Northern Spark Experience/Review written at 8am after less than 4 hours of sleep

It is 8am in the morning. Doesn't sound so momentous or anything. The thing is, I stay up until 345am in the morning. Something this 33 year old, does not do often or on purpose.

My muscles feel cramped up and my throat is a bit scratchy. Because for 6 hours last night, I roamed around in the rain and lightning going from one site to another for Northern Spark. 

Just moving back from LA, I decided I couldn't miss this event. It would give me a sense of the Minneapolis art scene and I could meet some fun people. To be up front, I am weary of Northern Spark. As I reevaluate Public/Social practice I see pitfalls to these large art events. I also think they are completely rad. 

It was sealed that I would be a part of Northern Spark after going to their TPT TV takeover, another event that I am weary of, as a public television employee, I found it hurtful that they made fun of what our station's studios look like. Not ours in particular just public access a la Wayne's world. But I met Molly, who runs Marketing for Northern Spark. She was kind, gracious and energetic to meet a recent LA transplant. By the end of the night I was signed up to work the Launch Party. One of two ticketed events of Northern Spark. Dosh was playing and it was at Orchestra Hall. I would do a 3 hour shift and then be set free to explore all that NS had to offer. 

In fine Minnesota spirit, the weather did not cooperate with Northern Spark. Though NS went "rain or (moon)shine," this year's Northern Spark was an abbreviated one. The pomp of large projections were cut unceremoniously, and smaller outdoor video projections didn't happen either. Which made for a different art crawl experience. So did the torrential rain. Luckily, when my volunteer shift began, it wasn't raining. While volunteering, I met most folks that spent $50 to hear Dosh and eat some fancy foods. I handed them Spark-ers and welcomed them. I have not lived in Minneapolis for 6 years. I assume I met some fancy writers, local celebs, and people of note. I just can't tell you who cause I don't know them. Except for Mark Wheat, Sara Schultz, and Jack Becker, who I met and flubbed being my natural awesome self because I knew who they were. Celebrity is a strange phenomenon. I would love to talk to Sara about my concerns for Social Practice art. I would love to be taken seriously in this town as an artist. I am doing a Walker Open Fields this July/August and the organizer as been very kind to me. But it is also very much clear that Open Call means less than. Not by Sara but by the fact people ask when I tell them I am participating if it is through "Open Call" or not. I know there is  more time. Part of me finds this hierarchy hilarious. Part of me is angry that I have to play this game. I feel it is a game. This game of fighting for a niche in the art world. There were a few people that even with my smiles, witty banter, my easy goingness were so disdainful to me cause I wore a neon volunteer shirt and hadn't paid $50 to be there. I feel sorry for these people. They are wasting their time trying to be elite. Which made me realize if I am meant to be friend's with Sara, and Jack it will happen on it's own time. AND that I met Jane, Brie, some gorgeous man with white blonde hair, many smiling faces and I got to be this anonymous smiling face for a great event. A few art folks took my card. I talked to everyone and it was grand. 

Anywho, the Launch Party was a success, and while it occurred it started to rain torrential in earnest. I had a great time being me handing out spark-ers and being funny. I grabbed a half dozen desserts at the end and chomped on them and a pulled pork sandwich to get ready for the evening. The evening that I was planning to have was going to end around 1am. I thought I would be dragging by then and planned to be in bed. I met up with Andrew and Ahndi at the convention center. I don't want to give a play by play of the whole night. Cause well it is 8am and my 1am deadline was not kept but rather was extended to 345am. I am up writing this cause I can't sleep and am sort of jazzed to write this stuff down. I want to hit on what was amazing and some of my concerns.

Let's set the scene. There was no way in the rain and on foot I was catching everything. I saw what was around the convention center and what was along West River Parkway. The Parkway was the part of the night that intrigued me most. 

I would say Spark was too spread out this year. That larger institutions could have created smaller installations in a more confined area. That being said I love the use of the Convention Center cause people can pee and congregate so easily. I have to start off with my rant and then get to what I loved. 

