Arts Letters & Numbers & Keyboards

I just got back from a productive and inspiring week with fellow pianists and composers, Melinda Faylor and Mary Prescott. We visited a residency upstate called Arts Letters & Numbers where we were graciously taken care of by Frida Foberg and Rikke Jørgenson. Rikke picked us up from the bus station and took us to the grocery store. In addition to Frida and Rikke, there was a lovely community of friends surrounding the residency: a ping-pong group that consistently meets once a week, and regular ALN folks Farmer Adam (moniker courtesy of mua) and John, who were great company, not to mention they generously gave us rides to the store and bus station.

Every day we hit the studio to work on a new multidisciplinary piece. Not going to say too much about that since it's very early in the process, but I will say that Mary and Melinda rock. Our work was intense, we were physically sore every day from all our moving around, and it was fun. We danced, sang rounds, played little pianos that were not of the grand variety. When we weren't working, we were either eating, practicing on the 9-foot Baldwin (however, after a couple of days I simply didn't feel like touching the piano), talking a walk, or relaxing. We all forgot to bring a nail clipper, so being the pianists we are, we were sad to leave but eager to get home to trim our nails. I'll remember to do so at our next intensive week, which I am already very much looking forward to. 

Melinda, me, and Mary at the House on the Hill

Love this vegetarian chili recipe I found on epicurious. Leftovers for days!

Inside the Mill

I wore this exact same outfit EVERY SINGLE DAY minus the additional sweatshirt around the waist

I liked working on the large surface area of the kitchen island

Can you remember who's who? The answers are above! :-P

Thumb piano; a Casio tone from the 80s we nicknamed "Gene," as in Gene Belcher; melodica; Melinda's accordion; and some cow bells that were hanging out at the mill

Ping-Pong set up

Our new buddy, Gary, who brought some delicious posole

Outside the Mill. Can you tell we really loved the Mill?

Steps from the Hill to the Mill

Mary called me "Kenny G"

Working on movement

Working on the porch because the weather was beautiful

Leaf imprint in the snow

Mary was stoked for the moss on this leaf

We're starting a Go-go's cover band called S & M's.

I wish I swung more on the swing

Working

5 seconds later

View from the house

Sculpture in the house

Heading back

#popthebubble

This post is imageless, due to the fact that all public domain bubble images are cheesy and I can't find the photo of me with my bubble gun that makes giant bubbles the size of my head.

I'm going to start this post with an excerpt of the post-election e-mail I sent out yesterday:  

I hope everyone is doing ok. There's not much to say that hasn't already been said. I'm completely shocked. I went to bed at around 2 am, and although things were already looking bleak and it was apparent that Hillary was going to lose, I still held out the tiniest iota of hope that when I woke up, just maybe things would have turned around...because it ain't over till it's over, right?

After hitting snooze several times and finally getting up at 7:25am, I looked at my phone and just broke into tears. I'm taking this loss personally, as I'm sure many of you are. I could elaborate on my thoughts, but I've been posing status updates throughout the day, and I'm sure you're all seeing messages similar to one another come up on your feeds as well, so I won't go on.

...

The one glimmer of happiness today was spending the morning with my Target Margin fellows in SoHo, where we vented our frustrations, supported one another, and had a discussion with Richard Foreman. We asked him questions about his work, but of course, we could not avoid talking about last night's election, which led to us asking whether or not art has the power to change people.

Richard said no, and I don't blame him. Right now I don't know. 

I still don't know. I just interrupted my practicing to write this because I guess I want to try and see if it's possible to effect change. And I really need to get back to practicing because I have a recital this Saturday and I still need to get Mary's piece up to tempo (getting there!) so this is going to be quick, I'm going to be thinking out loud on (digital) paper, and possibly be a little sloppy. I feel an urgent need for us to come together as artists and figure out how we can engage with people outside of our collective city bubbles. I, for one, live in a city that nurtures outsider art and embraces PoC and LGBTQ folks. But this isn't the case everywhere, and if we're making pieces about race and gender equality, perhaps we should reach those not in the proverbial choir.

Why can't art just be a job like everything else? Art is about engaging with people for many of us. And this election, which has illustrated both the explicit and complicit racism of this country affects all of us. PEOPLE. "...the government of the people, by the people, for the people" is going to be led by a megalomaniac that according to the popular vote, most of us don't want to be our president. 

Something I know I'm capable of doing is organizing the shit out of anything and making things happen. There's strength in numbers and I want to hear from my fellow artists about what we can do to #popthebubble and reach people outside of our current spheres through art.

Or we can just keep making art apart from this, and keep donating, signing petitions, etc....ain't nothing wrong with that. But we need to try. I feel a responsibility as an artist to just step the hell up already. Stay tuned for a meeting in the coming weeks (no more than two because I hate when things lost momentum). In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments!