Projects

I have so many projects and random part-time activities that sometimes I lose sense of the timeline of how long I've been doing them. I've been writing music for nineteen years! I've been drawing random comics for about eight. I also realized it's been nine years since I sold my first piece of jewelry, in August of 2004; a sparkly pair of pink earrings, I believe. My, how things have changed, and I have a little more business sense too. I've gone through two websites, have started an Etsy site for jewelry, have started a Bandcamp page for selling recordings, I've experimented with combining media, and hopefully every once and a while I still put up a comic on here. (I do love to have a good laugh about grammar, hot pants, and/or witless tourists).

Thanks to everyone who's bought, listened, gifted, worn, promoted, paid attention to, or just admired my works over the years, it keeps me going! For next year's ten-year jewelry anniversary and twenty-year composing anniversary, I should put something extravagant together that celebrates everything. Maybe a giant sculptural jewelry piece that plays music? An elegant piece of music about pink sparkly earrings? I've got a year to perfect that idea. In the meantime, a couple new comics are on their way!

Residency Thoughts

The CATWALK Residency is over and I'm back in Denver, safe and sound (and due to some ticketing issues on the flight home, with my very first ever first-class flight along the way)!

I certainly learned a lot about residencies in this first experience, though truth be told, all residencies are not created equal. This residency only has two artists stay at a time, and each has their own housing. Pretty luxurious.

I made a few short works there, and am happy with a couple of them, but for the most part, the residency became a chance to experiment with some new ideas, try them out, and sometimes fail. Though that can be a good thing too!

I ended up working on about four projects. In summary, here was my progress.

1. A solo organ video! The harmonium from the shed was hauled out to the woods for videotaping. Little did I know how heavy it would be. I wrote a very minimalist piece for it, planned on videotaping it around sunset- where the halfway point of the video would be that evening's sunset time. I wanted the performance to be about an hour, but I only played for about a half hour. I then took the video and the recording and sped them up, so hopefully we could see the light fade in the woods. Problems with this performance (aside from the fact that the organ was nearly broken) included all the bugs in the woods biting me, and the fact that the light in the woods changed so subtly that you can hardly see the difference from the beginning to the end of the video. This project was about 70% successful, I'd say, but gives me lots of hope for future similar projects involving time and light outdoors.

2. Bell trees! I crocheted long strands of yarn that were attached to bells, and then wired them up in 20-foot-tall tree branches so you could ring them from the ground. This was probably the most simple idea but the most successful project. I was worried that the bells might rust as it was very rainy; I had to wait for the groundskeeper to help me with the ladders after a weekend away. Thankfully the bells stayed pretty dry, were sheltered under a lot of leaves. With the help of the other visiting artist, a painter named Alexis Neider, we made a little video of the bells in action too. The background noise of the camera is a little distracting but overall success I'd grade myself at 85%.

3. Outdoors 1. A song, with words from the 19th-century philosopher John Ruskin, mixed with texts from the original builder of the residency's structure, the Hudson River School painter Charles Herbert Moore. The song is pretty cool, it's like an electronic dance jam with cicadas buzzing and sampled choir sounds from the residency's old Kurzweil keyboard. I came up with a performance piece for this song and we videotaped it. Again, there were some problems. My lipsynching abilities apparently suck. It was very hot, and very windy, so I'm super sweaty in the video and things are blowing off of the table we're trying to videotape. Not very convenient. I am also not a video editor and have no intentions of training, I'd rather hand the project to a professional. Still, there are some good ideas in the video. About 2 minutes of it are pretty snazzy. The rest I'm still a bit embarassed to show people. Performance success: 90%, video success, 70%. Enjoyment of the Upstate New York heat and humidity while carrying a heavy table 500 yards: 0%.

4. Outdoors 2: This piece was/is a companion piece to Outdoors 1. Outdoors 1 is like the 'daytime' piece and this is the 'nighttime'. Unfortunately I didn't have time to finish it. Perhaps later this summer I will revisit. It has some great sounds of machinery around the residency, chainsaws, thunderstorms, and windchimes at the local Wal-Mart, so I do think it has the most geographical 'flavor' of that area.

