I'm officially division III yipee (kai-o kai-yay)!!

Division III Contract

For my Division III project I will make an artist book and a film that are interconnected. In my Division II, I studied film and photography along with Native American and Jewish cultural studies. I will incorporate the history of these two cultures into this project's theme. The book will include photography, drawing and writing. I will explore cowgirl culture, Native American life and culture, and Jewish settlers in the West at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries as pioneers and traders and look at their interactions with the Native American people.

I want to make a ledger book style first person narrative about a young Native American cowgirl. I plan to make the characters and scenes in the book come to life through the film using animation and hand processing techniques. The major artistic theme of my Division III will be the idea of handmade-ness. I want everything I do to be hand made and mostly hand processed. I will most likely use a vintage ledger book as my starting point for the book and paper. The story will come from my research and knowledge of the history of Native American and Jewish people, most likely set during the turn of the century 19th. I'd like to incorporate the culture of the cowgirl and the idea of the Wild West into my story as well. I will use my mediums of experimental film and photography and book arts to portray the story of an independent Native cowgirl and her adventures through the American west.

the snake and the toad, the vans and the spiders

on friday, at the bookmill, i watched a snake eat a toad:










I don't quite know what to say about this experience yet. i feel like it was mostly a male bonding activity because there were so many men crowded around watching the whole time. it was also an intense natural experience that took hours.


also, there are vans that pull in and out of my driveway all the time. most are windowless, driven by slightly sketchy older guys who were probably drunk addicts at one time, at least they seem that way. some times they complain to me about where i park my car and last night there were so many vans that they blocked the driveway.


there's been spiders in my side mirrors of my jeep since i was in new mexico. i also discovered the body of a tarantula in the door crack of the jeep. there's a spider by my desk, there was one in my room and a few on the porch. everywhere i go they are there. i looked them up online and apparently they are there to remind us that the decisions that we make weave our lives, much like a spider web. they are there to remind us of our infinite possibilities (eight legs, the number eight turned on it's side is the symbol for infinity), that we should weave a web of love and take in all we can with that web. they are symbols of mystery, femininity, power and growth (among other things). they also fend off bad storms, perhaps that's why the weather has been so nice.

on love and turning points

I know it's been a while since I've updated and perhaps that's why not many people check up on my blog. so here it goes for now:

i'm at a threshold of turning points and celebrations. i would never have suspected that i would be where i am now a year ago. things change so quickly that you don't even notice until you remember where you were before. this time last year i was in a rocky relationship i took to be true love, looking ahead to a year with almost none of the friends i knew around me any more, meeting some one new and taking a huge risk. now that i look back and see where it's all taken me i realize how grateful i am to have taken that risk. i did what was completely against my better judgement and took a movie like leap into the unknown to get myself out of the rut i had been thrown into. i'm not saying that i felt completely hopeless at the time, in fact i was almost clueless until someone woke me up to my situation. now, on the cusp of our one year anniversary, i can look at this year as a year where i let myself be loved. and i truly believe that i can allow myself to love better because of that affection.
i'm also starting my division III project, a huge unknown undertaking as well. i'm taking another risk, going out on a limb and changing what i thought would be my idea from the start. it will now be an adventure tale of a native cowgirl in the wild west, animated on film and told in a book. this is also a huge transition from what i thought i would do, but it seems that every time i've gone for the unknown that just feels plain right it's worked out.
so here's a toast to believing in what my heart says is right now matter how much my mind tends to disagree. here's to another year with less old friends around me and more space for new ones. here's to this hope for my project, my art and my future. here's to my good and much deserved living space (finally), and to all of those around who will continue to love and support me in all my endeavors, no matter how absurd they seem at the time.

cheers.

a letter to the interweb

dear interweb,
sometimes you make me really sad about my past. i know it's slightly stupid to look at things i know will upset me, but some times you just make it so darn easy [read: tempting]. also, i wish i knew more about how to control you without having to spend half my time during these beautiful sunny days trying to figure out how. as a resistance my website is still an outdated mess.
love/hate,
-e.