I saw some shitty social practice art. I saw some groups trying to do the collaborative work that was like a question on a chalkboard variety and everyone gets to answer. This work to me dumbs down your audience and your art. It doesn't challenge anyone and it isn't that engaging. There were variations of this in a few spots. I am not here to name them. 

There was a second thing. The not really engaging your audience. The pieces that are hard to read and not much guidance is given. Sometimes I love these pieces. In one such piece there were moments of engagement. It is the inbetween ones that think they are engaging while still being totally opaque. Ugh to those. I wonder if people just make things to be photo ops. NS creates MANY photo ops (is that what art is?). 

This is my quandary of Northern Spark, are many of these pieces just not well thought out, half baked ideas…that happen in public? I saw things that I think will be great ideas in 2 more years of work. 

I got angry at one point around midnight that just because some small non-profit has a building space they could put on a half-assed project. That it looked lame and was hard to follow and not engaging and I had walked there in the rain. That the people running it seemed not happy to be there cause they were there for there day job. Now angry is a harsh word, I just turned around and walked out. This is my rant of the evening. 

But overall, I think Northern Spark is magical. And as an event planner I WAS IMPRESSED by the size and structure of all the sites, volunteers, and security and was thoroughly impressed by how this thing ran. 

What was redemptive and magical was walking into one of the Letter Writing to a Stranger aka "Nighttime Ride" tent and sitting down after walking miles in the rain and writing this note to a "Grumpy Couple" at 145am in the morning. Getting warm from the flood light on the ground. This adorable man getting EXCITED…like that magical writing we are making poetry look on his face, he signed and bridled…seriously like a pony…when finishing typing up our postcard letter. This was a creative moment in a tent on the banks of the Mississippi. I had taken a shot of bourbon from Patrick the man with a tartan umbrella. The one drink I had all night. Cause I was cold, soaked through, and needed to get warmer before trudging to the next bridge. Andrew and I sat down and wrote an amazing letter and then shook hands with our postmaster and left. THAT was worth the whole night's walking around damp. 

I enjoyed Gamut Gallery's Jungle themed media party. There button give away my favorite piece of visual art I saw AND I got to take it with me. 

Minnesota for the Book Arts was totally awesome and Andrew and I spent much time making screen prints and a fluxus book. Which well here is the thing…the act of a screen print and making a small book are NOT Fluxus…love to do these things but theming a book 1978 and giving it a score of putting the book together…well ok it is oft of fluxus…but I mean we would have donut his act if the theme was book making 101… :) i don't know…yeah Fluxus used letterpress too…yes Fluxus is every day acts made into scores…but i don't know….make the score a bit more adventurous…quirky…there was a strange overlay to making a normal demo a FLUXUS event. I see my hypocrisy about critiquing this…Fluxus is about scores and making everday objects of course the book I made fits that…but something was missing…some other art historian would know. I am just an under slept artist writing a blog. 

I was impressed with how many folks braved the elements. Picked up a mallet or sat at a piano for All Night in C under the Central Ave bridge. People participated. Had fun. I learned I was a Vata in Ayurvedic medicine and had amazing fennel, cumin, cardamom tea and ate popcorn in accordance to that. There was some great Super 8 films by a Sam that works at the U of MN.

I am happy with the slice of the Northern Spark pie I ate. I consumed. I was a part of it, volunteering and roaming. It was a mental and physical challenge to withstand the cold and the rain. And I most definitely am fighting to not get a cold. There is magic in Northern Spark. It is made by the participants. The willing to trudge through rain to see art. It is made my earnest artists. I am glad to have experienced this amazing arts event. Though I have to say I was so glad NOT to have my own piece. The stress of setting up and staying there all night. The roaming is the best. The expiring. The stumbling upon. 

