Seattle Zine Project

I'm always looking for something to be inspired by.

Seattle zine project:

"A program of Catholic Community Services, The Zine Project is an eight week prevocational creative writing program serving homeless youth ages 15-22. Ziners (Zine interns) get paid to make zines (pronounced zeen, short for magazine). Zines are personal publications consisting of original writing and artwork."

If I'm getting this right, this program is open to homeless youth. A kid can take this course and it is also considered a job or internship. If they come in for 8 weeks and work on a great personal zine they also end up with a job reference. 

http://zineprojectseattle.wordpress.com/

She Knit Her Hair

The best art is not expensive and not expensive. The best art is when you take what you got and you make something incredible. Xiang Renxian spent 11 years knitting her hair into a fine looking coat to give to her husband. Yes, honey.

http://www.ecouterre.com/chinese-woman-spends-11-years-knitting-coat-hair-from-her-own-hair/

Altered Books with some Kids who are 8,9, 10 and 11

This is my first experience working in this medium with kids of this age group. I recently finished another homeschool class made up primarily of teenage girls. Totally different. We looked at Rookie yearbook, cut pages from Vogue, listened to The Smiths on the Ipod and chilled.

The younger set is great because they are so free. Every one of them. But they move quickly.

Can you guess which of these books were created by A a bubbly and smart girl B my dear son (who is a bit of a cut-up) and C a child who works with such precision he would make a grand scientist?

Kirsty Mitchell's mother was dying, and she created this elaborate world using nearby locations and handcrafted costumes.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2145760/Wonderland-Kirsty-Mitchell-heart-breakingly-beautiful-photographic-series-memory-extraordinary-life.html

Retired Carthedral

Rebecca Caldwell's "Carthedral". Sooooo good.

http://www.carthedral.com/carthedral/

Altered book and zine making with homeschoolers

It has been an absolute joy working with this kids - 6 girls aged 11 to 15 and one brave guy, 11 years old. I don't know if it is because they are homeschooled, but they are creative, bold and they know how to bring it! We are always surprised when out hour and half has ended and it is time to clean up.

Vollis Simpson Whirligigs

I walked into a friend's house this week and there was a Vollis Simpson whirligig. I thought this couple was cool in the first place, but this took the hummingbird cake. It's like every day I get more Southern and feel more like laying down in a field of metal whirlygigs built by an old man in North Carolina. Please look at http://www.wilsonwhirligigpark.org to get the picture.

Vali Myers and Gianni Menicheti

My friend Jessika told me about this woman who had a pet fox and wore bright red hair and black eyeliner. She had a cage in her house that she liked to go into and a throne for the fox. She lived in Italy with a much younger man who was totally in love with her and over 100 animals in an enchanted, wild valley. They were both artists.

I developed a fixation upon hearing this. It turns out that I had Vali Meyers' picture on my wall, just by happenstance. I just finished reading her biography, written by Gianni Menicheti, whose artwork is posted above. Her is a short, inspiring video, if you have 9 minutes to spare:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK1tflgkX8A

The Sketchbook Project

This is the sort of thing I would dream up, but never pull it off, because I don't have the resources or know- how (my head is FILLED with such projects!)....

"TOGETHER, THOUSANDS OF CREATIVE PEOPLE AROUND THE
WORLD ARE FORMING A TRAVELING LIBRARY OF ARTISTS' BOOKS."

A touring library of over 22,000 sketchbooks from over 130 countries and growing. Eventually they will reside in Brooklyn, New York.

I was happy to learn about this, but I never managed to turn in my $25 to get a sketchbook and participate. Wasn't I overjoyed when my dear friend Michael visited this weekend and BROUGHT ME A SKETCHBOOK! Happy, happy.

http://www.sketchbookproject.com/

Cornelia Konrads - Killer art in public space

http://www.cokonrads.de/

All of this artwork is by German artist, Cornelia Konrads. Imagine stumbling on this without warning.

Magical landscapes - I will take all I can get.

Here is a great article about a magic maker, word wrangler and "One Thousand Feathers" creator,  Raven Mack. A snippet:

How do you think being born and raised in Virginia has influenced your writing and other creative works over the years? Does living out in the country have a particular effect on your work these days?

