Art

Even though I’d trip and hurt myself in this house, I LOVE it.

Thanks to Creative Good for calling my attention to it.

Amy took awesome photos for the Skullcranes new album. Dan was inspired by learning about the lasso tool and made a collage with one of her pics.

I just found out that there is an exhibit at the Stedelijk Museum’s temporary location that I really want to see. I’m excited about this because I’ll be going to Amsterdam or AMS as it’s known in airport speak in one week and that’s where the museum is at. Nothing is better than surprise art on a vacation.

I have not prepared for a trip like this for several years. It’s strange to be away from home for a very long time. It causes you to think about all the things you need to bring with you. My goal for this trip was to start thinking about that far enough in advance so that I can take away the extra things that one tends to bring on trips just because. I want to strip away the unnecessary objects from my life. Vacation is a good time to practice such an activity.

I wrote about my friend Megan earlier and her work in the show “War Mediated” at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The artist’s were interviewed and the interview ran this morning on MPR.

My friend Megan had an opening on Thursday night at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The art is kick butt. It’s a show called War Mediated with Megan Vossler, Camille Gage, and Justin Newhall. You should definitely go check this out in the MAEP gallery. It even got an A-list pick.

I just made my first submission to JPG magazine. They even allow me a way to put the pic on my site with a simple bit of code.

I think that there are so many neat new things out there to mix and match and ‘mashup’ as my company is calling it that my head may explode. However, I will enjoy every minute of it. (Yes, that’s the sick part.) It’s just so much fun right now to be able to explore all these new neat things.

So click on the photo and vote for me. (only if you think i deserve it though……;) )

I’ve been preparing for an art show of my work at my neighborhood coffee shop. I had an idea about displaying some photos in magnetic frames that I could attach to one big piece of metal. I dropped my husband off at work this morning because on our family vacation we hit a deer and he didn’t have a car. On the way home, I stopped at Ace. I found what I needed and they helped me make a really nice metal piece to attach the photos to. Sort of like a piece of your refridgerator on the wall as an art back drop. They cut holes in it for me and even helped me find material to use for hanging and fastened it together for me. And the ‘labor was free’.

It worked for a piece I’ve been working on that finally came together entitled ‘American Gothic Barbie’.

It’s been a crazy week or two. My computer died last week as I was trying to prepare for vacation. Needless to say I left work with a couple of things hanging, but what’s a computer geek to do. When a hard drive goes, it’s gone. Luckily, I’m a true geek and it was backed up, but it’s a massive disruption. In the middle of it my husband and I decide to drastically change our phones. I still don’t have the info from my old phone transferred to the new one. There was a vacation in the middle of everything. So it all stopped (supposedly). But, on our way to the vacation, we hit a deer. We were 4 miles from our destination. We were ok. The car needs some serious tender love and care. We had just switched to Progressive Insurance and I’m thrilled we did. They made it extremely pleasant. The cabin we were at with my family was so far out we didn’t have cell phone access. They took care of it even though they couldn’t consistently contact us, they kept moving things forward. Our car was towed back to the Twin Cities for us and will be fixed and returned shortly.

When we got home from vacation many email and other activity awaited including the fact that I need to prepare to show my work at Cuppa Java the coffee shop in my neighborhood. Somehow I got on the list to show my work. I didn’t sign up, it’s a mystery. I got a call last month from Bob, the owner of Cuppa Java, if I was ready for my July show. I was very confused and as we spoke further, we concluded I should try to show in August. Bob was able to cover July and the August artist disappeared, so I’m up.

If you are interested in checking my art out, please stop by the coffee shop after August 1st.

My photos and paintings:
Cuppa Java
400 Penn Ave S
Minneapolis, MN
55405

As for the deer, it was over immediately.
And my computer still doesn’t have email.
And my gmail in box has over 100 emails I have to read.
And my podcast is woefully overdue.

Digital life takes maintenance and it’s impossible to maintain when the computer is out.

I guess the lesson here is, always have a spare computer?

I just returned from a trip to New Mexico (aka Land of Enchantment) to visit my ‘crazy’ ‘artist’ uncle. It was wonderful to see him. I’ve spent time with him over the years. This trip was all about spending quality time together. He’s taught me many things over the years. One of the biggest things he’s taught me is my history. Meeting him for the first time in his own home on his own turf as an adult was such a huge AHA moment for me. I never understood where I got so many traits until I met him. My dad had many of these traits too, but it was easier to see what biology had contributed to my demeanor when I understood him as a person.

He’s an amazing artist. I was able to photography two of his shows in the past several years and those photos are in my gallery. The Life Is Good show and the Hang Me Downs show both displayed at the now defunct Gallery 211 in Gallup, NM. He views it as his job and he produces work. I got to see the latest body of work entitled ‘33 1/3′ this visit. I’ve got some amazing pictures too that I’m going to post soon.

It’s a beautiful place, but it’s also a hard place. There is extreme poverty there. It’s so frustrating too. Much of it comes from a basic lack of care for the humans. People don’t have a reason to go on, so of course, they become desperate. Wouldn’t you be desperate if you had no job, no possibility of a job, no education, no tools to make your life better? I know that I would be desperate in that situation. So instead of being humane, it’s a drug war, an immigration war and real war. Then the legislators talk about things like gay marriage and flag burning! Seriously…..(ooops, didn’t mean to digress into politics, but when you see things like this and this it makes you really start to put together the pieces…….

Beauty and extreme poverty living side by side. The desert and the sky creating the landscapes that seem like they’d only exist in a dream. Nuevo Mexico!

I’ve been thinking about a podcast I’d like to produce for awhile now. I finally got all the pieces together and the time to do it. This is a start. It’s called evol’s PoemOfTheWeek. I will create and read a poem each week for your listening pleasure. Let me be clear what I mean by a poem. I’ve not got a very strict definition about poetry, so be warned, you could hear things you really don’t thing are poetry. But they are poetry to me and i’m the artist, so there you go. :).

I hope you get a chance to take a listen.