In playing a game of “catch-up” or “catch-all,” here are images from the year 2020 of portraits where to varying degrees of styling and photographing embroidery/sewings– it’s by no means exhaustively catalogging all the things that passed through my hands this last year.
Possibly one of the saddest things about art/craft documentation is that you cannot examine the product, only the flat representation through the photograph. I think it’s important to acknowledge that some of these works are not practically finished, which I suppose is fine for fashion photography, but less suitable for say theatrical work where you would want something to stay positioned for over two hours with physical movement and look great from all angles.
I spent a lot of time in the land of “collar bib” which is some kind of statement piece “jewelry” that I really think is fun aesthetically, but I wouldn’t wear it to the grocery store. It’s some kind of outfit accessory that might suit a trip to Meow Wolf or an eccentric garden party, which is fine, but yeah, a little awkward because that currently isn’t my lifestyle, so it’s a bit aspirational like skinny jeans that are for when I lose 10 pounds, except it’s for when the world changes and I get some big break that allows me to travel and get invitations (or host) lovely art parties.
That being said, it felt very affirming to spend most of this last year in my “studio” aka my bedroom, living my best life with a needle in my hand, making soft and imaginative things. And I hope this year is a lot of the same, though albeit also different, but in the same vein of following my bliss.
I worked on these brooches fairly recently, but I feel compelled to add that when I blogged about my new year’s eve, I saw the dates between today and the last time I published a blog which was February of Last Year (insert The Killers lyric, it’s not consequential, I got potential, I digress).
I enjoyed making these brooches. It was the first time I set out to make brooches in any medium and it made me very satisfied. I have been thinking about embroidery and how I want to embroider all of my wardrobe, but now I see that I can just have acccessories. I do not have a habit of accessorizing my outfits, partially because I don’t have a jewelry wearing habit and I think that affects the way I shop etc. So it has been pretty neat to make brooches. In my experimentation of styling the brooches, I really enjoy the effect of putting the brooch in that sweet gap where the collar meets the button strip, akin to a bolo tie’s clip’s location.
I often think about “where am I wearing this outfit to?” and especially now, in pandemic land, I imagine that there’s a party I’m preparing for when the “new roaring twenties” comes around. I like to distinguish audience member versus performer. The idea that there are some things in my wardrobe that are very punchy and could be worn as someone on stage, but off stage it might be overly peacocky for my taste. I think a bit about fashion as a language for showing others you know where you are and what you should be wearing.
What I especially like about brooches is their compactness. In comparison to other things I’ve embroidered, it has a great hand-feel, like a token or a ticket. There’s something really neat about something you can put in your pocket, perhaps like a handwritten note passed in class. You can keep it for later, forget about it and then remember.
Something to note: as brooches, the objects are a bit unfinished. I couldn’t commit to a type of fastener. In these shots, I have used a variety of methods to pin them, but I would love to talk to a craftsperson about their favorite ways to attach cloth to brooch clips, etc. Perhaps, I enjoy the non-committal versatility of their current state. They could be attached to all sorts of clips/pins, depending on the customer.
It’s been a hot minute since I blogged something. Not that I’ve been inactive in my life, but perhaps it goes into the category of practices rather than projects.
These are photos from a new years eve party at my house I helped make happen. I enjoyed getting dressed up and wearing my new hat I bought from a local clown, Bri Crabtree. I felt like Loonette from The Big Comfy Couch show.
I felt good about having a lot of time to set up the projector textures. You can see me experimenting with the framing with the textures, ultimately I had to make the screen taller so the people didn’t block the bunting I made.
I was really proud of the bunting. I cut out the numbers from a glittery cardstock I got at Michael’s. I accidentally cut the twos backwards which gave me the idea to put some shiny fabric on it. This was the first time I sewed fabric onto cardstock. It’s a nice alternative to glue because my hands did not get sticky and I think the fabric has more room to fluctuate or wrinkle, kind of like a deflated mylar balloon. I hung the bunting in my room and it’s a nice reminder of what year it is. Time seems to flow rather strangely these days.
Back to the shoot. I wanted to comment on how it was nice to do four shots. People tend to loosen up after a couple of takes, and I think people loosen up knowing there will be a couple of takes. To be fair, my housemates are very photogenic and playful. I really didn’t need to give them any direction other than where to sit.
the new year photo I posted on instagram/facebook
I stare at this photo a lot. This was the last take and I really like how each of us, in our own little stripe, have our own vibe. It feels really cool to not have to color coordinate and enjoy how the composition gels because of the way the colors on the projector organizes the image, like the brady bunch, we have our own relatively equal section to express ourselves.
I would love to do this particular arrangement again. I like the idea of making a collage where there’s a long strip of portraits where each person gets a nice equal sized stripe to pose with their instrument or beloved object. That might be the thing I like the most about the photo is that everyone is equipped with a meaningful prop. Often photobooths give you a cheap generic prop. That’s the nice thing about partying at your own house I guess.
