Hello everyone. It's been a while! Things have been going going going, but at the same time, it feels like I've gotten off to a slow start. I hate that. the constant push and pull, or constant reminding myself that I
am getting things done or started or moving. I'm doing something. so.... what exactly??
WELL. First I had to set up my space. I realized that my studio was not set up for awesomeness. It was not somewhere I was excited and pumped to go to. It was not a space for community!! So:
here's the space as you walk into the barn, down the hall of my awesome peers. I'm number 9.
This is looking in. I'm in the front space, and Micah is in the back space. He's pretty great. he's there most of the time so it's not too lonely, and he's really fun to talk to. I'm gonna set up a special mail art project with him -- make a little mailbox in our spaces and we'll see where that goes. In this picture you can also see the welcome center. more later.
This is part of the listening booth I'm building. It's going to be an opportunity for anyone who signs up to be listened to (by me) or listen (to others who have signed up). I'm wondering what's the best space to make conducive to listening and telling? and what actually happens when i make that opportunity available? The astro turf is kinda something else.
more listening booth. It's very coocoon like, I know. also, womb, fort, bed canopy. yes. I know. these things keep coming up. its like my life theme. Which is weird for me. but whatever.
Shelves! and things found! And fabric stored!
desk! lots of shelves!
I hung up the pieces I finished from last year. They were so in the way everywhere. But here they're on bike hooks really high up. so they're still accessible and not ruined, but also not in my way all the time. also, they look super cool upside down and hung up really high. (the ladder I used to get them up there is another terrifying story. But I had a spotter/helper mom, I promise!)
this is part 3 of the three part wearable sculpture hanging above my space. That's also the (incomplete) top of the listening booth.
inside of the listening booth. hand-dyed onion-skin pink-yellow-y fabric.
future outside of the listening booth. A rouching pattern inspired by one brian hitsleberger, an Elsewhere artist in residence, who described his vision of his exploding room installation with this type of sewing. I used a slopy/rough version of it and just loved loved loved the look -- the order compared to the more organic insides. I think it'll look great when it's all around the whole thing.
more insides of the listening booth.
part of the communication/welcome center. Micah makes calls here all the time. I was just messing around with the broken electronics I had laying around. I think it could be really cool if there was a recorder/mic in the phones (and obviously everyone would know that) and then when you picked up the phone it would start recording and people could leave messages. it could be a year long documentation of things people say. or maybe it could go in the listening booth.
this is the start of my wire-hangar map. It's all (or soon to be all) 50 states made of coat-hangars. I think it's funny because Texas, Deleware, California and New Jersey are all the same size. My idea with this one is that I would present it in a way (with paper behind it or something) that people would add their stories, memories, thoughts about a place to that part of the map, and only with all those stories added to it will the piece be completed. The memories and thoughts will be as distored as the map, and the map will be a distored map/view/ lense of the community. we'll see where that one goes too.
Some other awesome things:
- This is the third time that it's happened. I go into the art barn, and Greg sees me and says, "Oh, Aliya, I've been looking for you. I found some _____ in the dumpster --- do you want it?" This has included: some awesome mosquito net fabric in a beautiful saffron color, some astro-turf, and a big bag of bating, fancy suede fabric, and yellow parachute fabric. He drags it out of wherever he found it and helps me move it into my space! I love free things! And, it's like I have this scout searching the world for awesome aliya-things! It feels great.
- I found out the other day that the big bag of fabric that Greg most recently found for me, was in fact Haley's!! Haley is an awesome friend, someone who has taken so many of the same classes as me that we decided we better become friends because we may be the same person. She is really incredible and does some amazing work and motivates people in such powerful ways. So, we are a team, and will inevitably collaborate this year. She is a great support, and the other day we were having a pow-wow meeting because we weren't feeling so great about where the UMass class was going, and not only did we pump each other up about the class and possibilities, but I found out that the bag of fabric I inherited was from her! Her mom found it, and Haley'd been dragging it around for so long and finally just dumped it at Hampshire. And now I have it! I love it. I love histories of things! And that now, whatever I make from it has a bit of her story in it too!
