Sketchbook Challenge Day 7

My sketchbook is missing, so I had to find an alternative.

Tonight I carve my pumpkin!

Sketchbook Challenge Day 6

Forgot to photo and post yesterday...

Sketchbook Challenge Day 5

Sketchbook Challenge Day 4

Sketchbook Challenge Day 3

I have FaerieCon on the brain.
And my paintings.

And a massive headache.

Sketchbook Challenge Day 2+

Unrelated to sketching...
Years ago I fell in love with a CD called Sequencia, you can read about it here.
Now a friend has informed me of the existence of Your DNA Song, and I could about explode with excitement. I'd dance, but I stepped on a porcupine quill twice last night, and won't be dancing to anything for a while.
No, seriously. I stepped on a porcupine quill twice last night.
It hurts.

First time in ages I was glad I didn't have any dance performances for a two week stretch.

Sketchbook Challenge Day 1

I am challenging myself to draw in my sketchbook every day for a week, the results of which I'll be posting here. It doesn't have to be good, I just need to do it.

.nebula.

I now have nine finished paintings, but I'm realizing that they belong in three different series, which throws my plans for them back a bit in a tizzy of delay. And expense. Because canvas isn't cheap, and what I'm doing now cannot be done on particle board.
And so despite my grand master plan, I may have to come up with a new plan, involving selling off pieces, if I can find buyers, before I can enact my plan....
...oh trouble.

But at least I have thoroughly researched how to properly varnish and mail my work.
Sometimes I severely regret not having gotten an actual fine arts degree...then I would know all of this already. Maybe

.in.progress.

Sketchbook Project

My 2011 Sketchbook Project, titled "unfinished", and which I sent in super SUPER late is finally scanned and available for viewing.
RIGHT HERE: http://www.arthousecoop.com/library/5773

Now just to decide whether Project 2012 #1 should be digitized, and to finish Project #2.
Better get on it...

lllustration Friday: Scattered

.tragedy.

No, not really a tragedy, but you know...

Club Bellydance was really lovely. I realize that I use that word repetitively, but it tends to be appropriate. One of my few regrets about the experience is that the BDSS came through Kansas City on a Tuesday night. Friday, Saturday, even a Thursday evening would have been much better for a show of that quality. Plus on any of those days we might have been able to do a workshop to go along with the show.
But some thing are beyond control.

Still, as sponsor, it went ok. No giant big disasters - the tech ran smoothly, the show itself ran smoothly, the audience was enthusiastic which is really the biggest blessing. And to top it off, the Foundry in Westport serves food until 1:30 in the morning, so Dharma, myself and some of the BDSS were able to get delicious noms and drinks afterwards.

And I learned something, so if I'm in this position again, I have a much much better idea of what to do, what questions to ask, who to turn to for assistance, and what to ask of people.
But I'm still sad the the camera ran out of memory.

Club Bellydance

Tonight is Club Bellydance in Kansas City - specifically at the Uptown.

From the Club Bellydance Facebook site:

This exciting show will feature Bellydance Superstar dancers Sabah, Moria, Sabrina Fox, Stefanya and Victoria.
This new show will give the BDSS dancers an opportunity to try out new ideas and choreography not possible in the full theatre show while at the same time enabling them to enjoy watching their fellow bellydancers perform across the continent. In each city, the local bellydance community ...will provide the first half of the show and the BDSS dancers the second half. Workshops will be set up wherever possible and of course the tour will carry the BDSS traveling store with a wide range of bellydance products at great prices. The tour runs from September through October. We look forward to spreading the word on this dance phenomenon across America and beyond! Come join CLUB BELLYDANCE!

More information is here.

It's going to be a pretty fantastic show - between the BDSS and local talent (specifically myself, Troupe Duende, Melody Gabrielle and Troupe Zahira); and if I'm not too pooped afterwards perhaps Dharma and I can hit up Ali Baba's for hookah afterwards.

Unfortunately, you can only take pictures during the first half of the show - meaning the local dancers. It's the rulz.  So keep it in mind. I know Moria is hot and all, but no photos!

.in.progress.

And now it's time for lunch. And ibuprofen. And a nap.

.gallery.madness.

Last night was Impromptu Date Night, and my beau and I popped by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art to see what was there to see, having discovered that they are open late on Thursday and Friday nights.
We saw some lovely sculptures by Rodin, and there were a few new pieces in the Egyptian wing, and while we were wandering we got into a discussion about the Nature of Art.

I live in a fairly dichotomous world with my art - there's the physical art, and there's my dance. Probably because I dance, and because dance is so fleeting an art form, I very strongly believe that what is or isn't art is completely determined by the viewer. My beau, on the other hand, believes that what is and isn't art is determined by the creator.

I don't really know that either of us is completely right or completely wrong. But with dance there is the moment in which you are dancing, and then there is a memory of that dance with the audience. And that's it. There is no physical thing when the piece is done to show that anything was done at all. There is nothing there to examine when years past for critics to continue to review and discus. Mata Hari is a perfect example of this - Spy, ConArtist, Dancer - known worldwide for her performances, and yet there is nothing left of them, not even video. The beau brought up a famous choreographer, long dead, whose dances are still being performed, but that seems removed a step, because in his case, his company of dancers was his medium, not necessarily the dancing itself.

