eight

It's eight o'clock now, and eight has been a constant number in the last 24 hours. Yesterday was the big install day. I arrived early at the gallery, before or around 8:30 am, and waited patiently for security to arrive and open the gallery door for me. This guy showed up, a tall guy with a huge gun on his belt holster, wearing a polo shirt and jeans, and asked me if I wanted to be let in (even though he was not the guy I called). I said sure and thanked him, being extremely intimidated by his gun, even though he was very nice and friendly. Now that I think of it, it makes me think of all the discussions on students carrying concealed weapons on college campus, even though the guy did not appear to be a student (it is an all-women's college), nor was it concealed. Guns freak me out.

The muses had not clarified to me where the works should go, but I knew that one piece had to be in one wall, the big monster METROPOLIS drawing wall with the MEDIATOR projection over it. I made the projection a large size, measured it to make sure it would fit the drawings, connected the DVD player (it did not work, had to hunt down for another one), and measured to make sure the projection was somewhat centered in the wall, and then I measured the center of the projection to begin hanging the work. I made the center of the piece 60 inches, but if I were to do all over again, I'd do it at 58", because the gallery walls seem somewhat short, or the ceiling gives the impression of hanging low. It took forever to do this, about 2 hours. The beautiful pushpins were actually not very good, but cheap (plastic that looked like metal), so I could not use the hammer, and had to push them (a total of 40) by hand. My fingertips are still sore, and I think it is affecting the way I use the touch-screen of my phone.

Once that was done, I hung the first triptych, one out of eight I had to do (that number again). I also hung it at 60 inches center, and also thought I should lower it, but it was such a pain to hang it and let it be leveled-looking (the canvases are rectangular but unfortunately very precise or square, so when put together with the 3 inch spaces, it always looks off). Once I adjusted the lighting (nice system, but too bright and too close to the walls, in my opinion), the piece looked better.

The TVs had not been installed the night before, and neither had the patching and spot-painting been done. What I thought was a curse turned out to be an advantage, because I decided to change where the TVs were place, and put it in the smaller wall, along with my name and artist statement, and the piece LLAVE, a small (22"x 30") silverpoint drawing that sort of unlocks the whole exhibition, as it provides some help with all the codes being on display. Codes and the color silver make up the two major components of this exhibition, which I titled "Argentum". This new arrangement would also be good for people coming into the building from the main entrance, as they'd turn around and immediately see my name and the video diptych. The big wall that connects the two rooms in the gallery were to hold the widest, horizontal-most pieces, four of them total. The wall opposite the title/TV wall would hold three triptychs, vertically oriented.

Earlier in the morning I got an email from Tiffany, and sometime early in the afternoon she came to campus and brought me my Starbucks trifecta o' fake (decaf+nonfat+splenda), which was a lovely thing for her to do. She then told me the student would be coming sometime after 1 pm and could stay until 3, which was great. By the time the student arrived (a very nice young lady studying sculpture, forget her name), I was almost done drilling the holes for the three triptych wall. One piece turned out to be extra challenging because the drywall screw just refused to go into place. After butchering the gallery wall I ended up using a nail to hold it in place; I hope it stays up for as long as it needs to stay, a whole month. It is actually one of my favorite pieces, PAREJA, and it includes two monkey skulls in it, which, positioned as it is, now face or look toward the large scale sculpture of a skull seen through the glass doors in the adjacent Moreau Gallery (at least the large skull does). What a nice coincidence. After explaining to the student what I wanted to have done with the TVs (two lovely Toshibas with built-in DVD players, maybe 20 inches wide each), and finishing the vertical triptych wall, I began the final task of installing the large wall o' paintings.

There are two things I always do when I install a show. The first one is that I always install barefooted, with socks on, no shoes. The other thing is that I usually position my ruler so that the number five or seven or twelve is always at the center. This install was different. I kept my shoes on the whole time (a testament that my TOMS feel just like being barefooted), and for some reason I kept the number 8 at the center of my measurements. I still have no idea why I did so, but now I feel I want to look up the number in numerology...
Quickly reading up on it on numerology.com, it seems that the number 8 is a number of power and career, as well as a number of balance. I like the notion of balance in terms of this exhibition and trip.

http://www.numerology.com/numerology-numbers/8

I took my time measuring and drawing up a chart for the big wall, which would hold a total of twelve canvases arranged as four triptychs. I drew and measured, and did the math proof to make sure I did not mis-measured anything (found one mistake, corrected it), and began drawing the drill points. this time centering the pieces at 58 inches (which I had also done for the vertical wall, the TVs and the drawing). By the the student had finished installing the TV, and we put the DVDs in and made the appropriate setting changes. It looked good. Tiffany walked in and stayed there watching the piece. I told her that the final version of that piece would contain eight monitors in a long strip of flatscreen TV monitors, six of which are already done and two are in my head. I am not sure where I will be showing that yet though.

Tiffany told me she'd be leaving for Detroit for the MACAA conference in a few, so I had to get going, and finish installing the work. I was beat by then and worried I'd not finish in time. I finished drawing the screw points, and began drilling, this time had no problems, with the exception of one place, which for some reason showed as if it was 1 inch off when the painting was hung. That took for ever to adjust, but eventually all paintings went up and they looked pretty good. I went to the bathroom to wash my hands (in a women's college, the men's bathroom is extremely small and clean), and came back to install the drawing. I originally wanted to have it framed, but I ran out of time and money, so it was hung with magnets, and hanging it went pretty fast.

The final steps were to fix the lighting, which in this case consisted of removing tons of unneeded spotlights, and aiming them properly, most of the time lowering their angle. Once that was done I cleaned up the room, collected the garbage and placed all the ladders and carts in the gallery storage room. I actually finished before Tiffany left, and was in the hotel by 5 pm. I was exhausted, so I laid in bed for a bit recollecting my thoughts and deciding what to do for food. I had no food the whole day, with the exception of a humongous breakfast, a power bar for lunch, and an apple and banana in the afternoon. I was too tired to drive anywhere. After talking to a friend on the phone I decided to order room service (they did have it after all), and even though the steak sounded great, I decided to go for a cup of corn chowder, a grilled chicken salad, and a chocolate ganache napoleon for dessert. The rest of the night was spent aimlessly, and I went to bed later than I wanted to (past 11 pm).

I already ate breakfast and now I need to pack and leave this town. I am getting sleepy now, but hope the 3.5 hours trip goes fast. I wanna take a nap before installing D-lectricity tonight.





- posted via iPad

Location:U S 31 N - The Inn At St Mary's,Notre Dame, IN, United States

do you have pushpins?

Here I am on the road again. Last weekend I went to Grand Rapids for Art Prize for a few hours, to document my piece for Adoration, and even though I stayed overnight, I left in such a hurry in the morning that no blogging took place.

Today I find myself in a hotel filled with business types and once-jocks, the constituency of this region (I am very close to Notre Dame University). The key of staying in these types of hotel and avoid the crowd is to always eat the free breakfast later, around 9 am, right before they close it. It is still not even 7:30 am, so here I am blogging. But this will be quick, as I have a million things to do and achieve today, and I am anxious to get going (so I might have to eat with aforementioned once-jocks).

Yesterday, after a morning filled with errands (bank, AIDS Walk office check drop off, Utrecht Art Supply shopping for D-lectricity, Starbucks fake trifecta run, and studio and car packing), I found myself and my trusty Fiona heading out of town, destination: Indiana. This is the second time I come here in 6 months, the last time being on my way to a Chicago/Columbia College trip, where I stopped by to see the gallery in the flesh, so to speak. I am here to install a solo exhibition, consisting of large-scale paintings (large to me), drawings, and videos. Somehow the whole show fit in my car, with the passengers seats folded down. Every time I think about getting a new car, specially now that I need a new set of tires and do the 40 K revision (about $200) I ask myself "can the Prius fit the same amount of crap in the back?". Maybe the answer is yes, but I have yet to go to the dealership and ask them.

The trip was uneventful, though slightly boring, and I was oh so sleepy, which is unusual. I left my studio at 12:16, and arrived at the hotel at 3:42, not bad, if you include a pit stop to the bathroom and caffeine purchase. I think everyone feels that way, but as I drove through Indiana (where I stopped, though did not get gas, too expensive), I had in my mind "I'm so glad I live in Michigan and not here", though I suspect a lot of people say they are glad they live wherever besides Michigan. Is this when you realize a place is actually home?

The place the Art department booked me in (I am showing at the Hammes Gallery, part of the Moreau Galleries complex on the campus of St. Mary's College, an all-girl religious institution - already had a nun encounter, survived despite creepy doll one of them held). The hotel is your usual affair, but fortunately they also have Aveda products. As I approach my 39th birthday I realize I've become shamelessly like my father, and this morning I found myself emptying a bottle of shampoo into one I brought with me, so that I get it refilled this morning during room service and have more to take home (all this for the sake of saving money, even after the $150 three haircut incident last month). I emailed Tiffany, the gallery director, and she called me right back explaining where to go to meet her on campus.

The campus is small but lovely, though I did manage to get lost a few times already and ended up by this beautiful but very Catholic cemetery. I finally made it to the gallery and met Tiffany, a very nice lady (I believe she is new here, and this is her first year doing the gallery - she's an Art Historian). I immediately got a good vibe from her. The gallery looked larger and nicer than I remember, the floors that natural 60s terrazzo polished look, white walls with black ceiling without tiles (very institutional), but with great frameless glass doors that add a touch of elegance to the place. My gallery is right in front of a larger one, where works by two artists are on display (that I found extremely interesting, too bad they already installed and I did not get a chance to meet them). After showing me the loading dock and how to get there, I drove the car around and with a dolly and three trips in the elevator, I brought all the stuff to the gallery. I immediately laid stuff out.

