4 posts tagged “kitchen”

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...)

hello! welcome back! hi! i'm back! i'm here! you're there, or wherever, but really, you should know that you are definitely welcome to come visit me here. for realz. let me tell you a little bit about here:

I've returned to Elsewhere. Since the last time we talked (unless you followed me to my super profesh senior thesis blog), I explored community-art outside of a collective, was part of another arts organization, put on different kinds of public-art-events, installed a multi-room fabric-based installation which included a team of improv performers and silly hats and memories and stories and letters, and I graduated college.

This season I'm back at Elsewhere as the Community Coordinator. I'm ready to bring it. Bring the ideas and experiences I've learned from this year, bring my critical thinking about my last summer here, and bring Greensboro and Elsewhere together in some amazing way!

Step one: get a super great email address. community@elsewhereelsewhere.org. wow, it's perfect! DONE.

What else has been going on?

-I moved into the Tourism Office, in the Travel Agency. It's in the front window of 608. It took me a little bit to settle in there. A solid day of moving things around, trying to figure out the un-even floor, and bookshelves, desks, lamps, fans. these are basics, but at elsewhere, you have to go searching for those things, and on top of it, you have to figure out a logical place for all the stuff you just moved out of wherever you're cleaning. it's tiring. but, you have to keep remembering that you have an entire building filled with things that you get to use for your intensely personal and useful and functional desk space! wow! For now, my desk is kinda just a desk. that's my job for tomorrow or thursday: make desk-magic (what this means is TBA)

-I kicked butt in the kitchen. This season I'm the Kitchen Kommando, which i was kinda iffy about at first, but then Danna posed it like this, "think of this job as a long term, uber-functional living installation. Think about curating the kitchen as an art piece. Think about making it a piece you would put into your artistic portfolio." WOAH: what a challenge. I took it. Last night I installed some new community communication boards: chalkboards to discuss important things like alternative words to the incredibly over-used elsewhere word of the month, "moment" (used as a verb, noun, preposition, really whatever you want: "this is a real tofu moment right here." "and then after the artist conversation we'll have a dance-party moment" ETC ETC ETC.... AAAHHHH! in truth, it's kinda addictive. but i gotta keep this word under control). We also now have a "centerpiece competition sign-up for the next month, and a place to discuss our upcoming Elsewhere Family Vacation to the Beach in early August! I made a folder and wrote "ACCOUNTABILITY" on it, and hung it right next to the kitchen table. Everyone started asking me questions about that almost immediately... in truth it's just a pad of paper and a pen, and people will be able to write down and communicate to everyone else about their dish or their mess. I'm not sure if this'll really work in truth, but we'll see what happens.

-I started a personal room installation. It felt good to finally settle in somewhere after living out of my car (fun, but) for a month. I put up a tiny shelf to display a random assortment of things, including: a book called "Peanut and Jilly Forever (Peanut Butter and Jelly, No. 2): Peanut and Jilly, the most competitive girls in their class, think that they cannot stand each other, until their teacher assigns them the task of studying and writing reports about each other....", a tiny sailboat, a ceramic sculpture that my friend Kristian sent me that looks like one of the stuffed animals I designed this spring, and a few stems of a dried flowers picked from Hampshire College the night I left. I also found the lace collar that Lily wore all the time last summer; now it's on my window sill. Future plans: intense landscape-skyscape surrounding my bed. So I'll take adventures to unknown places in my dreams! It's just thoughts right now, but I've really been feeling the abstract-landscapes lately, and the idea of floating clouds makes me really excited. Not to mention the fact that I have a super awesome roommate, Amber, and we're planning a collabo installation... more thoughts needed before reporting on that one.

-Business Class, led by myself and Amber, is in full swing. by the end of the summer (middle? now? yesterday?) we plan to have our business-artist selves fully equipt with the skills, tools, and ephemera needed to be official businesswomen in the world of making art. On the to-do list: make our websites (actually make content this time? not spend so much time dreaming of the aesthetics or complicated html we can't actually make?), make business cards, make etsy stores <<< CHECK IT OUT!! http://aliyarose.etsy.com >>>  (to sell our handmade, in-demand goods!), and update our artistic long term resumes. look out world, highly marketable artists coming your way.

