Please check out my blog for my project, Walk with ME
http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6493436619864776839#editor/target=post;postID=2111067860390415047

Please check out my Walk with ME Kickstarter!!!!!!! This project will be starting in April and I will be blogging about it!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/48738141/walk-with-me-east-coast-tour

If you can please donate. Either way check out my video!!!! 

Starting anew

 It has been a WHOLE year since I blogged and well i feel awful about that! I am starting another year of blogging with a commitment to MORE blogging!

To catch up, it has been amazing year and I am not going to try to remark on all the cool events, projects, and things I have done but just highlight a few that just happened or are happening now.

 This past May I ran a 5K! I trained for for 4 months...using Couch to 5K. A great free resource online. I then ran the Pasadena marathon's 5K race. It was a struggle to believe I could do it. Since I had NEVER run a mile before this January. Now I am thinking about a 10K and training for a sprint triatholon. As a dancer, it shouldn't be a suprise that I love to run. It is so physically satisfying and living close to the beach, i get to look at the ocean and even jump into it after a run! Like I did today! in these funny looking shoes.

 This summer i screened an amazing video show, "Invoking LA." the greatest part was speaking to 100 high school students about it. There was a leasat 500 visitors to the show. Which is REALY good for a small college's gallery! I am beyond pleased with how it went. Here is a link to some press we got. http://www.laweekly.com/2012-07-19/art-books/signify-sanctify-believe-otis-tanya-rubbak-claire-cronin-adam-overton-art-ssb/

On a personal art note, I have re-entered the world of drawing! I am LOVING it. It started with me taking a textile class at Otis college of Art and Design. It sparked me to just start getting out the colored pencils, ink, and paint again. I am making textile designs and great drawings. Looking forward to a year of drawing projects. Including a large re-mix of the 3 Graces. I will post pics as things are made. This is a detail of an underwater creature drawing I did. Seriously considering starting a textile design business, starting with a line of socks. Just need some capital and find the right companies to partner with.

Well, that is a good start.
I will be posting again regularly about the art events I go to. About spirituality. Well and a little bit of whatever comes my way.

Woman's Building opening, Trepass Parade, and Pomona with Judy Chicago

Bronco at the Trespass Parade



The Art Marathon has begun!

First was the amazing Woman's Building opening reception!
This was something I was personally involved with, actually in charge of getting it all together!
So I was invested! There was over 1000 people there and it seemed like everyone had a great time. We sold the new publications that were created in conjunction with the show! We sold eyebolt necklaces! We had tea sandwiches from Tudor House and we had cupcakes and cakes from the Cake Divas.
http://www.otis.edu/public_programs/ben_maltz_gallery/womansbuilding.html


The Divas were out and about (unfortunately not the Cake Divas they were stuck in Palm Springs)!
I caught glimpses of Judy Chicago, so the glimmering eyes of Rachel Rosenthal and was told to come see Tobuhubu, I saw the glamorous Barbara T Smith, met Marguerite Elliott, and so so sosososososo many more! Including the fabulous Jerri Allyn and the rest of the amazing Waitresses.

Let us just say I get tired just thinking of that first leg of the art marathon for me!

Secondly was the Trepass parade! which was the next day!!!!! AH! Pedestal & the All Girl Band intercepted the parade and had a great time!
http://trespassparade.org/

The third leg of the marathon was actually the party for the Trespass parade. It was in that grand hall you can rent out in Union Station. Let's just say this. One it is great to finally not work an event! for Pacific Standard Time fun! And I met JD Samson of Le Tigre. Which made my life! Lovely person!

Then the next weekend after recuperating, I went out to Pomona with Meg Linton, and Jenay Meraz to Pomona to hear Judy Chicago speak to her younger self. it was worth the drive and she had great questions...including "Is this still important today? This feminist stuff?' (that isn't a quote) and let me tell you it IS! Rape still happens all the time! It still goes unreported! I myself don't feel comfortable riding the bus home at night! UGH!!!!! Thanks Judy for reminding me!
http://www.pomona.edu/museum/events/2011/artist-lecture.aspx


next up Still Doin' It: Fannin' the Flames of the Woman's Building.
Saturday is free!
Buy a ticket for Sunday!
http://www.otis.edu/public_programs/ben_maltz_gallery/wb_tickets.html

Maybe after this I can relax!

keep arting and keep track of what you art and send it to me at greyareaartist@gmail.com

my life

My desk....