I guess I am the product of where I grew up, which even more specific than Virginia is Southside Virginia, which is sort of the abandoned orphan section of Virginia, similar to Southwest Virginia except we have no mountains. But it fits because it’s a trash part of the state, and I am born from trash people. I enjoy living in the country because I can have stinky ass pigs and goats and chickens and broke down cars and jukeboxes beside the chest freezer on my front porch and nobody can say anything; though even where I live, which is allegedly rural as fuck, I have had complaints from the law-abiding, God-fearing assholes who live in proximity. It affects my work because I’m connected to that, though even when I lived in cities or couches or whatever, I tend to see the beauty in the grime, and the disgusting nature of the shiny. Not sure why that is.


http://rvamag.com/articles/full/17120/writing-you-can-stab-people-with-an-interview-with-raven-mackhttp://rvamag.com/articles/full/17120/writing-you-can-stab-people-with-an-interview-with-raven-mack

Carol Es

http://esart.com/projects/journal/http://esart.com/projects/journal/
"The Journal Project began in March 2004 and continues to this day. It is a continuous, stream-of-consciousness diary created on manila, hand-cut garment patterns. Using only pattern making pencils, inks, and stamps for manufacturing, I write or draw whatever comes to mind in the moment. The patterns shapes are prepared just as they would be for manufacturing, like when I was a kid working beside my father in downtown Los Angeles. Satirical textile terms, rants, poems, dreams, and anecdotes are included; personal worries about being an artist and working in the art world. It's a candid view into one artist's life. The pieces are then installed somewhat like a mosaic - shapes are pieced together in an aesthetic fashion and fashioned to the wall with colored sewing pins."

Alexander Korzer-Robinson Books

Stellar hand cut altered books. Such precision.They are surprisingly affordable as well.

http://www.alexanderkorzerrobinson.co.uk/

Birthday Picnic

All of these photos: www.aaronfarrington.com
Incredible paper mache masks by Jessika Flint

Birthday with my Time Twin! This is what we do on October 15 - dress up, have picnic cake and wine and take pictures.

I am going to start reporting my "thrift scores". Tattered parasol with lucite handle in the pink wig photo. Makes me really happy.

Candy Darling

Since I am on the heartbreak train tonight, one last photo. Candy Darling, on her deathbed.

Yayoi Kusama

I love finding an artist who is new to me (but in this case, someone who has been creating for many decades) but feels like an old friend, or even a part of my own psyche. She has lived in a mental institution in Japan since 1977, painting the polka dots ("infinity nets") that she sees in hallucinations. She writes, paints, sculpts, draws and stages installations and happenings of epic proportions. My heart races when I look at her work. I really do feel my molecules breaking apart, or something dramatic like that,

I found this in Juxtapoz magazine: "From paintings as a teenager, to her experimental performance work while living in NYC in the 1960s, to major and immersive installations, to her return to painting and voluntarily living in a psychiatric institution, the Tate's examination of Yayoi's amazing career is thorough and extensive. What the viewer feels leaving the exhibition is that the artist was a art project herself, presenting each project and work as an extension of her life and lifestyle."

http://www.juxtapoz.com/Current/yayoi-kusama-tate-modern-london

And Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama

October is Thrilling Because it is Spooky and Inspiring

Just watched the Roky Erikson documentary, "You're Gonna Miss Me". I have to post this video, which was shot during one of  his many stays in the mental hospital.

He was a genius, through and through. He had an odd childhood, forced electroshock and over 300 acid trips. That is where this poem comes from. It's more than 7 minutes long but it will give you chills, I promise.



These are images from needlepoint/group therapy sessions at Hammer Museum in LA. Images are culled from Josh Greene's blog.

 http://www.josh-greene.com/2010/07/group-therapy-needlepointing/

Youth Create Wholeness

Here is a project near and dear to my heart:

Last year SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) Ads Center awarded a grant to some friends of mine to create art, community and social inclusion for people in recovery. This project reached out most directly to 18 to 25 year olds with a message of self-direction, empowerment and peer support.

What went down was a series of "art raves" in Charlottesville, VA; the painting of a magic bus in Williamsburg, VA and a mural with the Monacan Indian Nation at Bear Mountain in Amherst County, VA.

Getting money to create artwork is dreamy, and then the hard work sets in. Thankfully it is fun and connecting and gratifying. It is a time to see people at their best.

Now I will show you a whole bunch of pictures, which will speak louder than words.

Magnetized Tyvek signs to move around town. Painted by artists Flora Baily, Nina Burke and Jona Baily along with the other 20 cool community folk who showed up last Saturday.

 Flora is smiling because she brang this project into the world

 a brilliant wild cat, a "spirit animal" chosen by one of the Moancan youth

 at work on the mural

 Spirtworks: "Recovery on Wheels" I made that up. They probably have something more clever.

And here is some moss on a rock of the strikingly beautiful bear mountain. Even the smallest children seem reverent (at least the times that I saw them!)

Further infomation:

Here is the link to the Ads Center http://promoteacceptance.samhsa.gov/CSI/default.aspx and here is what they have to say about themselves: "People with mental health and substance use problems are more likely to fully recover and rebuild their lives when they have access not only to care and services, but also to social, economic, educational, recreational, and cultural opportunities that most citizens take for granted. A socially inclusive society promotes the necessary supports and opportunities for people in recovery to contribute to their communities as peers, parents, employees, residents, students, volunteers, teachers, and active citizens."

