Present Tense: A Post-337 Project
The power of public art is beyond words. I do worship at the institutional shrine of art museums - and those who travel with me know that I lovingly haul 300-page hardcover museum guides half way around the world to place them affectionately in my collection - but there's nothing like turning the corner of a city street and stumbling upon an unexpected work of art. You may have just pictured a fountain statue in a park, or something similar, but I'm referring to anything that strikes me as beautiful...whether intentionally "art" or not.This rambling thought is one of the many reason I obsess over modern art. The accessibility. The unbridled creativity. The randomness. The democracy. The democracy? Yes, the democracy.
Public art is no respecter of persons. To experience public art you do not reverently attend a museum, quietly shuffling your shoes down hallowed marble hallways past silent works of canonical fame. You simply stumble upon it and...experience. Love it. Hate it. Blog it. Photograph it. Forget about it. That experience is uniquely yours in a space that belongs to all. It's a fascinating paradigm.
I recently visited the Salt Lake ART Center, specifically the "Present Tense: A Post-337 Project" exhibit. The exhibit engages artists who were part of The 337 Project - a downtown building purchased by Salt Lake residents Adam and Dessi Price, who then turned it over to local artists. When the artists were done painting, installing, sculpting, tagging, whatevering, the building opened to the public.Adam Price writes in the Present Tense exhibit guide, "...thousands of people who had never been to a museum before felt empowered to enter The 337 Project. Reflecting on their own sense of participation, those who were there do not speak of having 'attended' The 337 Project, but instead assert their presence at a seminal event: 'I was there.'" Six days later, the building was completely demolished.
Like a Tibetan mandala, the creation that touched so many was gone in a matter of hours. There's something poetic and profound in that reality. The impermanence of beauty. The temporal nature of...everything. To continue the magic that was 337, the Present Tense exhibit creates a more traditional space for our local artists. The exhibit at the ART Center, however, is as untraditional as can be. As modern art, it is as random as you would expect and I loved loved loved it. You can read my friend chrliechaz's review HERE. We both adored Trent Alvey's Urban Artifacts. I actually plan to do a smaller version of this (like three jars on a shelf) in my own living room.
Another David Newkirk masterpiece
I gushed about David Newkirk in a previous post - but I want this photo to stand on it's own. If you haven't visited his site yet, get on it. It's beautiful stuff.
To delight the senses
I often get comments on my photography, particularly my travel photos. I appreciate the sentiments very much, but when I come across travel photos taken by the likes of David Newkirk (on my friend Troy's blog within a discussion of the "eco-queer zen love story" short film he's making) I realize how far...how very, very far I have to go with this creative medium.
These travel photos will amaze you. Spend a few clicks on his site. You won't regret it.
These travel photos will amaze you. Spend a few clicks on his site. You won't regret it.
Tabehsa teaches me a lesson
I'm such a jerk. I don't entirely regret the comments I made in this post because in large part I still feel everything expressed there. However, The Universe does have a consistent, particularly annoying way of teaching me, shutting me up, and putting life back into perspective. Sometimes these lessons are waiting for me years down the road, in some cases I'm forced to recalibrate immediately. In the case of my cold feet about tutoring Tabesha, The Universe smacked me around the very next day.
I parked my car and walked around the corner toward her house. Before I even saw her daughters playing in the front yard, I heard: "TEACHER! TEACHER IS HERE! MOOOOOMMMMMM! TEACHER!" When I was close enough to the house to see them, I spotted her three-year-old running around in crazy circles, her arms flailing above her head, "TEACHER!" Her other daughter had already run inside to fetch her "MOOOOOOMMM!" Once I was inside I saw that Musa, her husband, was still at the table eating dinner. Tabesha was busy in the kitchen, but poked her head out and told me to sit, sit, sit down at the table.
I struggle to know if it's worse to eat their food and take that much needed resource away from her large family, or if it's worse to insult her by refusing hospitality. Ultimately, knowing what I do of her family and her culture, I opted to respect her hospitality. As I sat down at the table my eye caught Musa tearing mystery meat from the bone with his hands and sopping up the dripping sauce with a huge dinner roll. I don't eat red meat (or shellfish, pork, dark meat of any kind, the list goes on) and my first thought was, "It's only been ten years or so...I'm sure your body will figure out how to digest this mystery animal. You can do this..."
