sequestered

this snow day turned snow week has forced me to get down to business. i've been revisiting some music i wrote back in the spring with this project in mind, and codifying a game plan for the sound scape of a certain recurring thematic section of the story/video. certain ideas that had seemed silly or uninformed at the time of creation are starting to reveal their purpose within the piece now that i know much more about it. i even wrote some new stuff that i'm excited about!

because i have a big handful of incredible musicians down to play and experiment in recording sessions (and possibly live), the sound palate at my disposal has been greatly broadened beyond any former capacities. as someone who isn't first and foremost a composer, it's nearly as terrifying as it is inpiring at this point in the game. my plan is to keep chugging along little engine that could style and trust that i'll create something worth while - whether i "know what i'm doing" or not. i raise my glass to you, snow.

photos are from the LIFE magazine photo archive - "building the apollo space ship"

14 seconds

So, now that the animation station is fully equipped with a working lightbox again, I was able to shoot all our handy work this evening. On the night of our animation party, there were 12 of us who worked for 3 hours to uniquely fill in each frame of the Slovenian Bag Story. In the end, we produced 200 delicately hatched frames or 14 frames a second or 14 damn good looking seconds. This means all in all, with the 45 seconds that were already finished, 1 full minute is done (800 frames/drawings), and it looks fantastic.

Take a look
8 seconds

i fell off the wagon...

i have been pulling 15 hr days rehearsing and recording with kultur shock and figeater! it has been tons o fun, but hasn't left me with the capacity for much else. i'm currently being held hostage by snow and hope to be able to keep my rehearsal with ezra for tomorrow...

for now, i will leave you with a special snow day treat. click HERE to, "behold the scent of seduction, with a hint of flame-broiled meat."

Production stills! of our animation party

The animation experiment was a great success! Thank you all so much for your helping hands. This hatch-mark charcoal fest will soon become a bi-monthly event. We'll be meeting informally at a local bar or cafe and I would love all the help I can get. I hope to see you there.

wine + exact-o-knives

executive decision

beautifully hatched dress!

it's an interesting thing...

...gathering people who don't know each other and putting them at the same table to do an intimate thing, make art. it's like some sort of group blind date. i have to keep reminding myself that i'm the only person who is friends with everyone involved and that it's going to take time for my collaborators to develop personal/working relationships with each other and this project. growing relationships through the process of creating this piece is an intentional element, i just have to remember to leave room for it! i also have to realize that at this stage in the process, i'm working to externalize things that are very internal to me and need to allow time for each of my collaborators to digest all i've thrown at them before i can expect anything back. that said, our brainstorming sessions are gaining momentum and i'm confident that they'll only continue to grow as each person gets their hands dirty and develops a personal relationship with this piece. input from the multi-faceted perspectives of 4 individuals specializing in different mediums, each with unique life experiences, makes me a very happy lady.

amanda's busting out the bag animation...jamie's designing a screen...ezra and i start tangibly working on movement next week...

we are moving from concept to creation. way great!

day 6

i spent the day teaching, researching grants, eating rice cakes with butter, and watching internet tv. this is why i have trouble posting daily...glamorous, no?

day 5

i have been taken on as an artist of the frank agency!!! this means lots of amazing exciting things like support for strategic planning, marketing/promo, and grant writing! i am so incredibly honored to be represented by this fantastic organization, which i have looked up to for years. pinch me. it can't be real.

over the next couple weeks, i will be working on creating current promo material for myself and this project - soon to be found here: http://www.thefrankagency.org/Paris.htm

this calls for a major wine and internet tv celebration.

day 4

pat graney
house of mind

happening now

day 3

my meeting with amanda went well. we made a lot of progress toward defining the general shape of the piece and how its elements relate to each other. it also led me to the next step, which is for ezra and me to define our roles as performers now that the larger story is emerging: who are we? what is our relationship to each other and to the main character? why are we performing live with the video/animations? and so on... we meet this coming friday to delve in.

day 2

i'm trying a new thing to see how many days in a row i can post. i'm on a roll.

tomorrow i meet with amanda to firm up our new thoughts on what the big picture story is and discuss how to start filling it in. while work on the project has been happening in some capacity for over a year now, i feel like tomorrow marks the actual start of creating its tangible aspects and being able to define it. the day i can explain all of this beyond, "uhhh...it's um, this big multi-media project i'm working on," just might be closer then i thought. hallelujah.