Here is the link to the Monacan Nation: http://www.monacannation.com/aboutus.shtml


"Bear Mountain in Amherst County has been the home of the Monacan people for more than 10,000 years. The earliest written histories of Virginia record that in 1607, the James River Monacan (along with their Mannahoac allies on the Rappahannock River) controlled the area between the Fall Line in Richmond and the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The most western of Virginia's eight tribes, the Monacan Nation - over 1,700 strong - preserves our past heritage and ancient customs, bringing together the Siouan language and culture."

Here is the link to Youth Create Wholeness: http://www.vocalvirginia.org/#/youth/4557449041"Our mission is to empower youth with mental health disabilities to transform their communities and selves. We encourage youth to define and discover their own paths to recovery and wellness, and provide the tools to work within the mental health system as well as to build alternative systems of support. We do this work through sharing our own experiences and knowledge. We build power and community through self-expression.

We know that our identities as people who have experienced emotional turbulence, mental health crisis, or extreme states of consciousness (commonly labeled as "mental illness”) are lived in context of our background. We are not just our diagnoses or our lack of diagnosis; we are human beings and we are complex. We know that only by affirming our lives and experiences as people with different kinds of dis/abilities, people of many faiths or none, people of color and indigenous people, poor and working class people, and people with varying expressions of sexual orientation and gender identity, can we integrate ourselves and our communities and live in wholeness."

And the link to Spiritworks Foundation Center for the Recovery of the Soul:
http://www.spiritworksfoundation.org/

"The mission of SpiritWorks Foundation is to help individuals and families sustain long term recovery from addiction, and to help children and youth live free from the intergenerational cycle of addiction in their families"

Good Things Are Happening

This summer has been kid-crazy. Either we are having a lot of fun or we are torturing each other. It didn't leave much time for blogging.

Today was a perfect weather day. I spent some time cleaning, some time reading on the porch and some time pursuing the internet. Here is one good and inspirational thing:

http://projectrowhouses.org/

"Project Row Houses (PRH) is a neighborhood-based nonprofit art and cultural organization in Houston’s Northern Third Ward, one of the city’s oldest African-American communities....

PRH is founded on the principle that art-and the community it creates-can be the foundation for revitalizing depressed inner-city neighborhoods. This principle was is in part based on the philosophy of German artist Joseph Beuys (1921 – 1986) who coined the phrase “social sculpture,” which transformed the idea of sculpture as an art form into a social activity. Thus, the mission of Project Row Houses is to create community through the celebration of art, African American history and culture. PRH has established programs that encompass arts and culture, neighborhood revitalization, low-income housing, education, historic preservation, and community service."

affordable housing/interactive art/young mother's program/after school program/artist incubation/artist residencies/color....every neighborhood should be this awesome. This looks like the coolest place on earth.

Sidney

It has been a week in my neck of the woods. The picture above is Sidney Tapscott. I can tell you a few things about him:

1. He was an old gray haired man the first time I saw him and old and grey this week. This week he passed away at the age of maybe 85 or maybe 92.

2. He wore denim overalls and black framed glasses.

3. He introduced some of the best bands in town. The Hackensaw Boys (who he introduced as the Arkansas Boys) and the Hogwaller Ramblers (who he called the Tennessee Ramblers) and he played harmonica too.

4. He was a street sweeper. He kept the sidewalks clean and was paid by downtown merchants.

5. My friends own a diner and it was written in the contract that they would feed Sidney whenever he came in. One thing he liked to eat was pancakes and one thing he liked to drink was Dr. Pepper. The waitresses cut his pancakes into small pieces, even during the busiest brunch shifts. I have cut many a pancake for him.

This same diner organized his birthday parties, his wake and his funeral.

6. The Facebook group that started in his honor (about 3 days ago) has 1677 friends right now.

7. His eyes twinkled and he was a real flirt. He had a lot of "girlfriends" and a lot of these girlfriends were waitresses.

It's hard to explain what it means to me.  We all knew he had this hard life but I don't know the details. The care that people gave him was genuine.

Thinking of Jerome Caja

I culled this photograph of Jerome from http://www.boston.com/community/photos/raw/2008/12/a_long_way_from_mayberry.html

I've been paying more attention to my dreams lately. And I woke up this week remembering Jerome Caja and seeing his work in San Francisco almost 20 years ago. I saw little paintings of drag queens done in nail polish on tin foil. Beautifully done. Campy and wise and wacky. He also used bottle caps, plastic ashtrays, liquid eyeliner, glitter and coal.

He was also a performance artist and a character.

Read more here: http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Caja/CajaIntro.html

Plenty more of his racy art to be seen on the web