- I got the internship at storefrontART in Northampton. I see this as a way to work with a real-life community arts organization that's mission is to bring art and community together in new ways. storefrontART takes storefronts that are in-between rents or unoccupied, and then coordinates local artists using them for studios, galleries, or performances/installations. They also have a ton of other kinds of ways of interacting with the community - I'm really interested in their every-few-months ARThappenings which I think are big coordinated events in different spaces which brings lots of different artists together under one theme, or something like that. I hope it's like an art happening that I've read about and want to create myself. They also have ARTspeak, which are smaller skill shares or workshops or talks that are given for and by the community. All of this is kinda new and unfamiliar, and we just had our first intern meeting last Thursday. I have some mixed feelings about it -- I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing actually, I'm worried it's not enough "actual engagement" with the community, I'm unsure what "community" we're actually talking about or serving here, and I'm worried I'll become a task do-er instead of an integral creative contributor -- not just muscle but brain too. I'm fine doing some muscle work, but, from my Elsewhere internship, I found that I really work best when I'm contributing to the institution too, not just supporting it.
- I'm looking for and tackling some grants. there are so many. but also so many constraints and limitations. It will be good cause i'm finding lots for sorta "next year/real life" things. Also, a grant to fund a non-paying summer internship... (elsewhere???!?!?)
- I'm finishing up my mail art project with the group of Elsewhereians. Its showing in New Zeland on October 22. I don't even totally understand it but it's been great fun, getting mail all the time and adding to it and being jumpstarted and in the art making groove. it's had me start making mail art contacts with lots of people. and new collaborations are coming out of that!! so, I'm excited.
Other things going on:
- I fixed my winter hat that i made last winter but it was sorta a cone-head. its getting cold here and i'm happy to have this hat. also, i got a hair cut from my neighbor and i am relishing in the asymmetricality!!
- I had a reunion of the people who went to the Dominican Republic with me last January for a month-long design/build/community course there. It was amazing and it was so lovely to see them all again. It made me remember and miss all my communities everywhere. got a little lonely when it was time to leave, but was ok with that. I've been thinking about how difficult it is to stay in touch, to keep tabs on everyone, to hold everyone as close as I want, whether it's on my side or their's -- or just because of the big distances in between. I miss everyone, and sometimes I feel like I just have to put a relationship in the freezer, and wait till I can take it out again. It'll still be good, I just have to put things on hold until we are close enough again. Or something. Its really great to catch up with old friends.
- I've been having great conversations all over the place. Communicating on new levels, and also getting feedback from my peers, and other people who are studying community art -- Haley, Will, Molly, Cory, Kelley, Emily. It's really validating to get their support and have this group to bounce ideas off of. Sometimes it's hard because it seems like everyone else has their shit together way more than I do. But that's also good because then it kick-starts me. Like after talking to Will today I see I really need to talk with my committee members more. I've been afraid to take up their time! how silly. So yeah! talking to people is good. important. it's how I process things really.
- My modmates have been very great and wonderful. I love how we can convene in the kitchen and have a great discussion over various different meals being cooked all at once. Also, Elizabeth keeps making so many different experiments, which means that we eat a lot of baked goods and today, different kinds of dumplings and a strange sweet eggplant (I think the eggplant was a jab/joke at me... because I put cinnamon in everything... which I learned from my best friend in 5th grade's mom, and I think is awesome.)
- Cooking has been theraputic. My residential house (the larger area where I work as an Residential Assistant / Residential Life Intern) is cooking dinner for the whole staff on Monday, and I was excited so I took on leading up the dinner preparations. I was inspired by the idea of baking everything in a pumpkin. So we're going to have stuffing baked in a pumpkin, and pumpkin pie baked in a pumpkin. We're going to have two different soups made of incredible fresh farm veggies (that I saved from rotting and carefully prepared, cut, and froze!). And then, Carolyn (one of my bosses) said she'd throw in a turkey... she thought we really just had to have one with that meal. and then we had to have cans of cranberry sauce. So, for some reason, it turned into a freaking thanksgiving dinner! But I just love thanksgiving dinner, so it'll be great. Not to mention, that we'll basically OWN the other houses with our totally awesome dinner... whoever cooks next month will be totally intimidated.
that's it. such a long post blech. I've been getting so much sleep this semester it makes me feel like a slacker. but it also makes me not as resistant to sleepy- feelings and the draw of my cozy treehouse bed. I've been sleeping in my sleeping bag for the past two weeks cause it's cozier. It's really no wonder I make so many cocoon/fort/small places in my art and writing and life. When do I break out of this cocoon though!? The metaphor is too strong a symbol of something.
miss you all. what are you up to?
love
aliya