i'm a terrible "blogger"

i'm trying to be better about posting frequently as i realize it's the reason anyone would check back - to see what's new - but this project majorly ebbs and flows, and my "blogging" has a hard time deviating...

the animation party we had a couple weeks ago was great. amanda's light box ain't workin' right now, so we're hoping we still like what came out of it once it's in motion...and if so, we're going to start having them regularly. anyone up for drawing tiny hatch marks with a charcoal pencil?

two pieces of exciting news:

1 - we now have a through line and a general shape!! amanda, the genius, magically, wonderfully, and so simply wrapped all of my seemingly disparate elements into a package. those epiphanal moments are always so incredible and often make me laughcry - it had been staring me in the face the whole time even down to how i'd organized my notes and drawings. geez and great!

2 - we have decided to revamp our timeline pushing our premiere back to fall 2009 and it feels great!

some design-y things i enjoy as of late:

:home improvements
:tiny people in a regular sized world
:consistently satisfying photos

(these are links...)

photography/perception/uta barth

introduced to me by a friend last week:
http://www.db-artmag.de//2006/2/e/1/421.php

photograph i took in a parking lot in italy:

you voted and we listened

COMMUNAL EXPERIENCE EXPERIMENT NO. 3:
WALK ACROSS SEATTLE

based on the results of last month's poll (which can now be found toward the bottom of the sidebar), ezra and i have committed to walking seattle from the renton border to the shoreline border...in a day. it's about 20 miles. are we crazy? perhaps. but we are very excited to see what this experience creates and invite any interested parties to partake in the action. we will set up a check point system so those not up for the full 20 miles can come and go as they please.

come get crazy with us on some december day yet to be announced.

progress report

:the travel interviews are complete and fantastic!

"...our heads function in these weird bubbles that can get pierced by external things. when we're traveling, we're in this bubble and when we're at home, we're in this bubble, and so they don't...they don't uh...they don't exist in our mind in the same world. like, we can't even imagine them to be in one world. but really, it's still just us walking around on this one big terrain. it's just a big terrain that we go to different parts of..."

:i am now knee-deep in dissecting the interviews and writing their accompanying story - aerial view

:our next communal experience experiment is in the works - a sweatshop-style animation party, for which we will gather an array of unique hands to draw thousands of tiny hatch marks

unitentional experiment no. 2

DANCE WITH CLOSE STRANGERS

what are "close strangers," you ask? close strangers are people that you see on a regular basis or spend a considerable amount of time in close proximity to - without ever speaking a word. find a reason to dance with them and you'll become fast friends. you might even hug. a lot.

miranda july - dang and yes.

This is in Response to Paris' Time Travel Post

time travel is possible

check it:
http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/69968-road-not-yet-traveled/

communal experience experiment no. 1 - dance party

sunday, october 26
4-5pm
in front of panache on broadway - seattle

we are so pleased with our findings! it created a new experience for participants and observers that brought a lot of smiles, conversation, and thought. it seems there is something about dancing - non-choreographed, non-dancer dancing - that allows people to access something very basic and human, dissipating all of the false external layers we put on everything (appearance, power, status, intellect, money...). us going there without censorship - happily dancing like fools on the sidewalk - seemed to allow people walking by to grasp a bit of that and take it with them.

to see bruce tom's complete photo documentation of the hour, go to:

http://www.brucetom.com/bridgingwounds_danceparty/

looking for some sunday afteroon excitement?

WHAT: dance party - you don't have to "know how to dance" - bring your sweet moves of any and all kinds (yes - even those step touches)

WHERE: in front of panache (the clothing store with white pillars on the west side of the street) - 225 Broadway E, Seattle, WA
if we're asked to leave, we'll move to another storefront on broadway. so, if you show up and we're not there, look down the street - i'm thinking we'll be hard to miss.

