Screening

For anyone in the San Diego area this weekend, check out the latest screening of Romance with A Double Bass.

COMPUTER MUSIC CONCERT, CALIT2 AUDITORIUM: 7:00pm - 9:00 pm
Romance with Bass by Momilani Ramstrum and performed by Bertram Turetzky, bass

Calit2 Building Dedication CeremonyOn Friday, October 28, please join us at the dedication of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology's (Calit2) cutting-edge research facility at the University of California, San Diego. This new technologically advanced facility will provide a unique collaborative environment to support multidisciplinary research. The building contains specialized spaces and labs including a nanoscale fabrication laboratory, a wide array of circuits labs, material characterization labs, New Media Arts facilities, reconfigurable research neighborhoods, and a rooftop "antenna garden." The six floors of the Calit2 building will house close to 900 faculty, researchers, staff, and students working on diverse research initiatives bringing together engineering, medicine, science, and the arts. The dedication ceremony will begin at 10:00am. Following the formal program, guests will have the opportunity to explore the 215,000-square-foot facility. There will be self-guided tours, research demonstrations, industry exhibits, the world premiere of a 30-minute movie, student posters, food, and live entertainment throughout the building.

$100

The first assignment I had with the ISA was to make $100 in one week, without getting a job. I sent an email to a small group of people, offering to do commissioned drawings for $15-20 per piece. These are the drawings I did and the requests I used as direction for the images.

A vegetable.

A quince.

Dancing Ballerina Princesses.

A teapot.

"Think Peace".

My dog Roxie.

Getting ready

I install my solo show next Monday at the gallery. It's the final stretch now, and I'm working on the last few paintings. All the work in this show will consist of the text paintings I've been doing since the Spring. It's an arduous process from initial idea to final creation. I was originally using a courier font, but wanted to see more of my hand in it. So I had my handwriting converted into a font, and I've been using that for the most recent works. The process after that is then to project the text onto the paper, and lightly trace the letters with pencil. After which I spend days carefully painting in each letter with watercolor and a #2 paintbrush (tiny). The color choice and painting process are all done in an organic and unplanned fashion. I am most interested in feeling things out, and letting the water and pigment flow where they want to. I think because the rest of the process is so rigid, I prefer to let the letters form so loosely. I looked through all the work today, and I feel really good about how it looked. In fact, I find the paintings to be beautiful. But of course, this is a highly biased reaction!

Yankee Candle High

On our recent trip to Boston, I spent a day in the Amherst area revisiting all the places I loved to go. I walked the UMASS campus, visiting the dorm I lived in, which is also where I met Max. I has a slice of chicken-blue cheese pizza at Antonios, and I did some CD browsing at Newbury Comics. I drove to Northampton and walked through Thornes Market and bought some gorgeous white wool from the local knitting store. It was a real trip down memory lane. These are the places I fell in love with Max. These are the places I came into my own as an artist. This is the place I accumulated most of my favorite friends.

The pinnacle of the journey ended at the Yankee Candle Factory. If you've never been, it would impossible to grasp the full effect of how magical it is. This place makes jews want to celebrate christmas. Yes, it is a candle factory, and that aspect of it is amazing. More scented candles than you could possible imagine, with beautiful names like MidSummer's Night®, Home for the Holidays® and Ocean Water. Needless to say I bought the largest sampler you can, and I spent hours picking which flavors I wanted. And as I was saying, the candles are just one factor to consider when visiting this Winter Wonderland. This factory also includes an enormous store full of christmas goodies. There is a ceiling with fake stars that glitter; a snow machine that periodically blows fake snow through the room; dozens of decorated christmas trees; an intricate fully functional train set that runs around the perimeter of the room, near the ceiling; and a working and a bavarian christmas village. It was bliss.

More pics here.

Breaking the Fast

Katie's audio post this month was inspired by the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur. And the Beatles.

Live from Logan

We have been sitting at the Boston airport for over 6 hours at this point. It's 1am, and we were supposed to be back in SF by now, but instead we are minutes away from merely boarding the plane. Apparently the radar at Logan Airport is broken, and flights were delayed today. This sucks even more because for once we were early for our flight. Oh California, how I miss thee....

Our Log

The weather today was beautiful. When I opened my eyes, sun was pouring in through the curtains, and the clock read 10:34am. We managed to sleep in! This just never happens anymore. We may wake up and then lay in bed for ages reading, but we never sleep until 2pm like the good old days. Max grabbed the picnic basket, we hopped in the car and drove off to Whole Foods for the necessary yummy snacks. Once that was taken care of we got some coffee and tea from Pete's and we were off to the Headlands. Once we reached the beach, we started walking towards our log. The same log where Max proposed last summer. We sat and ate lunch, watching the surfers trying to ride the waves and enjoyed the windy weather. After lunch we lay down, and did this trick Max taught me years ago. When you are lying down, each person rests on the other's shoulder. It's this weird maneuver, but it works perfectly. I love that move -- it's this perfect balance of supporting eachother. And you end up cheek to cheek. It was very romantic.

Penguin is the new black

Max sent me this incredible photo today of penguins surfing off the coast of the Falkland Islands. It truly makes me happy to look at that picture. I just love penguins, I always have. There's this stuffed animal I've had since I was 3, which my grandfather gave me - he's a penguin, and his name is Peruccio (peru-kee-yo). Some of the many nicknames I've been given include Pengy, Penger and Mrs. Pengerton.

When March of the Penguins came out, I had all these messages via email or phone from people, asking if I'd seen it. I would love to be able to get up close with a penguin - touch it, feel it, feed it, walk with it. We're probably close in height! Everyone loves the King penguin, which are beautiful, but my favorites are the African (or Jackass) penguins. The hotel we stayed at last year where we got married had a few African penguins, and we would visit them everyday. The Academy of Sciences has a large group, and I filmed them swimming and playing over the summer. Perhaps one day I will have to apply for the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program.