As mentioned in my last update, the 11yo and I again made it out to Bedford Gallery to check out their current exhibition and pick up our Ehren Tool cup.
Of course I believe strongly that artists should be well-compensated for their work, but I’m also a fan of the gift economy and love giving away work and seeing other artists incorporate these ideas into their creative practice as well.
On the heels of our spring break travels, specifically our visit to Meow Wolf, I was bummed to read about another wave of layoffs there. This Linkedin post from a former employee who left last December speaks well to the tension between creativity and capitalism (it’s also a very burning bridges style post).
Seems like a lot of creative folks I admire are experiencing or discussing the loss of a parent (my own Mom died when I was 11). Listening to Carrie Brownstein talking about the loss of her mother and step-father in this Fresh Air interview with Sleater Kinney bandmate Corin Tucker reminded me of the way Kara Swisher described parent loss in this March 7th KQED Forum interview (Swisher’s father died when she was 5). “You realize how ephemeral things are and how random life can be.” She and host Mina Kim, who also lost her father at a young age, go on to discuss a quote from another interview about how hard it is to remember someone you lost at a young age as you get older. However, as Kim paraphrases, “having kids yourself, you realized that he knew you” (emphasis mine). My kids are the ages now that my brother and I were when my Mom died and there is something oddly comforting about the idea that not only did my Mom know me when she died, but if I die before my children are adults, I know them and I hope they’ll find that comforting, no matter what age I leave this earth.
RIP as well to Eleanor Coppola.
“I remember talking to my mom about…some of her frustrations of being a woman of that era. And it interested me because Priscilla was the same generation of my mom and the idea that…to have a successful husband and a beautiful home - that was supposed to be enough to fulfill a woman. And she…felt so confused that she had…creative expression that she wanted to realize and, you know, what was wrong with her that she wasn't happy with just…having a family and a beautiful home?
I really enjoyed this November 2023 interview with her daughter, Sofia Coppola, about her then-new film Priscilla (which I still haven’t seen!) about how she could relate to Priscilla moving around a lot as an “army brat” (also something I can relate to) and how, when her family was on the move because of her father’s filmmaking, her mother would be very intentional about maintaining a sense of normalcy and routine for the family:
She always brought all our stuff with us. We lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma, during "The Outsiders," and we weren't there that long - maybe, like, six months. And she brought all my furniture and all my stuff and, like, hamster cages - like, everything…She always kept our childhood really grounded. And I feel so grateful to that 'cause it must have been a pain…but she really…would go to extreme lengths to make sure that we felt like we were at home wherever we were.
Not sure how far along this is and what the plans are now that Eleanor has passed away, but I can’t wait to see the upcoming documentary the two were planning about the making of Marie Antoinette, using over 80 hours of behind-the-scenes footage captured by Eleanor while Sofia was making the film (MA is one of my favorite films and the inspiration behind this project).
Yes to all of this. “Dr. Lambert, who studies effort-based rewards, said that she is interested in ‘the connection between the effort we put into something and the reward we get from it’ and that she believes working with our hands might be uniquely gratifying.”
Speaking of the relationship between analog and digital and the importance of working with our hands, while I haven’t had a lot of things to add to my currently 5 pages long visual/fine art MWU (shorthand for “made with Unity”) working doc (the post I wrote based on interviews with 3 artists + one programmer as part of this ongoing side project is here), this came across our internal MWU slack channel last Friday and I think it’s pretty great. The Collage Atlas is part game, part “hand-drawn picture-book dream-world.” Took indie dev John William Evelyn 4 ½ years to make!
Last week was a busy week volunteering with my 11yo’s 5th grade art class. Students printed the screens they’d made with sheer curtains, embroidery hoops, and mod podge on Monday (above) and on Wednesday parents helped with what is a 5th grade rite of passage at her school, making plaster masks that they will decorate and write about as part of their “promotion” to middle school in a few weeks (5 years to the day that I helped my son with the same project!).
We also attended the final “variety show” of our time at this elementary school. My daughter did not perform at this year’s show, but it made me think back to the time I danced onstage with my then 3rd grade son, the time they performed together the one year they overlapped at this school, and the time my daughter performed with two of her friends (this was about a week before lockdown in March 2020!). Here’s some bonus BTS footage of me learning and then attempting to teach the choreography. Do you understand now why my personal Instagram handle is danceswithkids?
While you’re on YouTube, check out this one-minute recap reel of this year’s Ride 4 a Reason! My son biked all 112 miles from Oakland to Sacramento with 3 of his teammates and 4 of his coaches, while I biked the last 45 miles with one of our student athletes. Overall such a fun day (we’re just $40 away from our fundraising goal, by the way, and it’s not too late to donate if you’re feeling inspired).
Finally, for this week, Coexist with Wildlife is a California-based public awareness campaign highlighting 24 important species to protect in 2024, a year that “marks the 100th anniversary that the last California grizzly bear was spotted in Sequoia National Park, never to be seen again.” The illustrations of the 24 species are lovely. I suspect they’ll add to this section, but the 4 posters/postcards in the resources section would be a great tool for educators to introduce into their classrooms (IMO there is not nearly enough taught to Gens Z and Alpha about climate change, conservation, and in general the kinds of consequences our actions may have on the people, animals, and environments we live with). Events kicked off this past Earth Day weekend (local readers, the Oakland Zoo is participating by creating 25 limited-time trading cards that will be available throughout the year!).
Comments
No posts