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Archive for the ‘artist practice’ Category

An unsolved conditional statement in the form of a question.
IF hypothesis, THEN conclusion.
IF
Craft refers to skill
THEN
what does Art refer to?

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What happens?  Whether or not the partnership limps along on its dysfunctional path, barely making any progress or partners start pulling out of the program fed up with the perceived impossibility of their colleagues, everybody loses.
The following is a worst-case scenario:  The afterschool arts program ceases to exist at a particular school in a particular [...]

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What effect do you feel work as a teaching artist has had on your art making?
I don’t know the answer to this question.
I took a Teaching Artist Survey (TARP) on Monday from the University of Chicago’s Survey Lab and I was surprised to note how it opened my eyes to looking at my teaching artistry [...]

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Today, I began a project on creating audio-based oral histories with a group of lively seniors at a high school in my neighborhood.  I knew I would be seeing a few kids who I’d taught previously in an afterschool arts program I created at a youth service agency a few years back.  I knew I’d [...]

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Yes!  Only 3 days into the new year and already I have accomplished one adventure!  Very important for me to keep up with, since my “free time” is not as dependable as I’d like.
Today, my Beloved and my SuperPuppy went to Matthiessen State Park in Utica, IL to see about some frozen waterfalls.  We didn’t [...]

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As I stand where I am this brisk and monochrome morning, grinding my coffee as I always do in my grandmother’s wooden box grinder, I consider how I want to begin this new year.  2008 has certainly been a wild ride: very huge highs and very deep lows and, to my surprise and awe, somewhere [...]

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Wow.  I never thought I’d be at the point in my practice when I could say that I am very tired of writing grant proposals.  I have been so active in finding and applying for opportunities that it is difficult for me to see my own work well enough to write about it objectively anymore.  [...]

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Soon I will be driving 1200 miles to the middle of nowhere Texas to dig a hole as deep as I am tall.  Around the hole will fall circles of handmade, life-sized concentric trenches built by pickaxe, shovel, might and sheer will.  So continues my inquiry into body studies: movement inside landscape; exploring toil as [...]

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After mourning the loss of a truly inspired, visually beautiful and, by my own hand, fatally doomed project for the past two days, I finally quit my moping and incorporated that part of the process into the final piece. These are pictures of the statement and original manifesto about the piece, as taken from [...]

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I am mourning the loss of a great project today.
My apologies to the seeds and their people.

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Not that I am trying to non un-write my fellowship application which is naturally due tomorrow, but I had a day full of meetings and it just got my wheels a-spinning, you know?
Questions…
So after I do all the good work with the kids, how do we make their learning more visible, more public, more inclusive? [...]

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My Beloved took me out two nights ago.
I saw massive, transitional artwork and fire and a bunch of people who made me feel like I was back in Florida again. There was a lot of hair, a lot of screaming and some extremely majestic garments to behold. I became engulfed in a [...]

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You know what I love? I love when people doubt me. This week, I have been doubted twice in as many days, one of said instances feeling more like an offhanded curse than anything else. The other, well, they must not understand that I make my livelihood creating impossible things and generally [...]

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Meaning myself, of course.  Wow.  I have been busy with teaching and its subsequent responsibilities, like tons of meetings, PDs and putting together endless documentation of what the kids did during my many residencies at many different schools.
The thing that makes it so difficult to keep up with myself is not the lack of time [...]

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Holy crap. It is snowing again. Winter storm watch. Up to 8″ of wet, heavy snow. Proceed with caution when shoveling.
Yesterday was so lovely, a brisk, mid-40° day which I spent raking up dank fall leaves and errant dog turds in the garden, discovering that, yes! there is some green left [...]

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We got the grant!
My beloved and I were writing and rewriting daily for a good solid month for this one…talk about feeling insane! Two days ago, he called me with the good news as I was driving to work and I just started screaming glad tidings into the whole world (of the cab of [...]

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Cotton. Cats. Ideas.
Rejoice! My first green cotton plant has sprouted! I started the seedlings a little behind schedule, but one has already emerged, yawning and stretching, and that is a good sign. I also planted, for the second time, Valencia peanuts- I used lighter soil this year so the peanuts wouldn’t turn [...]

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On the long drive home from an inexplicably weighty day of teaching, I thought these things:
I teach the children to make the art to make the money to make the work to be an artist.
I must actively be making the art to earn the title of “teaching artist.”
When I am teaching so much that I [...]

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I am losing my fondness for writing today due to this hopeful/insufferable grant proposal.
I read an entire kids’ book out loud en español, and I do not speak the language.
I finally got paid this afternoon. One down, ? to go.
Kalamazoo Porter is delicious (the ex-Bells’ beer famine is over!). Thank you.
This lunar eclipse was brilliant [...]

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Before I dive into Everything today, I must say out loud that I have been thinking of incorporating more than just the sound of crows into my performances, I want to start using their imagery as well. I have used the angry, tattered din of blue jays and the lonely, resigned coos of mourning [...]

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Sometimes feels like it will be the death of me, and I’ve only just begun writing several of them for my multitude of endeavours. Being a person who is rather thinky and branchy by nature, to ask myself to actually sit still for once and analyze the who what where when why of it all [...]

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In trying to remember what I learned today of note, then barely being able to remember the basics of what I even did all day, what I did remember was this interview I heard on Fresh Air yesterday (?) with a woman who wrote a book about the normal memory loss which accompanies growing older. [...]

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