Tiffany brought in the flat screen monitors and the projector I will be using, and told me student workers would patch paint the wall and install the TVs sometime at night. Thirty minutes out of Detroit-metro I realized I forgot to bring metal pushpins to install the drawing mural, so I asked her where I could get some (she told me the name of a town nearby). I laid out the show a few different times, and I am still not sure about its flow. Today I hope that, with fresher eyes, it will all come to me. I am not sure how much or how little help I will get today in installing. I was under the impression that the students would hang everything, but now it sounds like I will be doing all the work, and they will come by to help between classes. I have the whole day today, so it should be doable.

Much like right now, by 6:30 I was tired, hungry, and with a shopping list, so I made it back to the hotel and found where the stores were, and headed that way, first to Home Depot (to get dry wall nails and extension chords), and then to find metal pushpins. As I drove towards their mall hell, I realized that food was going to be an issue, as I only saw chain restaurants everywhere. The hotel does not seem to have room service either. I was thinking about Chipotle, because I accidentally ate there on my trip to Wittenberg (a year ago, to install another solo show in another religious university with a gallery in the midwest, my apparent target audience), so Chipotle was on my mind. But all I could see was Shake n' Bake (is that what it is called), McDees and Chick-Fill-A (no fucking way), so I got the stuff at the hardware store, they did not have pushpins, and headed back to Hobby Lobby, which was a total mistake, because that place literally makes me feel sick. The staff was unmotivated and the store confusing, I almost passed out at one point, and when I finally found the area, they did not have what I wanted. I drove to Office Max, and they did not have it, but told me about Office Depot, which was right next to Home Depot. I wanted to scream, but decided to walk over to JoAnne's Fabrics first, just in case. You know the answer to my question there: no. After screaming out loud for the first time ever "Jesus Fucking Christ" and immediately fearing being crucified (I for once felt foreigner again), I got back in my car and headed to Office Depot. As I said I little prayer to myself, "god, there must be a reason why I am driving back here", I looked over my shoulder and saw a Chipotle restaurant. I ran into Office Depot, they had beautiful metal pushpins, and then crossed over to Chipotle and order me a bowl to go. By the time I got to the hotel it was closer to 8:30 pm, so I ate in my room, and turned on the TV. Flashdance was showing, edited of course, and I felt nice and warm inside, thinking about my time living in Maine, when all we had in Winter months was Flashdance and The Sound of Music to entertain ourselves. I almost cried in a couple places, and like the main character, realized that life without dreams, and life without pursuing dreams, is not worth living.

Wish me good luck today ;-)





- posted via iPad

Location:U S 31 N - The Inn At St Mary's, Notre Dame,IN, United States

you had me at Ojo...

Finally the location device for the blogging app got the address correct (I've been typing "Hotel Albuquerque" to whatever random street they give me, even though I've typed every entry in the same exact location).

yesterday I was unable to write the blogue because I had to catch a bus before 8:30 am, so today I will attempt to cover two days (even though I already put my notes away in the luggage, leaving Albuquerque in a few hours).

Sunday was the last full day of the conference, and due to complete burn out, Paul and I talked about taking it easy in the morning and meeting sometime close to the afternoon. I woke up later than usual (7:30-ish), went to the gym, and came to the room and hung out for a bit. I then decided to go to the hotel restaurant for breakfast instead of ordering room service. The food was great (french toast with strawberries, yogurt and turkey sausage), but the service was bad (sat there forever before a waitress came, got my coffee refilled only once throughout the whole ordeal, etc). I finished breakfast around 10:45 am... Sunday's predominant theme was Education, and the majority of the presentations and panels were related to K-12 tactics and located in downtown (a bus ride away). I did not want to call or text Paul, because I thought he was gonna sleep in, so I went after the bus schedule and tried to find at least one panel I wanted to see that day. Other events happening downtown were the Makers Faire (which I had pre-sold tickets for), a Block Party (which I was ambivalent about), and Laurie Anderson at 9 pm. No matter which way you cut it, it was gonna be a long day. I was hoping we'd have time for a nap between dinner and the concert.

As I was getting ready to leave I got a text from Paul, asking me if I was hungry. I told him I was not but would not mind getting a coffee and watch him eat. We met 30 minutes later in the lobby and drove downtown, past where all our events were, on Central. We ended up in this beautiful little cafe with a great courtyard, and Paul ordered something that looked so beautiful on the plate (it had pears, greens, a poached egg that looked like a gem, and a few other things). I ordered a simple pumpkin pie to go with my iced coffee, and it was as silky as it needed to be, not too sweet, and not too starchy.

The actual keynote speaker we both wanted to go see did not start until 2:15, so we decided to go to the Makers Faire first, which was an extremely small event, in a very large area, and it was poorly attended. There were a few cool things in it, as they always have, but it was not satisfying (specially given the cost, $15 at the door and $10 beforehand). Nearby, at the Convention Center, a fellow Chicago artist named Mark Anderson had worked on a public art piece with local students to be permanently displayed there (a video wall with four monitors, which combined doc-style footage with animations, very cool). Mark was someone Paul had told me about, in terms of working in multi-channel video installations (something that at the time I was working on), so it was nice to put the face to the name. After talking for a bit we decided to go to the next location, the KiMo theaterPaul and I ran into Cyane, whom I had met before, and the three of us walked over there.

The much anticipated talk was given by Scott Snibbe, an interactive installation artist who is working on App Art right now. Laurie Anderson sat a seat over in the row in front of me - she looked cuter and more fragile than I had imagined. He also showed this App/Album by Bjork he worked on recently, something truly fascinating. His talk was probably one of the best, most inspiring ones I went to. I think everyone around me felt the same way. It really energized me, and now I really want to make my own App (which I hope to do in collaboration with a OU faculty member in Computing Science). Without giving too much information, I am hoping it will combine two projects (or be inspired by them) into something very cool and hopefully unique and touching. The previous projects are "me.mo.ri.al" and "americana". And I'll leave it at that ;-)

Paul had been trying to get in touch with Jesse all day, so eventually we all got in touch and dinner plans were made, but not before going to a few panels that were not necessarily very remarkable. Interesting but not as inspiring as the previous ones. The Box venue was a bit too noisy and too small, and it made it difficult to hear people and sit or stand comfortably.

After two panels we decided to walk around the Block Party for a bit, and after a few minutes (Jesse had met us by then), we decided to go out to eat earlier than usual (around 5:30) because we thought we may want to go back to the hotel. Paul suggested we drove past UNM to see what was there, and eventually we saw a whole new side of town, with cool and diverse restaurants. We parked at this place that totally reminded me of South Congress in Austin, and walked to the Asian Street Food restaurant. They only had counter space, so we sat there, and ordered our stuff. The service was pretty bad (waited forgot all our orders, we had to do it twice, the food was very slow to come out and he gave us the wrong stuff, and kept offering water to the point we drank so they'd go away), but the taste was delicious, so it was a satisfying meal. Paul and Jesse did a lot of shop talk, so I mostly watched them talk, which was somewhat refreshing, not having to talk the whole time. But I was starting to fade away. It was past 7:30 when we asked for the check, and it was clear we'd not have time for a nap.

We got back to downtown and found our way to the KiMo theater, and got into our seats. The theater was very cool and weird at the same time, with all these cow skulls with horns and red light shining through the eyes all over the place. The way the seating was arranged (during the same) made us all have completely different seatings, so I hung out with Paul (who had the best one, very close to the front) until it was time to sit down. I ended up sitting next to a woman from Croatia, who had been to Sao Paulo once, and we had some very interesting conversations about art and technology in South America and Eastern Europe. She told me this story about a travel companion in Sao Paulo, and a few minutes later this woman Sarah walked in and sat on my other side. I had met Sarah at the Snibbe talk, so it was completely a coincidence that she had the ticket to my left (she said she was walking down the street and someone just gave her the ticket). The Croat to my right, looked over, and Sarah was her travel companion in the story (that was completely weird). Later on Paul told me about his own coincidence in his seating area.

The concert eventually started, and it was a nice affair. The stage was minimal but sweet, and the music (the main instrument a violin, with spoken word), was also pretty awesome, at times provoking and/or funny. The section I was in had an intense heat (unlike the front of the theater), so for the majority of the concert I either nodded, or closed my eyes. By the time it was over, close to 11 pm, I had been up and about town since 11 am, so I was beat. Many people around me (and others whom I talked to) also told me they had a hard time staying awake. The concert should have really started at 8 pm, or be on a different day from all the other street stuff. I ran into Annica and Cris at the theater lobby, and we made plans to meet on Monday morning at the Chip Lord lecture, and after that go to Santa Fe for lunch, Ojo Caliente for the afternoon, and then SITE Santa Fe for the reception there and later dinner. We all had talked about going to Ojo together from day one, and it was nice it was finally happening.

Both Paul and Jesse were leaving early on Monday morning, so we bid our farewells at the elevator =-(. It was great spending this much time with Paul, I think it has taken our friendship to a whole new level. It is great to have a friend who listens to you and also tells you things you'd never even think about. It is simultaneously educational and edifying. Already miss having him around. I finally made it to my bed and fell asleep right away.






The picture above will serve as a break and transition between the two days this entry covers. I forgot to do a self pic on Sunday, so this was taken on Monday morning (I will do one of today when I finish writing this second part).