One thing that I regret that I want to keep in mind. After we took photos, one of my housemates said that you didn’t get to see the cake he made. Turns out, I wasn’t as detail oriented as I wanted to be. I can chock some of it up to the limited nature of a timer set camera versus being behind the camera when it fires off, but still, the way that this kind of photobooth works is is whatever is in the light is in the frame and I think that’s good to tell your people when you are ushering them into position. Some of the shots do get the cake, but still, I think that it might have been nice of me to offer singles for each person so that they get center stage and have a nice photo where it’s just them and in this case, they get to show off something they want to show off.
I thought and journaled a little about this phenomenon as a photographer, you are a historian, and you have an opportunity to shape how this memory will be fortified. And how it does everyone an honor to be reminded of stuff that they were proud of or worked hard on or were very into. How virtuous a photograph can be. And I can say that this year, like last year, I missed out on an opportunity, partially just being unpracticed in the ways of being a photographer. Last year (2019-2020 NYE party), I missed getting two party attendees photos taken, making the composite group shot incomplete. And now this year, I missed the cake. I suppose that’s an improvement though the number of attendees being what it was, perhaps, the percentage of incomplete relative to the party is the same.
Alas, I’m glad to start this year off with an opportunity to reflect on a beautiful photoshoot and with gratitude for beauty and aesthetics in this time of pandemic and significantly low overall party-quotient.
a note about the video– I made it using my iphone and facebook live attached to my station– so the resolution is not ideal for presentation purposes but more to document it in a scrappy way– in a world, I would have hired a professional like I occasionally do.
event flier design by Jenny Yang
The process of making the show– I saw an opportunity for a performance at the Night of Forts and so I reached out to Nathaniel Miller who I have been jamming with at the Noise Jams and Art Nites.
He agreed to collaborate with me on a performance and I recruited some movers for the dance part. Inspired by psychobotany, I wanted to make a dance using the overhead projector and involve some people that I’ve never involved before, Dominique Nigro and Laura Cohen.
The dancemaking process was decidedly different than that of psychobotany. I wanted it to have more structure and use more props. I invited the four movers to my house for a kind of workshop were we talked about the intentions for the piece. We listened to the music and they planned how they would work together.
The execution of the piece was a bit of a different story. The environment of the event on show day was less than controlled. For Nathaniel to set-up a set up he’s never set up with someone else’s PA without adequate lighting, with a bit of pressure of time and people depending on him– we debriefed afterward, agreeing that it was a lot to expect.
So what happened is that we started maybe forty five minutes later than anticipated. It can be a lot when it seems like it’s five minutes away from starting every five minutes. I think this was the first time I was in a line-up as a “director” type role where there were other acts after us. I felt very responsible for the delay and had no idea of what the etiquette was for making amends or acknowledging the situation.
The movers took initiative– they wanted to start, so I said ok. The silence that ensued from them taking the stage after all this time was breathtaking. I really enjoyed the attention that was all visual. It was solemn, dreamy, sculpture-esque. I had never seen that before. I really liked it.
The music trickled in, slowly coming together into something. Nathaniel told me it wasn’t what he planned, he had to improvise. After about 16 minutes, one of the movers initiated a bit of choreography that was intended to be the end sequence. She rightly anticipated that the music cue they were relying on to leave the stage wouldn’t come on.
All in all, it was a good experience, though it was a bit stressful. I felt on the hook for commissioning movers to move in such an environment for a small stipend. I keep thinking that ideally I want to secure some grant money so that I wouldn’t feel so guilty, like compensating them with material gain would make me feel like I wasn’t asking for so much discomfort. And I would have more rehearsals to make sure they felt secure in the timing and manipulation of props– though now I’m inclined to have some kind of fallback plan in case the music isn’t cooperating.
During the show. I especially liked watching Andrew’s make-up stunt. It felt like a stunt, he took shirt and wiped his make-uped (and sweaty face) into his shirt and made a kind of rainbow. I am curious how to make a dance like that, where that is better integrated into some kind of narrative or series of colorations– like the dancers start out with white clothes and then there’s different dyeing mechanisms, ooooh.
I think in my heart I am still a painter and just want to see more color happen, the process of transformation.
There was a part where one of the mover’s dismounted another mover and fell onto a third mover– that was not planned either, but I was intrigued and nervous. I believe safety is an important factor, but also, like with theatrical wrestling, it might seem like more to those of us who are not so physical, how a small collision is really not that intense as watching it from the outside. But yea, also, I would want to give a show with four movers a bigger stage than I what was available this night.
Writing about it, I feel very grateful and inspired. I enjoy this play of light, movement, and sound. I am working to get a grant for a series of workshops around this kind of collaboration so that my group will be better prepared and better compensated. It’s a slow process of learning about how grants work.
Once again, a big thank you to the event’s producers, Jenny Yang and Forrest McCuller, the team at Beauty Supply and everyone on that bill. It was a fantastic night and I am honored to share the space and time and art with this community.