-I jumped into the SEA! A big project I'll be working on this summer is developing the SEA, the South Elm Alliance. Elsewhere is reaching out! We're connecting and preserving our south elm community! AND, we got a great grant to work on this with! So, while i'm super excited by this, it's also incredibly overwhelming. I have to walk around? and talk to people? and enroll them in how awesome Elsewhere is?? Geezeeee. I keep reminding myself that this is what I want to be doing and making, and this is the best way to connect with people and form communities, and that it'll happen! It's slow work and takes time and face contact and multiple meetings! But it's also just scary. My first excursion last week went well though. I felt encouraged by how I could just go up to someone and tell them about this place and give them a flyer and genuinely connect in a small way. It's a start. I'm starting, beginning, settling in, making my place here. It sorta feels like the beginning of my senior thesis project all over again-- I just had forgotten how sucky it was at the beginning when I didn't know what the heck I was doing and just felt flounder-y.

Our first project was being in the Greensboro Fourth of July Parade!

I love parades and so I signed us up to have a float! and then invited all our neighbors to march with us. It was really great. Successes:

• we made some incredible costumes: two "fish-ponchoes" which people wore over hats and made them look like fish, one whale poncho (with a gold tooth!), a yellow submarine we could push around on wheels, and three individual cardboard boats that people wore like suspenders.
  
• two of our neighbors marched in the parade with us! Thank you Charlie and Ruth!
• two awesome volunteers showed up (more on time than we were!), put on some costumes and enthusiastically paraded with us as well! Thanks Morgan and Graham!
• On top of a parade, we also hosted a children's storytelling and activities tent at the festival part of Greensboro's celebration. Thank you to interns Alexa and Diana for organizing that piece of our participation in Greensboro's 4th of July!
• In the evening, resident artist Anthony and I made a delish 4th of July dinner for our Elsewhere community: vegan potato salad (tahini, mustard, lemon, oil and parsely!), vegan asian citrus cole-slaw, stir-fried greens, hot dogs, hamburgers (mixed by our very own grampa george), black-bean burgers, and for dessert! a peach-blueberry cobbler (also vegan!) wow! wash that down with a cheerwine! It was so good. I love dinner parties.
• *****PHOTOS!!!: check out ELSEWHERE'S FLICKR STREAM!!******
  

So that's what's been going on around here! And, I've been lucky enough to have visitors already! Elizabeth, with me through the thick-and thin of everything, AND my dedicated driving-down-south partner, was my first visitor here on the first few days when I was pulled from one meeting to another, not really having the settled-ness to give her a proper tour, but we managed to make a three-layer carrot cake and have a proper send-off none-the-less. Matt, John, and Ashley were my second visitors, stopping in last weekend just long enough for a look around and some delish dinner (tofu fish sticks?) on their expansive trip of the south. Thank you for visiting all of you, your presence in this wonderland makes it a bit more real, while at the same time making me a little sad for the community I have just left. 

back to the installation of sleeping, cleaning, living, brushing my teeth, making magical things happen.
aliya

P.S. I am gonna try for shorter and more concise (more frequent?) posts this summer: Rockin' the less is more mantra. Well, we'll see I guess. That might turn into an entirely too vague and meta dialogue with myself.

P.P.S. I'll be the official update-er for Elsewhere's CITY blog: check it out! I don't even know what that version of my internet self is gonna look like...

***

SIDE NOTE:

we just had an artist talk (internal informal presentations that the visiting artists give a few days after they arrive to introduce us to their work) by anthony lowe, who did a collection/blog which picked out incredibly embarrassing or raw bits from strangers' blogs and re-posted them on his blog. This makes me both incredibly self-conscious of my own random ramblings on this blog, but it also inspired me to create yet another blog. This will be an invented blog, an invented set of ponderings and reports. I'm thinking it could be a collabo blog... we'll see. any suggestions, leave a comment.

we (me, mary, and travis) have just decided that here at elsewhere we meet all the time. Meetings all the time! (I LOVE MEETINGS AND I CAN'T HIDE IT!) and working all the time. or art making. Right now we are meeting at the kitchen table. I feel ok about that because I cleaned the kitchen table so I know it's clean. I have a thing about dirty tables. At school, I'm always the one to really scrub down the table and make sure it's clean. At home, I'm the one that really scrubs the cutting boards. Because I really like surfaces to be clean. maybe that should be a theme in my art.

