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a.m & p.m.

Here is the direct link to the story (that’s my photo!!) on NPR’s music blog, “The Record” : http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2010/08/20/129326440/olympia-wash-why-here-why-now

Northern opened unofficially in April, 2009 just in time for Arts Walk and officially hosted its first shows in mid-May. The project has been a huge undertaking and I think it’s safe to say it has been extremely rewarding for everyone involved, even through shows where no one showed up, volunteers flaked out and people accidentally destroyed art on the walls.

I’m proud to be a part of the project and my teenaged self thanks me, even if no one else does.

Partial screen shot:

It’s been a bit of  a bummer summer for me here in the Pacific Northwest. The chilly, dismal weather throughout much of June and July definitely affected my overall mood, in addition to a couple failed job searches and house drama. Now that August has brought hot, sunny weather to Olympia, I’m busy finishing teaching my summer class and frantically preparing lesson plans for the fall quarter. Throughout the upcoming academic year, I will be teaching three classes each quarter on two different campuses while still acting as the technician for the printmaking studio half time. Yes, I am crazy. However for the next 10 months, I am planning on saving  approximately 50% of my income for Future Plans, come hell or high water.

I’m also planning monthly adventures to preserve my sanity during the school year. The first adventure is a road trip to Albuquerque, New Mexico to attend Tamarind Institute’s Fabulous at Fifty Symposium and Conference. Long time readers and friends know how much I absolutely ADORE New Mexico. As excited as I am for the conference, I’m more excited to spend some time driving through the desert. I’ll be camping along the way which means stargazing galore! I hope to be on the road for a week and a half or so, and when I return to Olympia, it’ll already be advising week for the new campus gig. October, November and December’s adventures have yet to be determined, but a holiday in Buffalo with family is in the works as well as a relaxing long weekend at Breitenbush Hot Springs in Oregon. February brings the annual CAA conference in New York City, which will undoubtedly be amazing and re-energizing (couches, friends?). March is a friend’s wedding in Death Valley, California – another weekend of desert camping.

Ultimately all these mini-trips will lead up to a (hopefully) month long adventure in Peru next summer, the main destination being Machu Picchu. I have never traveled out of the country (with the exception of Canada and we all know that doesn’t count). Machu Picchu has always fascinated me; the images of the ancient Incan ruins located on an artificially terraced mountain side look like something I could only have imagined in dreams. I am currently looking for interested traveling buddies, so if you’re interested in spending time in Peru, you know where to reach me.

In the meantime, Little Wings at Northern. Man, I love Little Wings. Album recommendation of the day: Light Green Leaves.

I’m finally uploading images of the opening for Better Place Than Now from a little over a month ago. The show was a total success and it’s just the beginning for the body of work I’m currently researching, “Dead Wrestlers.” The awesome Conor Peterson also showed his large format photographs of quiet, desolate yet developed landscapes.

Me: Digital prints and drawing. The prints are highly pixelated, online video grabs, so they look slightly out of focused when photographed. The drawing of Miss Elizabeth is the first layer of a hand-drawn CMYK pattern. The image is from wrestling trading cards I collected as a kid in the mid 80s – early 90s. You can read more from an earlier post.

Conor Peterson: archival inkjet prints from large format negatives.

The Opening: Friends, food and fun!

Conor, gesticulating wildly with a snappy red tie.

Sarah and Kira, and Brian mid-chew.

As I contemplate living in Washington another year, my sixth, I can’t help but think about ideas of history and place.

The house I currently live in was constructed in 1908. Throughout the 1920s and into the early 60s, it served as a dormitory for Catholic nuns trained as nurses who tended the sick and infirm at St. Peter’s Hospital, located across the street. The original St Peter’s hospital was founded in 1887 by Mother Joseph of The Sacred Heart, one of the many Catholic funded hospitals and schools she founded that helped settle and establish the west. In 1919, however, the original hospital was forced to relocate to make way for the new Capitol Campus. St Peter’s was rebuilt with state of the art technology and again opened its doors to the people of Olympia in 1927. St. Pete’s served as a bastion of hope through the dark days of the Great Depression, both World Wars and the turmoil of Vietnam. In the mid-70s, the hospital was incorporated into one of the first and largest state-wide health collectives in the nation, Group Health, and opened a new facility on the outlying eastern border of the city, where I receive the majority of my health care as an employee of the state.  The old St Pete’s building across the street now houses a multitude of efficiency apartments.

My house, the nuns’ dormitory, was purchased in the late 70s by a group of young, visionary radicals anxious to partake in co-housing social experiments of the time; it has existed as a collective since: The Alexander Berkman Collective, or the ABC House. In the infinite wisdom of the generations of hippies, eco-terrorists, musicians, artists, anarchists and political organizers whom lived under this roof over the years (or hid in the basement), the original floral pattern wallpaper throughout the house was not allowed to be painted over. The wallpaper is hand screen-printed, a technique that went out of fashion in the 1940s. Although the paper is yellowed with age, scuffed, cracked and stained, I know this pattern of large, colorful flowers I look at every morning and every night is the same embellished bouquet that has been gazed upon every morning and every night for at least the last 70 years. There’s a certain kind of comfort there, found in the intersection of history, place and one’s small contribution to each in the appreciation of details.