WHEN: this sunday, october 25th 4-5pm (come for any portion)
for anyone interested in pre-lubrication for said task, meet us at down the street at charlie's (in the back) beforehand. we'll be there from 3-4pm

DRESS: as you wish

WHO: anyone! everyone!! your babies and your grandparents! spread the word!

so you are fully informed: it will be photographed by the amazing bruce tom

unintentional experiment no. 1

GROCERY SHOP BEFORE THE SUN COMES UP

due to my car sharing and grocery needs, i went shopping at 7am this morning. i can not even begin to describe the surreality of the experience.

the passage of time is relative - scientifically!!!

the fabric of the cosmos by brian greene is BLOWING MY MIND (thank you willy!) - and taking a very long time to read as i can't get more then a few pages without risking explosion. did you know that the speed of an object's motion through time and space must equal the speed of light when combined? meaning: because stationary objects aren't moving through space, they are devoting all of their motion to moving through time - they are moving through time at the speed of light. this also means that objects moving through space are moving proportionately slower through time. so when you are plummeting through space on an airplane, you are actually moving through time at a slower rate then when you are on the ground. at great speeds, this can even be measured using a stop watch. something moving extremely fast will experience the passage of time at a slower rate then something that is stationary.

i'm not usually one for exclamation points, but: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

from an alley and a kitchen

i dropped my camera on the street. at least the sound still works...

and the interviews continue...

okay. so first off, i can't decide whether or not 4 in one day was a good or bad idea. i got through 3 pretty well (two hours of intently listening, probing, and typing each), but i was so dead during the last that i was actually struggling to keep my eyes open - which was far from out of boredom, i must emphasize. from that perspective, it was a bad idea indeed. but! because i was so exhausted, it forced me to stop typing and just be with the person. look at them. treat it more like a conversation. it was so much more intimate and beautiful (and without typing sounds cluttering the recording). granted, i was at this person's home vs. yet another of seattle's social experiments via coffee, which certainly led to the intimacy and sleep-inviting qualities. still, i was given access to something new through the inundation.

as for the interviews - i am loving every part of the process and what it's yielding so much more then i could have anticipated. i started off on this tangent because it "felt like the right thing to do," not because i had some master plan as to how i would use all of this collected information or why i was even collecting it. after 6 interviews (and counting), i sat down to compile the audio and ended up spending another few hours listening back to portions of each interview. they are so magical! each sound environment, unique - each person, incredibly unique and poetic and real. so real! so real and honest and ordinary, really. so ordinary, so "every day" that they're just the opposite. these experiences, these recordings, these captured moments in time, have become my little treasures.

Audiot Sonicariffic

But seriously you guys -
I'm interested in ways the audio design/production can interface with the other aspects of this thing.

I'm not in the loop yet as the audio and music portion hasn't kicked off, but if anybody wants to discuss ideas, ask technical questions, or otherwise "throw down", drop me a line.

Paurl's Top Ten Influences

1 - Coconuts
2 - David Bowie

talking and recording galore

i needed a break, so i took a break. it helps not to pretend i had a choice in the matter.

i'm back now...

...and researching my theory of "travel personas" by interviewing people who travel frequently for a variety of reasons and durations. the first occurred at six arms friday afternoon - i typed like mad as the yamaha pocketrak filed our voices away. today, i have four scattered amongst coffee shops throughout the city. i'm curious to see what inundating myself with the questions, the coffee shops, and the process of interviewing will yield. it carries promises of polarity - it's either a very good, or a very bad idea.

three. two. one. go.

what makes someone something?

i love writing - does that make me a writer? on a certain level, the act of writing makes me a writer - it makes me 'one who writes' - but there's certainly a difference between someone who keeps a plant alive on their window sill and a gardener.

to be someone who is something - officially - must you have skill? is that what creates the difference, the true being of something? you cannot fly a plane unless you are a pilot - someone who has gained a certain amount of information on planes and flying them, someone who has put that knowledge into supervised action, someone who has passed the test - but anyone can move, write, sing, be someone they're not - which leads me to ask: what is working? sitting in a cubicle is working. delivering the mail is working. is sitting in my studio writing this BLOG entry working? who decides? what classifies working from not working? being given money for the act? the degree to which you like what you're doing? whether you choose to do it or whether it's forced upon you? whether it furthers your goals? must it be something that is not broken? it works!

the movement square's edges are starting to round - it just might roll

this week's discoveries and codifications:

1 - i am conducting movement research

2 - i am interested in exploring movement as an expression of music - not movement for movement's sake - so i can't start from movement, i have to get to movement through music. i have to be compelled to move.

3 - the missing link: i am supposed to have my violin and bow in my hands

---------

i met with ezra yesterday for our weekly rehearsal. a couch, a cat, and conversation were the main ingredients. topics included:

:what elements of movement interest us

:how to navigate communication person to person/artist to artist

:processes

:how to achieve a desired effect on an audience

:what you can and can't control (artist to audience/person to person)

:about the passage of time and how different places or situations can alter it

:how each person on an airplane has come from a different place, carrying each of their previous life experiences with them - how they will all go off in different directions upon leaving the plane to continue accumulating experiences - about what it means to have each of those people in the same reality together, moving through the sky, all on the same path, sharing the same space connecting point a to point b

animation station

Finally, after a week of updating and installing the latest software for my home computer my animation station is up and running!

