tumbel

"I was asking Akram, “How do you deal when you can’t breathe and you think you’re going to die?” He..."

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:50:17 -0400

“I was asking Akram, “How do you deal when you can’t breathe and you think you’re going to die?” He said, “You’ve just got to trust you’re going to be able to carry on and to love the feeling of being out of breath.” So I listened to him, and now I understand what he meant; if you want to go farther with your own self, you’ve got to love the moment of difficulty.”

- Juliette Binoche

"Everybody’s always like, ‘On the one hand there’s technique and on the other hand there’s music that..."

Thu, 28 May 2009 11:33:48 -0400

“Everybody’s always like, ‘On the one hand there’s technique and on the other hand there’s music that you respond to emotionally,’ ” Longstreth notes. “But they’re one and the same in, say, [John] Coltrane’s music. I really like the vibe of transcendence through effort—like, epic striving, in a silly, romantic way. Connecting with a sublime feeling is wrapped up in concentration for me.”

- David Longstreth (Dirty Projectors), interview in Time Out New York

Design Blog | Janice Arnold Sketches | Cooper-Hewitt, National...

Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:02:00 -0400

Design Blog | Janice Arnold Sketches | Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

felt! “with natural locks @ back”! i have always been interested in medium; in the art i make or enjoy i’m attracted to natural materials like silk, cotton, wool, and wood; and i try to use these kinds of things in place of plastic and metal in my life/art wherever possible. but i had no idea how viscerally, sensuously appealing it would feel to be surrounded by felt. especially felt with woolly locks coming out of it.

somehow, i’m going to recreate one of the panels of the palace yurt as a curtain in my room. materials i am considering: silk gauze, silk organza, lightweight fusible web, and/or crocheted something or other. my project will probably not involve any actual wool felt (i’m not equipped to MAKE it), but i hope it will have the same luminous quality.

or perhaps it will be a case in which i find i’ve recreated something to the best of my ability and yet lost the magic of it.

even though i’ve decided to focus on acrobatics and...

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:07:00 -0400

even though i’ve decided to focus on acrobatics and performance as an artist, and even though i haven’t done self-portrait photography in years, i still feel like still photos of myself are the way i know best to convey a particular mood. they feel so much more straightforward and manageable than any other art form. in this case it wasn’t a composed shot but rather a frame i found in a digital video that seemed to say something. leafing through video files feels like cheating but it’s so satisfying.

i made an informal rule for myself that if i bring art-project...

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 21:42:00 -0400

i made an informal rule for myself that if i bring art-project material into my home, i have to make that project within the week. last weekend erin and i went to twin island, off orchard beach in the bronx, which is more or less paved in sea glass. i collected a small handful to make a mobile to put in my window.

i successfully made the mobile within the week. but it’s not that great. i don’t love it. i could live without it. the idea was nicer than the realization.

that’s a problem with the one-week rule (i made it in less than an hour, not enough time to make it perfect) and also a problem with my sense of myself as someone who can make anything. i tend to think things like, i have never made a sea-glass mobile before but i have materials and a good eye for aesthetics and composition; surely i can pull it off. and then i realize that just attaching all the pieces to each other is so finicky that i have to focus on that and leave the actual placement primarily up to chance.

i made the mobile with the belief that leaving the composition up to chance would create a finished piece with an organic beauty. but now i wish i could redo it with more control over placement. e.g., i’d prefer all the pieces of sea glass to be closer together (there are about 7 pieces). and yet i have no desire to go back and fuss with it any more.

i guess the rule is a mixed success so far.

so, here’s a goal: make studio time each week for my non-acrobatic art forms. sewing or...

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 10:15:01 -0500

so, here’s a goal: make studio time each week for my non-acrobatic art forms. sewing or crocheting or zine-ing. all those things i collect materials for but make once a year or less: schedule a regular time in which i can work on a current project. stick to it like i stick to acro training times. it doesn’t have to be a lot but i have to plan it to make it happen.

last night i realized i’m a great big fat...

