Hey, Paula Cole, the cowboys are here

Conference over, and I'm back in San Angelo until my next Texas conference in a couple of weeks.

After a couple of months away, I always manage to convince myself that San Angelo isn't very western or country.

Clearly, I have an amazing ability to blank on reality. At breakfast this morning, it appeared Wranglers were required for admission, and there were too many cowboy hats to count at dinner.

Austin: Day 1

I always forget how amazing Austin is. As a native Texan who has explored many of the state's nuanced crevices, both large and small, I find liking Austin cliche. Paul Goldberger* put it best in today's speech when he said that Austin is the one place in Texas that everyone from places like New York and San Francisco can agree to like. Still, the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. Austin has a lot to offer.



Last night Charlie (the brother) picked me up from the airport and dropped me by my hotel. I ended up getting a room at the Austin Motel on South Congress (SoCo). While I'm a good mile from the conference hotel, SoCo is a fun, walkable neighborhood. There are tons of independent shops and restaurants, and the entire neighborhood just has an open vibe. The Austin Motel is fun because it has themed rooms and a laid back atmosphere.







Texas, however, is killing my Fall buzz. I got up this morning and was able to have breakfast outside in my flip flops. In fact, the pool at the motel is still open.





Anyway, I walked across Town Lake into downtown in order to find the Hilton and check-in to the conference. I then camped out in the hotel lobby to do some work and wait for the opening plenary at 5:00.**





I fully anticipated being bored during the plenary but was so glad to be dead wrong. They kicked off the session with some live music from local musicians (check out Phoebe Hunt, phenomenal voice, cool fiddle, with the Belleville Outfit). As entertaining as the music was, it was far from the best part. The president of the National Trust was motivating and even Laura Bush had some great stories. However, Paul Goldberger,  the New Yorker's architecture critic, was phenomenal. He said so many things that were quote worthy and inspiring. I've been searching the internet for video of the speech and am hopeful he will post a transcript on his site. I left the 2-hour assembly pumped and brimming with ideas.

I capped the evening off with tacos from Guero's Taco Bar up the street from my hotel. After sampling the Al Pastor that was made with marinated pork, pineapple, cilantro and lime, I can see why it's one that put them on the map.



*OMG,so brilliant that I'm going to end up gushing.
**5?! It felt late for kicking off a conference, but who am I to judge?

When the paint dries and you can finally sleep

The event is over. The paint is dry. I am tired. I'm working up an effort to write something more interesting in the next couple of days. :-)









Despite the fact that we moved the location (closer to the dam, which was great) of our press event the day before it happened, I'm still please we were able to spice up a little bit of the site.

Everything is temporary

Here's a little sneak peek at my *surprise* project for work. I got so pumped today when I saw how breathtaking it was. I'm refraining from posting more because I want certain people to be surprised in person.



I need to spill a little bit about my struggle today. The artists are only painting a small portion of the site that will be most visible to folks attending an event. There are other areas along the path still covered with graffiti. One piece, in particular, is a giant penis. I went there today with every intention of painting over it.



However, as I was standing in the paint aisle at Home Depot with a can of Kilz in my hand, I couldn't help but stop in my tracks. The Kilz label talked about its effectiveness at covering stains, and as I pondered what I was planning to cover, I began to feel bad for the penis.

I realize I over think a lot of things, but I began to wonder who I was to judge this particular graffiti piece. Does valuing one particular style of graffiti over another make me into a bourgeois elite poser? Aren't I entitled to my own aesthetic? Why should I value this particular rendition of the penis as worthy of any kind of permanence?

Anyway, you can see what kind of random paths my thought process takes. For now the penis stays, but I can't guarantee it will make it through the weekend.

Schoolyard memories

Have you ever stopped to marvel at how quickly some things become antiquated? I remember being in junior high and my mom telling me how I needed to take typing because it would be a useful skill to have. Typing. I bet they never even fathomed how much of our lives we would spend tethered to computers and mobile phones. Can you imagine typing still being offered as an elective? I swear I'm not that old, but knowing that I took typing makes me feel a little older than I should.