I am sitting in my bed... manic on a Sunday...writing a blog. Cause well I just can't calm down.

Things are going great our Pacific Standard Time show at the Ben Maltz Gallery is almost up!
http://www.otis.edu/public_programs/ben_maltz_gallery/womansbuilding.html

and Pacific Standard Time craziness has begun!!!! so many shows so many events...my head is spinning and I am planning out the next 6 months of how I will get to everything....

http://www.pacificstandardtime.org/

I have decided to run an unofficial Art Marathon! Join me...keep track of the 26 events and exhibits you get to! and then send me the info! and hey if you are no in LA why not from now until May keep track of the first 26 shows and art events you go to....send it to greyareaartist@gmail.com.....if you want to tell me the dates of when you go that is great too...
i am to tabulate the results and share that!

Art has taken over my life!!! I am applying to residencies...let me know if you know any good art residencies in Europe! and well Pacific Standard Time has taken over all of my free time.

This will be marathon central so I will chronicle the events I go to!


For now I will leave you with a photo of the amazing organic California produce I get at the local Sunday market! all organic!!!!! even though it is foggy here in SoCal the produce is still shiny!

Life After the Rapture

Well today is may 22, 2011 at 1pm and my soul was not ascended into heaven yesterday as one of God's chosen.
I knew through the Wikipedia post on The Rapture that it would be rolling across the world hitting every time zone at 6pm...i wonder if if Arizona got two hours of rapture since it doesn't do Daylight Savings Time...
I must admit that as i spent the day before and hours before making fun of The Rapture and discussing the absurdity of something that has been predicted a dozen (probably more) times through history. ACTUALLY my mother in her confirmation class did the math to figure out the rapture....it was predicted for sometime in the 80s....
In grand fashion I attended an art benefit for a health clinic (insert irony that I got stinking drunk there) the night before The Rapture in glorious fun with my friends and enjoyed dancing and singing with my friends as our last night was prolonged into early hours of the morning. I had a great sleep over and woke up at my friend's house to a prolonged discussion with a zen monk about The Rapture. I am sure for him waking up to two girls sleeping in the living room of our mutual friends was intense for a celibate monk and might have felt a bit rapture-y. Interesting enough, what I took away from the conversation is that there are certain men who just don't think woman are intellectual. He brought up several conversations I had well formed thoughts about, even while hung over...and he didn't want to hear them. He wanted to show his prowess on them. Well I may drink and carouse and have breasts but my thoughts were just as valid and smart. But for some reason he didn't want to hear them. I find it more interesting to have an engaged two way conversation. Well and let's face it I am a little jealous he is a monk...I dream about being one all the time.
I went home after an amazing breakfast of banana waffles and bacon. All food tastes better when hung over especially when it will be your last hang over. I also got some sheet music because in the waning days of this civilization I am picking up the oboe again. (classical instrument that only Sufjan Stevens has any reference for...though his oboe player is a little out of tune and not at all that good...)

I was sleepy but I wanted to do something of importance before The Rapture....I got to reading the latest book I am obsessed with. The Tiger's Wife....pick it up the writer is under 35 and freaking amazing....I ended up online just surfing around...buying books before God took me away.
I must admit i got nervous at 530pm. I didn't want to be on the toilet when we all got sucked up to heaven or our eyes started bleeding. I took a shower to be fresh and clean after a lot of whiskey and bacon grease residue. As I was showering I was on high alert for earthquake shakes...I thought I felt the bathroom door shift open a tiny bit more....

