SAM’s Italian Room

 

I’ve had (yet another) idea for a project. This one involves working with the Italian Room at Seattle Art Museum. I couldn’t find much out about it online, so I had emailed the librarian there and she contacted me to let me know that she was able to let me look at the object files. What a trove of information! I forgot how much I like doing museum research, it reminded me of my Cooper-Hewitt internship and my research at NMAI last year. It was great to learn about more of the history of the room and what went into it’s conservation and installation. The Curator of Decorative Arts also stopped by and offered to show me (in the future) what is behind one of the gallery walls where you can see how the room is installed on a metal frame. The picture above is of some of the ceiling panels during installation.

 

Of course, what I really liked was how learning more about the history of the room has pushed the direction of my project. I’ve suddenly got some new ideas about what I can do. And more importantly, I’ve got more meaning behind what and why I’m pursuing this project. It was a pretty great art day!

Indian Gaming

 

And I mean that as in, an Indian playing games (slots).

 

Just ran across this picture and thought it was funny. I remember this day pretty well. It was during the summer of 2008 and I had just finished a two-and-a-half week course at Pilchuck Glass School. Bryn came and picked me up and we brought along a cool artist (Jane D’Arensbourg) who had been in the same class as me for the day. We stopped at the Tulalip Casino and ate breakfast, played some slots, and wandered around downtown before finally taking Jane to the airport.

 

Also, I really miss my long hair. Wish I hadn’t cut it, but no immediate plans on growing it back out. Too much hassle at the moment since it clashes with my day job’s uniform and grooming policies. *sigh*

“Distant mountains call me home”

 

I had just (purchased and) downloaded an issue of Red Ink Magazine from this past spring and was looking through the PDF. I noticed a picture that struck a chord. It looked so familiar, but I wasn’t sure exactly why. A small detail of the picture is shown above and the whole thing also had a box with the following text in it:

Bathed in frigid mist

Distant mountains call me home

From the sea I wake

When I went back to the previous page to find out more, I discovered that it was taken by a member of my Tribe, Judith Brannan Armbruster. No wonder it looked familiar! It’s the Klamath River! 

Here comes the rain again

 

 

Fall is my favorite season. In addition to the leaves changing color though, I noticed that there was suddenly a fresh coating of moss alongside the carport the other morning. Apparently fall also brings more green. You know, kind of like spring, but different? (I do like moss!)

 

Also, I always like reading the horoscopes by Rob Breszny at Free Will Astrology. The one for Gemini for the week of September 23rd sounds promising:

I’m getting excited to see what you’ll create in the coming weeks. You’re slipping into the most expressive groove you’ve been in for a while. I’m guessing that any minute now your imagination will start churning out a wealth of fresh perspectives and new approaches. Half-rotting problems that have just sat there immobile for weeks or even months will begin morphing into opportunities as you zap them with your frisky grace. Misunderstandings that have festered far too long will get cleansed and salved by your tricky ingenuity. Get the party started!

I’ve got my fingers crossed. And at the very least, I feel like I’m well-placed right now to make all of that come true. We’ll see what happens!

Family

 

 

Going through some of the leftover boxes from the move and ran across a few old pictures. This one is of my (adoptive) parents from 1964. They look so young and happy, which is not how I really remember them. My mom died when I was fourteen and I’ve recently cut off connection with my dad for a variety of reasons. It would be interesting to be able to go back and talk to them then. I’m sure they were much different from the people I knew and rememember.

 

This one is from the early 1980s. I like it because it is one of the only pictures of all three of us and we seem to look like a pretty normal family. I think this is how I felt we were always supposed to be, even though our actual family life was pretty terrible. It was worse as I got older, so I do feel a sense of nostalgia when I see this photo. But it is also easy for me to read things into it (that may or may not be accurate), such as my dad is looking away and even though he is with us, he seems oddly separate. I feel sad for him, because I think he could have been a really great man. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to overcome a lot of his past issues.

 

This one is from when I was about twelve and had found my birth mother. She’s not in this picture, but I’m up at her house with her other kids. Three older brothers and a younger sister. I was the only one put up for adoption. It was an odd experience at that age to spend time with people that I was biologically related to. I’d never had that before. And being raised as an only child, it was sort of overwhelming to suddenly be around a whole group of folks that I was related to!