As an artist, when a piece wasn't earnest. Or just an ad for an org. I was upset. Like Gamut Gallery they put all in. They had freebies and they had a party. There was art with there self promotion. But a half assed set up…and weary employees manning their stations led to a boring time and bad art. Not good bad art just poor under conceived art. Will I Spark again? YES. No doubt. We all need more magic in our lives. Do I see my place as an artist in Spark? Not yet. I worry that Northern Spark takes funds from individual artists that want to do longer term projects and gives it to production costs. I worry about this with the tidal wave of money that is being given to orgs instead of individual artists. I want to draw again and that seems taboo. I want to perform and interact with audiences and right now that is the hot ticket. 

As Andrew, Ahndi, and I trudged back over the Hennepin Bridge, without finding Kevin Obsatz's piece, I was getting a bit rickety in body and mind. I was swerving from exhaustion and talking to keep myself going. To the chagrin of the two introverts I was walking with. I stand on the other side of Northern Spark. I see why people stay up all night to eat pancakes at 5am. I  saw/met some many cute boys. I enjoyed myself and have a great volunteer tshirt. In my work I am looking for the intimate. Maybe in something like Northern Spark it is hard to create that space. Or wait, no there was intimacy.Just maybe not my kind all the time. I want glowing fields and quiet moments. Which maybe their was somewhere else…or would have happen without the rain. I want to stumble upon things not marked. I want to see out growths of people's thoughts. I want to see less production and more intent. Not just at Northern Spark but in the art world in general. Obviously, I come out of last night inspired. Happy to be just one of many in the crowd. Thanks Steve Dietz and his huge crew for keeping this going. And thanks to the major who wasn't a jerk to me when I asked if she was at the launch party and standing right next to the coordinator. I told her I had just moved back from LA while I shook her hand and handed her her spark-er. Who ever her assistant was that night was a hot dude…who I am sure is a local figure and/or her husband. May my public gaffes continue to be entertaining and may I continue to not take it all too seriously.

Path to the Path #6: Not the Right Time

Well, I apologize for those of you that follow this blog. I started my new job and it took a month to get somewhat adjusted. Lucky for all of us, this blog is not about hating my job. I like my new job!!! YEA!!!!!!!!! Getting to do marketing for MTN is a great fit. And the people I work with are amazingly kind. I left the work force for a year. Partly after being bullied and harassed at my last job. It was terrifying. I don't need to get into details but I am already healing after a toxic situation with this non-toxic situation.

Joy and I have been facebooking both of us saying..."OH Hi! Sorry. Sorry for not making art or talking." joy would tell me she was feeling tired. While I told her of the leaky roof, Andrew and I have found ourselves with in our new apartment.

Joy is most awesomely PREGNANT!!!!! So she is a bit tired. But the great thing is she launched her e-Children's Book before knowing she was pregnant! Here is a link. It is $2. Buy her book. It is adorable. http://www.amazon.com/Billy-Blankenstooth-Joy-Hanford-ebook/dp/B00K0N1W9U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398872792&sr=8-1&keywords=joy+hanford

So for a quick monthly catch up and then the moral of the story. Other than housing woes, life in Minnesota is pretty sweet. I get to see my family two to five times a month. :) I get to be a part of family outings.
My Dad is outfitting me with two bikes...my amazing cruiser "Panama Jack," and he is getting me a road bike cause I LOVE to ride all the trails and the greenway of Minneapolis. My best friend, Brenda took me on a cool local event, "Spinning Stories"  https://www.facebook.com/events/646187928782740/ that her friend Brian coordinates/is the creator of. We did 15 miles of biking and stopped every few miles of another story. Brian made it so there was very little biking on streets. I went to my parents the next day (to do my laundry, the excuse we use for me to spend time with them.) And Dad had me try a bunch of bikes out. He has a 15 year old trek that I hope he will bring me soon so I can jet around. Panama Jack is the ultimate cruiser...but I need a little bit more for trail riding with these biker women of awesome I have met.