Minutes before The Rapture I was thinking about my soul and what would it feel like if it was taken from me...even it was to save my eternal ass....I truly thought about if I would be taken if this REALLY happened. And I have to say even with my carousing, feminist ideals I think God would take me. I'm a good person. I love my friends. i love my family. I will take care of my parents when they get old. I give my friends lap dances. I get entangled in political thought. No seriously, I talk people through crisis and laugh with them when things are going well and I care. I critically think about what life means and what id SHOULD be like. I create beautiful things. I worry. I eat organic. I have no idea what I am doing but I don't lie, steal, or cheat. I am truly a soul making a try at it. I good clean try. It scares the shit out of people but I think Jesus and God can appreciate my earnestness.
I had turned on the TV so I could say I was watching basketball when God came (my sense of humor is on the cynical side) but I don't have cable and the Mavs game was on ESPN. So I watched some PBS. And life continued After The Rapture....

Life!

Today was the opening of Broodwork at my work...hee hee.
Here is a not very flattering pic of me with Kathy and Eamon O'Kane, the sweetest successful artist I have met. Seriously he is truly accomplished and very nice...a rare mixture and quite a treat. What is the cutest is that he has two boys and he seems to spend a lot of time thinking about what he is going to get them as presents. :)

Here are some more pics from work....I spend a lot of time there and these are some of the folks that make my day brighter!

As I can't find the battery charger for my camera this may be the last picture you see in a while from me....eek. I guess I will just have to steal things of the internet to fill up my blogs.
(Sweat Pea is somehow an April bday flower)
So I am 30! ...I made it there. It wasn't even that hard or trying. Though I have used my birthday to try to make some big changes through small actions. One I am buying flowers for myself. sounds funny doesn't it? But they are cheap comparatively to therapy and they seem to have the same effect. I buy $4-$16 worth of flowers and put them in my room or in the apartment and it just helps somehow.

I am thinking about getting a massage once a month. THAT is a bigger once a month expense though....but it may be really worth it.

I just felt like getting a blog out into the world.
Other than work I have been a bit boring this week. Of course last week I saw PRINCE and celebrating my birthday a TON. It seems like a time when I am learning alot and have my nose to the grind stone.

I can't wait for some beach weather on a day I can make it there!

Keep on rocking...

Some how these three photos go together and somehow show a lot about my life and what life in LA is like. Colorful sunshine through art and design as they swirl through my life. first being the tables outside a restaurant on sepulveda. the gay love of my life Greg Barnett, who I helped with some art stuff. Who is right now in NYC getting ready for a art show! And the desert flowers I bought to start celebrating turning 30! look at all the colors and sunbursts... :)

Amber came for a visit! We went to the beach cause I had to show her that! And then to a great East African restaurant in Culver City!
I am turning 30 next Wednesday!
Which got me thinking about 30 and well I am not done with beauty or youth but rather I am just ripening...my life is lush and vivid and just hit this point of juicy contentment. I have achieved some of my goals working in the arts, getting a masters, and in some strange twist of fate have performed as a dancer and become a performance artist, and shit a curator too.
Finally i am learning to flow with life's opportunities and I am starting to enjoy it.
I am not over thinking life as much and trying to learn to let myself enjoy the things I love and that I have worked hard for.
and I grabbed this photo that looks like a vain facebook profile pic...cause I look pretty. :)

The Ides of March

Well I am sure there are more than one blogger deciding to "pick up the pen" and get to writing again on this day, supposedly shrouded in bad luck. Well other than a slight headache so far i have made it through.

I am starting out with a lovely photo of the honeysuckle that wraps its way to my apartment...everyday that smell makes me smile and calms me down...as it starts to ripen and fall off the vine...even its sickly sweet dead blossoms are still appealing to me. When the earthquake in japan happened these blossoms brought me back from anxiety land and brought me back to the world.

Other than hysteria over the world as it is...things have been going just splendidly for me as of late. It is a great balanced sort of constant hum of contentment. I have been meeting new people, the art is flowing, and I enjoy my job. I am going to say all that cause it is hard for me to revel in all of that. so i am going to try.....ok i did it. :)

Just today my boss told me what a fantastic job I am doing at the gallery and it will keep me fueled to keep doing a fantastic job for months to come. It is so nice to hear you are doing well and means so much to me.

