I’ve been artistically aligned with Michael Dooley as of late. He invited me to run my overhead projection art photobooth at his house show! I’m getting really good at colors and textures on this thing!
The above video is me practicing for the photobooth.
Here’s a smatttering of the photos I took that night. It was fun changing the doilies and colors but even more satisfying to walk away and see people engage the textures and cellophane on their own. It’s a great thing for a party, visually appealing and interactive! I can’t wait to do another photobooth!
I curated my first Klanghaus event (with a lot of help from the team). Teddy Hulsker, program director of Klanghaus saw my psychobotany show at SF Fringe last year and has been wanting to present it at a Klanghaus event.
It was a joy to have some of my favorite artists contributing work to Planthaus and it was lovely having some new faces on board! A crowd favorite was Plant Portraits by Anjelica Colliard.
I also enjoyed the musical plant meditations (I helped with the vocal framing of it) of Michael Dooley who live-looped violin and a jar of water connected to a contact mike which happened in a Living Room Fort made of fabric and PVC pipes for support. It was a headphoned experience shared by 4 audience members at a time. Very special intimate mini-show that recurred 4 times the hour it was scheduled.
It was a lot of logistics and communication to coordinate that much plant-related art in one place, but with the help of the Klanghaus team, a lovely evening was produced and I’m relieved that it went so well.
As a group we drew graphic scores and a couple of them were performed on the spot!
The open mic included a fun sonic game where a person was “it” had to close their eyes and then after someone else made a sound, the “it” person had to guess who made the noise.
We performed Wind Horse together and a dream of mine was realized. I love the overlapping storytelling and the call response feel of the piece.
One of my favorite collaborators mailed me two shirts for me to petal. I got this set of dyes from Flax arts store. And it’s been really special seeing different shades of colors creating depth and variety to the blooms.
I use a 7 inch plastic hoop to hold the fabric while I paint. A shirt takes about 4 solid hours to petal. Each petal needs a dip from the paint well. And about 90 petals fit each hoop. Unscrewing and rescrewing the hoop is tiresome. I wonder how other fabric handpainters keep their fabric taut.
It’s weird pricing these because I want them to be affordable, but they are also a bit tedious and a lot of handwork. It felt good because the commission was from someone I admire and whose audience are people that will appreciate this detail, but to work on something for four hours and then give it to a stranger. I will be
A few people have ordered stuff from my shop! It’s been cool seeing the pop-ups that I received money for these and then I don’t have to do anything. Art of Where handles the production and shipping, printing my designs onto their products and then going from their montreal shop to an anticipating customer.
It’s nice not having to print a bunch of stuff thinking it’s what people want and then being a sucker when it’s not.
Last Night, I created a painting with two other artists (Nathanael Card and Kaitlin McSweeney) for a fundraiser for The Flight Deck.
Process videos (to come).
It was neat spending three hours in the lobby of a local black box theatre painting a five foot by six foot canvas with two other painters while they were selling raffles.
There was a lot of action: while I petalled the whole time, Kaitlin and Nathanael, smeared, poured, flinged and stenciled, creating layers that became hidden by other layers.
The first hour of keep begin detach 2: yoko ono, before it cuts out… I should have put my phone into a charger before starting the live facebook event stream.
Anyways, super successful event. One of the attendees brought friends and family to celebrate art and his birthday as he read poems (audio recording to come).
I did a voice therapy piece. It is a great piece to start an event with because you get a little feeling of who is in the room, what kinds of experiences they’ve been having lately. More than one person listed therapy as either the best part of their week or the worst. There were a lot of people, so it’s interesting how the piece expands with the audience.
I anticipated a small turn out like the first keep begin detach and so I only printed 15 zines. It was an awkward moment to run out of zines: never again.
Also this keep begin detach had a lot more participation. I ran some activity through my zines which was a workbook inspired by Yoko Ono’s instruction poetry found in books: Grapefruit and Acorn
I was very surprised at the turnout and it was really interesting feeling a little overtaken by all the new faces. It was weird not knowing how interested or forced they felt to do the exercises. Overall, it was great to feel like I challenged some people into writing some instruction pieces through my timed prompts. Some shared afterwards, some did not.
Cassidy Barnes played I’m a Witch cover, and Fenner recited some japanese songs and did some japanese dance.
Here’s the zine for the show fluxuszine2 I hope to one day make a fluxus box and mass produce it and sell it. A fluxus box is full of instructions and props that go with the instructions for art-amusements!
Kismet Arts Tangent 