I had a really great first day at Artfest Midwest in Des Moines. ‘Twas a bummer that it rained most of the day for the folks at the outside Des Moines Art Festival that coincides downtown, so I was very glad to be inside a dry, air conditioned building. Thanks to all you folks who came out.
After my show was over, I headed to the downtown show where I had some friends from various parts of the country exhibiting.. and then they took me out to dinner and surprised me with a little birthday cake (with tricky self-igniting candles) afterward since I also turned another year older today, and that warmed & swelled my little ol’ heart.
I made my way to Des Moines, IA, today and set up for this weekend’s ArtFest Midwest at the Varied Industries Building at the Iowa State Fair Grounds. It was a pleasant drive, and I discovered this week that I could do an internet search for “free audio books”, which yielded quite a few offerings. So, I listened to part of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Nature” on my way. Here’s an excerpt:
“To speak truly, few adult persons can see nature. Most persons do not see the sun. At least they have a very superficial seeing. The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eye and the heart of the child. The lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth, becomes part of his daily food. In the presence of nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows.”
I’m zoning out on my 18th hour of work…. Many new things to come. I’ll be heading out to Des Moines on Friday for Artfest Midwest at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. A week from Saturday, I’ll be giving a presentation at the Topeka Public Library in conjunction with the “A Cut Above” exhibit that I’m in there.. More details to come.
It was inevitable that I’d someday name a paper cutting after the Ultimate Spinach song of the same title. Best band name ever, maybe? (Maybe not.. but I did make a pretty ultimate spinach salad for dinner). This measures 8 x 10 inches. I also made a much larger paper cutting similar to this that I’ll post pics of soon.
Woooo hooooo I just got the new Beachwood Sparks LP in the mail (earlier than I expected) that I preordered from Sub Pop Records.. equipped with an awesome totebag and sticker which is now permanently affixed to my car. (If there’s one thing that I’m a stickler about, it’s keeping my car in ship-shape. I don’t even have my own sticker on there). So… my whole workday just went from totally exciting to beyond exciting. Lots of new finished works to come once I get them photographed.
Beatrice Coron presenting at the Topeka Public Library. Image (c) Alice Sabatini Art Gallery.
My work hanging alongside that of Beatrice Coron and Nikki McClure
My 'work in progress' on display at the Alice Sabatini Art Gallery at the Topeka Public Library.
I had the pleasure of attending Beatrice Coron’s talk and meeting her afterwards at the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library. Her presentation was part of the “A Cut Above” exhibit at the Alice Sabatini Art Gallery inside the library featuring the work of Beatrice, myself, Nikki McClure, Cindy Ferguson, and Clay Rice. I had seen Beatrice’s work back in 2005 in an exhibit at the Brooklyn Public Library as well as on the NYC Subways when I lived there. She has done so much amazing personal and public work.
One of the things that she talked about was how she found a correlation between running and paper cutting. She runs a lot — marathons, ultra-marathons, and she said it helps her with making large paper cuttings as they are like marathons in themselves (she often works large scale – measuring in feet rather than inches). This especially caught my attention because I had just been discussing with a friend the day before that the more I run, the more paper cutting I seem to be able to do (although, I’m good with three miles.. an ultra-marathon –50 miles?– would kill me off). Check out her TED talk HERE and her website HERE.