One of these things is not like the other

 

 

So I’ve got these Pocahontas dolls that I’m using for an ongoing art project and when I compared them this morning out of their original boxes, I realized that they don’t look alike at all. It turns out that the one on the left is made by Mattel (Barbie) from the mid-1990s when the Disney movie came out. The one on the right, however, was purchased this year directly from the Disney website and is not a Mattel product. Hence, she looks (to me) more like Jasmine from Aladdin. Plus, her head is bigger. I ended up going on Ebay to get a cheap used doll that will match the one on the left. She’s the one who came out with the movie and I think it has more meaning to have that, along with the Barbie associations, than to use this other one. Although perhaps she will find her way into something in the future? But not for the project I’m currently doing. I need them to match! Ah well. An interesting observation at least. 

tsu heidei shugaxtutaan 2

 

Found this video on YouTube via a link from the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. AWESOME!!! (Artist is Nicholas Galanin.)

 

CoCA 18th Annual Art Marathon & Auction

 

 

I’m excited to be participating in the Center on Contemporary Art’s Art Marathon and Auction this year! What’s really cool is that it will be held down in Pioneer Square in the space that was recently vacated by Elliot Bay Books (they moved up to Capitol Hill). I can’t think of a cooler space to spend 24 hours in creating new art. Plus, I’ll get to be there with 29 other artists doing the same thing! I found out about this right after I got home from Montana, so it really felt great to have some opportunities coming up like this. I haven’t been drawing so much lately, but I’ve got a couple of commissions and ideas for when I start back up. Tomorrow is my day off aside from a brief meeting, so hopefully I can get some “real” work done!

Radical Dreaming

 

 

I’ve been reading a book called Radical Dreaming by Dr. John D. Goldhammer. My partner had just started seeing him this summer as a psychologist, and he passed away almost two weeks ago unexpectedly from a heart attack. A really great book so far, I’m sad that I didn’t get a chance to meet him. Here’s a paragraph that struck me:

Until we find our own treasure, we will gravitate toward living outer-directed lives subject to collective impulses—an existence consisting of moving with the herd, first this direction, then that direction, then that direction. We will certainly miss living our own life and the world around us will loses the unrealized, innate value and potential of a genuine, creative life. And we will spend our lives living in a state of projected illusion, chasing rainbows, pursuing a certain life style, imagining that our life is “out there” in this or that group, mass ideology, or following some guru. Outside influences will relentlessly turn the gold of our essential nature into something flattened and ineffective.

American Indian Artist Symposium 2010

 

I just got back last night from a visit to Montana for the Symposium. It. Was. Amazing. And not in that sort of, everything was perfect kind of way. It wasn’t really at all what I was expecting, but by being open to what it was, I learned so much! I don’t mean to say that it didn’t meet my expectations and that was disappointing. It is more that it didn’t match my expectations. I met some great people, took some risks and shared my work with new people, listened to a lot of viewpoints and advice from a variety of Native artists, sold some work, and ate some great food. What more could I ask for?

 

 

For one thing, I’d never been to Montana before. I had worked all day Friday and then headed out and ended up driving all night to arrive there at 8am. It was such an experience driving through Eastern WA and the Idaho panhandle in the dark (such darkness!) and then arriving in Montana for sunrise. I can totally see why people come to Montana and want to stay there. Beautiful.

 

 

The panels were great! This is a photo of the second day’s panel with Kay Walkingstick, Bentley Spang, and Joe Feddersen. Corky Clairmont was moderating. It looks empty, but everyone was clustered in the back. Each artist who spoke had so much to say that was valuable.

 

 

And the food. This was lunch on the second day. All leftovers, but still delicious. Beef stew, macaroni ham salad, amazing potato salad, and a (triangular) piece of frybread. Good times.

 

 

The drive home was really long and since I was running on very little sleep, I was happy to get back. But I saw this dead dragonfly sitting on a trash can lid at one of the places I stopped at for gas. It really is the little things.