So the job is good, and I am learning a lot. I am learning how to calm down. That the most important part of a job is not the ideas you have but learning how you fit into an org. Also, that being kind always does go a long way. Not the right time, is sort of a theme right now. I am trying, through meditation, through exercise, through what I eat, to learn to just flow with what happens. With this, my free time is being used for art making. These great sketches are coming out and a bigger project is being worked on.  Pushing anything isn't going to make it work better.
 Connections can be leaky. Has Andrew and I fight to stay cordial to a landlord that ignores us and the roof issue that is making Andrew's room partially unlivable (water damage on the ceiling) I just remember that connections/relationships leak. They don't go has planned. Things slip through the cracks and meanings get lost. That the most important thing is I am flowing into the empty spaces more and often times that is when the art gets done. I walk or bike to work and on those walks I always make sure to look at the Mississippi River. I live less than a mile from work and I walk slow and I watch the rushing river.

I was thinking about how that flowing river remembers what it is to be ice. Or rather there is a memory of ice. That thought made me sad when I thought it. That no matter how we flow, how we move, how we rejoice. There is always the bitter cold to remember. But ice is sublime. There is nothing that is all bad or call good. And why is ice bad anyway? Let your memory of ice dance as you flow down the river.

The thing is...with all this learning of flow...my emotions are coming into or through my body in a more intense emotional way and I am having a hard time holding things back...so we shall see where that takes me in the months to come. So not the right time, is not a time of impatience anymore, or at least less of it. Not the right time is filled with friends, learning, art, and joy. Not the right time is losing it's inglorious, pugnacious, rotten, smelly, feeling of being a downer. Glory to Not the Right Time and all that it contains.

Path to Path #5: Turning 33

There is nothing like having 2 button up shirts, a handful of tshirts, enough leggings to go with it, a sweater, and a backpack stuffed with a swimsuit and toiletries. For about a year, I lived out of a backpack. I cherish my denim shirt with anchors on it. It started out a deeper shade of denim. Yellow sweat marks crease where arm pit meets sleeve. I wore that shirt out…beet juice, ink, mystery stains lithely dot the edges.

For about a year, I took to the road. I performed. I played. I rested. I made a book with a dear friend. In one years' time, I expanded my view of what the world can be. I bumped up against societal edges of proper daily life. There was one or two fights. Mostly, there was a feeling of ease as I explained what I needed and was loved in returned. In one month's time I saw dear old friends and they created the dearest art project with me called, "Walk with ME." They brought in strangers to walk with me. They walked with me too. Homes were shared. Air mattresses were inflated. Baked oatmeal was shared. Thank you meals out at restaurants were bought by me. Train rides and the dreaded greyhound was used.

I saw their skylines. I dodged pot holes. I drank tea. What a gift that was. A gift to go from house to house, friend to friend, being treated carefully and considerately in each spot. Every place I felt more and more present. Able to speak my truth and have it celebrated. Barring one real rocky interaction. My excitement about life was met with the same. I never think about me as a force. Growing up, I was taught in thousands of ways to try to be invisible. But I felt the ripple effect of my ease at being a positive energy brought to others lives. i could shake things up so others could make changes. Or on a smaller level it was sure nice to hug my old friends while I was changing my life.

I ripped myself out of Los Angeles. Out of an abusive job. Out of the burn out that was reeking havoc on me. I wanted to do it differently. So I jumped on so many planes and I connected to people. I listened to their stories. We wrote them down. I saw the hearts of many. I felt the fear and felt it subside of the people I walked with. Obviously this last year is a life changer. I had spent 32 years following what others told me I needed to do to be a famous artist. I did it very well. Now I need to be an artist and a person who does things out of pure excitement and the need to discover. (This was in many of my past actions but got clouded up my perspective of needing to be rewarded.)

I have grabbed up life in all it's intensity. After finishing "Walk with ME," I was waiting to be punished. I had quit my job. I have left my life. Wasn't someone going to be mad? How was I going to get a job again after only working part time at the gallery in between arts gigs? I wasn't making enough money to keep that up. I didn't want to pay $1200 for rent every month while trying to make art in LA. How was I going to BE SOMEBODY if I wasn't in LA? Where was my life?

So the question is how can I take the Paige I cultivated on my tour; the Paige that created so many firsts this past year, into the present? How can I keep fighting cultural norms that say we have to live a certain way? I have to make money unless I join a religious order or commune. I like living alone and having certain creature comforts. I am very independent and though the gifts of this last year were many that I couldn't repay. I don't feel comfortable asking to live on the generosity of others…So where does that leave me?

Luckily, I have found a great job doing something that I feel is helpful, challenging, and creative. What a blessing that is! I will start working for a fantastic non-profit. Where I will help people learn media production skills. Wow! That will be great. It will pay my just enough to get by in Minneapolis. I am scared of next winter and how I will deal with it.

When I was young there was no limit. I thought I could be or do anything. I am stubborn and passionate and made things happen. Now as I age I see the limitations and I get tired…with my integrity does not always come monetary rewards. That I probably won't have the time or money to travel one month out of of the year every year. I get really depressed by the thought of limitations. I get depressed with the idea of I can't have.

What I am hoping for this time where I settle is that I will find the depth of relationships I have been skirting. That I will find communities that give me just as much enjoyment as a Perugia skyline or a Los Angeles sunset. That I will start to look inward and keep nurturing the spiritual power I found sitting in meditation in California. That I can really believe that where I am from is just as beautiful as those places marketed to be so. That I can continue to get inspired and learn.

In an ironic funny twist, I am turning 33 on Easter. Now Jesus was 33 when he died and rose to heaven. I am agnostic. Jesus, to me was an amazing, amazing role model for all of us. I find it really really amazing that I start my 33 on this spiritual note. Turning 33 on Easter! Jesus died for the sins of others. Now that is a life of sacrifice. He wasn't worried what others thought of him or his bank account. Not only that, he spent a lot of his time making others feel better and bringing them to a place of solace (God). If I can take this next year to continue to grow to shed away what I think others want me to do and get to what I find important and helpful to others. This will be a year well spent.

I have been meditating for about an hour a day for 4 months now. In December, I did a Vipassana retreat where for 10 days I had my eyes closed more than open, day in and day out. I learned an immense amount in a short amount of time. With meditation and my extreme year of living, I have calmed down quite a bit. Other people have noticed. My friend and mentor Laurie for one. I volunteered to be a guide for a friends awesome art event at a local museum where we will lead people to find answers to their questions by using the museum as an oracle. Or as I explain to my friends, a big Ouija board. I have done this with my friends for about 5 years. Laurie led us in a training to get ready to lead museum goers the April 26th weekend and she said, "I have talked to you on the phone for all the years you were away but I will have to get used to having you around in your body."
We kept talking and I asked if it is because I had changed so much? And she said yes.
I said, "I know I am a lot calmer now."
She said something to the effect of, "You got that right!" :)
With the calmness, I hope and think I have stripped away some of the anxiety and desperation that clung to me when I was younger and that possibly I can come off a tiny bit wise. If anything there is a presence that I carry now that isn't a burden but rather an open space for others to enter.
This year brought me to calm. I wore myself out. I proved I could do it. I took a step back. I failed. I succeeded. I ran a half marathon. I performed my first piece I directed. I printed my first Artist Book. I quit a job. I got a job.

Like waves, things come in, things come out, people arrive, people leave, anxiety rushes in, anxiety rushes out, the rhythm doesn't stop. No matter how hard we hold on. The great thing is with each person I connect with the passion and love that is exchanged has a resonance and it lives on. As I move back to Minnesota I am finding that some resonances still has a hummm to them that can be picked back up where we left off. With others it may be over or it may be just beginning. Maybe I will return to LA someday, maybe I won't. I'm scared and I look forward to creating a new song for today.

Path to the Path #4: New Beginnings

Another week? Has it been another week?
This week went by in a flash. Looking at apartments with Andrew. Helping my mentor and friend Laurie with her awesome art oracle project she is launching at the Minneapolis Art Institute this month.