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:38:00 -0500

last night i realized i’m a great big fat minimalist.

i’m not sure why this felt like a revelation. the most inspiring aerial piece i saw recently was performed to a metronome. i’m wearing all white in my favorite self-portraits. i stood in front of sol lewitt’s wall drawings at dia:beacon for ages. when last night’s MC told the audience, “you can clap when you see someting exciting. it’s not a beckett play,” i protested to a friend, “mine’s a beckett play!” (though i felt warm and supported when the audience clapped for me.)

but i realized it last night because while the other aerialists in the show were beautiful, strong, talented, and fantastic, i wasn’t creatively inspired by any of them. too much makeup, too much costuming, too many props, too much melodrama, too much showiness compared to what i’m interested in creating.

of course, minimalism isn’t the only aesthetic that appeals to me. but my attraction to it is a good thing to remember about myself. i’m working my way through twyla tharp’s painfully annoying the creative habit, and i give her props for helping me listen to and understand what inspires and motivates me as an artist.

eden’s music and drawings — my backdrop for...

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 02:07:50 -0500

eden’s music and drawings — my backdrop for tomorrow’s performance.

when i was beginning to conceive of this trapeze piece at the...

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 23:52:13 -0500

when i was beginning to conceive of this trapeze piece at the end of december 08, i made a list of my goals.

unusual transitions/drops
more postmodern than classical circus; tricks invisible
easy and joy, flow; light, sweeping, free
include tricks i want to show off
air, openness, space
repetitive patterns

i also made a list of tricks i wanted to include. the final piece includes very few of the orginally listed tricks, but meets all of my goals (as far as i can tell from my perspective), even though i haven’t looked back at that list all month. i feel immensely satisfied about this.

last week, watching a video of myself rehearsing the piece, i thought maybe it was about uncertainty, exploration, hesitance. i’m in an uncertain, exploratory phase in my life right now, so that made sense. but today i realized that over the past week my movements have become much more sure. even though the choreography still hints at indecision, when i move i feel a sense of ease and grandness. first i thought i had accidentally gone in the wrong direction over the past week, and then i realized i’d arrived right where i’d planned to be. ease, joy, flow. running the piece feels good. it feels like dancing.

i conceived of this piece on a formal level and i’m still not sure what it is on a human, emotional level. i think that even without my having a specific intention there, it is something. it’s me being human on a trapeze; there’s no way for it to be emotionally blank. but what is it? am i okay with not knowing? will i find out once i perform it? is there perhaps value to not knowing — allowing the peice to be free to resonate however it may with each individual?

i’ve been thinking about the relationship between making a...

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 23:20:44 -0500

i’ve been thinking about the relationship between making a solo trapeze piece and self-portrait photography.

for the trapeze piece i’m making i decided to wear white bloomers and a white tank top (though they will have colored crochet pieces embellishing them). it’s the same costume i wore for a series of self portraits five years ago.

and while this video frame is not indicative, i think the trapeze piece creates a similar mood to those old photos.

it’s a peacefulness, an innocence, and a certain amount of twee. i’m surprised to realize that i’m making the same thing now as i was then. i’m surprised to see how, in both cases, it’s about evoking a mood or emotion without words, through the use of costume, scenery, props, body position, lighting. i never thought of them as connected for me personally.

i have been trying to understand what i can give the audience as a solo performer. unlike the ensemble work i’ve done over the past couple years, i can’t perform love, trust, support, and lack of these things by the way i interact with another person.

my point is a little fuzzy given that the 2004 photo above IS with another person. but these are the same issues i grappled with when i was doing a lot of self-portrait photography. the why, so what, and what are my options?

i get great satisfaction from packing my laptop lunchbox these...

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 14:26:00 -0500

i get great satisfaction from packing my laptop lunchbox these days.

i thought i’d use this blog to talk about the creative process while making, say, a trapeze piece. but i’ve been making a trapeze piece over the past month and it’s been too confusing and fragile a process to talk about publicly. i will share more about it here soon, but in the meantime, here’s the other thing i’ve been making: lots of laptop lunches.

i work in an office three days a week and i have packed my LLB 90% of the time. the one time i didn’t this month, i found myself extremely angry at not having had time and having to buy food out.

my favorite foods this year (as you can see) have been:

greek yogurt with pomegranate arils
citrus of all sorts, especially blood oranges. i’ve been craving citrus nonstop. and of course kumquats: half citrus fruit, half magic.
walnuts. everytime i eat one i want to tell everybody in earshot how delicious it is.
brussels sprouts. i made this epicurious recipe with some added turnips and would keep thinking about how yummy it had been for about an hour after eating.
baked sweet potatoes, omg so satisfying, how did i not know until now
quinoa salads are always ftw.

i’ve been enjoying delicious food and i’ve also been enjoying the ritual of planning and packing a lunch, snapping a photo of it, eating it slowly of the course of the workday, and then uploading it to flickr in the evening and annotating it. it’s good to have a new ritual.

next installation of the deconstruction of my unicorn halloween...