Any antiquated memories you'd like to share?

jazzyjen.tumblr.com

It all began at the Sugar Shack

Ravena got me thinking about race and art the other day when she mentioned wanting at least some art in her home by African American artists. One piece, in particular, she had had her eye on for a while was Sugar Shack by Ernie Barnes.



I was unfamiliar with this particular piece, so I felt compelled to hit up Google and see what I could find out. Turns out his style is neo-mannerist, a term I'd never heard of until Google further enlightened me. The elongated limbs and fluidity in the work reminded me of the illustration on the cover of the children's book, Salt In His Shoes, and it seems the illustrator, Kadir Nelson (Abikanile's Prayer below), is also a student of the same movement.





I hadn't really ever given much thought to the artists I like and what their race is, so it was definitely a challenge to search for new artists with race/ethnicity as my first criteria. I can't decide if not factoring this in is a luxury just given my own race or ignorance on my part.

Anyway, back to the fact that Google was not helpful. Typing in "African American art", "art by African Americans", "black art", etc. proved extremely limiting. I am very much a believer in that your history, culture and life shape your art. However, I refused to believe that art by an entire population of people falls into a few narrow categories*.

I should admit now that my second criteria was that the art also had to appeal to me. Would I put it on my wall or in my house? You can rest assured that I would display anything I've included here.

Right when I was about to get frustrated with Google I came across the work of Jacob Lawrence and mixed media artists Romare Bearden and Radcliffe Bailey (respectively below).








If you remember all my yammering about Lisa Congdon, you'll know I'm a big fan of collage pieces.

I was still struggling though. I wanted cutting edge, even more contemporary, so I headed to Etsy to see what they had to offer up. If I thought Google was bad, Etsy plum near terrified me. Such.horrible.pieces. The great thing about Etsy is that magnificent might just be a click away. Patience is how I stumbled on Atlanta artist Shadra Strickland.

My luck held out, and I discovered these beautiful pieces by Tabitha Bianca Brown.

Honestly, my real break came when I discovered the article, Race issue a two-edged sword for black contemporary artists, by Blake Gopnik. While these pieces aren't really ownable unless you happen to be seriously wealthy or a museum, I wanted to hop on my chair and shout "yes! yes!" when I saw them.

Glenn Ligon (unknown, Excerpt, No Room #36)






Kara Walker








Lorna Simpson




Yinka Shonibare




Each of these artists deserves their own post and discussion of how brilliant they are, but for now, I think I'll just stop here and see where the discussion goes.

**All images pulled from corresponding artist's website.**

*I need to debate this out with my group of folks because I kind of want to explore this a bit further.

Everybody cares about something

What do YOU CARE about, and what are you DOING about IT?

I've heard murmurs of this campaign for at least a couple of months now, but thanks to Allister Ann for passing along the link to the video.

Falling Whistles

Headed to Hampden

I made the trek up to Hampden, a Baltimore neighborhood off of Falls Road, yesterday to meet with two graffiti artists about my project. Yes, you read that correctly! I met a great local artist and studio owner who was willing to put out feelers for me.

I was super nervous because I am not good at meeting new people. I think the fact that they were artists made it worse because I have the tendency to view artists a bit like superheros. Anyway, the nerves were for not because these were two of nicest and talented guys. I'm really excited to be able to work with them and think they are going to add an amazing edge to my project.



Cafe Hon in Hampden where you expect to see John Waters walk in the door at any moment.

I don't want to talk about it too much on here because it's work-related, but one of the great things* about working on a stimulus-funded project is that, despite the political flack that you hear, it feels amazing to look out over the entire scope of the project and see the number of people who are working to make this happen. Knowing there are people from all walks of life and professions that range from construction workers to scientists to landscapers to researchers and academics to engineers and even to artists and the people who build our signs who might sleep easier at night worrying a little bit less about where that next bit of funding is going to come from is empowering.

Hopefully I'll pictures of the work in progress to share in the next couple of weeks.



Amazing biscuits and gravy while waiting at Cafe Hon.



*Besides the whole restoring an ecosystem benefit thing. That definitely rocks.

Deatheaters

I struggle with the fact that I sometimes want to be one of those happy, fuzzy bloggers who only blogs of beautiful inspiration and lovely thoughts. The problem is that trying to force myself into just that box is against my very nature. I'm a ranter who needs to periodically grab my soapbox and shout to the world about its problems. If I were vying for President or Miss America, people would call this my platform. My friends just shake their heads, silently thankful that I have a blog where I can vent.

There is a reason for all of this rambling. Earlier today I was directed toward this article in The New Yorker on end of life care. This piece is overwhelming in so many different ways that even finding a way to capture everything it did* to me is difficult.

The state of our health care system and the politics and debates that rage around it is something that is very personal to me. I feel like over the past several years I have witnessed some of its bigger flaws as I watched my grandmother age. The author of the piece, a doctor, lures you in with the story of a young mother-to-be who discovers she has lung cancer during her 39th week of pregnancy despite living a healthy lifestyle and never having smoked. We're drawn deeper into her battle to survive, as treatment after treatment fails.

It's this fork in the road that the author wants us to ponder. The problem is that when he brings us to this point he immediately peppers the path with "...soaring cost of health care is the greatest threat to the country’s long-term solvency, and the terminally ill account for a lot of it," and "twenty-five per cent of all Medicare spending is for the five per cent of patients who are in their final year of life." I refuse to stay silent in a world where medical decisions are based on a cost-benefit analysis, despite OMB's and insurance companies' efforts to put dollar value on what a human life is worth. Anyone walking by could see that I was visibly upset as I read,

"The subject seems to reach national awareness mainly as a question 

of who should “win” when the expensive decisions are made: 

the insurers and the taxpayers footing the bill or the patient battling 

for his or her life. Budget hawks urge us to face the fact that 

we can’t afford everything. "

I absolutely cannot wrap my mind around how we've created a system that would allow a doctor/hospital/insurance company to deny care that might save some one's life based on their ability to pay. Where is the humanity in that? I know folks on the opposite side of the spectrum would argue what I advocate for is socialism and point to the age old examples of waiting so long to see a doctor that you are essentially denied care. They would talk about competition brought on by the quest for higher profits as a tool to stimulate innovative research and treatments. I get that, and I reject it. I wish I were genius enough to have come up with a solution, but all I can offer is that this cannot possibly be the path we go down. The only person who should have the right to deny themselves care is the patient. 

If you hang on, the article does get quite brilliant. He and I found our common ground in the land of hospice. What the author had to learn through home visits and interviews with hospice nurses and patients, we experienced first hand with my grandmother. Even in some of my earliest memories, I remember my grandmother as having health problems (back surgeries, enlarged heart). The memory of those hospital visits pale in comparison to the last two years of her life. Her health had declined so significantly that, for a while, it seemed like each week was touch and go. A particularly horrific stint in the emergency room resulted in a very frank conversation between my grandmother and my mom and grandpa about her wishes and how she wanted to live and die. She was tired. She had lived a full life and didn't want her last breaths to be taken hooked up to a ventilator with her meals delivered through feeding tubes. As her family, we supported her decision, and she was signed up for hospice.

The men and women who provide hospice care are truly amazing human beings. I can't put it any better than the author does.

"In ordinary medicine, the goal is to extend life. We’ll sacrifice the 

quality of your existence now—by performing surgery, providing 

chemotherapy, putting you in intensive care—for the chance of 

gaining time later. Hospice deploys nurses, doctors, and social 

workers to help people with a fatal illness have the fullest possible 

lives right now. That means focusing on objectives like freedom from 

pain and discomfort, or maintaining mental awareness for as 

long as possible, or getting out with family once in a while."

He goes on to quote studies where patients who opt for hospice instead of innumerable last ditch efforts don't necessarily die any sooner and, in fact, have sometimes been known to live a little longer. I know that, with my grandmother, I was given almost two years with her, and I wouldn't trade those for the world. I flew home more frequently and spent almost every hour I could with her. She enjoyed the simple things like getting her hair done, having her nails painted and kicking my ass at Uno

By the end of the article, we are grudgingly friends. He lays out a case for rethinking death and rethinking care based, at least part, strengthening communication, something I can get behind.

Read the article.


*Yes, I know an article can't physically do anything to me, but words can have such a profound effect that it feels physical.

