acre!

From August 1-12, I was at ACRE, an artist residency outside of Steuben, Wisconsin. It was great! I met so many good folks, went swimming, danced a lot, ate amazing food, and collaborated with Ellen Nielsen. Ellen and I began a video project where we were dressed up as butterflies, exploring themes that come up in both of our art practices (with lots of silliness and laughing). It is going to be awesome once we get it edited!

shirt collaboration!

I forgot to write about this nice collaboration i did with Sean a couple of months ago. Sean is a Brooklyn-based writer/photographer/stylist. We met when we both lived in Charlottesville, and we decided to make something together before we both moved. Sean offered to have a garment made from the fabric that I printed years ago at the Fabric Workshop. Here are the results, modeled by Sean himself (the shirt is still under construction in these pictures):

And here is Sean's blog post about the collab. The whole project turned out pretty great!

penland!

Right after Less Miserable finished, I went down to Penland, NC to take a 2-week course on alternative methods of woodcarving at Penland School of Crafts. We used chainsaws to start pieces and then finished them with angle grinders, dynafiles, and power sanders. I made a bowl in the shape of a butt. (A bowel?) (Thanks Maureen!)

Aside from the above image, I don't have any pictures of the bowl or of anything else at Penland, because I still haven't gotten my disposable camera developed. I will do another post with those. Penland was awesome and magical, and my (fun!) work study position was really crucial in making it all happen. I went swimming in mountain rivers full of mica, shared scotch and grapefruit juice cocktails with Paulis Berensohn and my friend Zee, and met so many wonderful, talented people. Summer 2012: making art with awesome people in the woods!

after the play!

(The pictures I have posted are all pretty much by Jori, an awesome awesome person from Providence. Here is her Flickr!)

I wanted to post a couple of bits of writing that people did about Less Miserable:

-a nice review HERE

-and here is the body of a super sweet email to the cast:

So I got to see the show in Providence, even though I'm from Philly, and before the show those of us in the audience were having all kinds of reunions--some of my favorite Philly people and others that I've met in New Orleans or Maine or elsewhere over the years. In the totally packed warehouse, I had a sense of being amongst extended family even though I only knew a handful of the hundred or so folks there.

My friend Emily said after the show, "Wow, I was coming prepared to be forgiving. But that was amazing." 

Not only did y'all pull off a difficult piece of theater with masterful aplomb--y'all were also casting a deeper spell. Being in the audience was like being part of a ritual--being offered something magical from our community, for our community. To see what you all pulled off reminded me of all the things we are able to do collectively that we often get too pessimistic to try for, or fail to celebrate when we do them. It filled me with love for all of us in the creative, radical struggle--and hope for what we can still accomplish and discover ourselves capable of.

Y'all gave us a huge gift. I've been thinking of moving on from Philly and worried about losing my amazing community there; seeing Less Miserable reminded me of how broad our community really is--how many of us there are. It also did what I think DIY art needs to do: astound, astonish, and inspire us with what we can pull off in unorthodox manners, collectively, for the love of it.

I used to do theater a long time ago and I remember the let-down of after the play, going back to normal life...I can't imagine what it feels like for each of you individually to have been part of something so magical and now be back in some other identity, but I want you to know from someone who saw what you all worked so hard on--and I could see people working against their strengths, taking huge risks, exerting tremendous amounts of energy, and making us all love you and cry for you--that what you offered us was transformative and important. As important as all the work we put into fighting the system and caring for our friends. Art like this provides a forum for us to become who we are collectively through sharing experiences of joy and grief. Where else would I get to cry publicly with hundreds of people about the injustice of the world, about our dead friends, about failed love--all the pieces of our own stories that the play reflects back to us?

Thanks for casting that spell for us. With mad respect,

best month ever!

I am sitting in an airport waiting for a ride (thanks Andrew!) to Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina. Andrew and I are both taking a woodworking class there that involves chainsaws. I am so excited. A few hours ago, I was helping strike our last Less Miserable show in Philadelphia. The past month has been completely amazing and transformative. Pooping in buckets! Singing everyday! Skinny dipping! Living in the woods! Making a musical! Going on my first tour! Seeing old friends and making new ones! All good things.

a quick internet trip!

While I am in town for a minute before another rehearsal, I thought I would post a link to pictures of an art show I am in this month. It is called Patterns of Behavior and it is at Booklyn Art Gallery in Greenpoint. The show is curated by Aimee Lusty, and she is awesome. Check it out if you are in the neighborhood! 

CHECK IT HERE 

summer funtimes!

Well, I have left Charlottesville and I am now in the woods of Vermont for the month of June. I am camping with a bunch of nice folks on a big wooded piece of property, and we are putting together a musical. It is called Less Miserable. I made the promotional posters, which you can see above. I am also going to be doing quite a bit of singing in the play! We have been working on this for weeks now and I can assure you that it is going to be completely awesome. I guess that is what happens when you have so many super talented punks working on one project 12 hours a day for a month! Come see it if you can! Here is the press release:

For the entire month of June 2012, over seventy underground artists from around the country have converged in the woods of northern Vermont to mount a monumentally ambitious and unabashedly DIY adaptation Victor Hugo’s epic novel about post-Napoleonic France. This operatic take on Hugo’s sweeping narrative comes complete with badass musical arrangements, a 20’ diameter revolving stage, and a cast, crew, and set requiring 3 veggie-oil school buses for transportation. After opening in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, the production will tour for one week along the I-95 corridor.

Celebrate US Independence Day by remembering the failed Parisian rebellion of 1832! Save the dates!

July 2:  Providence, RI (The Steel Yard, 27 Sims Ave)

July 3&4: Brooklyn, NY (Bobby Redd Project Space, 626 Bushwick Ave.)

July 5: Baltimore, MD (The Bell Foundry, 1539 N. Calvert St.)

July 6&7: Philadelphia, PA (The Beaumont Warehouse, 50^th St. & Beaumont Ave.)

ALL SHOWS BEGIN PROMPTLY AT 8PM AND RUN APPROXIMATELY 3 HOURS, INCLUDING AN INTERMISSION.

This production is directed by Donna Sellinger (of Wham City and The Missoula Oblongata), with orchestration and musical direction by Stephen Cooper (of Kagel Nacht  and Cloud Becomes Your Hand). Vocal direction by Anna Young. Set design and  construction captained by members of The Miss Rockaway Armada and Minneapolis-based  artist Mitchell Dose. Costume design by Leslie Rogers.

Our cast and crew include opera singers from Kansas City, urban farmers from Philadelphia, immigrant rights activists from Tucson, punk musicians from Portland, comedians from Baltimore, kinetic sculptors from Minneapolis and LA, radio personalities from New Orleans, and many, many more. 

During intermission, audience members can peruse an extensive bazaar of art, music, and crafts made by the artists involved. Look for specially commissioned prints by famed artist Erik Ruin, made specifically for this production!

For more information, e-mail: FriendsOfTheABCCafe@gmail.com

To view our blog, which will be updated periodically with photos and video of the process, visit: http://www.friendsoftheabccafe.blogspot.com/