Because this is New Mexico, and because we were going to Ojo (a truly wonderful hot springs resort and Spa outside Taos), I decided to wear shorts for the first time since my arrival here - I know, weird considering the temperatures arrived at almost 90 degrees. And of course I froze my ass off. For the first time during this week-long conference I took the bus that left from the Art Museum, and rode with this Norwegian sound artist named Frank. We arrived early for the 9 o'clock lecture and met up with one of his friends, Miguel, a curator from Portugal. The three of us talked for almost an hour, nice guys, and we all sat together. I assume Annica and Cris arrived a bit late, because I did not see where they sat. The theater was a bit on the empty side, but that was understandable because by then most attendees had already left. The Chip Lord talk was pretty powerful. I have always been a huge fan of Ant Farm, and seeing him in the flesh moved me, seeing him at the approximate age of my father. The fact that Doug Michels is no longer with us did not go unnoticed, nor unmentioned.

Chip talked about some of the projects I know really well (such as Cadillac Ranch and Media Burn), and segue-way'd into a parallel track of their Time Capsules. I was not familiar with those. Throughout their 10 year active period (1968-78) they made a couple time-capsule projects, in addition to a touring media van project on autonomy and sustainable community building. Some were actualized (a refrigerator capsule was cracked open in 1984), some are still buried today. Because their work as had resurgence in the last two decades, they have made iterations of previous works with adapted contemporaneous technology. The media van moved from a portapak to a computer drive. The last iteration (an immersive installation) includes a media hooka, where attendees can connect their phones and a random image or music file is extracted and added on to a collection. As each presentation of this new documentations of the media van experience are added to it (the media van also doubles as a screening room), in addition to all the data collected. As such, the media van has become a digital time-capsule. I wanted to make a comment or ask a question at the lecture, but with my still weak voice and the size of the room I decided to stop. What I wanted to tell him is that there is another way in which his work works as a time-capsule. Both Media Burn and Eternal Frame contain an "artist-president" performer, who, dressed as JFK, comments on the power of mass media, capitalist monopoly, and militarization, as the culprits of the fall of culture, in addition to the emerging prominence of images AS politics and politicians, which also contribute to this decline (as opposed to images OF politics and politicians, that is). In a weird way I find that we live in the exact same condition addressed by Ant Farm back in the early 70s, so perhaps their ideas work as the parenthesis of a particular time period (encapsulated between the 60s and today). Or perhaps the reoccurring issues symbolizes the re-opening of an older time capsule.

Eventually we walked out and I ran into Cris and Annica. We began our journey to Santa Fe, and because we got there so early we decided to buy food at Whole Foods and eat at Ojo. I really enjoyed my time with them. The more time I spend with them the better it gets. I think that the barriers between us are finally peeling off, and we all feel more comfortable being around each other, less guarded, less competitive. It is also nice to be able to talk about stuff in our field and community and geographies. They are doing a piece on D-lectricity as well, and we all were able to talk about some issues and concerns we are having with the festival. We decided we will help one another with our installs, specially since we'll be so close to one another.

We finally arrived at Ojo and decided that no more shop talk would take place. The temperatures were colder than both Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and the mud bath, which was amazing as usual, was a bit nippy. We were there for about 4 hours total, and eventually James and Angela (their friends) joined us. When we were getting ready to go take showers and leave, it started to lightning and rain, and we were all told to get off the pools and stay in the covered porch (they also closed the saunas and the showers). We saw the most amazing and scary lightning storm, beautiful actually. Annica went to the store to buy some lip balm, and that also took for ever to get, because the computers were down. Around 5 pm it stopped raining and they reopened the showers and saunas, so we all went to the Arsenic pool (110 degrees, the warmest, we were freezing) and then hit the showers (which was packed with people). When we were all ready we headed to SITE Santa Fe.

The minute I walked out of the car I got a text message from Amy saying she read an article mentioning silverpoint drawings and that she had thought of me immediately. I then told her I had just gotten to Santa Fe and was actually thinking of her. A lot of coincidences here. The exhibition was pretty awesome, I may order the catalogue (it is about Truthiness). Irene Hoffman actually talked to the whole group at the entrance of SITE, and that was a nice framing for the things to come (it was nice she remembered me and made sure to come say hi). My favorite pieces were by Vik Muniz (he presented three or four pieces that consisted of framed art work, done in a way to appear old, with many travel and museum labels stuck to their back. Upon closer inspection (the framed art was positioned leaning against the wall, their images concealed), one realized that these were supposedly major works of art (such as "American Gothic"). The work as beautiful and smart, and I of course fell in love with it. Right next to it, in a very large video room, a looped video by Eve Sussman, one inspired by Velasquez's Las Meninas, played on. The projection was a bit soft and dark, but the piece was stunning. The institution had great facilities, and I look forward to seeing which new direction they take with their curatorial goals for 2013.

The last thing we did in Santa Fe was dinner at La Chonda, a wonderful family-style New Mexican restaurant. The service was a bit slow, but the food excellent, and the conversation even better. We were joined by Terri and Larry, who are working in a collaboration for ISEA (in a residency at SFAI actually), on this walking tour GPS/App project, which I had heard about. By the time they brought the check we were the only people in the restaurant. The drive was long but we all made it safe to Albuquerque. I went to bed a bit before midnight, and slept until 6 am.




- posted via iPad

Location:Hotel Albuquerque, Rio Grande Blvd NW,Albuquerque,United States

needing focus

Yesterday was an atypical day, structured in a completely different way from all other days. It started earlier, with Paul and I meeting at 8:30 am to go to the National Hispanic Cultural Center, a beautiful facility that required driving to get to. There we saw the panel on Brazilian artists and curators first (though one panelist was shown as video). The speakers were extremely intelligent and the discussions that followed were pretty awesome. I really liked the exhibition Technofagia, I think the concept of reformulating an old model into a present one is pretty sophisticate and specific.

This was followed by a panel on border policies and policing, and Coco Fusco, as usual, was the star of the event. She is so clear-headed, it is lovely to watch. This panel was a bit depressing as well, with all the facts and statistics and personal narratives that were shared. We had to leave before the last speaker came on because we were driving up to Santa Fe to go see the Dome. On our way there we stopped at a very small restaurant, family-style, and had the best meal ever. We got there in time even though we were a bit late, and watched Charlie's piece, which was 5 minutes in length and not finished (the funding ran out before it was completed). Still, one got the sense of what he was going after. The technology is so seductive that is is hard to look at stuff critically at a first glance. Ben, Silvia and Margaret were there too, and we all chatted a bit at the lobby while they set up another piece, which was supposed to be interactive, but really did not work too well. This was made by a Canadian artist, their first visiting artist (or is it artist in residence?). I realized that this was the third time I had been there, and it was good to see that many of the technical problems in June were solved. Ethan is such a nice guy, I bet he bends over backwards to make things happen.

We drove back to see the exhibitions at the UNM campus. It took us a while to find out where they were, but eventually we did find them, first at the museum, with great pieces (I forgot the brochure in Paul's car, so I cannot tell you all the names of artists, the one very well known is Woody Vasulka). Nearby was a residency show, which was very raw and experimental (and interesting, but I think it could improve with more texts available), and across the street the Tamarind Press, where they specialize in Lithography.... I really want to get hooked up with working with a press and making an edition of works one of these days, I hope I get that going soon (need to find a place to take some workshops). Eventually we headed to the Art Lab to see their mini dome, which was pretty cool. I think that anyone who has access to that is pretty lucky, because it truly is a different way to experience moving images.

We finally decided to go eat something in old town, and we went to a place called Church Street Cafe in a area that looked very much like the Plaza in Santa Fe, only smaller. We ran into one of Paul's colleague, Jessie I believe her name to be, and had a real great time eating yummy food, talking, etc. By the time we got to the hotel we were all very tired, so we all headed to our respective rooms, and I went to bed sometime close to 10:30 pm. I made the room specially warm so I could fall asleep faster, and woke up only at 4 am to drink water, and cool the room down a bit.

Ended up going to the gym and did a bit of cardio and weights. It felt good. As it is evident, by the lack of detail, in this post, I am reaching an ISEA burn-out, after four days of intense conferencing, I want to take it easy today. I am not even sure how this is going down, because all events are far away from the hotel and I do not want to wake Paul up and see when he is going. Most of the programing today have to do with education, and mostly K-12, so I am not sure what I want to see. I may hang out here until noon, and then head down there... there is a Maker's Fair and a block party, and a 3 pm keynote speaker I want to see, and then killing time till Laurie Anderson at 9 pm... so I do not want to be out in town for like 15 hours straight, so I might go in the afternoon and just do a few things instead, and do touristy stuff nearby.





- posted via iPad

Location:Hotel Albuquerque, 20th St NW,Albuquerque,United States

feeling better

I am writing this, feeling better, even though my nose is completely stuffed and I still do not have my voice... Whatever it is I have is still here, but it seems that now my body has gotten used to the altitude, so at least I am not always on the verge of fainting.

Yesterday was a full an fun day. I woke up early and did my ISEA trajectory. My plan was to do three artist talks, two keynote panels, and four panels/presentations. I ended up canceling one artist talk (sorry Meredith, could not find a way to get to the location quickly), but added a new one. The first one I went to was Xtina Burroughs, and her browser work that used Jack Kirouac's famous book was pretty interesting; I immediately recalled Julie Sando's work, and told her I will put them in touch (note to self). This took place in the hotel, so when it was done, I walked over to the museum to see a couple presentations.