I sat down and was immediately presented with two huge dinner rolls, a large bowl full of cucumber/tomato/olive oil/spices salad, three large pieces of said mystery meat, and, thankfully, utensils. It smelled fantastically spicy and I told myself to "...dig in. Eat it with lots of bread. Enjoy the salad. Don't think about it. Don't be rude." Knowing how expensive this meal was for her family, now was not exactly the time to have a lesson on the quite-privileged-if-you-think-about-it word "vegetarian."
Musa was in a reflective mood and talked a lot about Africa as I gingerly attempted to cut my meat from the bone with an old butter knife. His kids running in the front yard on a busy street caused him to comment: "In Africa, if our neighbors saw danger, they would protect our kids. We all raise kids. Children belong to everyone in the village. Here, in America, my daughter could run into the street and no one would protect her." With my mouth full of red meat and cold dinner roll, I watched his face as he said this and my heart broke.
Fast forward to my salad being gone, one dinner roll and two out of the three pieces of meat consumed, and I thanked them as I got up from the table. Musa pointed to the third piece of meat and said, "Sit, sit, sit. Eat, eat, eat." "Oh, I'm very full," I said as I held my stomach and smiled. "Thank you for sharing. Tabesha is a good cook. That was good. Thank you." I headed to the living room for our lesson. Musa called after me, "If you are ever in our home and you are hungry, you say so. If you are in our home, you are our family. You are our teacher and you live here to. This is your home, teacher, and your food." Tabesha smiled and nodded along to his words. Again, my heart broke.
So I have a busy job. So I have a lot of commitments and events and stuff going on after work. So it takes me a fair amount of time to prepare each lesson for her, twice each week. So what?
To drive this lesson home, The Universe watched us and smiled knowingly as Tabesha and I sat on the couch for 40 minutes after the lesson was over...talking and laughing and teasing each other, having a great time.
Note to Self: Get over yourself.
I parked my car and walked around the corner toward her house. Before I even saw her daughters playing in the front yard, I heard: "TEACHER! TEACHER IS HERE! MOOOOOMMMMMM! TEACHER!" When I was close enough to the house to see them, I spotted her three-year-old running around in crazy circles, her arms flailing above her head, "TEACHER!" Her other daughter had already run inside to fetch her "MOOOOOOMMM!" Once I was inside I saw that Musa, her husband, was still at the table eating dinner. Tabesha was busy in the kitchen, but poked her head out and told me to sit, sit, sit down at the table.
I struggle to know if it's worse to eat their food and take that much needed resource away from her large family, or if it's worse to insult her by refusing hospitality. Ultimately, knowing what I do of her family and her culture, I opted to respect her hospitality. As I sat down at the table my eye caught Musa tearing mystery meat from the bone with his hands and sopping up the dripping sauce with a huge dinner roll. I don't eat red meat (or shellfish, pork, dark meat of any kind, the list goes on) and my first thought was, "It's only been ten years or so...I'm sure your body will figure out how to digest this mystery animal. You can do this..."
I sat down and was immediately presented with two huge dinner rolls, a large bowl full of cucumber/tomato/olive oil/spices salad, three large pieces of said mystery meat, and, thankfully, utensils. It smelled fantastically spicy and I told myself to "...dig in. Eat it with lots of bread. Enjoy the salad. Don't think about it. Don't be rude." Knowing how expensive this meal was for her family, now was not exactly the time to have a lesson on the quite-privileged-if-you-think-about-it word "vegetarian."
Musa was in a reflective mood and talked a lot about Africa as I gingerly attempted to cut my meat from the bone with an old butter knife. His kids running in the front yard on a busy street caused him to comment: "In Africa, if our neighbors saw danger, they would protect our kids. We all raise kids. Children belong to everyone in the village. Here, in America, my daughter could run into the street and no one would protect her." With my mouth full of red meat and cold dinner roll, I watched his face as he said this and my heart broke.
Fast forward to my salad being gone, one dinner roll and two out of the three pieces of meat consumed, and I thanked them as I got up from the table. Musa pointed to the third piece of meat and said, "Sit, sit, sit. Eat, eat, eat." "Oh, I'm very full," I said as I held my stomach and smiled. "Thank you for sharing. Tabesha is a good cook. That was good. Thank you." I headed to the living room for our lesson. Musa called after me, "If you are ever in our home and you are hungry, you say so. If you are in our home, you are our family. You are our teacher and you live here to. This is your home, teacher, and your food." Tabesha smiled and nodded along to his words. Again, my heart broke.