There's an assemblage of sticks hanging in our living room wall - something he found on the side of the road, liked the arrangement of, and has clung to for years. To me, and whoever threw it out, it's a pile of sticks. To him, it's art. I can put an empty bottle of water on a pedestal and call it art, but to anyone passing by, it's going to look like trash.*  And after I die, as we all do eventually, some of my paintings might survive while my dancing will not.**

I'm going to see more galleries with a friend this evening.
Perhaps I can re-read the Courage to Create this weekend as well...


*On second thought, if I put an artist's statement next to my empty water bottle claiming that its placement is a commentary about the wastefulness of the human species and how early man would have revered such an object for it's usefulness and appearance, someone might call it art. But then it the bottle art, or the concept? And would there have been a better more thoughtful way to execute the same piece?

**And as old things tend to get destroyed, my old paintings would have much more value than they ever could today....and some historian would probably try to shove a lot of existential meaning onto it that the piece was never meant to have....and if my journals survived on top of all of that...
And this is how art is made.

Illustration Friday: Contraption

to re-start the human heart

.updates.and.rambling.

The workshop this past weekend was an excellent experience - I had a blast with the ladies of Project Vagabond, met so many nice dancers...it was lovely. My class went really well, though I may have a tad too much material for a 2 hour long workshop - three hours might be better to cover everything that I wanted to cover. I missed a few talking points, and we never got around to push-ups, sit-ups, or the second combo.
But there is always next time.

And you ladies, who were in my class on Saturday - you owe me push-ups.

Because I've gotten requests for it, below is a list of songs that I like to use during practice, particularly drills and combo practice:

• Sordid - Amon Tobin
• Always - Amon Tobin
• At the End of the Day - Amon Tobin
• Ark - Fridge
• Spondee - Matmos
• Burn it Down (Interpartysystem Remix) - AWOLNATION
• The Clock - Thom Yorke
• Sema - Acid Queen
• Fir Bolg - Kila
• Wax On - Kodo
• Battle - Beats Antique
• Let the Wind Erase Me - Assemblage 23

This week I have to find music for the next Bellydance United show, and prep for Club Bellydance at the Uptown. And I'm dancing at the Renaissance Festival on Saturday. And I started jogging.
And then there's art to finish...and FaerieCon costumes to construct.
I also got a new crop of Springbok Hair Sticks finished, and will hopefully be able to post them up to etsy some time later today...

Hips Noir 6

(the short barely photo-blogged version)

 Talking to my mom while attempting to leave Kansas City for the third time.

(I actually left on the forth attempt.)

It was dark while I was driving.

You can't see it, but the sign for the Golden Coral says "It's Flowing Chocolate Up In Here."

Welcome Dinner!

The workshop, during Naima's class.

 I was vending...

And then there was dancing!

Coffee and breakfast with Mouse and Melissa (not pictured) and Melissa's mom (not pictured) the morning after.

A neat lake/river/swamp area under a bridge I crossed on my way home, when I could see, because it wasn't dark.

The other side of the bridge...

My cranky face from having to drive when there's nothing good on the radio...
Thank goodness for my iPod - Thankyou Steve Jobs!!!

Illustration Friday: Hibernate

Speaking of falling asleep in a pile of baby bunnies...

.Draw.Things.Rebirth.

Tomorrow Friday is the deadline for the most recent Draw Things Challenge: Rebirth

I've been piddling around this topic all month, unable to get past my initial response to the topic, a chrysalis.

And still unable to get past it - I filled my chrysalis with bunnies, because I'm very very sleep deprived from staying up too late painting last night, and all I want to do is fall asleep in a pile of baby bunnies.
I mean, it sounds nice in theory, right?

.adventures.

This Friday is yet another First Friday, and probably the last First Friday of the year when the weather will be tolerable enough to go out and see the galleries without hand warmers and a parka - but I'm going to miss it.

This weekend I'm headed down to Springfield Missouri, to teach a class at Red Moon Studios sixth annual Hips Noir (a dangerously classy bellydance workshop). I went last year as a student, and it was a really fantastic set up. One of the things that they do at Hips Noir that I really appreciate is to bring in more local teachers, rather than the more well known East and West Coasters. Project Vagabond does their best to showcase "local" talent, and so can keep the workshop smaller without losing the bucket, and put together a really excellent show at the end of the day. Because there does seem to be a bit of a stigma about the MidWest - you just don't see a lot of big names emerging from this area of the country...and not that there aren't any, quite a few dancers have popped out of Chicago and Denver, but in general, people give the stink eye to anyone coming out of the Great Plains - we are expected to be less good, which is really a shame because there are some excellent dancers and really excellent teachers out here and you are probably missing it.

But I diverge.

I'm leaving town this weekend. I'll be photographing all aspects of the trip - I'd like to do a little photo essay for this blog when it's over. Hopefully I'll get to see a little of my hosts choreography at their studio when I arrive Friday night. I'm also vending. Which means I'm taking the entirety of my etsy shop with me. Which means if there's something you like in there you had better get it now...