Well I am going to make this a short getting back into the swing of things with lots of photos blog. so many great things have happened the last few months.





Time with friends,

a performance night at Kristi Engle
and a pop song inspired cheer performance by Pedestal and the All Girl Band at Craftswoman,

a trip to Half Moon Bay outside of San Fran ,

and settling in to living in Mar Vista with a share in my local CSA look at those radishes ("yum buttons" and carrots!!!!!

library relationships

Today I walked to the library I go to...the thing is I moved...so the walk is pretty long...there and back to my new place...so I have started to put holds on books and have them sent to my new nearer library...tonight was rough as my library guy...the guy that has helped me the last year...the guy who asked how to pronounce my last name...he did a double take...and i said "what? what? do I have a fee? a fine?" and he said "oh and you have a book you can pick up [at my new library]"

it was heart breaking. I felt like we were breaking up. :)

I go to the library once a week. all it is is walking in getting my books on hold and then walking out after check out. But now I am slowly phasing out my old library location. How sad.

I can go visit but it just won't be the same.

New Time New Place

Hello all....i thought as I sit here with a sinus headache...I'd type out some of the crazy sort of thoughts that stream through a tired person's body. :)

It is very possible the stress of moving was part of how i got sick and that it got super cold in California standards this last week.

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about the future. Since I am moving out of a situation I don't want to live in into a place I see as a temporary solution. I wonder what exactly I want. Of course the answer is a stable place to live and a job that I could be happy at for several years. I guess what is amazing is that it took my 29 years to realize that is what many people spend there whole lives trying to get. For so long I wanted other things...adventure....knowledge...passion...love.
And well I still want all those things...now a place of my own...and a continued striving for a career in art....have lifted to the top of my desires...and the arty twist is the major part of my desire is about having a place to make art...more than a fancy living room or dining area....

this is so bland so plain...who wants to hear about this in a blog?

but that is what has been going on...lots of thinking and a bit of stress with changing my life again.

a plus to my new place...watching football on sundays...and no notes.

i have been really sick...tired..flush...achy...just overall flu like...sinus pressure...and the plus to that...was the two books that I read this weekend...
I read "The Red Queen" by Philippa Gregory which I love ah...love ah the British History books. And will read World Without End by Ken Follett next...if I haven't read it already...eek...I know I read Pillars of Earth.
Next was "Little Bee" which hit hard with my time in West Africa....a story of a girl trying to escape Nigeria to the UK. It was an amazing book. Read it. It makes me wonder what I can really do. And not in that I am 20 and want to change the whole world. I just want to make some change right where I am. How do I jump in to other people's lives...and not make a mess of them but help them...it is so confusing. What do I need to do? Like what can I make good? In all the confusingness of what good truly is?

and taking naps...now i am ready to feel good...and unfortunately I am still exhausted...and I guess it isn't coming out...but my dear the things you think about when you are exhausted...the things you notice...the overall picture you are too tired to focus on and you mind trips over things into you sort of stick on the weirdest things.

stay well and sleep lots. PEACE.

Marriage and the Libri

If I could marry a library I would...over a man over a woman over an animal...if there was a way that I could envelop my own life with that of knowledge and its physical the book I would. Because as I learn about knowledge for them most part it is a beautiful creation of play, and performance and passion. Truth an every present moral standard is not a reality. Humans create truth and humans create knowledge and we agree to all of that....as we move and act through society and culture.That is why i swim in books, teen fantasy fiction, historical fiction, ecopsychology...because it is teaching me how to create the next knowledge...the knowledge I can be a part of creating...that I am a part of just through reading its words....
I don't like technical manuals...I am more for fiction than non fiction...

So my nuptials would be one of commitment to making it up....rolling around in words and image....for metaphors that transform...that is what I am looking for...books create environments to try on and test out...or to judge the world we already have...with its demise or with its more glittery alternative.
Oh grand library of my love for creation of possibility...and often times the lament of reality.
Thank you. thank you for sparking my words and my actions and for keeping me company all these years....Thank you for understanding the riddles of life by keeping some hidden and opening the doors to others...