The last picture is a frame from the original storyboard.

inner workings

i feel defeated. i can't make sense of things. i need an interpreter. can't someone come and put all of my elements into a diagram with lots of lines connecting the parts showing how it's all working together? can't someone show me the big picture? that's what beth used to do. things are moving alright, things are moving along without me. i can't keep up. i can't keep track. how do i know if it's all fitting in? it doesn't need me in the same way anymore, i see that. but seeing that doesn't tell me what to do, how to adjust. what is it trying to say? is it doing its job? is it effective?

i need some outer workings.

want to contribute? not sure how?

bridging wounds is largely about communication, perception, evolution, perspective, and the interconnectivity of things - i want to explore these concepts through human experiences, your experiences. i'd like to invite you all into an open dialog about the process, the concepts, the elements involved - will you share your brains with me?

many of you have expressed that you'd like to participate, but aren't sure how or where - visiting, supporting, commenting, or spreading the word are all wonderful and much appreciated ways. to chime in directly, click on the "comments" link at the bottom of any post.

i'm so thrilled by all of the interest, encouragement, and support i've received regarding the BLOG and the project. thank you!!

back and forth

i am most certainly on a playground.

i am just trying to figure out if i am on a swing or on one of those old school teeter-totters. remember those? (i think they did away with them in most schools. true story - super dangerous or something). anyhow i was sort of always terrified while on the teeter-totter (such a lame name, btw). instead of enjoying being tossed into the air and plummeting back to the ground, i spent the entire time terrified that my teetering (or is it tottering?) partner was going to jump off all stealth-like and send me barreling back to the ground. (which hurts like hell).

but the swings - i had a much better time with the swings. first of all, i essentially was doing it alone, the swinging that is. but as with the t.t. it was the last part of that that always freaked me out; because (of course) you were expected to jump out of those things. and while terrifying, there was something also super liberating about making the choice and taking the plunge (quite literally) out of the seat and, well, and onto the grass.

i am going on about this because for the past few months, or god, has it been a year? i have been going back and forth, up and down on the daily. one day i feel have everything under control and i feel like i am taking all of the right steps to have a successful little furniture/lighting/whatever micro design firm, and the next day it's as though i am as far away as ever from my goal, and nothing is materializing and i am getting old and i don't have a savings (true) and and and and and then the next day i am back to feeling like i have my ducks in a row, and while this all takes time, i am doing what needs to happen and i am doing it in a timely manner and yes gosh darn it i am going to be successful. and then the next day i am ready to join the peace corps and escape for two years.

...

so that's where i am, and that's how i am entering into this project. i am struggling with getting shit done and feeling accomplishment, while maintaining relationships with others and myself. i can't wait to get my fingers on some paper and get it between the jaws of my industrial sewing machine. and just let it go and go and go and...

i hope i am on the swing.


______________________

the first photo is of the building where i worked in a cabinet shop a little minute while studying industrial design.

the second photo is of my stuff on a chair brian made outside our shop space in georgetown.

this is my first post.

bag storyboard

amanda and i met yesterday afternoon for tea and my first glimpse of the storyboard she's created for the bag. IT'S AMAZING.

the bag story is abstractly about experiences i had over the course of 10 days with a very special bag i borrowed from a very special slovenian friend. when i gave amanda the story, i didn't tell her what the experiences literally were and this is the place she created her storyboard from. we sat with the storyboard she created and the text of the story i wrote, side by side. we talked about other things from the story we wanted to include and brainstormed ways to portray them. we did some rearranging. we talked about colors. we talked about how the images would behave - how they would flow, how they would come alive when in motion. only after seeing her first draft did i fill her in on the specific experiences i had documented within the story. as i spoke, pointing to lines in the text, she took notes.

it's wonderful to work so openly, so honestly, and with such trust. we question each other. we critique each other's work, each other's processes. we say, "i need 'this' from you." we value each other as people and as artists.

i just received an excitingly cryptic email from jamie calling me to a last minute morning meeting for the sharing of the new thoughts she's had regarding the project and her role within it. i'll report back when i know more. i love these people.

i'm working and it's really important.

i've spent the day stuck between two worlds, never quite landing in either.

constantly feeling like you should be working is such a curse. a curse - i must admit - i've always wanted. people who constantly feel like they should be working have "reached a certain level," a level where they have things that depend on their working on them. though i'm happy to have things that depend on my working on them, i must acknowledge the silly silly trap my mind has created for itself.