I have been art making! I started with drawing. coloring. With the markers and crayons that I found in the bear-bee bag. I feel silly saying "coloring" but that's what I was doing. And it felt good. Just to sit on the floor and draw. Made me less uptight about all this art making. Then I went on to some collaging. My dad loves when I collage. I'm not sure why. When I was littler we used to do a lot of hardcore collaging with my babysitter. The same one that taught me to make that chana-masala indian chickpea dish. She's the best. I forget her name. Mom, do you remember?

Yesterday I was the Fan Communist. I thought maybe it was the Fan Fascist, and that had some alliteration, but really I was more of a communist. It was in the interest of the state, in the interest of equal circulation distribution. Mary and I took an inventory of all the fans on every floor. We took notes. Then we assessed all the rooms and places that needed fans. And thoughtfully placed the fans in those locations on our maps such that each would be best used. Then I made labels on the type writer and finished it off with a great ladder stamp. Then I cut each label to size and stuck it on each fan. Then I redistributed all the fans. The whole thing took me all afternoon. And I ran into one confrontation, when I had to take a fan from someone, and tried to give them another that turned out to be broken. Hopefully it's fixed. I didn't follow up on that. Loophole in the bureaucracy. (I think you all should know, as my mom does, that I keep writing "label" and "table" like "lable" and "tabel" by accident because I can never remember which way it goes. So frustrating)

Today we went to this really really big hospice sale in Burlington and it was freaking insane. I kept being anxious the whole time and telling myself to calm the hell down because it was really over nothing, I was just freaking out with all my lists and trying to keep track of money and time and things we need and things I need and things I really don't need. I made myself only buy things I really loved, and so I only ended up buying I think 3 things. It was weird. I could tell I just wasn't in the best mood for buying stuff. But I did get some great plain shoes (keds), a great plain white shirt (because even though I bought 3 before coming here, by the time I got here they had already become other colors because I'm so scared of having a boring white shirt. Must refrain. Must embrace plainness). And then I got some really sweet red upside down "jewish grandmother" (as Eliza called them) sunglasses. My Jewish Grandmothers will probably think they're silly. Because they are classy ladies.

Anyways, it was freaking intense. And a bit picked over. It is the second to last day of the big sale. So I think this was a good day to get a lot of bag deals, but stuff like the clothes was way picked over. But like I said, I'm ok with that. I am satisfied with my and elsewhere's purchases (I got an ice cream maker!!!!!! Also, I bargained for an air purifier that said $10 and I got if for $2. yep. Just call me up. I'll work for you too.)

Anyways, after that, the rest of the day was just freaking weird.

Things I've accomplished:

1. registered officially for an online art history course later this summer. To get it out of the way so I can focus on Division 3 this fall and not have to do an art history class then. I am officially a Lake Tahoe Community College student!
2. Ordered the books.
3. Ordered the book again when the freaking seller decided they didn't actually exist.
4. Make some mail art
5. make a calendar of the rest of my time here. Got really sad about how short it is. Only three more artist conversations!!! Also, a new person moved into our room when Claire left yesterday (very very sad), and they have all these ideas to make it different and are probably going to stay into the fall, and it makes me a little sad. Because I came here thinking that there were these specific dates that I was allowed to be here, and then I had to leave. And my bed was going to be given to the next intern. And now this other person just gets to come in and be here forever. And I know I have other things now, but it just makes me a little sad. Mary said it: I realized I'm a little scared I'm going to be replaced. Even though I'm not the most important person around here, I want to be more important! Everyone wants to be important and missed, right? On that note, Stephanie told me the other day that I can definitely come back and talk to her about post-graduate work when that time comes. I'm not sure if the people reading this will be excited about that or not, but I am. for now at least. It's really comforting to know I can come back and will be wanted. I hope.
   