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 16:39:00 -0500

next installation of the deconstruction of my unicorn halloween costume:

my front horse/unicorn hooves were wonderful because they were easy to make and looked like i’d imagined they would.

they went from sketch to creation so fast and accurately. sketch:

and the real thing:

(i accidentally put the wristwarmer on the wrong hand in these photos: the place where the cuff closes should face the front of the wrist, not the back).

to make these, i cut out two 10”x10” squares per wristwarmer: one of velvet and one of fur. i can’t really advise you on the construction because i’m sure i didn’t do it the best way. once it was all sewn, i handsewed these giant snaps on, and tada!

i could not find any sewing patterns for wristwarmers online, so i was extremely satisfied with my improvisation; after fighting the overcomplicated pattern of my spats for days and days, it was so nice just to cut out two squares.

as to whether they would work outside a costume-hoof context, i think so, but they could use more snaps or fasteners between the one i used here and the thumb hole; these tended to slide forward toward the tips of my fingers. also, since they had no stretch whatsoever, they gaped and puckered when i moved my hand around:

but i didn’t consider that a huge problem. they were very warm and SO SOFT (this fur fabric is lovely) and they would be perfect to wear in the dead of winter in combination wth a fur muff.

another thing the internet probably can’t give you a...

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:39:00 -0500

another thing the internet probably can’t give you a tutorial on (but now it can!) is how to make a rainbow unicorn/horse tail. everyone i talked to said it would be easy, but i was unsure how it would actually come together. it turned out to be the fastest part of the costume.

buy three+ colors of “bulk hair.” i used “jumbo braids” bought from beauty 35 on 35th st and 8th ave in manhattan.
divide each in half so your tail is not too bushy
make a girth hitch to attach your tail to the middle of a piece of white 1” elastic
attach some toothed metal buckles to the ends of your elastic to turn it into a belt.

when i was making my unicorn costume for halloween i kept...

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:41:00 -0500

when i was making my unicorn costume for halloween i kept thinking how disappointing it was that the internet did not have a tutorial or how-to for, say, how to make a rainbow horn. or how to make horse/unicorn ears (the closest thing i found were cat- and rabbit-eat tutorials, all of which used hot glue guns. shudder).

fortunately, i can set that right. how to make a couture lisa frank rainbow unicorn horn:

sew strips of velvet fabric and/or ribbon to a piece of paper (ideally use a piece of stiff interfacing). i used half a piece of 8.5x11 paper, cut to 4.25x5.5. i used 4 colors, sewing the fabric lengthwise.
roll the paper into a tight cone, fiddling with where you start rolling from in order to get a nice diagonal of rainbow colors. (i wish i could remember to tell you exactly where i rolled from and to.)
hold the cone in place with some straight pins and hand sew it closed along the back.
trim the fabric ends and then push them inside the horn cone at the bottom. sew in place if needed.
cut a piece of clear elastic, tie a knot in it (sew it if you’re fancy), then sew it to either side of the horn to put the horn onto a headband.
when wearing the horn, bobby pin it to your hair on either side of the horn so it doesn’t slide down your forehead

my unicorn ears were an iffier success, but what i did was:

cut out an ear shape from a double layer of fabric, with the fold at the base of the ear and right sides of the fabric together. leave 1/2 inch seam allowance.
sew the right and left edges of the ear closed, leaving a space to turn it right side out in the middle of one side (if you do it in the middle you don’t have to hand sew it after turning because it will stay put pretty well).
fold the ear in half (bottom right corner to touch bottom left) and use thread snips or another sharp-pointed tool to cut a small hole 1/2” or less from the bottom, equidistant between the ear edge and the fold, through all four layers of fabric.
thread a skinny tubular headband through the hole. the ear will flop/spin around the headband, but when you put the headband on, your head will hold the ear up. more or less. (i had to bobby pin the headband down to my head because if it lifted off a little, an ear would fall over.)
repeat for your other ear.

Shana Carroll - Stunning Solo Trapeze (via...