This week went by in a flash while I was waiting. Waiting for a job offer, hoping for an apartment.
Getting a new job!!! Things seeming to line up. Which for a thirty something year old means I am wary. Wary cause what will go wrong? Cause that is life. It isn't smooth sailing but negotiations. But also with the thirties comes a thing called gratitude. Wow, I have worked hard. I went out on a limb and got a degree in Public Practice art and that degree helped me land this job. A job where I will be doing some things that come naturally to me and getting to push myself to learn more. Wow, feeling blessed. No. No. I won't be a millionaire come next fall, but it is very possible I can help make an awesome organization even better. I will start this job May 5.

There is still a lot of waiting to do. Will Andrew and I get an apartment? Will the commute to my new job be easy on foot or bike? Will I go out in this new city? Will I find some new friends to go with my awesome old ones? Will I date? So in the mean time, I make a drawing. And I make this blog. And I apply to be an instructor at the University of MN. Some sort of pool they are creating for future classes.

This drawing is inspired by a pot I saw at Continental Clay. They have a little informal gallery you can buy things at in their industrial but tiny store. I guess it is a waiting drawing as drawing the same form over and over again is a kind of waiting. A kind of patience. I wanted to see what it would look like flat to make something that swirled.

This was a waiting week. One in which I let myself take a long bath. One in which I let myself read lots. One in which I didn't apply for anymore jobs cause I hoped for the one I interviewed for would come true.

The big life lesson? Even after receiving the good news of a new job. The work is just beginning. Life happens and the negotiations in some ways get easier with knowing I will continue to be able to support myself. While they also get harder. Now I have to put my passion into action. So this week. Just breathing. Meditating. Working (I have a poster commission and online freelance). And just letting things be. Not getting wrapped up in other people's emotions about my life. Just taking it one day at a time.

Works in progress

Well it has been a week since my last post…and momentum is something that most be kept going…momentum doesn't roll all by itself. :)


This has been a busy week for me…mostly getting to hold, kiss, smile at, and play with my nephew Oliver. My sister stayed an extra week after the bday festivities to hang with mom, dad, and I. Oliver started to crawl in earnest on this trip. he learned that if he whines Grandpa will ALWAYS pick him up in under two minutes. And he picked up a few more gibberish noises for his arsenal. We all love to roar like a lion with him. Overall, days fly by when a baby is around. You are tired and happy the whole time.

Joy created this amazing drawing of her hand. It's her first sketch in her new moleskine. I was WOW-ed by it I love the use of the line and how she plays with negative and positive space with how the letters are created by where she doesn't draw. As someone way to fond of block letters as a default I enjoy this ingenuity. It made me want to talk about my feet. And how they save me daily from the nerves and anxiety I can carry around. I thought about all the places I have gone all the things I have seen and how they all start out on shaky uncertain steps. That maybe I look confident to the world but each time I try something new it is always the same that excited nervous that I don't know if things are going to work out how I thought they would.

So after my nephew went to bed, I started my shaky steps drawing. I am thinking a lot more like a illustrator than a painter in my mind. Which is new for me. I have to think about how words will look. This is also quick. I am not trying to create something that will take me months to finish. So this is a new way for working for me. I have never been much of a sketcher. I usually write and make big complicated projects that now half the time are performances. So I got out the crayons and tried to just have a little fun.

I finally finished the drawing today, a Sunday. While being very lazy after a fun filled weekend. My friend Anne came to Minnetonka for the weekend. Anne is the most committed artist that I know. She is creating a ceramics studio in her family barn. She has created a community fundraiser that is so thoughtful and perfect for the project. She can do everything from make wood cut posters, create a local concoction of bouja (soup), de-shingle a roof, through 100s a bowls a year, and have time for her creative ceramic work…when we were younger I was just plan jealous of her virtuosity in everything she put her mind to. She was envious of my ability to be loose and wild and throw paint at a canvas or sew a face into a bed sheet. She is just plain one of my closest friends.