I went on a lot of art-seeing trips on the residency, which was great, something I rarely get to treat myself to even though I love galleries and museums. I went to New York City for a day, and to Mass MoCA for another. I talked a lot about my work with people, which was also good. The time to relax and enjoy some new scenery was also really beneficial. I met a woman who talks to angels. I met a Columbia poetry professor who lives in a seventeenth-century Dutch farmhouse. 17th century! I also met up with friends who I haven't seen in years, got to see my parents for a few great days, and experienced the kindnesses of local residents curious to meet someone new in the area.

All in all, it was a time I'd surely repeat. It was a time that helped me think about music, time, nature, and using the resources around me in new and interesting ways.

Catskill, New York

I'm here in Catskill, New York on my first artist residency! Okay, so the Fulbright Fellowship was a lot like a really long artist residency. This one is only three weeks though, and I get to stay in the same country.

Catskill is a small town on the Hudson River, close to Hudson, NY, and between Albany and Poughkeepsie. There are a lot of fancy homes and estates out here, but the town of Catskill itself seems quite working-class.  There's some pizza places, a hot dog stand, a church converted into a 24-hour fitness club, and an ice cream parlor on a creek that is super creamy and delicious. There are even boats and kayaks you can rent, though it's not as fancy as other 'weekender' towns where wealthy Manhattanites come up for a few days a week to their summer houses, escaping the buzz of the city. It's surprisingly racially mixed for a tiny town. It's also blazin' hot and humid here, about 100 degrees and 90% humidity--after living in Denver for a year, I've sort of forgotten about humidity and sinus pressure, and don't miss it a bit.

The CATWALK residency, where I am, houses two artists at a time to make work. It's quite a fancy place, built originally as a 'cottage' by the Hudson River School painter Charles Herbert Moore (contemporary of renowned painter Thomas Cole, whose estate literally abuts this property) and expanded over the century to include private residencies, barns, and an impressive art collection by its owners.

I'm working on several projects, and who knows what they'll turn out to be, but the nice thing about an art residence here is that there aren't a lot of expectations to pump out work; time to oneself and time to explore are first and foremost. There are 60 acres of property for me to be inspired on, with a small section of 'beach' at the Hudson River as well as forest trails, ponds, a tower studio, and several workspaces.

I hope to make some nature-based works, but lately all I can think about here is man's involvement with nature. Nature here isn't untouched in the same way that Iceland was/is. Here, one likes to put a stamp on a good view, take down some trees, plow fields, and build roads through the landscape--anything but the pristine 19th-century ideal of romanticized sublime Nature. Catskill has a home where the figure of 'Uncle Sam' really lived, which is the same building where President Martin Van Buren Lived! But right next to this home is a trash-looking (though hilariously placed) Tiki Bar subtitled 'grub and pub'.

Still, there's something interesting in that juxtopósitión. I've been taking a lot of recordings of machines working, or combination sounds of nature and man's involvement in it. Chainsaws for example. I took a sneaky recording inside a country Wal-Mart today (I haven't been in a Wal-Mart in years!) and there had been a lot of birds that fly in and out of the garden section. It sounded like an aviary in there, only with pumped-in soundtracks of pop hits and electric fans whirring. I think I might make some electronic pieces that change daytime sounds to nighttime ones and vice versa. Perhaps also do a live performance during them; I need to find some good texts for speaking and singing.

There's an old, dusty, almost-broken harmonium here as well; I'd like to take it out into the woods and play it. Only one bellows works, so you can't pump both feet anymore- just the left one! Still, it makes sounds. Perhaps I'll do a performance where the organ returns back to nature, back to its wooden beginnings, before man came and carved it up and assembled it for me to play.

Sun and Moon at the Dentist

It's been just about a year since I finished the music for my album 'The Origin of the Sun and Moon'. (If you don't have your copy already, please by all means buy one here or download, it would be most appreciated!) I've sold many copies and have many more to sell; my last album was made in such a limited run that in less than a year I had no more copies to sell or promote, and I didn't want that to happen to my hard work this time!

It's been very interesting to do as much self-promotion of my music as possible. I've taken the record to local music stores, I've played a couple concerts as 'CD release' shows, I've mentioned the album in other performances. The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver is selling the CD, and I hope to get it in a couple more stores. Of course, it's never enough PR as I'd like, but slowly and surely, good things come.