The first one was not very interesting to me, to the point I forgot about it and had to look it up. Again, the "artist" presented in too much detail all his ideas and research and implementation of it in his given area of interest (in this case, people with disability), and went on and on about what happened - but there was no outcome. He never showed us what the tools he created actually produced and what he planned on doing with them. He played an audio file of one of the people he was working with singing a song, but that could have been done without all the prosthetics he was creating, and I did not understand what he was trying to get to, though of course the nobility of his cause left little room for criticism. His presentation is somewhat typical of this conference, no visible use of findings into an actual art practice (it is as if for them talking about it and showing images is the actual work, but those were somewhat mundane). The second presentation that morning (these were 25 minutes, as opposed to the 20 minutes for the artists), revolved around the gaming and alternate realities as critical pedagogical tools. The presenter was a young-looking college professor, that talked a lot like students (with lots of "likes" and "sort ofs", two of my pet peeves). His ideas were interesting, but again, he only talked about what he believe were not working with current strategies, and he did provide a few solutions and outcomes, but all of them are still not actualized (in fact his background is not in science or art, so he will serve as a consultant to a new game about climate change). In my humble opinion if one wants to change the world one can get off the computer and actually do work and help their community and world (and not necessarily make it part of one's career). This really made me think of a conversation I had during lunch last summer with Amy Franceschini, from Future Farmers, when she told me that at times she felt she should stop making art and just work on the farms (her kind of social practice I am totally behind, because it happens in many levels, in and out of an art context, and there are actual interferences happening in the communities they work on).

I walked back to the hotel to I see and meet Jody Zellen, at net.artist whom I curated into an exhibition back in 2009, and it was great to see how her work has moved towards apps since then. Later on I downloaded all her four apps, all free, called Spine Sonnet, 4 Square, Urban Rhythms and Art Swipe - they work both for the iPad and iPhone. Her talk started late, the guy before her, making some very disturbing work combining animal parts and robotics, went over 20 minutes and cut into her entire time. It was so rude. And like many presenters here, there were tech problems with laptops and projectors. Because her presentation ended up 50 minutes later than expected, I had to skip one keynote speaker. I also wanted to see the late-added presentation by Annette Barbier that took place in the hotel at noon. After spending some time with her in the first two days of the conference, it was great seeing her work. She is the nicest, sweetest, and most calming person you will ever meet, and her work was simply beautiful, a delicate arrangement of very complicated situations. She is interested in invasive species and their effects on her local ecology; she employs actual leaves of trees that have almost disappeared in her part of Illinois and have them laser etched with photographic representations of the invasive plants. She also showed us some work with Canadian goose feathers and extinct bird information, also laser etched, to juxtapose what has already been lost and the failed attempt to eradicate and then reintroduce this still present bird group. She also showed us this collaborative work with augmented reality she did around the city of Chicago, very cool. At the end of her presentation she said she felt her work was not doing enough to actually change the situations she was addressing, but in fact I found the opposite. Because she was making things, and things that would not only reflect the times we are in and persist beyond our own lifetimes, but also because they posed questions and required critical thinking and curiosity from the audience in order to derive meaning (instead of someone from the outside telling people what to do). I believe her feeling was a direct response of the presentations we saw on the first day of the conference.

After that I walked back to the Museum and grabbed a sandwich, before going to a presentation where curators talked about their experiences with the Biennials in the world. One of the presenters was Irene Hoffman, whom I later introduced myself to. She was very nice, the director and chief curator of SITE Santa Fe. She used to live in the Detroit Metro area, and because of her new media interest, I was told I should introduce myself. She told me she was coming to Detroit in a week, and maybe our paths will cross. Her presentation was followed by a keynote by Fritz Haeg, who created the now known project Edible Estates (look it up, very interesting), and his new work/series of interventions called Animal Estates. I ran into Cris and Annica at the museum lobby, and we made plans to get together later.

Walked back to the hotel for the last panel presentation of the day (starting at 4:15 pm), about Anonymous and authorship. I penciled that in because I wanted to finally meet Jon Cates in person, but alas it was not meant to happen, as he presented via Skype. His presentation was actually the most succinct in the bunch (one moderator and three presenters). Marco Deseriis, probably the most handsome man in the entire conference (with a great Italian accent to boot) talked so quickly that I had a hard time to follow (he started his talk by premising that he turned an extensive paper into 4 pages very recently. The other presenter was a sweet guy, who showed his engagement with web communities, but overall I felt that the question the panel posed was not very clear, at least to me, and no solid answers were provided. In the Q&A things got clearer, but I still felt that much more needed to happen there.

My next stop was my room, and on the way to the elevator I ran into Paul; he said he'd text me when he was back so we could drive to the Gala reception at the Balloon Museum. We later met around 6:30, and drove to the somewhat distant location while the sun set at the end of the road, this gorgeous huge red ball of fire. The museum was very impressive, and we all had a great time there. I actually spent a lot of time with Paul Hertz and one of his friends, and even longer time with Cris and Annica. The three of us laughed so much, it was a lot of fun. There were quite a few projects on display at this museum, in addition to tons of yummy food and drinks. The highlights were the #tweetsinspace piece, which was conceptually solid but lacked actual presence, and "myth and infrastructure", a live projection/performance that was extremely visual, seductive and lush, but lacked any conceptual and critical underpinning (though it did provide us with some great laughs, we were all acting like little kids, not making fun of the piece per se, but making sassy references to some of the symbols). Eventually we ran into Ben and Silvia, and the six of us decided to meet back at the Q Bar at the hotel.

While the last time we were there the music was Salsa, this time it was booty music. At one point I looked at Paul and asked "are they playing the OPP?" (yeah you know me!). Sure indeed, they were. Even though the place was extremely loud, we all had tons of fun, but by 11:30 I was fading away, so I bid my adieu and went back to the room. Really looking forward to today!





- posted via iPad

Location:Hotel Albuquerque, Rio Grande Blvd NW,Albuquerque,United States

voiceless

Today my schedule is completely packed, not sure what will give... from 9 am till 5:15 I'll be hopping from one talk to another, most in the museum, but some in the hotel. Buses for the Gala reception start leaving the museum at 6 pm... I am tired already.

Did not sleep well, the allergies or cold, whatever this is, is killing me. After talking all night with Paul and a noisy bar I have little voice left too. And now there is a cough. But with all considered, it was a good day yesterday.

Instead of tracking panels from a given sub-theme (as the conference is organized), I decided to go to the mini artist talks (25 minutes each), which took place in the Hotel meeting rooms. The first one I went to (arriving late) was by Dutch artist Robbert de Goede. His works revolve around the creation of string structures in real space that visually look like wireframe computer renderings, but in actuality are handmade. I thought the tension between the virtual and the actual were confounding in a beautiful way. The work is very simple and minimal, very formal, but yet very satisfying. I went to that room because I wanted to see Paul Hertz's talk, which was next. He is a great speaker, and his work, using algorithms to generate patterns and imagery were fascinating. His actual process/design is too complicated for me to explain. Because his talk went too long (the previous one ended late), we did not have time for Q&A. I really wanted to ask him why, after all the heavy computer programming he goes into to arrive at his images (imagine programming birds flying patterns, then creating attracting and repulsing points, adding winds, etc - this in the Boids series), and at the end show large scale prints (which I bet are gorgeous). All the work he showed implied time (specially in Blue Noise and Boids, but to some extent in Trees). I wondered why he did not create things moving in time, but static images.

This is something that is becoming very apparent in this conference, as far as the way in which artists work. Some are very experimental and arrive to a place where objects are created, once they go through an investigative/research process and design, while others only exist in the rhetorical and/or research level (like nothing is really produced at the end of an investigation, as far as art is concerned). Paul and I talked a lot about that last night. It seems that there are all these smart people who undertake these very complicated paths of knowledge with some social awareness in there, the social practice crowd, but at the end there isn't much to see or do. Their work becomes a series of lectures about their research, and I imagine a publication of it. This was evident to me to some extent in Krista Caballero's presentation, which I actually really enjoyed (specially since it featured Karina Aguillera Skvirski at one point). Her current work revolves around the topic of Ecotone, or tensions in the eco system. Using an all-female surveying team photograph from the 1930s as a driving inspiration, she has set up these all women "conferences" that bring together experts from varied disciplines, and in situ they all present their ideas in practicum sessions. At the end of the presentation I asked her what she is going to do with all that stuff, if she planned on showing them anywhere as art, and she told me she was not sure, but that a book was probably gonna come out.

So in a way, the more time I spend at ISEA, the more academic I find it. But in a weird way the notion of making art to some extent is secondary to many of the participants here, which in turn make them artists who operate only in a traditional academic format (of presentations and publications). I suspect that many still struggle with that attempt to legitimize art as a valid discipline in their institutions, as intellectual as other humanities and sciences. My gut feeling is that they completely undermine the power, even the subversive power, an art museum or gallery still have in the culture at large. Because of its isolation they may assume it is rarefied and elitist, or too commercial. I still think it is, in many respects, untapped potential, if all the research and findings do not get filtered back into an art context (because it may come across as shoddy and/or self indulgent research).

After Caballero's talk (which I really enjoyed, and the paragraph above is actually not really about her presentation and work, but more so from the previous day), I tracked down to a talk on Robert Smithson, which I arrived late, and really did not get where it was going (and left early to go to the museum for another presentation). At 11 am the official ISEA International General Meeting took place, which was a long-winded affair, but very informative, about what will happen in the years to come. The upcoming conferences in Sidney and Dubai were presented in detail (I really want to go to the Sidney one, but it might be fiscally impossible, as it takes place in June and I'll be out of travel money by then), and the Dubai one seems weird, though the place sounds fascinating. Then there were presentations on the four candidates for the 2015 conference, Yogyakarta, Mexico City, Amsterdam, and Vancouver. The Indonesia and Mexico ones, to me, sounded most promising, but it sort of came across as if Vancouver was already in the bag, so to speak.

By the end of this presentation, about 1 pm, I was starving and exhausted. At 1:15 pm Charlie Lindsay was presenting his work in a panel (we were in a residency program together), and I really wanted to go, but I was starving, so I went to the cafe in the museum, but the line was kilometric. I ended up walking to the food trucks and ordering a Shrimp Po Boy sandwich, which was pretty good. But the heat and the altitude got the best of me, and at one point I almost passed out (had to sit down in a shade). Not feeling 100% I walked into the Natural History museum (across from the food trucks) and went to the planetarium to see a performance, but when I got there it was not properly working. After sitting in the dark for a few minutes and drinking tons of water I decided to leave, and headed to the hotel for a couple hours to recharge. I did not fall asleep but sometimes laying down is just enough.