6. I used Sam's employee discount at Office Depot today! I felt really important.
   
7. I made a four layer cake with strawberry sauce in the middle of each layer and a freaking chocolate mess on top. It was in honor of Claire, and we all ate it on Saturday. It was beautiful. And hideous. It looked like a pile of chocolate something on a giant plate. I used a giant spoon to serve it out for everyone. But it tasted great. Four freaking layers! Erik, if you're reading this, no one was poisoned or even made sick by my cake! I thought of you while making it.
8. I started using my journal I bought for Elsewhere and Division III.
   

Art projects in my head/on the (metaphoric) table:

1. Bathing suit liner pouches
2. studies on sagging (a meditation on how the denim log cabin is sagging only one and a half weeks after it's completion. A look at aging I guess. But not in a sad way really)
3. studies on loneliness. I hope this doesn't turn into another stupid cocoon project
4. mail art (send me your addresses! keep your boxes checked! Pray that postage doesn't go up anymore!)
5. something hanging off of the fire escape. It's maybe my favorite place in elsewhere so far that is pretty accessible and not quite an art installation yet. I just love being there. And imagining slides to other roofs or something. Even though I would be terrified to use them if they existed. Also, this is probably not an ok place to have art, but I think if I call it a part of the Urban Green Alley way community garden project, it'll be totally cool.
   
6. painting. I am imagining rolling out a big piece of paper and just painting some stuff.

Workshops I am going to rally up people for and do at some point I hope:

1. Shoe decorating (hopefully not tackily)
2. website making (maybe a bit more ambitious. But I'm just so inspired by Mary's website. It's beautiful.)
3. music swap
4. hair wraps with feathers (danna says she could do a sweet hair wrap on my hair in the back! How freaking cook would that be! I'd be like a real live art crazy then! oh, today, someone told me, "Do you know that you really do look French? And that's a good thing!" Would a hair wrap with feathers make me look more or less French? And what does that even mean? Do I look like a french fries? Or like the Eiffle tower?)
5. mending/ adding pockets to things/ adding straps to bags without them circle. Hopefully the sewing machines will be fixed????
6. still life club. Danna wants to do this. I'm excited. More drawing practice. But we were thinking of a better name: The Non-Moving Objects Club. I can't remember the others.
7. Pilades class. Danna is a certified teacher in Chicago! And you know what kind of standards they have there. Also, it seems that I always end up in situations where I am organizing dance/aerobics/exercise classes.
   

Goodnight! tomorrow Lily and I are going to the Y early in the morning and she's going to work out with me! and then the big clean and all that shit. I get so pumped to do things late at night, but then I'll be dead tomorrow if I actually don't go to bed. I'll just have to wait till tomorrow I guess.

(dad, no pictures this post. sorry. tomorrow i will make sure to take pictures)

So I think I will introduce you to the space (as it is called as a whole) in sections based on where I am updating. Tonight I am on a green couch which I'm sure has a name but I don't know it yet so I will call it the jungle because it is very green and i am surrounded by fake greenery and artificial christmas trees. which is a little scary cause it keeps touching my shoulder and I think i'm being eaten by bugs. From here I can see the skyscraper in front of me. Which is super tall and window-y, and kinda like a tree house maybe. but with more glass things. Maybe I can go up there. I'll investigate tomorrow.

I can also see the kitchen, which I like a lot. cause I like to eat food. and because it's so freakin organized! and I LOVE organization!!! there's a co-op list and chore list and different cards that describe each job and people who are cooking start at 6 and serve dinner at 7:30 and blow the whistle to tell us all that it's time to eat! and then we eat! and today J installed a new piece of glass over the pantry-thing so there's this light coming in when you go to get peanut butter!. avacadoes, oranges, and apples and onions hang from some baskets, I found a strawberry scooper thing to scoop out the stems of the tons of strawberries I cored and froze this morning cause some people went berry picking this morning early, and there's art in the kitchen too! There's a whole pile of salt and pepper shakers. And pieces of those play-skool plastic kitchens. My favorite part of the kitchen I can't see right now but i'll tell you about it anyway. Its the community calendar over the kitchen table. it's made of a grid of string and clothespins holding up little tea set plates with numbers on them for the days of the month. Then there's different colored index cards that represent different people coming and going and different events. So cool! I got to set up june's today. it makes me feel important. Also, I couldn't find a "J" to start the "June" so I used a Jack card from a deck of cards. It made me feel like I'm slowly getting into this groove, figuring out how to make my own collection and add to this place productively instead of just moving around already collected stuff.

