That's right NEW JERSEY

I just wanted to highlight this post, by my friend Phu all about how New Jersey is pretty rad. That's right, I said New Jersey.

* this entire post is a link. Click away!

Naughty Naughty Nostalgia

I had a dream last night/this morning that I was talking with my friend Anna about music. I immediately woke up and looked her up to see what she was working on now. This got me in a real nostalgic mood for my philly musician friends. Especially Chrissy Tashjian, who's band "The Bee Team" I have been listening to on repeat for pretty much this entire new york experience. So I looked up the Naughty Naughty Nurses...an all time favorite if you ask me. Here they are, Anna Christie, The Bee Team, and the Naughty Naughty Nurses, in no particular order. Enjoy.

Note: as far as I know The Bee Team is no longer playing together.

PS. I am still waiting for the appropriate cords to hook my camera up. They are in the mail, so don't get your undies in a bunch. Coming soon some awesome canoe pictures, and a few of me barefoot in the kitchen!

OMG, what a weekend!

There was all you can eat burgers and dogs, delicious coffee beer/beer coffee, amazing hangout times, hikes, caves, swimming holes, more amazing hangouts, waffle fries, breakfast champagne (in pint glasses), SCRAPPLE, some iffy fireworks, and more. You can see all of the awesome pictures here. To top it all off, the first group of students arrived for SAI today, I made felt for the first time on purpose, and ended the evening with a Fugees and TLC dance party/nerd fest. I think all of that extra, post Leah and Phu awesomeness totally makes up for the fact that I had to work at the studio today instead of hanging out at Storm King with them. Okay, maybe not totally, but it comes pretty close.

Swoon

keegan ale

today was 2 dollar mason jar night at a local brewery in Kingston. We all went out and had a great time. I am sitting in bed, the other interns and Sandra went to a diner before coming home. While I am waiting for my camera stuff a little longer here is another video of Max, one of my lovely cats in new jersey that kevin sent me. Max desperately wants to be an outside cat, but the house is too close to a highway for this to be possible. Instead, big eyes gets to meow by the back door in anticipation. Soon he will be leash trained I hope. I miss my cats.

In the meantime I am super excited for Phu and Leah to come up for the weekend tomorrow. I have plans to take them to all you can eat night at Keegan Ale, as well as some other things. I feel a little lame recently for not being as prompt with phone call s and letters as I would hope. Please bear with me for the time being, we are getting ready for the Summer Arts Institute. I love and miss you all.

Flakey

I had a busy day today, and was all ready to settle in and get some pictures uploaded for you when I realized that my camera bag was not in its usual place. Now this makes sense because I took a canoe trip last weekend (more on that later) and had taken my camera with, but I knew where the camera was, and I knew that bag wasn't with it. After a quick call the location of my camera bag was discovered, along with my stray paycheck. I knew I had put it somewhere safe! Anyway the pictures cannot be uploaded with out the wires that live in my camera bag, and so you will have to wait. My paper came out great! and the next step is to try some casting with it. Oh also Kevin sent me this video of the cats today. So in leu of cave, canoe, and art pictures, I present to you Britney Spears Spears and Max, starring in "Caught in the Act" enjoy.

Potato chips

That's right, my favorite food group after scrapple. I am currently eating some delicious potato chips, generously donated to the cause by one Kevin C., for dinner. Yes I was too lazy to microwave a nutrisystem meal for dinner, why do you ask? Anyway, I had a great night in the studio. Melissa Craig, one of the AIR at WSW right now let me hang out with her and showed me how she pours sheets of paper, with this funny little contraption called a deckle box, aka my new best friend. So I did some of that, using over beaten flax and abaca. I am not sure of the proportions since we were playing with leftover pulps and mixing them willy nilly. Anyway, the paper should be pretty awesome. She had some tests that she had done and they are so much like skin it is a little creepy. I of course plan on using this to my advantage, and have some projects in mind already.

In the meantime I started today my first real project for while I am here. So far the only thing I have really decided on is to write a letter to my Mom every day for the next month. I have some ideas about where I want to take it, but no definite final plan. The only thing I know other than that I will write to her, is that while the letter will be part of a project, they will not be readable. This kind of project is tricky, but also something I need to do. While it needs to be done, and I need to be able to have all kinds of sloppy feelings about it, I want it to be executed well, I want it to be relatable and evocative without being confrontational and exhibitionistic.

I have also been thinking a lot about peonies recently. My sister mentioned that they were one of my Mom's favorites. She even had them in her garden. I never knew, or noticed. It is amazing the things that we are totally oblivious to, I must have walked by them every day for years and never noticed how awesome they were.

Ugh, spell check does NOT recognize scrapple, what is that!