I was told I missed some great presentations, but I thought it was okay to do that. By 4 pm I was back in the lobby looking for the presentations of Joe DeLappe and Margaret Dolinsky. They were back to back, and I really enjoyed their work. What Joe will be doing this Spring with the bike tracking will be pretty amazing, and Margaret's weird immersive environments really made me think of many issues of embodiment, social behavior, and art behavior. It was there that I ran into Ben Chang and Silvia , whom I had not seen for a couple years now. They have had a baby and moved to Albany, where Ben teaches at RPI.

I had texted Paul to go to the reception together, and we both met at the museum at around 5:30. The exhibition, Machine Wilderness, was pretty much incredible. The facilities and the installation were impeccable, y displaying the best works wonderfully. Fernando's piece was the highlight to me. The exhibition extended to other locations, and eventually we headed to downtown to the 516 space, another incredible non-profit in town. Ran into all kinds of people there, met some new ones, and had a very good talk with Lynn Cazabon (whose presentation I missed). She told me about her iPad app, called Junkspace, which I already downloaded and played with (it is fun and informative and beautiful too, and it is free). We traced back our encounters and then talked about all kinds of things, it was very enjoyable. Eventually Paul and I left the place, went to another gallery that had a beautiful show, and drove to a diner (this time a classy one) and had dinner.

We were supposed to meet Ben and Silvia for drinks, but we got disconnected (they were having a late dinner), so Paul and I went to the QBar at the hotel and had one drink and a very long conversation. I went to bed past 11 pm, and woke up at 1, and then at 3, and then at 4, and 5, and it is 7:30 now... it's gonna be a long day....





- posted via iPad

Location:Hotel Albuquerque, San Pasquale Ave NW,Albuquerque,United States

room service

Today I decided to order breakfast room service, and skip the gym. I do not know if it is the altitude or the cold I have, but yesterday kicked my ass. Training at a new gym is always interesting, and while I did less than I normally do, again the altitude and the different machines must have worked differently on my body (and yes I am drinking plenty of water). The squats r working. Funny thing, ran into this lady at the gym, and later saw her presenting on a panel.

Yesterday was a day filled with panel presentations and two wonderful keynote speakers. The panels were mostly on the relationship between art and ecology and most of the work involved social practice. There was so very interesting stuff going on, but as always, it was somewhat difficult to understand what was research and what was the work (because sometimes there was a distinction). The two panels I went to were in the Natural History Museum, and throughout the talk we could all hear the T-Rex roaring nearby. And everybody seemed to be bringing up the Arctic territorial situation in their talks (everyone read the NYT that morning apparently). The day revolved walking back and forth between the two museums, through a lovely park with soccer players and dogs that looked like deer to me (no one else thought so). Again, blaming the altitude (which hereafter will also be the cause of any typos and omissions).

I ran into Paul, and as usual met tons of people through him. Annette is one of his colleagues from Columbia College, a very nice lady, and we all sat together in many presentations, and also shared a lunch in shade from a lovely Taco truck. The heat was intense, even though the morning started cold (high 50s) - by the end of the day it was almost 90 degrees. Between sessions we ran into Margaret Dolinsky, who is also a fellow member of the NMC Board, a real nice gal (we have been Facebook friends for a while, so she called me Vanger, a reference to a recent post, very tongue in cheek, I loved it). Paul suspected this lovely lady with tattoos was Meredith Hoy, another fellow member (she is based in Boston, we know some people in common), and through her we met Martin Rieser, a well-known guy from the UK, a nice chap.

There were two very different keynote addresses yesterday, and both were excellent in their own merits. The morning one was given by Mark Hosler from Negativland, and it was a great antidote to the more dry, dooms-day like presentations that preceded and followed it. It was great seeing a room filled with very smart people laughing out loud. It was in the auditorium that I ran into Sean (cannot recall his last name), an incredible artist I met during an artist residency at Ragdale, ten years ago. We both recognized eachother's faces and it took a bit to figure out where he had met. I remember him being both smart, funny, and kind, and his sound work was pretty incredible back then, so I imagine it still is (need to check to see if he is presenting this time around). I remember him being very nice to me, a 28 years old artist who was a bit lost (I ended up reading 18 mystery novels, making two drawings, one video of me shaving in my studio and writing a long and dry poem about love while in residence, my first one). Seeing him made my day. We also ran into Pat Badani, another NMC Board member (she's responsible for the wonderful Media-N journal). It is so nice to see familiar faces in strange contexts. Because she's been to ISEA 4 times (this is her first time not presenting, making her, in my view, the third "audience" person in the entire conference - not really true, there are about 600 people here, but it feels that way).

The afternoon keynote was very different from the first one. A keyword in yesterday's events was "appropriation". That term, defined in many different ways by different people stuck in my head, and made me realize the limited scope in which I considered it. In fact this conference has been really very much like being in school, and having intense college-like experiences without it being overtly academic. It is really refreshing some of the things I have in my mind and giving me a lot of food for thought as we head towards a new media search at OU. Rick Prelinger talked about the grid, and its many cultural and social and economic ramifications (from phone grid, to power grid to urban grid), while working with the archive, and appropriating vernacular and found 16 mm footage. He showed us snippets of what he is going to do with them, interspersed with seemingly random images that he never explained to us, but that juxtaposed by his speech, created some interesting conclusions. Both speakers were engaging in different ways, smart and yet humble, no airs, it was both inspiring and refreshing (they would be great guest speakers anywhere). It was also interesting for me to notice the role of experimental cinema and single-channel video in the context of this conference (which I assumed was mostly into social practice, augmented media and robotics), and this makes me like the electronic art nomenclature even more (because I see a place for my work here).

By then it was almost 4 pm, so Paul and decided this was the time to take a break, so we went to our respective rooms to take it easy. I went over today's programming, found out Joe DeLappe was heading to town, noticed a bunch of people in the program I know (Charlie Lindsay whom I met at SFAI, Jody Zellen whom I curated into an exhibition, to name a few). Unfortunately I did not sleep. We eventually met at the Tech Lounge, ISEA's version of a trade show, which was extremely small, kind of a bust really (we did not even get a free flashdrive). At least they had water and cookies. There I ran into Paul Hertz, someone I am friends with on Facebook (he recognized me), the nicest guy ever, and I am looking forward to seeing his presentation today. All of a sudden I became extremely tired, and I think Paul noticed, so we sat at the patio for a bit before heading to the museum. There would be a conference welcoming bit, and afterwards a reception, though we noticed right away it was a cash bar. I was too tired to drink, so Paul and I wondered around the ground (the address was taking place in a lovely outdoors auditorium, surrounded by terraces with art works, something that is completely doable in a place that almost never has any rain). Most prominently amidst the works were robotic birds who responded to movement and sounds made, by chirping computerized sounds and moving (three of them, do not remember the name of the artist, but recognized the name seen in a badge at some point, so the artist was present). There was also an isotopic fountain, by a Brazilian artist, who placed sensors inside the pool of water, on top of stones, connected with wires and salt piles, all of which was hooked up to a computer nearby. After reading the artist statement, we found out that the sensors captured the passage of satellites above the area, and each time one passed, depending on its coordinates, a fountain spray was triggered. We waited a few minutes to watch it happen (one could see how close the next one was via the computer monitor), and the effect was both anti-climatic and whimsical, if that makes any sense.

Eventually we dragged ourselves to the seating area, and found two seats in the middle (and we all agreed how uncomfortable they were, though of course I thought the squats were the cause for my sore ass). The opening statements were long winded, very political, and numerous. A senator and a consulate representative spoke, in addition to local government and local art institutions. It was the thank you part of the event. By the time Andrea Polli came to the stage, she is the one I met the previous day, to introduce the themes and the theme-leaders, it was already 8:00 pm (when the reception was supposed to start). Paul and I were starving, and quickly fading, but managed to stay for the majority of it. People in the nearby area were very noisy, and we realized that there were more people there than in the seating area. Eventually we decided to go get something to eat, and slowly made our way to through the bar crowd. At the museum's lobby we realized that the food reception was taking place, confirming my earlier smelling of coconut shrimps. The food was abundant and delicious, and I had a small plate with three of each item, and two mini cup cakes. It was there I ran into Joe DeLappe, always the nicest guy ever, and he introduced me to a bunch of people, because he knows everyone and everyone loves him. I hope we get to hang out more, I am dying to ask him what happened to his daughter's work with James Franco (specially given a professor at Columbia University, her program, got fired). Always wanting the inside scoop.

In the lobby there was an electronic forklift type of thing (one of those raising platforms used to clean buildings, etc), which I assumed was there due to construction. But midway through the reception, an artist, with two huge remote controls began manipulating the machine (which had been customized), in what he described as a dance performance. It was very Sterlac without the nudity and the hybridity. The whole thing was both fascinating and completely scary (imagine something 30 feet up in the air, spinning real fast, 6 feet away from the crowd), and I was really glad a disaster did not take place. Paul and I got separated, and eventually found each other, and by then we were about to crash. He was still hungry, so we walked back to the hotel, got his rental car, and looked for a restaurant still open at that time (Albuquerque seems to be one of those places where everything closes at 9 pm). We eventually found a diner and ordered greasy burgers, and I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

We got back to the car, drove back, and said our good nights. I am really looking forward to the artist talks today, these 20 minute presentations, most of them actually taking place in the hotel. I will try to fit in as many panels as possible, but I really want to see these talks, as I imagine this is how I may participate in ISEA in the future. The upcoming days also seem very promising. I will keep you posted.





