DAM Residency, one week down.

My residency at the Denver Art Museum is over one week underway. I’ve installed several projects, had my “open house” for my first piano office hours, had a rehearsal, and my first performance!

The week felt like a whirlwind. But it also seemed less uncertain than the weeks of pre-planning before it. The piano office installation went really well, and there were so many people on hand to help set up harmonicas and pedestals on Level 7 that I felt like such a big shot. Almost 300 people played harmonicas in the first week of their installation, thanks to a busy free Saturday for families.

My favorite elements of the residency so far have been small moments. I saw two children in the American West Gallery looking around to find the source of the water sounds they were hearing (one of my subtle additions to the room, an unmarked sound piece disguised under the sofas).  Several friends and colleagues sent me pictures of themselves playing harmonicas in the galleries. And my piano office was a big hit with school groups—lots of people came by to ask me questions, say hello, record their musical sounds for the “Corridor Voices” project, and even get pictures with me.

The “American West” performance went really well and almost 75 people roamed the galleries and listened to the ambient and folksy performance. There was a technical difficulty with audio recording, but I think the video turned out well. Judging by all the guests recording things on their phones during the performance, they enjoyed the experience, and that’s paramount. The tree branches that were so difficult to get approved for galleries were a big hit, and sounded beautiful in performance. It was a really special atmosphere that’s hard to describe- something a bit lonely, a bit nature-inspired, and a bit ephemeral.

I’m completely humbled by the amount of work and staff it takes to execute these projects. I knew there was a lot of logistics needed, but I didn’t expect this much! Installing electronics for the “Corridor Voices” this past Monday was the most challenging yet, but even it went quite smoothly, and the DAM staff are incredibly nimble and creative with problem solving. There will be a few minor glitches with the speakers and iPods in the piece as I continue to trouble-shoot, but this has been a really good challenge for me to work with technology!

- See more at: http://www.livingresource.org.

Creative in Residence

In March I begin a three-week residency as Denver Art Museum’s first Creative in Residence. I’m nervous and excited about the experience. I don’t know exactly what to expect; I have participated in just one other residency before, in Catskill, New York, but the setting was quite different and very pastoral. I have also traveled abroad as a Fulbright Fellow to Iceland, but that experience immersed me in a new culture and landscape, rather than a setting much closer to home.

             I have brainstormed so many project ideas in advance, and I am looking forward to realizing a handful of them, knowing that they will change and evolve along the way. I may even find that being in the galleries for an extended stay may conjure entirely new ideas. Having a budget helps me set goals for the projects. I am slowly whittling down a list of materials I might need and people I will want to invite in to assist.

            I have worked with the public on music-related projects before, but rarely have they been pieces that can live on in some way when I am not present. I am also curious to see how I can create work while in the galleries, interacting with visitors while I prepare for works or involve visitors in process of creating. Music composition is often a solitary act, so I wonder what kinds of pieces might be intriguing for visitors even if they are only half-completed…or even if I am able to concentrate amidst commotion!

            My personal goals for this residency are ones from which normally cause me a little anxiety. I would like to become more comfortable with sharing my work in an unfinished state, allowing my process to be more apparent. I would like to take more risks in my work, knowing that I might make big mistakes in front of people, embarrass myself, or perhaps make guests uncomfortable in stumbling into a piece in progress. But as history has shown, my favorite (and usually most personally ‘successful’) projects have been the ones that I have been the most uncertain about, or pieces that I felt vulnerable, having shared something quite personal.

            Professional goals are also important for me to set. I feel honored to be able to realize ideas that have gone previously rejected by other institutions, and I want to use my time and resources to their best benefit. I am striving to get great visual documentation of my work—I have a feeling that this residency could be a huge boost for showing future supporters some of the harder-to-categorize works I make! Finally, I would like to use this residency to explore more of the potential of music and musical instruments within physical spaces. My creative experience has been primarily in recital halls and in recordings, so I want to challenge myself to think more three-dimensionally. Through sound, I want to capture the spirit of the works in the collection and bringing that spirit out into physical space.

'Chinook' recording

Some photos that I don't think I had a chance to post yet, of the filming of my percussion quartet 'Chinook' up on the mesa of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The piece is a site-specific work about weather patterns in Boulder, and the film will eventually be shown on four separate (but interlocking musically) screens or projectors.

Boulder Fall

Autumn in Boulder, Colorado is beautiful! Even with a power plant in sight. A and I went to a pumpkin patch that was basically picked clean of pumpkins, but we did get to walk around in the beautiful day, see a working steam-powered tractor, and then crunch in some leaves. We found a lopsided pumpkin but still enjoyed carving it. Well, I enjoyed carving it, but made A scoop out all of the guts. It's just never been my thing.
I'm still so surprised here at how dry it is, and how infrequently it rains. In Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Boston, Iceland- almost all the places I've lived or visited, it has rained fairly frequently, and in some places, so frequently that it makes sense to carry around your umbrella with you. Here, I look at the forecast and they're rarely rain even predicted, if so, it's a tiny scattered shower.