Several great 'Sun and Moon' related things have happened recently. I sold a limited-edition album to a listener in Paris. I just had an idea yesterday to try and perform at a local store that deals with lots of crystals and celestial objects; I think the album and its music would be a good fit there. The best 'Sun and Moon' moment recently was when the entire staff at my dentist's office listened to the album, in its entirety, while I got my teeth cleaned (this picture is the actual waiting room at the dentist, it is super luxe). That was pretty hilarious, hearing my music as I'm lying back in a chair with giant lights and mirrors over me. The dentist made it through the song about pulling teeth, but had to turn it down when it came to the whale noises and shouting random texts from books. I don't blame the dentist. The album starts off all easy-listening and gets thornier.

Listening to the album after a long pause is an interesting experience. When I made the tracks, they were like experiments. They can live in a variety of different sound-states, so there doesn't need to be a hard and fast definitive version. Nevertheless, some of the sounds on there I thought, oh yeah, that's the version that's on the CD and not the version I perform live (which would be much trickier to time all the sound samples and get people to sound like whales). A couple tracks I had not heard in months and I was pleasantly surprised to think, hey! I made that.

I have never been a musician who looks back on his work from years past and never wants to look at that material again. Some pop artists are practically disgusted with their early work. I still find great things in the first pieces I've written, though I'm glad that I'm always exploring new ways to combine sounds, new ways of organizing forms, and fun new methods of delivering those sounds to live audiences.

I'm always interested to hear your thoughts on my works and what kinds of images you get from listening, or what strikes your fancy (or what you frankly wish I had left out). Feel free to let me know!

Northern Iceland: Húsavík, Akureyri, and Far North

As a last hurrah, I traveled to the north of Iceland with a visiting friend from Italy who is currently living in France. And he speaks four languages. Intimidating! But luckily I'm the one who knows a little Icelandic, and can find my way around here well. We took a long drive and racked up about 2000 kilometers, saw a lot of places I had not seen before, and of the places I had seen, I'd either visited last in September about 10 months prior, or over the winter when everything was snow-covered and usually closed for tourists. So this was a lot of new experiences!

We visited Akureyri and I finally got a nice shot of the mural there (click for a larger view). It's a lovely town and I wouldn't mind spending a decent amount of time there! Sadly we only stayed for dinner, a swim, and then a short walk.

On the walk we noticed that some kids had somehow gotten themselves onto this jankety wooden raft, and had basically floated into the middle of the fjörd. Whether is was on purpose or just random I don't know, they seemed to be kind of obnoxiously goofy and nonchalant about the whole thing. But then they went through a lot of effort to paddle themselves back with some plywood paddles, and when they approached the shore, angry parents/onlookers and the police were waiting. Akureyri drama!



We drove across the fjörd in the morning and by some stroke of amazing luck, the museum I have wanted to go to for ages was actually open. Safnasafnid, or the Museum of Museums!

It houses a collection of Naive and Folk art from Iceland, a small permanent collection, research offices, a tiny café, and rotating exhibits, all in one beautiful open-plan house. The museum's mission is not so much focused on one field but to promote the creation of connections and thought between disparate fields and interests, perhaps why I love it so much. My favorites were the cabinets of curiosity- named after Renaissance-era collections of unexplained objects for perusal, the cabinets house a well-placed collection of really really random things. This particular cabinet photographed housed collections of dolls from all over the world.

Driving further west, we visited a couple places near Myvatn that I had not been to before, including sites near Krafla geothermal fields. There is a beautiful implosive crater called Stóra-Viti and several steaming lava fields and mud pits, which were bathed in beautiful weather. Strangely Stóra-Viti still had snow in it, even in the middle of July! But is has been unseasonably cold in Iceland this year (even for Iceland).




Heading then up north we stopped for the night in Húsavík and our guesthouse owners were kind enough to tell us about a free hot pot up on top of a beautiful flowery field, with a great view. I soaked it all in.

Almost too tired, but not willing to give up, we then managed to drive to the very farthest northern point of Iceland, Hraunhafnartangi. The weather was so gorgeous that it would have been a shame not to go, being so close. And if I couldn't make it to Grímsey, which crosses the arctic circle, then I am happy to be so close at this point! It is a lonely and desolate point for sure, with the midnight sun shining on a small lighthouse at the edge of the world. Nothing between here and the north pole!