woods, rain, silver ions to silver metal

i learned so much about chemistry and photography and filmmmaking in the mountains in the past week that i don't even know what do with all this new knowledge. phil soloman told me stories about abraham ravett in grad school. i met two filmmakers with a new film arts collective in montreal, a girl who lives on a boat with her girlfriend (who happens to be a hampshire grad) on a canal in brooklyn, a girl from fargo who knows matt newman from media services, a woman who works with artificial intelligance, a high school teacher, a guy who's family moved from canada to florida, a mad scientist filmmaker and his family ran the whole group, and we ate amazing gormet vegan food the whole time. we also hiked up a mountain to a basin with pristine lakes and snow to fill our water bottles with. i know how to process all kinds of film, make my own emulsions and cameras, as well as tons about chemistry. all and all i'd say it was a well worth it experience (pictures to come). i can tell it's going to take a while to let all this information ferment while i figure out what my next step is going to be. all i know is that i'm in a for an exciting experimental adventure.

in the next few weeks i have to get ready for indian market yet again. i've read about 300 pages of harry potter in the last two days. i've been sitting at the santa fe baking company all after noon. it's too rainy to ride my bike unless i wake up at 6am. this is my little life. great things are coming, i can feel it as much as i can hear the thunder outside, but for now i have to just wait for it.

hand making films

for the next week i'll be in the rocky mountains in colorado making films by hand.

http://www.handmadefilm.org

a dog was the first astronaut

Laika
Dog / Astronaut

Born: c. 1954 (?)
Died: 7 November (?) 1957
Birthplace: Russia
Best known as: The first dog to orbit the Earth
Laika the dog was the first living being to orbit the Earth in space. She was aboard Sputnik II when it was launched by the Soviet Union on 3 November 1957. (She was a mutt, probably part husky, who had been picked up as a stray.) Laika proved that animals could survive the rigors of space travel; monitors attached to the dog sent biological data which Soviet scientists used in planning later manned flights. (The first manned flight was made by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961.) In a cruel twist, no provision was made for Laika's return to Earth; as planned, she died in space. Original reports were that Laika was put to sleep or died when life support batteries died after a week in orbit; more recent reports from Russia say that Laika died when the capsule overheated after four days or less in orbit.
Extra credit: Laika means "barker" in Russian... Though Laika is generally given credit as the first animal to visit outer space, other animals (including American mice and the Soviet test dogs Albina and Tsyganka) had earlier been sent on brief suborbital trips into space... Laika is also the name of an alternative rock band founded in the 1990s.

this has the proof:



also:
if any one has any suggestions for inspiration let it be heard.


also:
for some reason Ken Kesey has been popping up everywhere for me right now. I just turned over "Choke" (the booking i'm reading now) and the quote on the back said that Chuck Palahniuk is his heir. Strange.

also:
if we are all just satellites in our own individual orbits, only traveling side by side for a while, then is there ever really a cure for loneliness? or do we just pass it all off as "being put to sleep" after a few orbits? is it a coinsidence that we feel safer when we go to "sleep" with another person, because then we aren't alone even when we're most vunerable?

also:
for another wonderful example of our [in]justice system see the documentary Paradise Lost: the Child Murders of Robin Hood Hills. Three 8-year-old boys were horrifically murdered and three teenagers who wore black were convicted with no evidence, just some satanic panic.
for more info check out: http://www.wm3.org/splash.php

Also...

All my friends are brilliant.

really.

I'm amazed at the people I know most of the time. Not always because many of them make stupid mistakes as we all do, but they are brilliant none the less.

Hopefully I'll be inspired to brilliance soon. But for now, back to his couch, back to the next book for the next few hours.

then a train ride.

this is a wonderful little book.