The leaves here are mostly turning yellow; it's not the red and orange New England fall, but it's wonderfully colorful all the same. There are lots of crunchy leaves on my walk to school, so I am in a good mood to start teaching. It's even been quite warm here during the day, enough that I'm catching some rays mid-day as I eat lunch outside! Try that in Buffalo, not likely.

I've finished the percussion quartet and am moving on to a chamber commission from the Trillium ensemble in Pittsburgh- flute, clarinet, and piano. Meanwhile, I still have one percussionist to record, and filming of the percussion piece outdoors at the National Center for Atmopheric Research. Here's hoping for continued beautiful autumn weather as we head out of October and into the 'wintry' months.

Some Sights around Colorado

A few things you might see if you came out to the Boulder/Denver area:

The National Center for Atmospheric Research is in Boulder, CO, and does work of all kinds on weather, climate, global warming, and obviously, the atmosphere. There is still a surpringly large amount we still don't know or understand about the atmosphere- no one is yet able to predict weather with 100% accuracy. There are these things called 'blue jets' in the sky that pilots often report seeing, giant flashes of blue laser-like light shooting out from the TOPS of clouds into outerspace, and yet little is known about them. The building for NCAR is very modernist but surprisingly sensitive to its environment. It was designed by I.M. Pei, of the Louvre 'Pyramid' fame. Inside NCAR there is the equivalent of a science museum, but it's mostly about the properties of weather. However, there is also a supercomputer inside the building that takes up a large part of the basement. That computer is Super!


In Denver, about a half-hour drive away, you can find the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. It has a great rooftop cafe and a terrace garden which is my new favorite place when I'm not back at Pittsburgh's Mattress Factory café. There is currently an art piece on the roof that shines light down into the stairwell and bounces sunlight off of a sucession of mirrors, all the way down to the basement several floors below. A complicated take on a skylight, but a beautiful study on light and reflection. (To see it work, best visit on a bright sunny day.)

There are beautiful rock formations at The Garden of the Gods, which is actually about a two-hour drive from Boulder but close to Colorado Springs and definitely worth the drive. A strange outcropping of sandstone and red rock among a lot of granite and harder rocks around it.

The top of Pike's Peak is barren and treeless, but beautiful (except for the tourists and parking lot part). But the view is still spectacular. At over 14000 feet, it will literally take your breath away. Maybe the view isn't really that great, it just feels like it when your body's not getting enough oxygen and you feel dizzy and dehydrated.

There are lots of rock collections in Boulder and Colorado- it is a geologist's dream here (except for maybe Iceland, if you are a volcanologist!). A surprisingly large amount of geodes and sparkly crystals come from Colorado!

There are also lots of ye-olde-America buildings too, some dating back to the Gold Rush, when communities near Boulder sprang up overnight. This also led to a lot of abandoned towns and many ghost towns, when the money ran out (or never materialized in the first place). I can't wait to visit some of these old remnants. For now, I see mostly tavern signs and western facades of storefronts. And lots and lots of buffalo iconography, for the famed bison of an America long ago.

Boulder, Colorado

The move has been made! I am no longer living in Iceland and I've moved out west, about 1700 miles west of my hometown, to the town of Boulder, Colorado. For those of you who read the blog for the Iceland posts, you may be disappointed that I won't be posting much more about glaciers or Icelandic grammar. But for those of you who like landscapes, pictures of travels, observations about silly hippies and elk and pine forests and weather patterns and my random comics, then you will be delighted to know that I intend to keep up with all of this.

Colorado has the most different feeling of anywhere that I've ever been in the continental United States. Today I went to the Center for Atmospheric Research (fabulous!) and there were cacti growing out in the wild. There have been heat-lightning and thunderstorms in the distance almost every night. And on a short trip up to the Rocky Mountains, I saw my first moose.

The landscapes here share a bit in common with Iceland, strangely. But the culture does not, that's for sure. Up in the highest altitudes of the mountains, above the treeline, the plant life looks remarkably similar to Iceland, with its windswept and snow-covered peaks, a fragile alpine ecosystem. The air is crisp, and both places are surprisingly arid. There are even hot springs in Colorado, just like Iceland. But up on the top of the Rockies the air is noticeably thinner! I have to drink a lot more water here, and cook with high-altitude rules. And while Iceland was full of mostly families and fashionable worldly types, in Boulder the town seems to be filled with earth-loving types, from startup company execs to hangers-on anarchist hippies and street performers, along with the 30 thousand students from the university (I suppose me included) all vying for the least rat-infested affordable apartment. While Iceland, everything happened word of mouth, Boulder happens via Craigslist. Both places are unsurprisingly exorbitantly expensive, but then you also get a lot of what you pay for in terms of stunning backyard views. I think it will be a good place for me to be, to keep working and thinking.