trees which already have red ribbons tied on it. I love it. I love sleeping under random branches stuck in the corners of my bed. And these blue nests make it so much better. Thank you mysterious ribbon distributor. You are amazing.

I'm sorry I haven't updated as regularly as before. It's been crazy in a weird way. A way I haven't really understood why I'm so busy because I feel like I have a lot of time still. Last week was taken up a lot by trying to finish these play costumes and props. What a freakin ordeal. We found out that the saffron dress I made was hideous (which it was because I didn't have measurements or a dress model or a working machine or whatever) and so we had to find another one quick. Danna and I spent all of Wednesday driving around, getting lost at literally every step of the mapquest directions, thrift shopping for this stupid dress. We didn't find a saffron one, so we got a white one and then got dye and dyed it saffron. And then, we stopped at the laundry mat to finish drying the dresses because I had just dyed them, and we made it to the rehearsal before it ended, and SHE DIDN'T EVEN LOOK CLOSELY AT THE DRESSES WE'D SPENT ALL DAY ON!!! It was crazy. I presented her with four dresses - one that I altered a bunch, and two that we thrifted for and then I'd dyed. And the last one was some yellow dress I just threw in there at the last minute, an Elsewhere dress. And that's the one she liked. One of the ones I'd pulled from the closet the week before. So crazy. Commissions are so much work. I guess I learned about how to make it seem like you know what you're doing. And how to work with impossibly specific and difficult considerations.

I spent a lot of time in the car with Danna talking about elsewhere and how the staff works. It feels like it could work better, and I think everyone knows that, it's just about figuring out how to actually make that happen. It seems like Stephanie and George and Mary and Danna do a ton of work all the time, and then there are a bunch of interns hanging around that do important things, but also could be taking some of the slack off of everyone else. At the same time, there is something really nice about doing data entry into this big database of media emails with Lily and George - it makes it feel less like mindless work and I get to interact with people really in charge of this whole operation, not just someone who's my supervisor or delegator. At the same time, that's not the best use of George's time. I've been feeling really weird and upset because I realized I'm leaving in about two and a half weeks and that just seems way too soon. I wish I were staying all summer. I feel like even in just the last week I've found my place here so much more and really settled down, like I could figure out what I'm doing here more now or how I could work better. But I'm leaving! Because they said the internship ends July 9! But now everyone's saying I should stay forever!

I realized I was worried that I'm not important or no one will care when I'm gone. Which is totally my own thing and not the fault of the internship length or elsewhere or whatever. I know that my job here is to support what's going on and do what's needed to make this thing run or make it so that other people have more time to do jobs I can't do. So I do other things like cook dinner on the busy night or make the saffron dress or really scrub down the dishroom. I think because i'm good at a lot of little things and I don't complain about doing some dirty work I end up doing that stuff a lot in situations I'm in and then I feel dispensable even though I know I'm appreciated and I'm making a difference somehow.

So today I overheard another intern (from Greensboro) Chelsea talking to George about ways to make elsewhere run better and so I stepped into that conversation and it was really great to talk about it and make concrete ways for the intern system to run better and be delegated. And George sorta saw what I was saying about someone needing to do the actually work but me also wanting to take on more responsibility and he said that there was something in me being the chef and having all those things taken care of so that other people can make the events happen. And that that role could be the whistle blower, or the person who starts things like the all-staff event clean or right before the event gathers everyone together, is the person who declares it begun and everyone on the same page. I sorta feel like that's throwing me a bone for what I already do, but it's also just re-framing it and it makes sense. That's more of a job that I feel inspired by and about doing, and something that I could really make into something. More than just being the person who picks up whatever slack, instead I could be the person who's generating the whole staff working and that mostly could include picking up slack. Maybe i'm making this all sound too grandiose. But I've just been thinking a lot lately about how my role here could grow, and how I feel limited even to decorate my room because I'm leaving so soon, and how I don't know how I fit in in most organizations I'm in because I so often take roles which support other people -- which I'm good at -- but maybe I need to think about how I could support others in a way that doesn't always have me cleaning the dishroom? But maybe that's just what I need to be doing right now. man, putting things up on the internet really makes it seem forever and like it has to be important. I hope those last three heavy paragraphs didn't weigh anyone down too much.

Because I'm really not just doing lame stuff around here. I am really taking on this week making some of my own artwork (waking up at the crack of dawn!) and also working in the space in a way that is exciting AND supportive. Today and yesterday I worked with Brian, a new artist resident who arrived last Thursday, in clearing out the third floor pile of crap. He wants to do an installation in a room on the second floor that is currently filled with haphazardly piled wood. So we're going to build a new wood organization structure on the third floor and then he can make his installation in that room on the second. But that meant attacking "shit continent" which is a pile of stuff moved out of the first and second floors five years ago and piled in half of the large room on the third floor and literally held back with chicken wire and disguised with blue fabric (if we can't see it it doesn't exist!) So it was just really great to really attack something and find all this great stuff and just be on a discovery tour and make clear progress in the space. I can't wait to keep going, and to start clearing out the wood room, and just have all this creation going on around me.

As part of clearing out the stuff on the third floor, we found a pile of disintegrating army surplus supplies. One of the installations on the third floor took all of the army surplus items in all of Elsewhere and the artist inspected each piece and labeled it "serviceable" or "unserviceable" based on real military standards, and then numbered each item, cataloged it, and placed it in this one room. It's a really intense and awesome installation (and super creepy at specific times of night) and has a log book for taking out or putting in any items from the room. So part of clearing the third floor was entering in this stuff we found and putting it into this other installation.