I have a desk now. It is my place to do projects and collect things and no one touches it. So far I have only collected three things. I am taking it slow. I want to explore the second and third floors more tomorrow to excavate things that other people haven't already organized ("organized") in the first floor or already collected. THings on my desk right now: a small blue toy truck, a  thin compass, a plastic horse that looks like it is itching it's head with it's back foot. I'd never seen a plastic horse that wasn't posing for the prom or whatever. There was a toaster on my desk to begin with, so I'm gonna make it my inbox. I need to make a sign for that. And laminate it. I'm excited about scanning and laminating. Those are two of my more enjoyed office tasks. Especially when making art things.

Today was a bit weird. I just started doing stuff, taking apart the display in front right now so we can put up a new one for the artist conversations event we have this friday. I now hate pulling staples out of floors. But it looks pretty good/clean right now. Satisfying feeling. I'm also trying to still (ok, I guess I've only been here one freaking day. but I feel like I should have it all worked out already) figure out my schedule. If I am "working" from noon till 11, I guess I should wake up early and go to the YMCA and workout and shower then come back and do whatev till work time. But I wonder if I'll actually do that. Yes. I will. I just declared it. And it's on the internet, so must be true. 

One thing I've been feeling all day is just wishing I'd been here forever or at least five years. So many people all around are so in it and have been doing this for so long and it's just so impressive! So many charts and meetings and things are just really working! People are busting ass everywhere, and it works! they have so many different things going on. Like, this summer. We're going to have artist conversations events every Friday night with a new installation and focus and the museum will ideally be slightly different each week and everyone works all week to make it happen that weekend. And every Saturday we're starting to renovate the outside alley into an urban garden! I've been learning about urban gardens all semester in Grassroots Community Development class and now I get to walk into this community and work in a community garden for real! And then Elsewhere is working on expanding and growing and what's the next step and selling "Lifetime Touch Cards" which I don't really understand, but I guess it allows you to touch things. even though you are allowed to touch things anyways without the card. But Stephanie, one of the co-directors, says people really love them for some reason.

I got an Elsewherian Pin today. I'm secretly very excited.

Also, I got assigned to do every Friday's dinners because everyone will be crazy getting ready for the artist conversation event. So that'll be so exciting! I'm thinking I'm gonna make chana-masala (chickpea onion tomato stew/curry) this week. Maybe? Any other ideas you have? it's about 10-15 people I'm cooking for. I think?

I'm really excited. I'm just really happy to be here. And get settled. And make my bed more awesome. I'm thinking of hanging things. Also, I'm really enjoying the massive amount of clotheslines and clothespins around here. It's totally brilliant! totally activates and uses a space that would be dead otherwise. So maybe I'll hang awesome things to make me dream awesome dreams. Also, Dana said we could figure out a bed situation so I'm not sleeping on this weirdo bed where there's like a hole of springs in the middle which are too tired to hold me up.

Today there was super depressing sappy music playing all morning/afternoon. It was like "Oh man, my life sucks, I'm so lonely, my girl left me, my best friend went off with my girl, life is full of loneliness, and by the way, my life is so freakin lonely." yeah. what a downer. I have to get my guts more in line in order to put my ipod in. I always feel super self conscious about broadcasting my music for even just one other person. I judge everything that comes on like, oh man, this is lame. oh this is lame too. Also, it doesn't help that I've been listening to Miley Cirus a lot (I didn't just say that. You didn't just read that.) It's just such a freakin G.N.O.

I should go to bed so I can wake up and shower! And make things! oh, and the radio just came on with a good song. so this is a good sign and a good beat to strut up to my room with.

goodnight!
aliya