Performance @ Kansas City Art Institute

I was invited to give a performance of PLAY at KCAI.

This is an older recording of the performance:

Video by Bobby Belote

Visiting Critic Collaborative Art Practices

I had the pleasure of visiting the Collaborative Art Practices class at Kansas City Art Institute this week.  I gave feedback on the 3rd of the classes projects.  Project 1 was Person, Project 2 was place, Project 3 was thing.

Here are some of the projects:

Share-a-Chute

Fuck Lanyards

Kansas City Habitat Acquisition

As a member of the Society for a Re-Natural Environment, it was my honor and privilege to assist The Society's Founder and President, B. D. Collier with a habitat acquisition.  We successfully acquired re-natural habitat 0007102708KCMO, a hill near the new performing arts complex in Downtown Kansas City, MO.  Wyandott and 16th streets at 11:00p 10.27.2008.

upcoming event

I have contracted Kimberly Interiors to make my apartment into an installation Sculpture.  Kimberly Kwee will be completing the installation in late November.  We will have an opening near Thanksgiving.  The installation will have open hours (to be determined) for 2 weeks following the opening of the installation.

forthcomings

October 29 - Performance/guest critic at Kansas City Art Institute 

November 22 - Opening for a group show at Metropolitan Gallery, St. Louis, MO

March 31, 2009 - Opening for a solo show at the Cecille R. Hunt Gallery, Webster University, St. Louis, MO

Ongoing this fall:

The Indiana Phenomenon!  Collaborative project working with Ryan Robinson, Brian D. Collier and possibly others regarding a condition of forced land ownership in the I-74 corridor in Western Indiana.

Collaborative project - construction of solar panel / trickle recharge systems for Brian D. Collier's Teach the Starlings project.

Spring semester 2009 - workshop with students at Webster University making Carbon Defense League's Flashpoint projectors!

Writing With Video

Artist and instructor Kimberly Kwee invited me to be visiting critic for the class

 Writing With Video at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Home Movie Day

This year was the 3rd Home Movie Day in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois.  Having been a part of the U-C community for the past 3 years, I have volunteered or participated in Home Movie Day in the past. 

Home Movie Day is an opportunity for the general public to view their 16mm, 8mm and Super8 film as well as a time when they can get advice on how to safeguard these valuable pieces of history.  Film preservation experts and archivists are on hand to inspect the films and offer suggestions for care so that these personal memories will be viewable for a very long time.  They also offer information about locations to transfer the film to digital or video copies.  Patrons have opportunities to donate their films to community archives - enriching the ephemera collection and helping to create a database of image and information about what "life was like".

Every year, it is a joy to watch other people's birthdays and Christmas celebrations from the past 100 years.   I've often found myself crying over other people's memories.  I once saw an elderly couple crying and holding each other as their movies played.  It was truly special for them to view their memories again and I felt honored to be allowed to be witness to that part of their history as well.

This year marked the first time that a Kids event was held in conjunction with Home Movie Day in U-C.  The organizers of Home Movie Day in U-C invited me to teach children how to draw directly onto 16mm clear film stock and to help the children create their own animations.  It was so much fun helping the kids to understand the way that multiple single images become apparent motion when they are projected. 

Every hour, we projected the animations that had been completed so far.  The children loved watching their work projected and applauded themselves and one another at the end of each reel.  The finished reel of all of the children's animations was donated to the Champaign County Archives.  

Eat With Me

The 3rd in the With Me series was 

Eat With Me 

(video and image to come)

I prepared vegan red beans and rice for anyone who wished to share a meal with me.

We hosted the event in the Visual Arts Studio.  In all, about 20 people chose to share the meal and good conversation about eating, sharing food and the role of participatory activities in art practice.  

Here is the recipe:

1 T margarine

1 onion

1 green pepper

2 C celery

4 cloves garlic

2 C vegetable stock

45 oz soaked kidney or red beans

4 C water

1 t of each: oregano, thyme, black pepper, paprika

1/2 t cayenne

1 bay leaf

Rice

Artist Kimberly Kwee was visiting me for the weekend and did a performance concurrent with the meal.  She offered foot washing to anyone who would enjoy allowing her to cleanse their feet.

The meal was served on my personal china and daily use plates and bowls.  Guests were told the story of my dishes. One set was given to me by my mother and had been her first set of china when she moved out on her own.  The other I have collected over many years.   My daily use dishes were purchased recently from IKEA.  

When anyone had completed their meal the dishes were washed to provide clean plates and utensils for the next participant.

No food was wasted in the process, the remaining food was eaten at my home by myself and 2 guests who were visiting for the weekend.

Guest Critic

Douglis Beck invited me to join his Architecture class as guest critic for their 1st project review.

Talk With Me

The second With Me was Talk With Me.

Dana Turkovic, curated an exhibition at the Cecille R. Hunt Gallery on Webster campus that rotated digital video from the media archives.  The gallery space was made into a learning center where access to rarely viewed video was available to patrons.  I invited students to watch videos with me and discuss.

We watched videos by William Kentridge and Matthew Barney and had delightful conversations about the translation of drawing into video that is not expressly animation and the visual appeal of the absurd and vulgar.

We also swapped favorite film titles and discussed our favorite film makers who were not on exhibition.

With Me projects

During the first 4 weeks of classes at Webster, as I was beginning to know the community better, I undertook several projects to encourage interaction with students.

The first of these projects was Walk With Me.

Three people took me up on the offer to walk and discuss ideas about art.

-One walk was a meander around Webster Groves and

-The other was a walk at Castlewood State Park where I shot this short video of Silkworms on a tree.