Heard it through the grapevine

I haven't really had to explain blogging much to my mom. I don't know if she inherently gets it or just doesn't bother pursuing any questions that she has. However, the other day I came up with the perfect analogy if she ever does ask. Blogs, at least some of the ones that I read, are the new syndicated lifestyle columnist you would find in your local newspaper.

photo care of We Heart It

I remember reading weekly columns by Rick Smith in the San Angelo Standard Times. I looked forward to that weekly slice of Texas life that gave me the heart-felt human interest story or provided a lesson wrapped up in a story about Joe who knew Billy Bob who used to work with Phil. Through these columns we got to know a little bit about Rick while getting a little bit of news mixed in with local color. Rick is still banging out the pieces for the Standard Times and could be considered a blogger himself as the paper has gone all high-falutin' and online. I recommend checking out a couple of his recent pieces just for fun, including a peek inside what it means to talk Texan or the tall tale* of Jimmy Don Perkins, inventor of the chicken fried steak.

Fast forward 20-odd years, and I still hear stories from my mom and grandpa as culled from some of their favorite columnists.  "You'll never believe it, but this girl who writes for the paper was talking about how the Safeways in DC always run out of food." This happens to be from a regular column by Trish Choate, a transplanted Texan who writes columns about life in DC for the Standard Times (who knew?!). A favorite family read is Sharon Randall, a syndicated columnist who also runs in the local rag. My family admires the stories that Randall spins so much so that my mom tried to get tickets (sold out) to hear her speak at the Abilene Women's Club luncheon for my grandfather's birthday.

photo care of We Heart It

My point is that these columns supplement the day-to-day news we get from the paper, TV, etc. and provide an oft-missing human connection. Many blogs out there do a bit of the same. They give us advice, entertain or inspire us, and above all help foster that human connection. Maybe it's Jamie, who is always seeking, striving and attempting to lift others up or perhaps Colva's sometimes disturbing, sometimes poignant pieces or Tara, who isn't afraid to ask the tough questions. I read different blogs for different reasons, but I find myself drawn back to those who leave a little bit of their soul on the floor or plant an idea in my mind.



*A bit of a War of the Worlds-type story.

Of cool breezes and days off

I took days off, spent hours not working and largely not even thinking about it. Instead, I have enjoyed the cool breezes, sparkling* sun and the company of good friends.

Friday found me at Tarara Winery near Lucketts, Virginia surrounded by friends, several bottles of wine and the picnic we brought with us.


photo by Scarlet Rose

After years of the biannual trek to Smith & Wollensky, there was a general consensus that we had outgrown the stuffy confines of this particular DC establishment and would rather spend some time outdoors in a more casual setting. Missing were the roving sommeliers eager to refill your glass and the Wine Week regulars in their suits and slacks who would stop by the table to drunkenly chat. In their place, there was a view of the Potomac and a personal tasting with the winery staff.


photo by Scarlet Rose

It was a decidedly low key and just what the stress doctor ordered.

The next morning I was up early for a trip to Crafty Bastards in DC with Ravena, Terra and Amanda. I've said I was going to go for years and finally managed to wander the booths.

It was extremely hard to focus when we first walked in because your eyes are immediately assaulted with so many amazing finds. Color. Plush. Paint. Paper. Ack! I walked away with a few treasures of my own, which I will share another day. While I generally failed at taking pictures this weekend, I did manage to snap a couple of photos of lovelies I did not walk away with.

If only all taxidermy were this cute. I fell hard for these Horrible Adorables by Cleveland-based artist Jordan Elise. Being allergic to real pets and animals is excuse enough to purchase one of these, right? If anyone wants to contribute to this adoption fund, give me a buzz.

 
















These book sculptures by local artist Robin Delaloye also blew my mind. I had actually seen these online a few months ago, but nothing compares to examining the detail that goes into curling, shaving and folding thousands of pages in person. As a book lover, part of me wanted to be taken aback. Instead, this just seems another evolution of the book and even better reason why the printed word should still be...printed.

I was pleasantly surprised at how nice people were there. I get so used to folks in DC being brusque or very much caught up in their own world, but people here actually smiled** at you when they passed. It meant something to be able to talk with the artists who actually made these things and form that connection.

*It didn't really sparkle, but it was definitely bright.
**Sometimes I think I'm becoming more and more a Texan every day I don't live there.