- posted via iPad

Location:Hotel Albuquerque, Rio Grande Blvd NW,Albuquerque,United States

all dressed up and nowhere to go...

So I have been awake since 3:30 am... it sounds early but it is 5:30 am where I live, which is around the time I wake up when I have early work days... been putzing around the room, trying to sleep, etc, with no success.

Decided to go to the gym, got all ready, and dressed accordingly and got there and the place is full... which means there are two people there, one doing the treadmill and the other the weights (it is that small). In retrospect I should have gone there earlier, but will try to go there later, maybe around 6:15 am, after I finish writing this.

Yesterday was a good day. The flight arrived about 30 minutes earlier than expected. By the time I peed, walked to baggage claim and retrieved my luggage, it was 1:18 pm, the time my flight was supposed to arrive, and my pickup shuttle schedule time. After going to a couple wrong places I found the shuttle counter, where they were having walkie-talkie issues, so they were slower than usual (I was immediately reminded of New Mexico time, which I thought was Santa Fe time)... eventually they gave me a receipt, called the shuttle guy and two minutes after I walked out it arrived. The airport is extremely close to the downtown area so it took us a few minutes to get to my hotel. The driver, Greg, a jolly burly man, explained to me a few of the sites in the trajectory.

I walked into the hotel lobby and was impressed by the sheer scale of the place. Hotel Albuquerque is an old hotel near Old Town, that has had some extreme expansions (mainly an addition to a 11 story tower, from which I write to you on the 9th floor). At check in they asked me if I'd like to get switched to the Best Western, and that they'd comp two of my nights if I did so (they were overbooked) and I declined - mainly because I knew this would also be the place where some events would take place. Walked through the extensive lobby, passed one of the restaurants in the property (I believe there are two restaurants and at least one bar), got into the elevator and went up to my floor. My room being the first one in the hallway, on the side of the building with balconies, near the ice machine.

It was a bit after 2 pm when I got into my room, so I inspected it (Aveda products, how perfect, I was about to go on the Rosemary Mint rotation from the Shampure, and they have the RM here - note to self, steal as many as possible). Room is nicer and larger than I expected, with the usual hotel comforts and a bit of a South West flair in the furnishing. I don't imagine I will be spending too much time here, though yesterday I did... it took me two hour to unpack (I was slow), and decide what to do, so eventually I went downstairs to check out the gym and the pool. The gym, as mentioned, is tiny, but workable. The pool is enormous, and when I got there there was only one older man at the opposite end I was. Found some towels and found a spot to put my stuff, and went for a dip... the water was a bit cold, but I got used to it. As I had my contact lenses on, I did not swimming properly, did some floating and some backstrokes, and really wished I had brought my goggles. it would have been nice to swim laps. Eventually I got out of the water and laid town to warm up, dry off. The breeze picked up and it got cold for a bit, but eventually the sun warmed my face and body. Incidentally it was then I started to feel my throat, which right not is quite painful. I think I caught something in the airplane, it was a sneeze-fest, and I forgot to get some Airborne, which I always bring in trips. Now my nose is running too, not sure how that will work out at the gym.

When I got back (was there maybe for 30 minutes), I texted Paul Catanese, my buddy from the New Media Caucus whom I knew would be here. He had just arrived from a tour, so we met shortly after at the lobby to go for dinner. The girl at the reception suggested us a place, a small local place around the corner, but she gave us a very weird way of getting there, and we almost did not know if we could safely cross the main road, so we backtracked. The place, called Monica's something (I do not remember) reminded me of some places in Santa Fe - basically someone's house turned into a restaurant, with a small weird entrance and a narrow passageway to the main eating areas, all fragmented into rooms of varying sizes. The food was great, fast and yummy, and very affordable (I had a combination platter with a tamale, an enchilada and a taco). It sure was a nice upgrade from the airport salad I had (a Thai salad with nice fresh greens, with ginger and watercrest, extremely light).

As always, Paul and I had a million things to talk about. We've been working together with the NMC since 2009, and because he is in Chicago we see each other outside conference times too. We are also close in age, he is a couple years younger than I am, and we graduated from our MFA programs the same year, so our experiences, albeit different, parallel well. We arrived at the conclusion that were could be the only two people in ISEA that was not showing or presenting. We realized that this was a research trip for us, to see what this group of people do and if we want to join them or emulate some of their approaches with the NMC. And of course meet people, refresh our teaching references, have fun, etc. Paul is the type of person who knows people everywhere, and he is very good with names. I remember faces but only remember certain names. I think it is because he has lived both in the San Francisco Bay area and now in Chicago, two interesting metropolitan areas with tons of stuff going on, and my only claim to fame is my few years in Detroit, and many years in a bunch of small towns.

Earlier in the day Paul had met a few CAA crossovers and other people organizing the symposium events, so he told me we were invited to go/crash an artist party at a hotel. Paul had rented a car, so we walked back to the hotel and went to this party. The hotel was called Park Central, and it was a very posh, boutique hotel with a high hipster quotient (where ours is more traditional/tourist friendly). The party was on the rooftop bar, and at the end of the lovely balcony there was a roped off area. We were there for a few hours, and I actually ran into people I knew. Lynn Cazabon, who teaches at UMBC and whom I met years ago in Florida (I was a graduate student and she was applying for a job there, and whom I encountered a year later as I interviewed for a job where she taught), recognized me and introduced me to her collaborator (I imagine also her partner) and a bunch of other young artists who were in "the show" (they all seemed to have foreign names and accents). She asked me if I was in "the show" and when I told her I just came to attend, she said "good, we need more people like you!" in a genuine way. When I relayed the information to Paul, he laughed and we agreed that maybe we were the only audience the entire conference would have, besides the ones from the inner circle. I think that most people are either here for "the show" (met a couple of guys, Fernando from Union College in upstate NY, and Daniel Miller, I think, from Chicago, who were in town just for a few days), or they are here for the talks.

Soon after I saw another familiar face, the always lovely and fun Stephanie Rothenberg, who participated in the "Cybersex: What's Art Got To Do With It?" panel I chaired at CAA a couple years back. She told me about the current stage of her "Labor of Love" project, how it was probably gonna be shown at the Sex Museum soon, and we talked about all kinds of stuff relating to sabbaticals (she also has had hers recently), online dating, and career stuff. She told me she was also at "the show" but also doing a presentation and moderating a couple panels. That is something I find interesting about this conference, the ability to wear many hats. It seems like this is a group of friends and professional acquaintances who are doing very interesting things and want to promote one another. And even though most people have an academic affiliation (Stephanie is in Buffalo), this seems to be an event more centered around art and artists, than the academy. Which is quite refreshing.

One other person I met was Andrea, I did not get her name. She is one of the local organizers, a professor at UNM, and a totally fun person (great smile, great outfit, lovely sunglasses). She gave us a coaster with some information on a project her students were making, which I believe to be some sort of scavenger hunt with text messages, where each point reached gives you a sticker that in turn gives you a discount on a particular beer in bars where conference get togethers will take place. She said the activities to be completed aimed to get you to get off the phone and actually meet locals, which I thought it was a great idea. The project is titled "Bio Ethics of Beer" and you can find out more information by going to ecobrew.org .

Eventually Paul and I ran out of steam. It was close to 9 pm here, so 10 pm his time and 11 pm my time, so we headed back to the hotel, where I tried to go to sleep. Cross your fingers I feel better soon, will have to hunt for some C vitamin and throat lozenges soon.






- posted via iPad

Location:Rio Grande Blvd NW,Albuquerque,United States

here we go again

Today I am heading back down to New Mexico, the second time this year and ever for me, and a new town to boot... Am writing in the plane... two and a half hours to kill... the food options one can buy are not too appetizing, even if you are willing to spend the money...

fortunately I bought a coffee and some cashews in Detroit, and a salad (already partially eaten) in Minneapolis... while the coffee is gone, I still have a half a salad and a bag of cashews... that should hold me over until I am in downtown Albuquerque, checked in and ready to explore the area....

I am tracking there to attend ISEA 2012, which stands for International Symposium of Electronic Art. I will be there for an entire week, packed with a million interesting presentations, panel discussions, and evening events. I have never attended this conference but always have wanted to. It usually takes place abroad, so when I found out it was back in the US I early-birded my registration and booked a flight and hotel (all quite affordable, considering the location, but somewhat expensive as a whole when giving the amount of days I will be there)... My purpose here is many-fold. First and foremost I want to experience a different group of people, hopefully like-minded ones. After years of going to the same conferences, it is time to broaden my horizons and recapture my global interests. I will probably not know many people there (I know three people who are going), so being anonymous will also be a good thing.

Next year this conference is in Australia. Sidney more precisely. That is one place I have always wanted to go, and it is my hope that by experiencing ISEA first hand I will be more apt to participate in the next and future editions in a more active way (in panels, presentations, exhibitions, etc). Last but not least, I want to see what current ideas and discourses in Electronic Arts are circulating nowadays. This will be a good research trip, as far as getting names, and hopefully articles and images, for future teaching endeavors.

When I first started the New Media specialization at Oakland University, I really had it in mind as being called Electronic Intermedia. But that name did not get approved. After many talks over the year with even many more people the name Intermedia became my new favorite in the eventual , though the name Media also roamed around my head. I now am thinking that Electronic Media might be a good nomenclature.

Well, ask me again in a few days lol

I will try to write a post on a daily basis, writing in the morning about the day before, and have a self portrait posted as well, to keep the traditional formatting of this blog consistent. I thank you for taking yet another trip with me.





- posted via iPad

Location:somewhere in the air, between Minneapolis and Albuquerque

gone...