So I have a busy job. So I have a lot of commitments and events and stuff going on after work. So it takes me a fair amount of time to prepare each lesson for her, twice each week. So what?
To drive this lesson home, The Universe watched us and smiled knowingly as Tabesha and I sat on the couch for 40 minutes after the lesson was over...talking and laughing and teasing each other, having a great time.
Note to Self: Get over yourself.
T. Boone Pickens saves the day
Last night on the PBS News Hour, Ray Suarez interviewed T. Boone Pickens. A Texan big oil billionaire, T. Boone Pickens (you just can't help but say his full name) is now one of the nation's leading investors in alternative energy. Namely, 10 billion dollars to a wind power start-up project. The transcript of the interview is found by clicking here. It's definitely worth your time to read the full interview. If you're of the visual persuasion, click here for the full video clip from last night's show.I'll admit - after I got over the way-too-perfect, caricaturesquely-charming quality of a Texas oil man being named T. Boone Pickens - I watched the interview through a skeptic's lens. My first thought: "That's excellent, T. Boone Pickens, you'll simply move your production empire into alternative fuels and you continue to profit in the range of billions upon billions of dollars. Noble."
Then I watched the interview unfold. Then T. Boone Pickens slowly won me over. Then Ray Suarez, in a wise nod to me and millions of other liberal skeptics who tune only to PBS news for this very reason, asked him this question: "Well, as someone who's heavily invested in both wind and natural gas, don't you stand to also see a pretty good payday if this plan is accepted?" T. Boone Pickens replied: "Well, I've had enough paydays, and that's fine to say that. But the wind, I feel like I'm a pioneer by committing to $10 billion wind project. And so, you know, I've given in the last five years over $700 million, and my estate will go to charity. So don't worry about what I make out of the deal. When I'm -- you know, I'll create jobs. And if I make profits, I'll pay taxes. But that doesn't have anything to do with this. This is a security for America. And that's what this is all about."I revisited my first thought and realized, "I actually do believe him, this T. Boone Pickens guy." I then thought... "even if he is motivated entirely by money...so what? At least this time around he's investing ethically in a common good for us and our planet."
I can't wait to watch this unfold. T. Boone Pickens may just save the day. I wager he'll at least be a significant piece of our collective solution.
Tabesha...two months in
It's been seven, nearly eight, weeks since I first met Tabesha. I can't believe how fast the time has flown, and at the same time I feel like I've been at this whole tutoring thing for years. I enjoy it and Tabesha and I have become friends outside our lessons; however, I don't think I fully realized how difficult it would be. I had some vague notion in the back of my mind about the time commitment becoming an issue...as summer wound down and my calendar pages filled like a flash flood rushing toward June 2009 with the rising waters leaving me roughly sixteen days of free time.
Beyond the dramatic absence of negotiable time, I was incredibly naive in my initial thoughts about ESL tutoring. I tutored a woman named Lidya for two years, but the situation was very different from my commitment with Tabesha. In the case of this new volunteer gig, I think I somehow pictured pre-fab lesson books lining shelf after shelf at the public library. While I have checked out no less than 59 resources from said library, I realized about week two of this adventure that none are going to give me pre-fab lessons perfectly applicable to Tabesha. Working in instructional design means that I'm more than capable of creating lessons from scratch, but again, ibid on the dramatic absence of free time.
I know, I know. You have every right to offer me a sharply aged cheese to go with this awful whine, but I did create this posting space for me to work through both the joys and the challenges that I knew would come. I'm at the point now where I look ahead to the end of my six-month mandatory commitment and think, "Should I take it as far as I've promised to and then move on? No shame in that." Then I wonder if I'll hit my stride, my runner's high, so to speak. If I bail after only six months, will I regret it? The other piece of this equation is that I care a lot about Tabesha, have come to love her family, her children, the time we spend together.
Together we wrote a story about her favorite photo, a beautiful action shot of her daughter's first steps. When I see that ridiculously yummy face and remember the pride Tabesha felt when she wrote a seven-sentence story about it in perfect English...I think...how can you not stick with this?