Thorsmork, or Þórsmörk

With the help of a small employee discount from a friend's mom, I was able to travel to Thorsmork for the day and see a part of the country that's really only accessible by giant 4x4 or super jeep. It was a beautiful day for travelling...well, it was rainy on the coast but the Thorsmork area tends to have much nicer and calmer weather as it's sheltered by mountains and glaciers. There was a breeze, however, that kicked up ash clouds from nearby volcanos, familiarly called Ejafjallajökull and Grímsvötn. I'm glad the bus didn't stop here as it looked like a sandstorm on another planet. This area was basically inaccessible for about a year, with all of the ash mounds blowing around.

We took this enormous monstrosity into the park, which is about 1.5-2 hours from Reykjavík. We didn't really need such big tires...until we did. The last 30km or so were so bumpy. And the many strong and deep rivers we crossed would never be cross-able without it.

There used to be a beautiful glacial lagoon here, but now only the tongue of the glacier remains and a lot of wet quicksand-like soil. This guys, is Eyjafjallajökull! The base of the volcano that caused so much trouble last year. It looks so quiet now, mostly just dirty.

The actual park part of Thorsmork is divided into three parts, a summer-housey bit, a camping and hiking bit, and a gorge. We did two outta three, and checked out the camping bit, hiking up through a forest (one of the few very lush places in Iceland) and out to some cool-looking rocky (of course volcanic) outcroppings.

Then I wanted to check out a fairly strong river. After chatting with a nice musician from Denmark named Thorbjorn, we walked together a bit and discovered that the park people had wheeled over a cool bridge for hikers to cross the river. Brilliant!

We hiked into this beautiful green gorge called Stakkholtsgjá. The bus driver/tour guide even told us about some edible plants along the way. He was a cool guy- I asked him if he ever got tired of leading tours after working on them for over 3 years, and he said 'only sometimes'. But I think I distracted his boredom by my surprising him with speaking Icelandic, we chatted about music a little bit.

The gorge gets narrower and narrower until you finally come to its source, a waterfall hidden up underneath a rocky outcropping. You can scramble into it and see the waterfall, and it was a little tricky but totally worth it!

Marching Band

As I've posted about, this past June 17 was a giant celebration in Iceland, celebrating the country's freedom from Danish rule in 1944, as well as 2011 marking the 200th birthday anniversary of Jón Sigurdsson, the country's original fighter for independence.
What could be more a signal of independence than the sounds of a marching band? These guys passed by me on the street during the festivities, and all I could think of was Charles Ives. It reminded me of playing the clarinet in marching band in high school...and also how awful it was. But it built character, I guess. Mostly I was either just sunburnt or waterlogged. These kids seemed to be having more fun than I ever did.

Independence Day Sights

T made the best use of his Independence Day by eating some CandyFloss (as cotton candy is called here). We also went with friends to my favorite coffeeshop, called C is for Cookie, and had some amazing desserts. I thought the flag of Iceland was a nice touch to this meal.

I also got my first peek in Fríkirkja, the 'Free Church' in Reykjavík. It's right downtown, next to the museum, but for some reason I've never seen it open for visitors. And I haven't known anyone to perform or get married in it, so it was nice to see something right downtown that I hadn't before!

I heard the Independence Day song of Iceland three times, in three different versions. One was from a marching band, and then I heard it sung by this male choir, all duded-up for the occasion in their tuxes, sunglasses, and beers. It's actually kind of a sad but beautiful song.

Directly after the choir performance was an electronic-dance jam version of the Independence Day song, which was pretty great to hear such a far-removed version from the original hymn. I wondered how many people 'got it', or if they just thought, oh, here's a bunch of hipsters playing around with some funny sounds.

I actually think that the coolest thing I saw all day was this chess game. There was a life-size chess game set up in one of the parks in town, with some cute kids playing with chess pieces the size of their whole bodies. But next to that were two rows of tables set up and a line of people waiting to sit down. On the tables were rows of chessboards. Chess is huge in Iceland, it's practically their national sport! So, you could wait for a turn and play chess here. But the catcher is that you could play against a young chess champion, and he was playing all the games at once- one guy playing 12 games sinultaneously!! It was really fascinating to watch, people of all ages joining in and having a good smarty-pants time, and the star of the show was super relaxed and casual about it.