While having dinner with Jay last night at Anita's Kitchen, trying to sum up my experience this past 40 days, a word that came up was discipline. Making a regimented effort to keep up with all areas of my life - art, health, mind, heart, etc - having a focused purpose makes everything move forward. While being busy for business sake (pun intended) is not the goal, working towards something, even if it entails not doing anything just to think about something, is the way to go.

Two days ago Mike and I left Omaha, Nebraska, and headed towards Michigan. That was to be our most grueling leg of the race, so to speak, approximately 9.5 hours. We left at 10:30 am (three hours too late in my book) and arrived at 10 pm in Saugatuck (an hour ahead with the time change) - our journey taking 10.5 hours long, not too bad but exhausting nonetheless. I was in the driver seat for the first seven hours (though I did not drive seven hours). The one thing I keep remembering, and what I want to remember, was that I found Iowa simply beautiful, as seen from I-80 going east, specially the first half of the state. That surprised me, not because I thought it would be ugly, but because I had not had any preconceived notions of it. Between the lovely windmills (blades of which I encountered numerous times being transported in long trucks on my way to Santa Fe), the soft rolling hills, and gay marriage, I thought Iowa was cool. I also surprised myself with the sense of peace I felt as soon as the car entered Michigan, not my home away from home, but my home state. For now.

Another moment of awareness that came with looking back at this journey was the serious consideration that I need to move. I need to encounter many changes. I am not sure still what this awareness means. It may mean moving to a different house, a different job, a different country, I do not know.

Yesterday morning, as I drove from Saugatuck to Detroit I also thought that I should buy a hybrid car, which provided a third and least discussed moment of clarity (because it came about as a passing comment, and not a center stage topic), that I may be experiencing a mid-life crisis. Jay thinks I am too young for it, but if we are to take it literally, this would mean I will live to be 76 years old, which I find too young to die (my goal is to live at least until I am 85, way past the year 2050). For some reason I think it will be important to see past the middle of this millennium (and if I do die at 76 I will only see few months of it at best, as I turn 76 on November 2049).

Two days ago Mike and I arrived in Saugatuck. It was a last minute plan, because Chicago seemed to have lost electricity and the heat was intense. The heat was intense the whole day in actuality, to a level I felt hellish, the humidity being so foreign and overwhelming once again. We got the worst room at the Dunes, drank too much too quickly (alcohol was cheaper than water), walked in the woods, and tried to sleep in a basement room with no windows. We both woke up minutes apart on Saturday morning feeling not so great. After a coffee in Douglas, a greasy breakfast and a dip in the pool (which was peaceful and lovely, though all seats were already claimed) we decided to forego our second paid night there (the joys of being fortunate enough to be gainly employed, with some disposable credit line), and drive back home, the last three hours of our journey trip feeling like the longest hours ever.

These last few days I have been thinking of how to conclude this blog journey. I thought that, in the weeks that follow my arrival home I would upload pictures and write other reflections on this experience. That might be the case. I have decided to take Sunday off, so to speak, and use it as my transition day. On monday I will implement a new routine and continue my last two months of sabbatical and prep for my exhibition. So I am not sure I will upload anything onto this blog account or not. I may. I may not.

Below is the self picture I took on Saturday morning in Saugatuck, in a dark sweaty room, with my phone, and no space of wireless to properly blog. Not how I imagined my last night on this trip to be.





And below the below are the lyrics of a song (appropriately titled "gone") that kept coming to my mind as I listened to other songs, driving back to a place I call home. I deleted some redundant parts.

Selling out
Is not my thing
Walk away
I won't be broken again
I'm not
I'm not what you think

Dream away your life
Someone else's dream
Nothing equals nothing

Letting go
Is not my thing
Walk away
Won't let it happen again
I'm not
I'm not very smart

Why should I feel sad
For what I never had
Nothing equals nothing

Turn to stone
Lose my faith
I'll be gone
Before it happens

Selling out
Is not my thing
Walk away
I won't be broken again
I won't
I won't fall apart

Dream away your life
Dream away your dream
Nothing equals nothing

Turn to stone
Lose my faith
I'll be gone
Before it happens






- posted via iPad

Location:W Marshall St,Ferndale,United States

falling in love, again, part 2

Soon we leave Omaha and my impression of this city could not have been better. Even with the 100 degree heat. They say one finds love when they are not looking for it, and that is what happened. Of course I know that a huge part of it is the fantasy we create when we do not know someone or something well - we fill in the blanks.

I probably have only seen 1% of this town, but what I saw I really liked it, and could totally see myself living here (of course part of the fantasy does not include winters and trying to travel out of here, internationally). The old market district is a mix of Savannah and Austin, old structures with new business, and surrounded by loft-style apartment buildings (which are extremely expensive, in the $200,000 - 300,000 range).

Amidst record stores (yes, plural), restaurants, coffee shops and bars, sits the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. I fell in love with this place, and plan on applying for a residency there until I get it. It is extremely competitive, 1200 applications for 36 spots each year, but the odds are lower than the lotto, and you can only win if you buy a ticket, right? The place is awesome, with great galleries and great shows, pics posted in a future time.

The two meals we had were pretty good, and even the complimentary happy hour at the hotel was fun, the crowd in a better mood than the one in Denver. The heat was a killer, it totally slowed us down, and I cannot imagine how it would be to spend a summer here, but it is something I could survive, just like we are surviving this cross country drive. Which leads me to finish this entry in such a hurried manner. We have almost 10 hours ahead of us, and Mike is still asleep. I think I need to drop some stuff around him, make some noise, so he wakes up. Saugatuck is the next stop.






- posted via iPad

Location:Jackson St,Omaha,United States

over the hump, I hope

I am happy to report to the three people who read this that I actually slept 6.5 hours, which was a difficult day to begin with.

Simply put, I got tired for being made to make all the decisions, and then being blamed when they did not work out well. So first thing in the morning, at breakfast, I told Mike, when he asked me, that he was deciding everything today, from weather we go to Nebraska or Kansas, where and when we eat, etc. He did not like that, because I think it is his M.O., to let others decide and then strike down the decision. I think it is part of the Midwestern mindset, which for me comes across as extremely passive aggressive. I am sure my behavior comes across as angry, but I just hate the bullshit and all the dance steps involved. He told me "so you want me to be the fall guy?" meaning that if anything went wrong he'd be culpable, and I said "why not? It's been me thus far" and yes, I use "thus" in daily speech. It was mildly amusing seeing him squirm a bit, asking me when we had to make the first main decision, and I said soon because there was a 2 mile distance between the two options from the main highway, which was less than 2 miles from the hotel. He literally decided when we were checked out, valet car brought to us, bags placed in car, us seated, and seat belts on.

So off we went towards Omaha (left Denver at 10:20 am local time), and with fuel needs aside, we only stopped when he wanted to. In fact, Mike slept through most of the trip, and I drove for the first 4 hours, until we stopped at this horrible local fast food chain restaurant called Amigos. Should really be "enemigos" (look it up). Gross. Tasted like canned food. When we left the restaurant he asked "do you want me to drive?" even though I had said enough times that I was driving the first half and he was driving the second half. So I gave him a snippy "of course" and off we went. I tried to fall asleep like he did but I kept getting asked to do stuff, like look stuff up, help hook up his music (so far we have not listened to one thing I have wanted to, nothing from my music collection). Eventually I told him to stop in Lincoln for fuel, and began playing with my phone. I even downloaded a new facebook app (just deleted my old one and reinstalled it, because it was frozen), so now I can do some facebooking on my old 3G.

We got to Lincoln, which I thought would be a small college town, but turned out to be a large town with no one around. After much driving around we found a gas station open in a shady part of town, and then looked for a restaurant. Ended up going to some gross place that had tasty food and large portions for a reasonable price (what students want), but no AC... and by the way, how freaking hot it has been, at least in the 90s. I think it will be in the 100s today all over the midwest. After our horrible meal that took for ever to get done we both came to the realization that trying to eat local in small towns during a holiday can be a huge mistake, and that there is a reason people eat at McDees when traveling (FYI, no spellcheck warning for McDees, interesting). In retrospect we should have gone to the Jimmy Jones across the street (I heart their Vito sandwich, no onion). It was the first time in almost two days that we both laughed together, and after getting lost again, we finally made our way to Omaha, where I called their Magnolia Hotel (the same brand as the one in Denver) and they had plenty of rooms, and they gave us a huge discount, so we decided to stay there (awesome breakfast, happy hour with free wine, and cookies at night). We checked in a bit before 9:30 pm, had some cookies, and went to our room, which was really nice, way nicer than the one in Denver, and with a view of the courtyard. We walked around the hotel and then, after both surfing the internet for a bit, went to bed. I went to bed around 12 am and woke up close to 7 am. Mike is still asleep, we have one hour for the breakfast. I envy his ability to sleep 8 hours plus a day and still take a nap in the afternoon. I'm not sure I've slept this long ever in this millennium, I am not kidding. But I'll take 6.5 hours.




- posted via iPad

Location:S 16th St,Omaha,United States

misery is...

Sleeping for three hours and then facing a whole day of driving. That will be today. Every time I look at the clock I get so disappointed, because each day I seem to lose one hour of sleep. I fear that, by the last night of this trip I will have not slept at all.

But yesterday, let's briefly focus on that. The day started well, the breakfast in the hotel was very good actually, I had an english muffin sandwich with eggs, cheese and bacon, along with sausage links, yogurt parfait, a blueberry muffin, cranberry juice, and orange juice. Also grabbed an apple for later. The room was filled with all kinds of people.