With my living in the suburbs my friends take forays out there to make sure I don't go insane while I wait to find a job (almost there) and an apartment (I am supposedly looking on craigslist). Anne and I went to The Soap Factory. They are showcasing 5 Jerome grant recipients in their mid-career place, the show is called "Art(sits) on the Verge 5." *I first types Art (sits) which I find hilarious. Truthfully, with being stuck in the 'burbs, I was just glad to be investigating art. The one thing that bothered me was the show was how low lit the space was which I found a bit depressing. The Soap is a huge cold space and I understood the curators were trying to keep your attention on the art and not the overwhelming warehouse like feel of the place but I wanted a bit more light.

I love how the Soap doesn't feel like an art space. It feels illegal that these items are placed in what looks like an abandoned building. I want to find people camping out in corners and a big fire in a barrel in the basement. But anyway Anne and I enjoyed Katie Hargrave's installation listening to"Sugar, Sugar" on head phones and understood the juxtaposition of the notes from union meetings on the other head phone set. Anne enjoyed the craftsmanship of the sugar vinyl (records made of sugar). That all got to the ideas of labor. Really hidden labor in the commercial items that crowd our reality. There was a table with an embroidered table cloth that I believe represents the tables around which union members eat and organize around. For me I wanted to be at the dinner not see these embellished memories but thread around a wine stain did get me to feel involved emotionally somehow.

Our favorite installation was the inter-art space communication system by Emily Stover of putting a piece of paper in a mailbox at a desk and getting to put on our mail person cape and using a tech-y mail card try to find the projection that would read our message on the wall. We never saw our message and some of the projections only showed 1/4 of someone else's mail card, but it was fun fun fun to wonder how it works and like the craftsmanship of the call box you but the card up to, to activate the projection.

We spent an intense time chatting about parents and our generational difference over dinner at Fasika. The St Paul restaurant that I can never get enough of. I want to eat ngiri every month…and hope not to run into cute men afterwards with the effect those lentils can have on any person's digestion.

Anne and I are both living very unorthodox lives. The lives of an artist. Anne lives with her parent's on their farm. I am crashing at my parents house and there is a LOT of guilt I feel about the decision to have a, what is turning out to be two month residence in my old room. Anne confidently says "No shame in that Paige. What artist doesn't get support from their community?" And I step back and realize she is so right. Artists are creating things that don't fit into our capitalistic culture. The time and effort and emotion, the spirit that resides in my work doesn't have an equal value in a store or even in a gallery. Most of the works I saw at the Soap Factory couldn't be sold and installed in a person's home. I mean I would want the tendrils Alison Hiltner installed that hung down from the ceiling that traced circles in the ground….but I don't think there is a MARKET for them. At least not yet. :P What I am trying to say is….I don't CARE if the tendrils or my work find a place in the market. Art is a rumination on culture and our souls and it is important. So important that it is ok for me to ask for help to free up my time. It is ok for sketches just to stay sketches. In giving artists the time and space to make gestures is that these gestures in some round about way change the world. It is ok for me to say, I need a month to create this work. Shit, it was ok for me to ask for this past year. Strangers have written me saying hand holding is powerful. At this point I am itching for a job and a place of my own. I want a studio. I want a boyfriend. I want some stability. While I am already planning a new adventure with Joy. What is the importance of two thirty somethings exploring pathways while being separate by an ocean? I don't know but it is.

I sure as hell wouldn't be where I am now, a truly healthy place, without this past year. To expel some demons and to work hard and make an art dream come true. What a year! I did it! I am doing it! Being an artist is my reality! Now to keep navigating it! To pour even more courage and nourishment to follow my creative urges to grow more beauty and depth in the soil of my dreams. I got real close to throwing out this way of life. Why? Cause truth be told I am sort of awful at life in general. The basics. I dislike thinking about retirement, what coffee table I should get, or what is coming next when it comes to mundane things. I am great at grand gestures, and big movements. So I thought I had to just focus on the mundane cause that is what gets us by. Well, I have to find a way to be stable enough to keep creating these wonderful grand gestures. My gestures of grandeur are important and not a waste of time. They are art.