Above is the “contact sheet” I edited the photos and curated this gallery– there was 530 photos from the event in my camera and I made an online repository, but I like this better.
The fort making process was pretty smooth. I practiced ladder safety and engaged some embroidery habits in the construction of the fort that was four shower curtains, string, and tulle.
My collaborator, Nathaniel Miller, on the fort had an eye for details and really pushed it to be better than I envisioned it. I got some feedback after the event that there was a breakdown in communication. He would have preferred in person conversation to texting and he wanted a more active role in the construction process. Some obstacles to that was I got the impression he was a bit overwhelmed with preparing the music for a separate collaboration we were doing for the same event.
I hope we work together in the future. This is the first official project we have worked on together and it was mostly positive and I think that’s encouraging.
The experience of proctoring or facilitating the photobooth at the event was mostly smooth. I perhaps needed a better sign that said come in, I have a camera and will take your picture. I had a sign that had two faces, one side said that the photobooth is in use, and the other is a self-service instruction list for when I stepped away.
I provided a link to the google drive folder with all the photos from the event on the facebook event page. It seems like there are different delivery methods for photobooths. This was less sophisticated. If you got photos at the photobooth fort and have a facebook notification for the link on the event, you could comb through the photos until you found your session. I had a form for the people without facebook accounts to provide another way for me to send them the g-drive link.
The fort was fairly easy to dissemble, like cutting a puppet off its strings (except you wouldn’t do that). I really enjoy installation art and hope to get more opportunities to create spaces like this.
Similar to my sounds and sips event of years past, this was a great time to get together and enjoy an unstructured flurry of sounds and tones that I think is an amazing environment to feel alive in. And a great time to play my clarinet!
I spent three hours on Christmas Eve in my living room exploring movement with a peach colored sheet to some meditative music, livestreaming to Facebook.
Last summer, I had an idea to write a screenplay for me and my friend Robbie Bruens. I enlisted help from one of his collaborators, Jeg Jooper, who was the cinematographer of Treefeelers.
The logistics was tight. I would bus down to LA for five days and work around their schedules for two evenings of shooting. Robbie arranged some photogenic locations (we needed a bedroom and a bathroom). We shot at Echo Lake Park, Pershing Square, a shop near Santana Row, and a few Hollywood residences.
The shooting process was a lot of fun. My collaborators, Robbie and Jeg, were respectful, easy to work with, and provided input and logistical concerns where they thought it was needed. I felt very supported and inspired by our three person team.
This was my first script I’ve written* (by myself*). I’m normally interested in improvisational work. I put asterisks in there because I scripted some non-scripted parts. There is dialog that is off the cuff (Robbie’s words) and there is dialog that is read from the script. I’m pretty fascinated by that process, essentially giving a fictional frame to essentially an interview.
During the video editing process, the words that I wrote seemed stilted and awkward which I think adds to the dream quality, but I was more charmed by the natural verbage that improv provides.
Speaking of the editing process, I found it to be um, rushed. I care about my projects, but this one sat in my to-do pile while I waited for my musician darling to produce some music for the movie. By the time I got the movie into the editing room, my vision for the project was a bit fuzzy and I felt less driven towards the unpleasant details of editing. And truth be told, it was on a friend’s computer, so I didn’t feel at leisure to go away and come back. It was edited in one sitting.
I had recorded the sound separately. We didn’t have a sound person and I am not too savvy with processes about that. I ended up using the table reading as the final spoken word part. It was kind of funny. I’ve seen movies that do that, where they do the dialog in a voice over kind of way, (like in Ant Man 1 and 2), though in this, Robbie does his own lines and the mouths rarely line up. Ha! Ah! I keep telling myself that it is in fact a step below from Student Work. I just like doing this. I don’t study it and I don’t see myself becoming an industry professional. It’s the amor in amateur.
My approach to this project was not to think about refining it too much and letting it breathe raw qualities.
Future projects like this, advice to me in the future, I would love to have more control over my environments and create more whimsy with practicals like bizarre lighting and props, make up, movement. I love making movies, but it’s hard to do it in a city where I can’t take all my art-making supplies and lighting equipment. I would love to make a script with someone else too. It was nice having a script but I felt less driven to zhoozh it. Feeling beholden to a second co-producer would have made me more considerate in the refining process, or to a refining process.
A note about the Credits– I like keeping it simple but I also knew that I would have a post about it where I can give credit formally.
Robbie Bruens, actor, muse, coordinator and improviser
Jeg Jooper, cinematographer (work involving drone footage and rollerblading camera work!)
Katarina Countiss, actor, creator, “costumer”, writer, video editor
Music: “Bedroom Shapeshifting” Written and Performed by Cassidy Barnes
“Picnic Night” Written and Performed by Cassidy Barnes–The classical guitar piece is Canarios by Gaspar Sanz 1674 (public domain)
Amelie Fantasy — 9 min 37 sec
Special Thanks to Christine Medrano and David Clifford Turner
Kismet Arts Tangent 