Independence Day in Iceland

There are too many things to see on Iceland's Independence Day! I wanted to take a picture of everything. The whole city takes a break to come downtown and celebrate with bands, parades, performances, vendors, and lots and lots of live music.
Flowers were laid at the statue of Jón Sigurdsson, as well as at his gravesite after a parade led people up to the cemetary.

We saw a performance of these brides all dress in white doing some choreographed dance down the street and in the windows of a historic building. I didn't know exactly what it was but perhaps as so many performers are dressed (or painted) in white today (a symbol of independence, I'm assuming) they could represent the 'mountain women' of Iceland, the fighters and real strength of the country.

Street performers entertained the kids (and still surprise me to this day...how do they not fall down, and what do their calf muscles look like.)

There are two stages in plazas for people to sit and enjoy music throughout the day.

There's also this guy, acting super manly whilst holding a tiny tiny dog.

Choir trip to Snæfellsness, Part II

Off on a sight-seeing extravaganza!

Here's a couple photos from the northern peninsula of Snæfellsness- Svörtuloft, the cliffs with birds nesting, and crashing waves.



We stopped at a village of a couple hundred people called Rif, where we toured a salted cod factory, and then sang for the two people giving us a tour! If I could have understood the technical terms about fish processing, I'm sure if would be really interesting, but I was plenty amused just by noticing that all of these giant tubs are full of cod, packed in with salt. And as it's a cured process, you can just handle the fish and put them back in the salt...I think in the States everything would be overly-hermetically-sealed, über-rubber-gloved, but this way is a bit more hands-on, like at least I know a human has looked at this and not just giant impersonal machines hacking through the oceans.


Today is also Sjómannadagurinn, or Seaman's Day! Lots of activities in coastal towns when the fishermen return to play games, have country dances and balls, and party into the night. We saw a game of tug-of-war here in Rif.

We stopped at the Rif café for some delicious Indian-style cod soup. Then we of course sang again for the people in the café! It was so cozy inside, like an old farm-house. I think the building is just from the 1950's, but it feels like an update from an old house in the early 1900's. Complete with lace curtains and porcelain teacups!

Then probably the coolest thing of the trip, and definitely the darkest thing I've done- the choir donned hard hats and descended 100 feet into the Vatnshellis cave! It was full of cool rock formations (that don't photograph well using only hardhat light), glittery bacteria that looked like silver, and several large chambers to explore. And somehow there's a giant spiral staircase inside that allows visitors to descend into the insanity (with a tour guide, of course). And a fabulous tiny door which is the entrance to the whole thing, kind of Alice-in-Wonderland style.



I also finally saw Snæfellsjökull (the glacier) in the sun! I'd never actually seen it completely before, always covered in fog, snow, or rainclouds.

Reykjavík Arts Festival

Reykjavík has a long arts festival every summer, featuring numerous bands, artist performances, gallery shows, all gathered into one. I noticed that there was a free performance outdoors which kicked off the festival. The performing company was La Fura dels Baus, who rigged up the town square by the Parliament with zip lines, construction equipment, and a music-dance-performance work. The piece itself seemed fairly abstract, but the execution of it was pretty amazing! It also included renditions of Bizet and Handel's 'greatest opera hitz' as well as some snappy electronic music.
The drama began with the stars of the show being brought into the square on fork loaders, and throwing out things to the audience, like balloons and fake money. Then an opera singer descended from the Church on a zipline, and let loose a bunch of feathers.

A third girl was sort of 'birthed' from this bizarre contraption filled with water, suspended from a crane. Then everything kind of came together when another crane lifted a bunch of people in the air and they did this sort of choreographed apocalyptic air-dance, all strapped onto this metal cage, but moving in sync with each other. The streamers were flying, it was quite beautiful.

The best moments of the piece were the finale when 42 Icelandic volunteers (and Spanish dancers of the troupe) were harnessed into these cables and then lifted into the air by a crane, and then they all did this dance, way up in the air.

It looked like a combination of modern dance, rock climbing, and nuclear radiation cleanup. They poured glitter out from their suits and into the air and then expanded and contracted their bodies into great shapes.


Certainly an impressive start to the festival, and a giant crowd assembled to enjoy the performance, and soak up the new summer sun!