After killing a couple hours in the room, we walked to the Denver Museum of Art, a bit of a hike but doable, cutting through the 16th street Mall, which was not as nice as I had remembered. Eventually we found ourselves there, looked at the exhibitions on all floors of the new building (which in and of itself was one of the best things there), and went to the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition. This is the third fashion exhibition I see this summer, not sure why they are so prominent these days, but they do attract huge crowds. This was my least favorite of them, not because of the designs, but because of the staging (though the swatch room was superb). My favorite still was Gaultier at the DeYoung in San Francisco, followed by a second close by the Schiaparelli&Prada at the MET in New York City.

We left the museum around 1:30 or so and walked back towards the hotel, through the Civic Center Plaza where they seemed to be setting up stage for something, probably a 4th celebration. We took the free shuttle bus towards the restaurants. We hopped in one and I saw, through the windows, a restaurant I had eaten before, Earl's, and I remember it being good. We went in, ordered our meals, and as they arrived I enjoyed mine and unfortunately Mike did not his. There was a major flaw with his meal, and of course the waitresses all disappeared. Eventually I fetched one, and by then he did not want to eat there anymore, so I quickly ate my food and off we went to find a new place. His bad mood turned mine into a bad one as well, sometimes negativity brings out negativity. We ended up going to some brewery, which actually made me feel a bit sick in the stomach, because of the smell in the air, that smell of beer being brewed that I associate with drunk people. We were there for quite some time, at least an hour, if not more, which is not a fun experience, when you watch someone eat and drink, while you only have water (was actually full from the salad I had, which was very good - I only wished he had calmed down and ordered something else at the other restaurant). We walked back to the hotel, and Mike fell asleep right away, for a couple hours. I got bored and decided to go to the Contemporary museum, which closed at 9 pm (it was almost 6 pm by then). Mike woke up and wanted to come along, so I waited till he changed, and off we went. But first we stopped at the lounge at the hotel for the happy hour, which included free (and cheap) drinks. I could barely stomach my wine, so we soon left and tracked down to the museum.

For some reason the shuttle busses were not working in that direction, so we walked all the way there. On the way there seemed to be slightly better restaurants than on the other direction. We finally got to the museum, I remembered being there for a conference reception the last time I was in town, in 2008 or 2009. The building is pretty cool, but unfortunately only one exhibition was up, a solo by an artist called Frohawk Twofeather, who coincidentally enough, had graduated from SIU in 2000 (I began teaching there in 2001). The work was pretty interesting, and I need to read the tri-fold better, but the main blurb has very confusing text, stating three recent solo shows in LA, NYC and South Africa, and then stating that the Denver show is his first solo exhibition. We went to the roofdeck, took pictures, and walked back towards the hotel, taking a different route by Laramie Square (I think it i what it's called). We sat in the room for a few, and then I decided that, being past 8 pm, I should either go to the gym, go downstairs and get some cookies, or go eat dinner somewhere. I decided to go for the cookies and see if there was a crowd there, the walls in the room becoming terribly confining. Again Mike decided to come along, so I waited for him to get ready. There were three people there, which was more depressing than the room, so I grabbed two cookies, returned to the room to grab my wallet and met Mike at the lobby to look for a restaurant for me to eat (he was still full from his 3 o'clock lunch, I had not eaten a thing since 1:30). We wondered around and most places were closed, with the exception of fast food. Mike saw a Jamba Juice, and wanted to get one for himself, and so I waited for him to get one outside. It took at least 15 minutes, and by then I realized it was close to 9 pm, too late for me to eat anything substantial, so we walked back to the hotel, and I ate the two cookies I had grabbed earlier. I was going to bed around 10:30 but Mike decided to call back his friend Louis, whom I know through stories heard and have actually talked a few times over the phone. I thought about waiting till he was done talking but when I realized it was gonna be a long conversation, I decided to get ready for bed. As I slipped under the covers Mike hands the phone to me to talk to Louis, which I said I did not want to but he (he being one of them, I'm not sure), insisted. So I talked for a few minutes with a drunk Louis, who made no sense and said nothing memorable, but acted as if we have had great phone exchanges in the past - perhaps it's that Facebook phenomenon where people think they know one another even though they have never met - said my good byes and tried to go to sleep.

From the beginning of this post you know how well that went. Throughout the day, even from the day before, Mike went on about staying in Denver for a couple more days, and I really did not see the point, as I want to get home and sleep on my bed as soon as possible. I am sure Denver is a nice place, but I have had a pretty miserable time here. Still not sure what will happen today, I am tired of arguing and explaining that I want to go home, so today I am just gonna wait for Mike to make the decisions. If he wants to stay, we can stay, he can make hotel arrangements and decide how we will spend the day. I am fine with that. If we go he will decide if we go through Kansas or Nebraska. My only plans for today is to eat breakfast and take a shower after I am done writing this.




- posted via iPad

Location:Stout St,Denver,United States

the road less traveled... maybe because of the fires?

After not sleeping well at all, I made some decaf, grabbed a powerbar, took a shower (great products they have in bathroom), and went to the reception to see if we could do a late check out; from 11am I got it switched to 12pm, not ideal but progress. As I was wearing my robe and bathing suit already, I grabbed a new towel and, after giving the 411 to Mike, told him what the deal was, and headed to the mud bath. The place was somewhat empty, it was about 8:45am, and I had no problem mudding (the new mud was heavy on the bottom of the pot, I caked my eyelids and smile lines heavier than the rest), baking in the sun, and eventually soaking in the tub to remove the mud mask all over my body. What a wonderful feeling.

Went to the iron bath, afterwards, I love the pebble bottom, and later than that to the soda bath, the covered one. Mike arrived by then, it was about 9:30, he had taken his time getting ready in the room and having a juice at the restaurant. Our massage appointment was at 10am, and we were told to be there 5 minutes prior. We walked to the large pool/lounge area, where he took a seat, and I went to the arsenic Jacuzzi first, so hot and relaxing, and then to the arsenic pool, the coolest water in the resort. I walked around along the edge of the pool, which changed depths, and that provided me with a bit of exercise and meditation. I was ready for the massage and reflexology. We both walked over to the waiting area, and my therapist, Patrick (a short guy with good energy and mellow voice - he reminded me of Willam for some reason - and strong hands), took me to the room, while Mike waited for his. He asked me the usual questions, I got on the table, and then 50 minutes of heaven began. It was by far one of the best massages I've had in a very long time, the way he worked my arms was just perfect for me, after 30 days of intense drawing and blogging. After that was done, he moved on for 25 minutes of foot reflexology, a mix of massage, stretches and pressure point applications (including hot towels, heaven). By the time Patrick was done, all the stress from the previous, unslept night, were gone.

I floated back to the cottage to pack the room and the car, as it was about 11:20 am. Mike joined me in about 10 minutes, and once we were done with that, we drove the car closer to the main bath area and checked out. Our plan was to go to the restaurant for lunch, which we did, and it was wonderful. I had an Artesian Salad (mixed greens with pears, pine nuts, crumbled cheese and a prickly pear vinaigrette dressing) with Mexican shrimp (seasoned and sautéed first, then grilled), with water, lots of water. Mindy was our waitress, a very sweet young woman that reminded me of my cousin Rosana and my college friend Bronwynn at the same time. She complimented on my tattoo, the second time in New Mexico, and Mike opined that they like sun representations in this area (mine is a tribal sunset in water abstraction, upside down). I think he may be right about that.

We decided we should stay in the spa area until three and then hit the road, so for the second time in the day (how lucky) I did the mud, with Mike along this time, and we toured all the baths and even made it to the steam room. The place was jam packed, and the sun was hot, but we managed to do a bit of everything, even fit in more meditative walks around the pool. When it was time to go home, we took turns taking a shower some someone could watch our stuff. It was sad to give back the robes (I might order one online), but we had to get into the car, as we had a 6 hour drive ahead of us. After some snafu with the directions (no reception to activate the g-map), off we went. For the most part we stayed in the same road, US 285, from the door of Ojo to the edge of Denver. The road was almost empty, at times we'd go for 15 minutes without spotting another car. I drove the first 3.5 hours while Mike helped navigate, curate the musical background, and take pictures, mostly moving. The scenery ranged from boring, to beautiful to scary to dreamlike. Once we got into Colorado (within the first hour) rain began to pour, not a lot, but enough to require wipers, and this rain got stronger as we headed north.

When both Fiona and ourselves needed some fuel to go one, we stopped, gassed the car, and ate at this borderline dive restaurant called the Smoke Shack, a gas station attaché that served yummy BBQ (I had the pulled pork and cole slaw), and was run by Colorado hipsters (what I assume to be early 30s ski bums that never left the area). The town was called Buena Vista, located 120 miles from Denver. There were some firetrucks getting fuel, and this jolly short man, with a big smile on his face, pointed to the sky and said "thank you rain", which was beginning to fall. As he walked to his vehicle, he also thanked the firemen around us (we saw a few on the road there, among the few cars we saw in general; the longest stretch of being followed by a single vehicle was a small firetruck which I thought was a cop car, for about 20 miles, when I was still driving). We left sometime after 6:30pm. Mike took the driving after this, and the road got more beautiful and hilly, he called it a roller coaster, and at times it was down right scary. As we got closer to the city the road became very steep, sometimes with 8 mile stretches of going downhill, about 45 mph. As we exited the 285 and took on I-25 N there was some construction, but fortunately our route led us to our hotel, the Magnolia on 17th, with no problem. The receptionist told us that there were cookies and milk at the lounge until 10pm (it was 9:15pm by the time we got there), and the bellboy told us that the hotel had a free shuttle service to any location within 2 miles. I hope the museums are in that range.

Ended the night with a long shower and a soft bathrobe. Went to bed at 11pm, and when I woke up this morning it was 4:30am, an improvement in my book.





- posted via iPad

Location:Stout St,Denver,United States