Also, Travis was working on the bathroom he's clearing out and then adding dust and a whole installation to and so we kept hearing great dripping noises and all other noises while he's sitting in the room next door, next to a bathtub and sink that he spray adhesive-d dust that I collected for him from the vacuum and it was just really cool. I can't wait to see how it keeps going.

Another exciting thing going on is this Obama Unite for Change House party I'm organizing. It's going to be at the cheesecake store down the road because Elsewhere is a nonprofit and can't really hold those kinds of things, and I put my fingers out on the internet and have all these people I don't know confirming that they're coming and that's really exciting, and then I also made a rockin poster (using some elsewhere solar system phamphlet I found and my signature tearing the words out and scanning-- I love the scanner) so I'm gonna pick that up and distribute it tomorrow before the staff meeting. I'm so excited! I'm gonna wake up early, make some art out of movie seat covers, bike to the copy shop with Lily, have a staff meeting, clean the space, and then haul some more shit with Brian! What a great life! And I even get to wear a great dress while doing it all! I found this sorta scout-looking dress with red zippers and pockets all over so I thought it would be a great big cleaning day dress.

Even more random things that are exciting:

    * I had a hairwrap! in my hair! for about four hours. It was so great. Danna put it in my hair in the back behind my ear, the longest pieces of my hair (about 3 inches! wow. I hadn't really measured or thought about it in a while. I remember now when I was pinching my hair and calling it long...) And it was great. It was red and golden-yellow and saffron ribbon and a grey light blue and she put in a white feather too! But really my hair's still too short, and it fell out when I took a shower.
    * I gave a tour with Eliza (another intern) to a real outside person! It went well. I feel like I learned a lot about some rooms I didn't know so much about from Eliza, and it was just really exciting to talk about Elsewhere to someone else. You should come visit so I can give you an official tour too!
    * Travis (one of the residents) and I made dinner last friday and it was so good (wow, I think this list could be renamed, "I did this. And It was so great.") We made pizza in three flavors: spicy garlic-y mushrooms and onions, spinach artichoke, broccoli, and bean feta tomato and cilantro (inspired by Amherst's Antonios pizza!). A real morale booster on the end of a crazy week.
    * Danna's best friend, Aaron came to visit and he went to Umass and so we had lots to talk about about Amherst. And it was funny to be talking about Hampshire and Amherst things here-- also refreshing. I miss my mod 4squared sisters and everyone around Hampshire! Oh what am I saying. I miss everyone. I have too many people I love who are all over the place.
    * When Danna and I went to Raleigh to pick up Aaron, we got to go to locopops in Chapel Hill and OMG! I got locopops for everyone and it was quite a production. Mango Passionfruit was amazing, as was the Thai Rice Pudding. And the Chocolate Sesame Wasabi flavor had some kick! I love locopops. Locopops is the reason why I will always return to North Carolina. And because I love it here. This is my crush state. As a little kid I figured out I would end up here because Texas and Florida were too hot, and Pittsburgh was too cold, so I picked a state in the middle. Also, I had this rule in my head thinking that once you lived in a state, you can never live there again. So my options were a little more limited.

Ok. No more hating, no more complaining, no more feeling insignificant or small or worthless here. I am on a mission! I am so pumped! I can't believe I have to go to bed and lay comatose for upwards of 7 hours! What a waste of time! at least I get to sleep under my newly embellished trees.

Goodnight everyone.

ok, peeps. here's the dealio.

First of all, for those of you who are still confused and for some reason not comprehending what the hell is going on in this blog, I am at Elsewhere, an artist collaborative, in North Carolina. It's amazing. People come here and make art all over the freaking place out of this huge collection of stuff that George's grandma collected between 1939 and 1997. see a few posts back for some more details. I'm here till the beginning of July, working as a production intern. Check out the website! come visit! Drop me a line and we'll talk a bit!

And here's the big news. I have to cut back on my blogging. I know i know, it's become a real important part of your day and life. But you'll just have to do with a bit less. Or start commenting. you know. But I've realized today that I've been hiding out and not making art because I'm scared it'll be dumb or i'm just an intern or this isn't really what I should be doing or I think it won't make a difference. So I haven't been doing anything, and making a lot of really great reasons not to. So I have to devote some blog time to art time. I'm gonna make sure I do at least one art thing - whatever that means - everyday. I'm still gonna update. Probably just more lists.

like this one.

Things I'm excited about in the very near future:

1. The UNC surplus sale tomorrow morning! we're waking up at 6:45am and leaving at 7:30 and I made a picnic breakfast and we're gonna run and grab tags of cheap supplies and it'll be so great. Like high powered tag sales. Exactly that actually.
2. Then! We have the artist conversation! After I make lasagna  -- with tomato sauce I made tonight -  and it' gonna just be great. I don't really know what's gonna happen tomorrow in the same way that I understood what was going on last week, but this week is going to be good too.
   
3. SATURDAY! is urban green, and then I'm going to get stuff done, and then! we play CITY! Which i've figures out is basically just a huge game of pretend. I love it! I can't wait to be silly and have fun. Also, George suggested that maybe I could do an audio story about city or the characters in it or something. I'm intrigued. I just remembered the power of interviewing. I'm gonna keep thinking about things.
4. I just have a lot of weird and random ideas floating around my head ever since I got upset and confronted about not making art. But I'm going to start doing this stuff.
   
5. I'm going to talk to the cheesecake store tomorrow and enroll them in hosting the obama party! I'm so excited about the ingeniousness about this combination of interests. Who isn't interested in cheesecake? or at least soy-cheesecake?

1. I made dinner with Danna and we made spring rolls and they were beautiful and delicious and it was so fun to cook with her.
   
2. We went on a group trip to the ymca. It was nice. and refreshing.
   
3. I cleaned the hell out of a room on the third floor. vacuuming up dust is so satisfying.