Path to Path Post #3: Getting into the Heavy Stuff

Collaborations are the best. They push you. They push you right away.
Joy is an artist and illustrator (I see no difference in those two activities but I want you to know she is publishing a great book this year). Our skills overlap but not completely. I love how she is pushing me with her matter-a-fact-ness. Her, "Okay we will be making art and we will be making it now.There will be a schedule and this is going to work." attitude.

So last week I am focused on things. The drawing of things that are here in my parent's house. I put myself in the frying pan or maybe I threw myself into the fire. Like many people, my parent's house holds decades of memories and has all of these objects that are laden with meaning and memory for me. So this week I am drawing parts of the house. Joy told me to take my time. Not rush it. So it has been a week and I am just now posting this drawing.

These drawings are about all this STUFF that is in my parent's house…that doesn't really have any meaning but they hold on to. Or there are things that have meaning but they are crowded out by things that don't have meaning. Or something. This stuff haunts me and makes it hard to be here. And it is part of the reason I have no idea how to organize. I never once (NEVER!) cleaned my room as a child. Ever. Not a once. I would just wait for one of my parents to do it. I don't know why I did this. Maybe to get their attention. I don't know. What I know now is. I don't want things to rule my life. That I want to build experiences and moments with people. Not have my art drown me. Or have my things be more important than those around me. For me what is hardest is books. Books are the loves of my life. And I have to figure out a balance of having them and letting them go. I would like to note, my parents are not like the TV show. You can walk around their house just fine. They just find solace in things. This though is literally the heavy stuff…the things that weigh me down.

In addition, it was my Father's 60th birthday last week. And well he wasn't excited about it and he doesn't want to spend any money on celebrating. Some family members wanted to know why we didn't GO OUT to celebrate. That this is a BIG DEAL BIRTHDAY. Both myself and my sister were there for his birthday weekend AND his first grandchild. Though I wish my Dad didn't mind spending money on himself. I think having his family around to celebrate is pretty special in itself. Eating out makes him panic-y, so why would we do that? Though we snuck in a meal at Sawadtee on Mom's Bday (the day after Dad's BDay.)

One of the first bikes my father gave me was a banana seat Schwinn. I made it blue cause he likes that color. My Dad's first bike was this Sting Ray style Schwinn. Though it didn't cost me much I hope my Dad appreciated the effort.

I am enjoying time with my nephew. I am enjoyed being part of the Spring concert for the Minnetonka Community Band. I play the oboe and I am getting back into it. I will write a whole post about this experience.

NEXT UP, a drawing of the insides of the fridge!

Path to Path Post #2

Well, what a difference a week makes!
Two days after starting this project with Joy. I got a call promising a job interview…well I guess I could say I have a promising lead on a job! Which really helped to kick me out of the blue mood I was in for the past few weeks. Along with that, THIS PROJECT kicked me into gear.
What is amazing is that in just one week. This project already has so much depth. After speaking with my friend Alison about digital media and intimacy last week and bemoaning the viral clothing ad with people kissing "strangers," aka other models. I was wondering where authenticity lives on the internet. WELL. The internet is what brought Joy and I together. Through Facebook I am friends with someone I went to high school with. Through this friend who I reconnected with over not getting an arts residency. She shared one of her best friends with me. Joy! That is her name and I think she reflects the emotion pretty well too. In this past week, I would kick my ass to draw ANYTHING each day. Using a list she sent me of stream of consciousness about Paths to a Path. As I hope to get to the Camino in 1-2 years time depending on what job I can get here in Minneapolis that will let me leave for a month to walk this amazing pilgrimage.

I didn't expect Joy and I to dig too deep to fast but I guess we are both that type of person. we have shared confidences and through them we are making tangible authentic artworks from it. This week I am excited to get to work on a drawing I will share with you later this week.

Also check out this great exhibit I am part of virtually in England!
http://walkingencyclopaedia.blogspot.dk/2014/03/the-walking-encyclopaedias-walking_792.html

AND check out my artist statement on my website. Updates abound!
www.paigetighe.com

Until then here are the images of the drawings that got me started and excited about art I made last week: