It is time...for stormy weather

By now we've all shared our hurricane stories and we're on to the next unfolding drama...but my life has been a little chaotic for the past few months and may just maybe be settling down, so I'm getting to this now...

As word of the impending hurricane spread across NYC, people ran out to stores buying up bread, batteries, and bottled water. Meanwhile N and I sat in our apartment and wondered if we were making a mistake, since we had failed to make any type of preparation. We decided to venture out into the rain that was just starting up, in search of bread and cheese puffs, neither of which we ended up finding. We returned home empty handed and settled on the couch with dark n' stormies, waiting, like kids at the movie theatre for the show to begin.

The rain came down and N soon retired to the bedroom where he began a 6 hour nap leaving me to my own devices. This of course, means craft time. I have a habit of pulling boxes of things out, magazines, paper, photos, markers, paint, glue, glitter, stickers, stamps, ETC and making a huge mess, but not using most of it, so this time I decided to keep it simple. Here we got some acrylic paints, some cut-outs of lucha libre found on the streets of Mazatlan and a guy from a new age 80's dance exercise book. I wouldn't say it's the most fabulous thing I've ever made, but I think it captures my evening pretty well.

On a more serious note - sending my thoughts out to those who are still dealing with the aftermath, especially those who were already struggling financially before the storm hit...

Craft Night: Metro Card Art

Heyo! Unemployment: being broke is rough, but having lots of free time is amazing! While I know several people who are unemployed and struggling with the extra free time, bored is one word that does not describe my current mental/emotional state. I've been keeping myself busy doing lots, although I can't recount most of it because my memory of it evaporated into a hazy dream with that heat wave. I did recently make pickles with everyone's favorite Jersey based pickle masters and yesterday I made some intense banana bread with twice the required amounts of bananas, chocolate chips and yes, sour cream. mmmm. Other than that, I have sadly not fulfilled my crafting dreams this summer, but hopefully will be back on the train soon. For now, I am finally scanning in images from a craft night that we had a while back. The theme was metrocards as inspired by work such as this: http://singlefare.blogspot.com/ Don't worry, fatty booms made sure that we doused the metrocards in rubbing alcohol (to sanitize them), which he believes is the cure for everything including back pains and old age. Enjoy!

My friend S did these and I think they're wonderful :)

And here's the back of them.

And here's some by G-face - some have the essence of Basquiat...

Can you guess which architect made this?

And here's the back of the one above - yowza!

Something's not quite right about this card...

And here's the back of it. Also I like that inspirational message.

Another product of GSAPP can't put the exacto knife down.

And now some portraits from those crazy lovebirds...

This is mine. Everyone else was more productive than I was!

Try your own! It's free! All you need to do is go to your favorite subway station and grab a discarded metrocard. Then get wild. Don't forget the rubbing alcohol.

WCFM - page 8...and FREEDOM!

hello!

This collage does not accurately describe my state of mind right now. "Hello! I'm bored!" was found on a scrap of paper that one of our campers was doodling on during an educational activity at our socialist hippie camp. Statistically speaking, the activity was most likely about the horrors of sweatshop labor (a camp favorite), but hey, it's hard to keep 'em happy all the time.

As for me, I am done with school and freeeeeeeee - until I find a job. I have lots of fantasies about the ideal job, but due to the fact that we are still a capitalist society, I will need to find a job that pays, so I might not get to be so picky. A little bit of freedom does mean more blog time, so I'll try to make up for lost time when I got sucked into the black hole of final papers.

PS - I think I subconsciously chose the model because she reminds me of Tori Amos. You never forget your first love :)

Best Year Ever - Jan 1, 2010

Well, it's been a little hard to keep up with craft bloggin' what with the piling papers and anxiety! But I think this page from my Best Year Ever book really has some good advice for me right now....sometimes in life it's the small stuff that you gotta appreciate - like not barfing when you swear you have food poisoning from that sketchy taco stand....so to that I say, take that world! word.

Best Year Ever.

This is a bit late - but here goes. So a bit over a year ago, I got an email about a participatory art project - which are always hard for me to resist. The rules were simple:  

1.    Decide to have THE BEST YEAR EVER!!!

2.       Find a notebook and fill it with the number one best thing you do each day for the whole year.  (for example -- the best thing I did today was think of this idea!) You can do one sentence updates, like twitter, or longer narratives or even drawings.  It needs to be done on paper and should be kept private throughout the year. 

While I liked the idea because of its positive, optimistic take on things, I was concerned that this would go the way of many projects I've started (especially journals) - I'm eager at first, but then life happens and I don't have the time and motivation to commit to them on an ongoing basis. 

A year later I'm proud to say that, unbelievably, I completed it! MIRACLES DO HAPPEN!

Although I wasn't able to put something in it everyday at the end of the day, I did keep track of what happened, and then when I had time I would catch up on everything I was backlogged on. Somedays I did collages, some drawings, other days I just scrawled something down, whatever it took to reach the bare minimum. Mandated creativity and reflection is an interesting exercise. It reminds me of the project Natalie had to complete her art major in college, she had to produce some huge amount of drawings, but they didn't each have to be some huge masterpiece. It seemed to be more about the process of just pushing yourself to keep creating, pushing through it, the quantity seemed overwhelming at first, but then you get into a flow and some of the stuff you make is awesome, some if it is terrible, some forgettable and sometimes something totally new comes out of it. It was also interesting to push myself to think of something positive for each day - even if it was just "I survived the day." Another friend Alana related it to an exercise she has done where she takes time out of the day to think of what she is grateful for - another important way to step back and look at life.

Okay enough pondering, I'm just impressed with myself that I finished - even the girl who started the project didn't get around to finishing! I feel like this project really was some of the impetus for my renewed dedication to craftiness. And it's a pretty amazing way to take stock of the last year. Coming soon: I want to do some data analysis with accompanying graphs in regards to reoccurring themes from the year.

But for now (until I can scan more), here's the cover:

Hobbies 4 Life.

There is only one creative art form that gives me more pleasure than collaging. And that is...(drumroll please)...dancing! Okay, there's also playing music and singing which are way up there too. Which brings me to my main point which is that, I am really into doing creative things in my free time. Some people refer to these things as hobbies. Just in case you were wondering here is a list of hobbies I have engaged in during my short life: sticker/gem/shell/button/stamp collecting, gymnastics, diving, capoeira, ballet/jazz/west african/breakdancing/flamenco/modern dance, bookmaking, photography, drums (kit, ghanaian, afro-cuban, klezmer), singing, acting, speech team. I am not always as dedicated to my hobbies as I could be - I guess that's why they're hobbies and no one's paying me to do them. Last night, my younger sister commented on the fact that I seem to be actualizing a lot of my creative fantasies lately. We were talking about why this might be and to be honest, I'm not sure, but I think if social work school has taught me one thing it's that things happen in time, and we have to be patient with ourselves and others. So there's a couple things that I have talked about (or thought about) for a long time that I am finally getting to now. One is this blog. And another is the dance bag.

The "bag" is a spandex bag that one dances in. Clearly. I first used these in Jim Tenuta's mime class at the Academy of Movement in Music back in the day. I'm pretty sure they were influenced by Martha Graham's genius use of fabric. Years later when I was in college, I went back to "the Academy" and talked to Stephanie, the director of the school about the dance bags. She told me about Spandex House, a store in NYC that only sold spandex from which they ordered their oh so special spandex to make the bags. I ordered swatches, but never actually bought any fabric. Years after that I found myself living in NYC and one day on a lim went to the store and bought some sweet spandex. It sat in my apt. for a long time until one day I realized that my friend is not only awesome, she is also a costume construction wizard. Luckily, she indulged me and made the bag I had dreamed about. More time passed and the bag sat in the corner and I looked sheepishly at it, not knowing how I would ever use it. And then one day last month I got an email about a friend's birthday party. A talent show birthday party. And I thought, "Yes. The time has come."

And here it is:
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrejeY6DXWA

So the point is, I have officially decided that regardless of what "job" I end up getting post graduation (fingers crossed), I am hereby taking (some of) my hobbies seriously. So maybe I won't ever be a professional dancer. But that doesn't mean I don't put on a damn good talent show.

WCFM - page 8 - It's Getting Bigger

This pile of human consumption is taking over my life. Figuratively speaking that is.

Animals are lucky. They don't have to deal with stuff. I like how the lizard's color is mimicked by the CD, sunglasses and letters on the computer screen. As humans we create a lot, and get lost in it all, it's hard to see it with our human eyes - I wish I could understand our stuff from his perspective. 

By the by - thanks everyone for the awesome feedback, I love hearing what you think!

WCFM - page 7 - Things that scare you

Although animals usually appear in my dreams as friendly or at least harmless, when I saw this bird staring at me from the pages of a magazine, I knew it hinted at the dark side of the animal world. Something about the tilt of her head, proud, and not about to take anyone's sh*t.

The words are from the same game that supplied words for the previous collage. I like the words on either side of the bird re-imagined as things that could be scary. "Things on the floor"? Yeah, those scare me. "What you do to an egg?" Frightening! I know the plume coming off the page is a little tedious since it could easily be ripped, crumpled, etc., but there's no way I could insult the bird by cutting it off.

We Come From Monkeys - page 5: I own the place

So - here is page 5. Since animals always seem to be invading my dreams, what better place than a pleasant bedroom for this little guy (weasel?). 

The background is from a stack of interior photographs that I got at the awesome scrap place in Portland, the animal is from a book that I believe my friend and fellow crafter Natalie pawned off on me, and the words "I own the place" are from some old scattegories type game that I scrounged up when we moved out of our huge tenement house on West 9th st. The game had these cards with random phrases - a great example of junk that is too hard to throw away, so finally many years later I found an excuse/inspiration to use it,

We Come From Monkeys - page 4

Okay, I admit it. I am the queen of big ideas that are often never realized. However, one of my big goals for this year (and ever on after) is to try and act on these ideas and make them reality. So far my many years in the making dream of performing a dance-in-a-bag piece (more on that in a future post) has come to life and my first performance was a success. An old friend of mine, also a dreamer, creator and a badass writer to boot is embarking on her own blog experience and has inspired me to be just a little more on top of mine. SO. Here I am again. My animal collage book, "We Come From Monkeys" is back on my brain (had a crazy dream about turtles and babies just last night) and I am trying to catch up on scanning in some pages I have already completed.

So, here is page number 4. If you scroll back to my post on August 27, you will see page 3, they are side by side in my book. As you can see NYC living has pretty much made mice a part of my daily existence, they can't be escaped. We used to have a joke about at least asking our mice to pitch in for rent. Ha. haha. yeah....that stays funny for about two minutes until you walk out of your apartment and there sitting on top of the garbage is an adorable little mouse, gnawing away at the leftovers of your dumplings from last night. And then they're on the subway platform on your way to work, and in the auditorium of the friendly neighborhood school. So, maybe this is just a way for me to feel a little more in control of those guys. Also I now have access to a better scanner and it seems like blogger has become more user friendly, so hopefully images will be bigger and clearer than in the past!