Beyond the dramatic absence of negotiable time, I was incredibly naive in my initial thoughts about ESL tutoring. I tutored a woman named Lidya for two years, but the situation was very different from my commitment with Tabesha. In the case of this new volunteer gig, I think I somehow pictured pre-fab lesson books lining shelf after shelf at the public library. While I have checked out no less than 59 resources from said library, I realized about week two of this adventure that none are going to give me pre-fab lessons perfectly applicable to Tabesha. Working in instructional design means that I'm more than capable of creating lessons from scratch, but again, ibid on the dramatic absence of free time.
I know, I know. You have every right to offer me a sharply aged cheese to go with this awful whine, but I did create this posting space for me to work through both the joys and the challenges that I knew would come. I'm at the point now where I look ahead to the end of my six-month mandatory commitment and think, "Should I take it as far as I've promised to and then move on? No shame in that." Then I wonder if I'll hit my stride, my runner's high, so to speak. If I bail after only six months, will I regret it? The other piece of this equation is that I care a lot about Tabesha, have come to love her family, her children, the time we spend together.Together we wrote a story about her favorite photo, a beautiful action shot of her daughter's first steps. When I see that ridiculously yummy face and remember the pride Tabesha felt when she wrote a seven-sentence story about it in perfect English...I think...how can you not stick with this?
Happy Anniversary, baby.
Awww...my little blog...the experiment I began one year ago with much confusion, trepidation, and unnecessary justification. Nearly 250 posts later I've settled into a comfortable groove of travelogues, photography, political rants and raves, book reviews, and occasional opinions about films.
As I peer ahead into another year of life in Blogland, I thought a fresh new look was in order. After designing a new header and retooling the layout, I think she's ready to rock.
On a more substantive note, I know the constant travel will continue. Trips on the calendar as of now include: North Carolina, Washington DC, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Colorado, Ohio, Atlanta, Seattle, Arizona, and more. Hauling my camera with me on all trips, business and pleasure, has become a staple of this blog and of my own creative fulfillment. Politics are as natural to me as breathing and you can expect rants and raves to carry on. I will reflect on books as I read them and the former "First Friday Films" posts will fade into "Whenever I see something worth talking about...or worth warning you about" posts.
A new addition to the blog in her second year will be "Monday Madeleines..." A year ago I had some vague notion of wanting to create a space to reflect on my memories (explanation of madeleines and memory found here). I've done that, in a direct way, a few times on this blog; but what I've realized is that I now have an entire year of digital madeleines. Each blog post, each photo, each video, all total an incredible wealth of memories. I would still like to compile essays on memory, but for now I'll reflect on the past year and post a photo each Monday (...that I'm in town, at a computer, and not buried in an insane workload). No words. No explanation. No context. Just a photo of a madeleine from the first year of the blog. Some may already be posted elsewhere on the blog, but some may not have made it to the blog in that first year.
Sadly, we will not be spending our one-year anniversary on a tropical island somewhere. However, I can say that our romance is still alive and well. I'm more in love with blogging now than I was on the day I first began this adventure. Awwww. Let's make out.
As I peer ahead into another year of life in Blogland, I thought a fresh new look was in order. After designing a new header and retooling the layout, I think she's ready to rock.
On a more substantive note, I know the constant travel will continue. Trips on the calendar as of now include: North Carolina, Washington DC, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Colorado, Ohio, Atlanta, Seattle, Arizona, and more. Hauling my camera with me on all trips, business and pleasure, has become a staple of this blog and of my own creative fulfillment. Politics are as natural to me as breathing and you can expect rants and raves to carry on. I will reflect on books as I read them and the former "First Friday Films" posts will fade into "Whenever I see something worth talking about...or worth warning you about" posts.
A new addition to the blog in her second year will be "Monday Madeleines..." A year ago I had some vague notion of wanting to create a space to reflect on my memories (explanation of madeleines and memory found here). I've done that, in a direct way, a few times on this blog; but what I've realized is that I now have an entire year of digital madeleines. Each blog post, each photo, each video, all total an incredible wealth of memories. I would still like to compile essays on memory, but for now I'll reflect on the past year and post a photo each Monday (...that I'm in town, at a computer, and not buried in an insane workload). No words. No explanation. No context. Just a photo of a madeleine from the first year of the blog. Some may already be posted elsewhere on the blog, but some may not have made it to the blog in that first year.
Sadly, we will not be spending our one-year anniversary on a tropical island somewhere. However, I can say that our romance is still alive and well. I'm more in love with blogging now than I was on the day I first began this adventure. Awwww. Let's make out.
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