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 00:09:00 -0500

Shana Carroll - Stunning Solo Trapeze (via ChocolateFrogPrince)

this is what i need to be aiming for on trapeze.

after watching that, every other solo trapeze act i can think of feels like a dog showing its tricks.

copy editing for a weekly guide/listings magazine makes me think a lot about the context of the greater art world, in relation to the performance art i’m interested in. there’s new music and what’s generally called new circus (often “cirque nouveau” to clarify the meaning of “new”). and then there’s post-gay, post-rock, postmodern dance, post-everythingelse. why “new circus” and not “post-circus”? perhaps it’s nicer to define oneself with the positive, what one’s doing (new!) rather than the negative, what one’s not (post!). but i am interested in the “post” implication of being over circus, using it but moving beyond it, rather than reinventing it.

a vampire at the party i went to told me i had a “couture...

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 21:56:00 -0400

a vampire at the party i went to told me i had a “couture horn.” this made me very happy because “couture” was the word that kept going through my head as i made this costume.

materials, medium, and fiber content are important to me in all forms of art. my idea behind this costume was to be a lisa frank unicorn 80 years before lisa frank, before the invention of lamé. sure, lamé is shiny, but velvet is shimmery in an even richer way. i wanted this costume to be sumptuous. i wanted it to be made of materials i’d love to wear any time of year.

for my hooves i wanted a rose pink velvet (again, a color i love all the time) rather than a garish hot pink. after much fruitless searching, i came across this velvet in the exact color i’d hoped for. it’s silk velvet, which brought the project one step higher on the couture scale. (unfortunately, i chose to cut the velvet with the pile running up, for a richer color, and later realized the paler color i’d have gotten with the pile running down would have been closer to lisa frank.)

the white fur trim around the hooves is synthetic, of course. but ridiculously soft. after you touch it once, you have to pet it again, and again, and then tear yourself away.

if i’d had more time, i would have gotten colored, sparkly false eyelashes. (in fact, i bought some i was excited about, but when i put them on, the shape was all wrong, making my eyes look droopy, and the pink clashed with every other pink in my outfit.) i would have gotten pink lipstick to match my hooves. and i would have sewed a sprinkling of stars across the white part of the costume to evoke LF even more strongly.

if i were to do the costume again, i might go the other route. i might choose lamé. the truth is, LF is garish. if you’re not, you’re doing it wrong.

but that’s enough complaining! this costume was awesome. i got compliments from strangers. i got compliments from fellow partygoers. i feel like there are two types of costumes: drag (what a lamé costume would have been) and actualization (dressing as what you wish you could be or feel kinship with). i was aiming for the second, and i achieved it. it wasn’t a unicorn costume so much as an expression of my inner unicorn. it’s true, i have an inner unicorn.

this is the first costume i’ve ever put so much effort into (the hooves, horn, and ears were all handmade from homemade patterns, and the rainbow tail was homemade as well), and it’s the most i’ve sewn in at least a year, so i have lots to say about each component. expect more tumblr entries soon.

it’s funny how specific the lisa frank reference is. people of my generation immediately start talking about the LF trapper keepers and stationery they had in fifth grade. everybody else gives me blank looks.

it’s a little creepy to be sewing with white fur fabric...

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:40:45 -0400

it’s a little creepy to be sewing with white fur fabric that has the same color, fur length, and texture as that of your foster bunny.

made these spats yesterday with a modified pattern from...

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:32:36 -0400

made these spats yesterday with a modified pattern from thankyoufornotbeingperky.com. i think i’m going to end up drafting my own pattern for the pair i’m making with silk velvet, because modifying hers did more harm than good. but now i know what to expect and what to fix. plus these are pretty cute.

"It’s important to do the ‘less productive’ things, so-called trivial things like..."

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 14:14:49 -0400

“It’s important to do the ‘less productive’ things, so-called trivial things like eating and cooking.”

- jules de balincourt, interviewed in edible brooklyn, fall 2008. (jules, it turns out, does not actually find much time for shopping and cooking. meanwhile food is the thing i spend the most time making.)

i have the fabric to make this scarf, but i need to find the...

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:14:33 -0400

i have the fabric to make this scarf, but i need to find the time. i also need to work out a pattern to make a round head for the octopus. i also need to determine if it will have suckers on its arms (though this is a last step) and whether its eyes will be sewn-on buttons or part of the pattern itself. the thing i don’t think i’ll determine until it’s made is whether i’ll actually wear it.