Another round of Sound Safaris. This time I spent less time adding the numbers to the videos, more mysterious, woah….
Kismet Arts Tangent
Art Collective
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You are currently reading this because I would like you to please keep it to yourself.
What do I mean?
I am tired of you and people like you saying that my art should be on a tee shirt, a postcard or a mural. I am doing what I want to be doing and if I ask your opinion, it’s because I believe your point of view is valuable in my current journey with art.
Art costs money to make. Unless you are commissioning something from me (money up front), I am not beholden to make my art consumable for you.
Thank you for reading this. Please, feel free to link to this when someone is hinting or outright telling you what you should do with your art.
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Jung Growth
Commorantis
Sakura Makes Me Purra
You Call Lip Tis
Mini Santorini
Dream Star
Plums for Everyone
Midnight at a Masquerade$10 each ( $15 if I have to mail it to you
:D )
9” x 12” on 80# Matte paper
handpainted with Dr Ph Martin’s concentrated radiant watercolorThat was the caption I put on it on my facebook photos album yesterday. Two were sold that day! Very cool.
Today, using a production company‘s design lab, I’ve added some products to my catalog! Check these out! These products can be interchanged with a different design (from above selection). Email me at katarinacountiss@gmail.com to start your order!
Sakura Square 16’’ by 16’’ Poly Chiffon $30 plus S&H 
Green Scarf 16’’ by 72’’ Poly Chiffon $55 plus S&H 
Santorini Tote (Lined) Navy vegan leather strap $56 plus S&H 
Jung Mantis Day Tote with Blue 1.5’’ strap $45 plus S&H 
Plum Origami Tote with Black Strap (33’’ long) $50 plus S&H 
Dream Star Shorts $38 plus S&H 
Dream Star Kimono $75 plus S&H 
Plum Tank $38 plus S&H 
Santorini Beanie $39 plus S&H 
Santorini Pillow 34’’ by 12’’ $40 plus S&H -
From the top clockwise: Michael Dooley played an electroacoustic live looping piece, Andrew Rose (read a poem I wrote) and myself on scatch, I had to include a still from the Rugrats Movie clip I started the show with (apparently Laurie Anderson is a voice for one of the babies. I couldn’t figure which tho.); Me doing voice therapy, moe and Cassidy Barnes doing a cover of Langauge is a Virus, everyone in the bookstore clapping along to Stevie’s Octopus Dance with Michael Johnson doing the sweet beats.
Here’s the playlist of the videos I played during the event.
Notable moments: I played a Tom Nunn Skatchbox–invented instrument– for the first time in public. I did my first duet cover with Cassidy Barnes. Debuted a new piece based off of Dance Therapy called Voice Therapy. I gave out some words to the attendees. The Fortune Bag: It’s — I have all of these shrinky dink words that I printed out and put in a bag. It’s like word tarot where I have them put intention into the draw and then I pull out three words and give them the words and try not to analyze what it might mean for them. And all the other moments were neat, too.
an example of the The Fortune Bag’s words. They can be made into jewelry. I like making them into mobiles. (video below)
zine made for the event: contains quotes from Laurie Anderson’s heroes, excerpts from texts she’s inspired by, some reviews of her work and a poem by me inspired by her Duets on Ice! 
Laurie Anderson had a piece where she projected onto a big white dress. I got me one of those and threw some light on it! It started a mini photoshoot with the attendees– so FUN 
for posterity I’m excited for the next event, inspired by Yoko Ono!
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Klanghaus had an event called Fleahaus. It was an opportunity for my first pop-up shop. My collaborator Andrew Rose and I took over a table and put up signs and I laid out a tapestry and then these placemats. Andrew sold his ceramics.
The fortune mobile made its debut and was a very popular item. Made out of embroidery thready, beads, wire, and a sticks. They also had words I made out of printable shrinky dinks.
I also had an item called Poem on the Spot. It was a dollar. It was pretty funny because the concept is that the customer pays for the poem and then I point across the room and describe the person who has their poem. It was interesting because I’ve never done that before. I heard some people had really nice experiences getting their poem. One customer gave me this look after I told him where to get his poem and he said he felt ripped off. It was something I’ve been expecting cuz yeah the expectation is that I do the poem lol. And I think I would be good at it too but anyways, I cited that I was inspired by artists working with concept/performance art/reframing of art (Yoko Ono, Pauline Oliveros, and Laurie Anderson were the three whose art I’ve been reading about in books). One of my art sayings is that art can be whatever you put a frame around. He said the explanation was worth a dollar and I really liked that. He wasn’t an ordinary rando. We had done a neo-futurist workshop together and he was in the troop now, so it felt really cool– someone actively creating performance art, said that it made sense. To appease him a bit more, I offered him a free pun sticker.
My punstuck stickers were a hit! I brought them out after not really doing anything with them for over three years. I loved watching people go through them and get a real kick out of them. It was very validating.
Tabling with Andrew was great! He had amazing stories about his ceramics and I would love to do it again sometime.
pun sticker
tiny fortune mobile towards the end of the night when there wasn’t time to string them up
people looked at this and I said “scabs” and we all laughed over and over
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photo by Teddy Hulsker “Katarina Countiss, multimedia artist and Klanghaus team member, will present ‘bathory’ a live painting experience featuring a bucket of liquid latex, a body, a white wall and clip lights (the essential ingredients to any act of human mastery)! Think action painting with abstract/poetic dance/movement elements.”
(Above) The write-up for the piece. I got a tub and some tempera paint as well as liquid latex paint. This was two hours of me being out near but not that near a firepit in the backyard of a DIY venue called Granny’s. The event was Bloodhaus, a blood-themed Klanghaus. There were other pieces in the house and live noise music generated in the backyard.
It felt like doing a live ASMR video. I really enjoyed the solitude of performing in this space in this way. And, it was cool to hear the noise music– it felt like a natural collaboration. I used an overhead projector for the main part of the lighting scheme. I am glad I own that thing.
The presenter of the show procured the boards and tarp for me. I got the white fabric. Half of the piece was me painting the boards and myself with the paint. The other half was me peeling off the paint from my mostly naked body.
I got really good feedback from this piece and I would love to do something like it in the future. I hadn’t played with liquid latex paint before. I’m still not sure how much I know about it because I mixed it with tempera paint. My skin did not have an adverse reaction, so that’s good. I used moisturizer before and afterward. I spent a lot of time cleaning myself after this. I imagine that a think and smooth, pure, one-time application of the liquid latex paint would be easier to get off than what I did.
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So I have a zine club. And I like to throw the occasional reading party at my favorite bookstore, EM Wolfman. I livestreamed the event on Facebook. I brought my overhead projector and some doilies and gels. Jaron Smith, Romy Marlboro and Andrew Gabriel Rose read poems and Cassidy Barnes played a couple of songs.
I read a poem, did a dance therapy/playback with the live audience’s input, did a tutorial on how to draw a flower, and explained how my petal stoner tarot relates to an attachment theory. There was some exuberant heckling by the one audience member who wasn’t a performer, so in a way everyone who was there was an active participant. Pretty cool.
At the end of the party, there was a zine giveaway and chocolate! Yum and Yum.
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I’ve been wanting to get into making wall hangings. I find them adorable in their art-objectyness. I have been using buttons, embroidery thread, and beads from the depot. I am interested in making more and I’ve been studying wall hangings I like and trying to get a feel for this very different way of composing.
Kismet Arts Tangent 