these intense and short lives
I didn’t intend to take nearly a month off after my last update, but that’s what happened. No good excuses other than the usual ones: work, which was weirdly busy for end-of-year, and holiday shenanigans. It was a good month in many ways and a really hard month in many other ways. On a housekeeping note, Wednesdays in particular are really busy days, starting with a meeting-heavy morning, kids’ early dismissal from school, and helping with my son’s mountain biking team (more on that below). So moving forward, some other day of the week will likely end up being the new newsletter update day. In the meantime, happy Friday! Here are a few things that kept me busy over the past month:
at home, the art show I “curated” in the little house we’re still officially renting through early February, when our 10-month lease ends, came and went. I thought I might write more of a reflections-type post on my blog, but I covered most of the factual details in advance. What I can add here is the thing I liked most about the experience was how freaking good everyone’s work looked in the space, which is neither a lived-in home, where most artists’ work ideally ends up, nor a fancy-house-turned-art-gallery along the lines of La Maison Lune. I was, not gonna lie, a little disappointed with turnout given there were four artists and, let’s face it, free pancakes. But I’m never satisfied with turnout, I’m greedy for an audience, and December is, as noted above, a particularly busy month. I genuinely enjoyed the experience and felt grateful for everyone who did come through.
There was something mildly thrilling about showing work in a gallery-like setting without having gallery representation, or being accepted into a juried show, or having really any kind of external validation whatsoever (something I’ve had very little success attaining since grad school). That feeling/experience is what I’d like more of, so I’m mulling over ideas and researching other spaces/projects, most of which are artist-run galleries like Pacific Saw Works here in Oakland or Personal Space in Vallejo. I’m not sure an artist-run gallery is what I’m after, though, to be honest, drawn more to projects like Stairwell’s or Premier Jr. If you have ideas and/or want to collaborate, email me!
I believe I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been volunteering in my younger kid’s art class each Monday morning, following an early work start most Mondays (and when I don’t have a 7:30 am meeting I usually have an 8 pm meeting later that day). In December they did Shibori dyeing which was utter chaos but also completely magical. Here’s what my daughter and I created.
We finally watched Fire of Love on New Year’s Eve, a documentary directed by Sara Dosa about volcanologist couple Katia and Maurice Krafft, using the Krafft’s archival footage, “old-timey” paper animations by Lucy Munger, and narrated by Miranda July. This quote about how they documented their expeditions for later observation really resonated with me:
“Photography is a means of remembering, visiting, stretching their time with volcanoes.”
It’s how I feel about the subject matter of most of my own art, these processes of making things allowing me to spend more time with the memories of otherwise ephemeral experiences, objects, people. I also enjoy listening to people speak French. Did you know I double majored in French in college? That’s right, another thing I enjoy but can no longer do very well!
Have I mentioned here that I’m helping out a bit more this year with my son’s high school mountain biking team? I’m technically a level 1 NICA coach (yes, coach!), but I’m still such an MTB n00b (I’ve crashed twice since my first ride last May/June! I imagine my NYE crash looked a little like this but on a trail….”and she’s ok!”). It’s a very humbling sport, pushing me well beyond my comfort zone both mentally and physically.
One thing I really enjoy about mountain biking is its relationship to hiking which, aside from running when I’m well-conditioned and doing so regularly (and when I run it’s almost always on the road, not trails), is probably my favorite outdoor activity. It’s been really fun to bike in areas where I’ve hiked but to go farther and explore portions of trails that are still new to me. Our proximity to so many awesome trails continues to be one of the best things about living in the Bay Area. To that end, 2024 East Bay Regional Parks District trails challenge officially accepted!
Speaking of things I enjoy (well, not the crashing part) but am not really good at, I recently came across the work of Geloy Concepcion and related account/store Bad Days Are Temporary (I love the participatory project turned book things you wanted to say but never did). The above recent post in particular sums up how I’ve navigated life’s professional and personal opportunities. Some days I feel really good about this approach, but it’s usually a hindsight thing. Most of the time it feels like maybe you have no business doing the thing you’re enjoying, which can feel really lonely and discouraging. The past couple of months in particular have felt like this in every way, but I guess knowing that others feel the same way at times helps with perspective and keeping that hindsight thing on the horizon. At some point I’ll look back and this will all make sense.
We rang in the New Year with a couple of short hikes to witness Coho salmon spawning in nearby Samuel P Taylor State Park. We only saw a handful of fish (not sure if spawning season has already peaked or if their numbers are just really, sadly low), but on the second short hike the activity we witnessed was textbook salmon spawning, with the larger female digging a gravel nest while two smaller males “wrestled” nearby for the privilege of fertilizing her eggs. Such a magical, mystical process to observe, this little egg that survived against so many odds to return to her very birthplace in order to complete her life’s cycle.
One of my ongoing resolutions, if you want to call it that, is to watch more movies in cool theaters (the Bay Area has quite a few!). I took the 10yo and friends to see Wonka at Alameda’s historic theater, originally built in 1932, with restorations beginning in 2006. I really enjoyed Wonka; it was bittersweet (pun intended)!
One thing I’m looking forward to this year, now that we have a little more space, is fostering kittens again for Oakland Animal Services (and maybe getting a dog?!?). The pink room, as we call it, is the final corner of the house that needs the most attention, unpacking the few remaining boxes for each of the kids’ rooms currently staged there, moving some art/craft supplies from the studio so they’re more accessible to the 10yo in particular, and making tables out of the two extra downstairs doors our contractor was unable to reuse upstairs (they’re Shaker-style doors so I’m mulling over what to put in the recessed portion - nothing too heavy - and will cover that with epoxy to create a nice, smooth surface…I’m hoping to use the second one in my studio). Once I ensure all craft supplies are out of kittens’ reach in the top one or two rows of the IKEA kallax 4x4 shelf (can’t wait to add some of the accessories for art/craft organization), I’ll get the room set up for kittens, hopefully just in time for the 2024 kitten season.
What are you looking forward to in 2024?