I realized this morning it started with Ichabod Crane...the reason why I like skinny teeny tiny tall men with large adam apples...I was staring at men as they drove by as I waited for the bus...and oh yes over and over again...large adam apples...i was attracted to them... :)

this really seems to be something that leads to my favorite disney cartoon...to the nerdy smart shy guy with the long legs....and the huge adam apples...

Life flows on

It always feels like ages since I have blogged but I am doing alright two weeks isn't bad!

I have had so much going on I sort of have forgotten what has happened. i need my day planner to look at all that has gone on....YES I use a day planner...not a palm pilot or an iphone...though at some point my life is going to get busy enough where an electronic device with tracking on it will be needed....
Here is a photo of me...which for some reason this week I have been thinking alot about living in LA...California living...because as we all know it is different than living other places...just like living ANYWHERE is different than somewhere else...but the mind set here is quite different than good old Minnesota....I feel like this photo describes my life maybe more than I would like it to...with the phone attached to my head and me worrying about my appearance and how I will come off to others...
It is me on the phone with Brenda Taylor in MN trying to decide if my make up is alright before going to this fashion show event called the ETHOS project.
With B celebrities...Christian from Project Runway was the MC....it is weird this Hollywood LA world that Andy and I plopped ourselves into....just wasn't our kind of people.... it was fun to go to...but I had more fun chatting up Andy at dinner and eating yogurtland....

what was fun was dressing up and being with a good friend...
My life is this weird mix of seriousness and play. I realize I don't want just glitter...I want glitter with substance...i am drawn to certain people for a reason. I want to continue to be involved in thoughts and feelings that are about playing with what the world can be....

A lot of changes are happening right now...I am moving this month...in with a dancer friend of mine and her great dog...I have no idea if it will be a calmer place or not than where I am now. But I am trying to create a less stressful living environment.

Along with that I have been at my fellowship 3 months. And it makes me start to think to the future....This is two years and what so I REALLY want to do next? What do I need to explore to get ready for the next adventure? I have my eyes on some residencies...but I would also love a situation where I could continue to organize and make art....I am really wondering here my allegiances lie..I have all these social issues that I say I am concerned about but where can I truly get to work and make a difference...and is that really what I want to do? Or is it just based in guilt?...I don't think so...

I have been performing and working and videoing and even a tiny bit of drawing...so much the last 3 months...I need a few months to THINK about what I want next...what am I saying and how do i want to say it? Read some theory, write some words, and I want to draw A LOT and reflect.
Things never get easier but I am feeling good about me. And not connecting me to my failures. Which is really new.Also Megan and I both are feeling a lot of homesickness...which I think is connected to Halloween...when we were children we spent our first Halloweens at our Great Grandfather's and the fun and innocence and ease of those days haven't been recaptured for us....maybe we are working towards that again...

The weather has been rainy and chilled here with a day or two of gorgeous "SoCal" weather. It has helped with this sort of need of contemplation. I have read about 4 or 5 book in the last 3 weeks....so that is the space I am in. While also riding my bike at least once a week. Which has been grrrrreat!

October

With my few hours off this month, I want to get in a post. Yeah that is pretty melodramatic but this month is turning out just as busy as September. and I am needing a break.
But what is going on is great! I had my first opening at the Ben Maltz Gallery. for the show MAKE:CRAFT. which is very up my alley with all artists being makers from techie peeps to sustainable reusers...to knitters!!! Marke Newport who I had chatted with at Cranbrook did a performance for the opening that was amazing! And then also Crank Ensemble from San Fran performed there amazing rubber band and metal made instruments (sample above) that have contact mics on them to conduct the sound...loved it!

My job was to make sure that the opening goes off without too many hitches and it went well.
the performers got set up and there was food. PHEW.

What is real time consuming is the Woman's Building exhibit that is in a year. we are getting the publications ready and the checklist (all the pieces that will be in the show) together and those two things are a full time in itself. I am really excited for the show and luckily along with my admin tasks get to go on studio visits and archive visits in preparation. I am finding that I LOVE archives and I LOVE studio visits.....
Ran into Hilja Keading an AMAZING artist and she made the comment that I would make a great curator....as I grapple with this divide...the artist--curator rift...I wonder how I can keep both...how how HOW? though I think I would make one smashing curator...I have all the skills needed...BOOM. Whereas with the artist role...I just don't that like stay in for hours and work on stuff in me...but I also make some really thoughtful art...in many realms...if you have comments please call me cause I would love some support and help as I decide what to do next....but know all is good. I am making art, performing and working as a curatorial fellow all on full steam ahead!!!! which is ravishingly wonderful.

My personal life though...geez I don't know if I know how to have one. I just like hop in to other people's eating dinner with my good friend Sarah Morton (amazing budding filmmaker) and her musician boyfriend Andy Hentz(he is like a hidden music genius)...I realize when I want to feel loved I just call them up and hang out with them like I live with them or something...I guess I imagine I am supposed to have folks over to my house and throw little soirees...whereas when I have a few hours...i just want to read...and well read some more...before I jet to dance rehearsal or the video lab. that the idea of having someone to sleep over every night seems irritating.

Joe Coyle visited this week and I think he got me thinking...Joe loves a melodrama and to talk about the sad and the deep...which I love...it just has me realizing I can let go even more of the bounds I set around myself...


Just keep rocking it.

Up next Public Parks Performance at Baldwin hills overlook on oct 17 at 5pm...Greg Barnett's LACE workshop at Noon on Oct 24
Hopefully some shadow drawings I have had brewwwwwwwwwwwwing for months now.

I am a bit homesick as Joe leaves and then Jesse asked for this blog connection so I guess I am writing this to Jesse....wondering if he had advice for me on how to invest in my personal life more....what he would tell me to do....oh the love hate of the artist life....things are going good but where am I?

Time Flies

Well if I wait to figure out what photos I want to go with this post I may never get it posted!
So I want to make sure there is some consistency to my blog.

I am tired. Tired because I have been going at mach speed. And I have been trying to go at mach speed all my life. Now that I have I have decided it is too fast.
Luckily I at least am going mach speed doing things that I love.

Such as organizing public events for the gallery.
Researching with Meg about the Woman's Building.
Reading "The Corrections" and "Tinkers."
Reading my new subscription to the New Yorker.

All of these things seem extra special when Megan points out she can't do many of these things in Russia.

Though life sometimes becomes too many points of interest. I have done soo many cool things the last month they are blending together and all I want to do are boring things :) like play bananagrams...

but I also want to draw and paint. and photograph and video. and edit. and think.
mostly think. i want time to think about what i want to think about. and I will. I am.

Tonight I saw Simone Forti's quartet perform. Which was very interesting and it wasn't about layers like my work is about but rather the deconstruction of boundaries in language in a thoughtful way through the body, the image, and through sound. Bravo!

I saw Gorky's work at the MOCA and MAN oh MAN I love that guy now. he plays amazingly with transparency, layers, and abstraction in a way that is very emotional and appealing as it is in a strange way architectural or design orientated. I aspire to make work like that.

It was really hard to come back to a land with no family nearby. I miss them like crazy but I also realize I am on a very personal journey. One devoted to art, heart, and my family....

What I realized at Simone's performance were some rather large things...like how I could be someone of interest from the outside. That I had established myself here. That I had made some interesting friends. That this is where I want to be. and I am not so intimidated by others anymore...i don't look around for the approval of others but am a lot more centered than I have ever been.

The other thought I had this morning worth memorializing is about how we for a very long time have been trying to separate the body and the mind. wow that was a large part of my thesis but it felt like a new genuine thought this morning. it was about the internet and technology. we watch movies. we experience emotions or try to....without moving. we type. we you tube. also specifically scientists try to separate the two. but it is impossible. as we try to cure cancer not through getting rid of poison but curing the effect of poison. we loss the emotion reality of disease. science is our security blanket of reality sometimes. and when we learn something of use we exploit it....but how does that effect the body? sometimes the great things we learn have unexpected effects on the body and mind...i am rambling it is a new thought. science is a way to destroy bodily relationships by inserting the brain....i have no idea if I believe that...but science does effect intuition...i will think more on this....

hope you are still reading this....my exciting life. (rolling of eyes).... :)...i like it a lot but wonder if it is reading worthy...in this mind world disconnected from the body.