"We walked back to the front door because he said it was time for him to go. He said this apologetically, as if I would not be able to live without him. I said this was for the best because I had a lot of work to do. When I said 'a lot of work,' I moved my hands apart to represent all the work. He stared at the space between my palms and asked if I played the accordion."

-No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July

----------

up above and to your right: two fantastic images from jamie. we met at joe bar yesterday morning. she's been designing and building chairs and lighting fixtures. she's got those 'woman fingers' - perfect for felt, thread, and packing peanuts. we've been talking about textures. when we talk, it seems like we're talking about the same things. when she shows me things, it's a version of what we talked about that i never would have imagined. it's perfect - the epitome of collaboration.

my meeting with paurl yielded the discovery of the 'sparks' - a bunch of tiny stories that will live in and around the 4 main stories. this is the first time paurl and i will truly collaborate. it's time. he's writing now and will get me a heaping hand full by september 2nd.

the story of the bag is well under way. i have a draft to amanda and she has a storyboard in the works, which i will see at our meeting on wednesday. i trust her - i can't describe it any other way.

from amanda:

:stylistic thoughts for the story of the boots - we like the makeup, tiny circles

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRIZsbmMXVI>">Link

:stylistic thoughts in general - sand animation - so good

 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_dMURWBCHQ&feature=related>">Link

:repetitive motion - inspiration for the midlife crisis syndrome
story.  i'm obsessed with this video - the look, the content, the
everything

< http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7346135205382749153>">Link

i feel so lucky and grateful to be working with such incredible artists, such incredible people.

travel personas

you'll have to tilt your head to the left and turn your volume to the up.



the following are not rhetorical questions - i want answers! tell me about your experiences.

who are you when you travel? what do you do? what do you wear? how do you feel? what do you think about? do you talk to people more or less then when you are not traveling? what do you eat? how does it differ from what you eat when you are not traveling? how does that make you feel? physically. mentally. do you exercise? do you chew gum? can you still go to the bathroom? do you sit on the seat? do you care about money? what do you have with you? do you feel free? do you feel confined?

do the answers to these questions differ based on your mode of transportation?

how would you answer in regards to traveling by plane - the time in the airport, the time on the plane, the adjustment to your first location post airport?

how would you answer if walking was your mode of transportation?

how do these answers compare to the answers you'd give if the questions were about your normal daily life? are they very different? are they the same? do you notice any trends? where are you happiest?

re-entry and integration

i am home after a wonderfully difficult six-week journey. day 4. things are finally moving. i have been agonizing over this project, my project, for a year now - floating in an endless sea of conceptual intangibility - accepting and integrating the many changes, disappointments, possibilities made impossible - searching through necessity for what it is. i feel as though i should introduce the project, talk about it as a whole so you, the reader, can make some sense of the process being tracked here - but that's just it, only now am i starting to know what this is beyond a feeling, a physical response, an image, an idea - and the ability to translate the emerging "this" remains an impossibility. i suppose that is one of my reasons for starting this dialog - to have another place, another format, to explore the project within - a place where i must communicate with words. you just place one letter next to the last, right?

i should start with the stories. that has become step one. (i have a step one!) the stories will be a collection of short stories, each an experience in a human life - about things coming apart, but not in a destructive way, rather as a way of opening, or completion - as a catalyst for change. each story will be about being ready for this change, about the change, about what the change brings, about the space between things, about the way that it's all the same thing when you really boil it down, about how it's all connected.

amanda and i had a great meeting yesterday - started talking about look/style/content for the animation and video stuffs. we now have 4 categories/stories-to-be we're working with:

:the bag - about relationships and my travels with a homemade slovenian bag

:the boots - about my dying green alligator cowboy boots and feeling most alone when surrounded by people

:travel personas - about activities used to avert reality

:mid-life crisis syndrome - about repetitive motion

i meet with paurl tonight to delve into these stories. i'm excited to be at the place where i can pass the ball for the first time. to say, "i want this kind of thing, including these elements, run through your filter - go!" and then to get something back - something from another brain. things certainly are moving...