What The Heck? Fest 2010 marked the 9th year of the festival and my second year of attendance.  Anacortes is a beautiful, sleepy little town and this year I was able to explore the island a bit. I plan on visiting at least once more before summer ends. An extra special extended photo essay, divided in two parts:

What The Heck 2010, Part 1

The festival began with a long, meandering walk through Anacortes, stopping in front of various businesses and street corners, finally ending up at the marina. “The Friendship Trail” featured 20+ performers singing a couple songs, introducing their music to the masses.

Markly Morrison of LAKE and Skrill Meadow

Karl Blau

The crowd at the Marina

After The Friendship Trail, there was a dinner show and then, later in the evening, the first Port Warehouse Show.

D+, the ultimate Anacortes super group featuring Phil Elverum (Mt. Erie), Bret Lunsford (Beat Happening) and Karl Blau opened the warehouse show. They’re also the awesome organizers of the event. I camped on Bret’s lawn again, as far away from the goats as possible– I learned my lesson from last year! (baby goats sound like wailing babies in the morning).

Broken Water played an early set, finally chasing away the last remnants of my folk doldrums. Broken Water is probably the most exciting band in Olympia right now, for me at least. You really should give them a listen.

LAKE (featuring my housemate Andrew on bass guitar) played later that night and finally got all the kids dancing.

Phil Elverum, one of the main organizers of the festival, rounded out the night with hauntingly beautiful Mount Erie

And Friday night ended with a lovely sunset/ moon rise over the docks.

new friends.

April showers bring May flowers, or so they say.  The Black Dot Museum, curated by Jean Smith and David Lester of Mecca Normal, took over the walls of Northern for the month of May, bringing together political artists based out of Vancouver, BC. We also celebrated the one year anniversary of Northern in conjunction with the opening. From the press release:

For May, David Lester and Jean Smith of Mecca Normal co-curate a month-long, group exhibit at Northern. “The Black Dot Museum — Political Artists from Vancouver” includes paintings, prints, drawings and comics by David Lester, Jean Smith, Brian Roche and Gord Hill. The opening reception for the artists was Saturday May 1, from 5p – 8p with a Performance by Mecca Normal at 7. This special opening also celebrates Northern’s one year anniversary serving as an all ages art and music venue in beautiful downtown Olympia, Washington.

Biographies provided by the artists:

David Lester is the guitar player in the underground rock duo Mecca Normal (Kill Rock Stars), a painter and graphic designer whose artwork is featured weekly in Magnet Magazine online with text by Mecca Normal singer Jean Smith. In 2009, Mecca Normal celebrated twenty-five years in music, touring their lecture, art and performance event “How Art & Music Can Change the World” based on Lester’s Inspired Agitators poster series. The Gruesome Acts of Capitalism (Arbeiter Ring, 2006) — an astounding collection of comparative statistics compiled by Lester — has been included in university course material in the US and Canada. David Lester’s art appears in the recently published Paper Politics (Soft Skull Press, 2009) as well as Reproduce & Revolt (Soft Skull Press, 2008).

Jean Smith is the singer and lyricist in the literary rock duo Mecca Normal and a two-time recipient of Canada Council for the Arts awards as a professional writer of creative fiction. Jean has two published novels and has, since 1986, released fifteen CDs on Kill Rock Stars, K Records and Matador. Smith’s series of self-portraits from age 13 has been included in several Ladyfest art exhibits. Her paintings are featured in Mecca Normal’s touring lecture event “How Art & Music Can Change the World”. Smith grew up in Vancouver with two abstract parents for painters.

Gord Hill currently lives in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada (occupied Coast Salish territory). From the Kwakwaka’wakw nation, with Tlingit and Scottish ancestry, his family lineage includes the Hunt and Scow families. He has lived on reserves and in cities, small towns, and isolated mountain camps, and has been involved in Indigenous and other social movements since 1988, participating in many protests, occupations, and blockades. He is an artist, writer, and carver. Above all, he considers himself a warrior—one who defends his people and territory. Gord is the author and illustrator of The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2010).

During the 80s and 90s Brian Roche regularly exhibited his large paintings of various historical figures rubbing elbows with icons of popular culture.  An ex-Catholic ranting about atheism and corporatization at dinner parties, he regularly answered the inevitable “but what does it mean?” question about his paintings with “you figure it out.‘ This was all fine, but there comes a time in an artist’s life when, in taking a tally of accomplishments, things don’t add up. At this time, Roche stopped painting. Several years ago, Roche decided to stop living the way he was — a painter not painting is a person not happy. He decided to be happy. His recent return to painting came after discovering that smaller canvases make it possible to complete work in the time after his day job.

Photos of the gallery show and the opening (with a special performance by Janet Pants!) below:

Procession of The Species. Epic, every year. Cute kids and old hippies always make me verklempt. Evidence of my continued existence:

I spent the morning and early afternoon balancing the house’s budget for the past four months. Everyone in the house has assigned chores and I am now the new official bookkeeper. As you can imagine, balancing a collective’s budget is no easy task and to say that the past bookkeeping system was even a system is an overstatement. Anyway, now I have only one more item to cross off my things-to-do list before I leave for Utah tomorrow morning: a final Hail Mary for a faculty position in Oregon. Then, tonight it’s LOST and packing. More updates from the road. Happy Spring… one more season until summer.