August is called Performance Month

I just was chatting with my cousin, Grace, on facebook chat. A spotty communication device but I was so glad to see her online! Because she is in Guatemala in the Peace Corps! Man, do I feel lame when both my sister and my cousin are so cool to have the commitment to do this AMAZING thing. Grace said the sweetest thing that she loved reading this blog because my life was interesting to other people! WOW, what a compliment!So I got on blogger to talk about my week. It has been a crazy one. This weekend I had two different performances I was involved in. One my mentor invited me to be a part of her solo dance at RedCat. RedCat is THE avant garde art performance place. This was QUITE an opportunity! And I LOVE dancing with Hana van der Kolk...her dance is an amazing mixture of meditation and exploration of what reality means...what emotion is when isolated and how we can play with that in performance specifically a thing we box in as dance but we all like to call art.
(this isn't the performance we did this week but another performance I did with Hana at MOCA...it gives you an idea as to what we are into and do)...will get photos of this performance when available.)
All week we had rehearsals...this was made easier for me cause my friend Hanna (i know there isn't that many people with the name Hana or Hanna and here are two of my very best friends with the same name!). Hanna was also in Hana's dance. ;) Hanna was asked to be in this dance also. And she DROVE us downtown...making my commute SO MUCH EASIER. we rehearsed Monday and Wed. and then performed Thursday and Friday. It was AMAZING because at the end of Hana's solo...she recites the words to Prince's Die for You....and then starts to dance in one space...just dance to no music...and slowly 7 of us come down and join in...but the music to the song comes on when half of us were on stage....people sort of chuckle...because many of them didn't realize the words she said to them...looking them in the eye were the words to a pop song. we all dance with the intent to stay in the present moment....and say to with our bodies I will die for you to the audience. it is a magical experience to be a part of!I won't get into every part of Hana's solo dance because it would be a long blog entry but my favorite part is when she asks for volunteers from the audience....she has them to simple actions with her...intimate actions....touching shoulders with hands....nose to nose...mouth to mouth...and i was lucky and very happy to be a part of this during our dress rehearsal...I was the second volunteer....and Hana told me to go nose to nose with her....and that when she breathed out I would breath in....and everytime we should think about how we were both dieing togehter with everybreath....wow one...it is HARD to do that type of breath excercise when nose to nose with someone....and two i would just get chills every time I thought that we were both dieing...but not in a sentimental I know Hana as a friend isn't it sad she will die and I will die it was more bodily than that! amazing experience.I met a lot of cool people and go tot dance with old friends I adore!This was just my Thursday Friday and all of this was done while working my new job. Which I am enjoying immensely and adjusting to. When I talk to people I am just so glad for my life and how it is going.
THEN Saturday was Pedestal & the All Girl Band's mega event at 18th Street Arts night. There was weeks of planning..well months of planning with this event! And man, we had the coolest posters....and we hired a gourmet ice cream truck created by architects to sell ice cream...it was a two part event...with us traveling with our mobile karaoke unit and having people sing off scrolls that we had in amazing tubes created by Hataya...THEN a few hours later we had a karaoke party in the 18th street studio.Our mobile karaoke unit was a BIG hit! and even got told to stop cause people were being to loud singing with us! BIG hit! loved it! It was a lot of fun and we wore crazy outfits!
The party was fun too...but all of us were pretty wiped out by then and we couldn't serve booze so things were a little more quiet than I was hoping....but man oh man three of us organized a two part high energy performance! what an accomplishment!
(these two photos are for Grace....this is the sweater that i sported at Xmas this year...that she has been showing to her Guatemala friends....I know hot right! And i want her to show her my new fav shirt which is this green and black number...not as outrageous but still very Paige-a-licious)

This week I have a part in Barbara T Smith's fundraiser! and the next weekend magic garage! The performances continue! and so will this blog! Try to keep up! ;)
I will need a long break after this month!