tangled angles

for the weekend in seattle check out:

“Tangled Angles: An Installation and Performance” by: hipposchemes

Live at Sweatshop Inc.
One night only, Saturday Dec. 3rd
Performed throughout the night from 8-10 p.m.
1202 E. Pine St. Suite B
206-388-2373

"Tangled Angles is an installation and performance piece where the functional lines of cloth and thread meld with flowing movement to produce a visual amalgam of form and function, chaos and order, life and art."

hipposchemes is the power house team of helga and javar who salvage just about anything to make it new and funky. check out their shop the instore stuff is hot its all one of a kind and totally original. last spring helga made me this awesome skirt for the beaux arts ball from some remnants from some old pants, blouses and skirts.

Cyndie::Girls' Best Friend

last week i was one of the many people who said goodbye to Cynthia Mclachlan, founder and sole benefactor of feminist social change focused, Girls Best Friend Foundation, Chicago, IL. i got to see her one last time while she was in the hospital 5 blocks from my house. in a video the friends, staff, former staff etc. made for her before she died...among other things i told her: that i always thought of her as personable and compassionate yet strong and no nonsense. my favorite thing about her is that she was a risk taker and that she made profoundly powerful choices...not just financial ones but life choices. knowing her and knowing of her has inspired me to live boldly and unapologetically yet keep a critical eye and always question what i can do to affect change. For this I am very grateful.

read more about cyndie here, and here.

perserving the blog :: a museum of blogging

the blog of fellow thesis comrade. awesome thesis topic...

Stories in Practice

this is the master blog from the activist architect professional practice-sub-blog i referenced last week.

Dr. Dialogue

i discovered my cousin kira's collaborative new blog on nicole (my other cousin)- her sister's blog! kira is a psychologist and pretty much a bad ass at everything she does =). so the blog which discusses issues from a psychological perspective is bound to be the same =). nicole introduced me to the world of blogging...reading her eclectic blog including opinions, commentary, updates, photos, and random funny stories has probably helped me know her more as an adult than any of the occaisional awkward adult conversations where you try to figure out how to transition from your childhood relationship to an adult one. you go girls =).

Temporary Services

another important org and resource...passed on from wes janz from one small project. who i contacted and in a twisted world of fate was a student of my mentor and thesis chair sharon sutton at michigan. he seems very friendly and suggested submitting something from my thesis for one small project and i think i will as soon as i figure out the best piece.

speaking of thesis i now have a new title. instead of "typologies of resistance in the built environment: intersections of architecture, art and activism"....its "resisting the commodification of built form: a critical approach to activist architecture" it might get further tweaked but thanks to dr. sutton, i think it reflects the whole theoretical framework portion i just wrote based on critical theory.

anyway, back to temporary services. i was especially taken by their upcoming show on prison inmate inventiveness. 5 years ago at cornell, i was volunteering with two writers at two prisons in upstate new york. we were working on a show called "art across walls". they were doing a writing/journal piece and i was supposed to teach some art classes. the men we were working with ended up teaching me! they were amazing. the things that they built and made were ingenious. we had one guy who painted davinci like masterpieces on used envelopes with a nail and paint he mixed himself using all kinds of substances...one of which i think involved nail polish. there was even a whole spiritual aspect to the work as all of the guys were native american and had to make objects for their ceremonies out of found objects. unfortunately as a result of our project attention was brought to the guys creativity and wasn't received well by guards who destroyed thing that the guys made. strangely enough, though one of the facilities was maximum security and the other was medium security and everyone was afraid of me participating...the only hostility i ever got was from the guards. if you're in the area...looks like something worth checking out.

Activist Architect

feeling this newish blog. i wish there were a way to network with these various folk doing, interested in a lot of the same stuff...i like the way she(??) has weekly interviews. imagine that...a system. organization =).i started wanting to be organized in such a way...anyway kudos!

one small project

from the front page:

"One billion leftover people--typically called squatters, self-builders, slum dwellers, informal settlers, or displaced persons (it's a big category)--claim leftover spaces in cities and live in unauthorized dwellings made of scavenged, leftover materials. If you know even one of the one billion, you've been touched by her or his life, even if briefly and reluctantly.

Now, I build small projects alongside architects, architecture students, artists, designers and the world's working and urban poor, believing I have much to learn from them and my knowledge regarding architecture and design might have relevance in their lives.

Community activists, filmmakers, industrial designers, preservationists, writers, sculptors, photographers, architects, and many others are engaged as well, building more for others, wanting less for themselves."

i saw this on architechnophilia and maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.!!! the content is SUCH a big part of my thesis. this totally frickin made my day as i wallow in literature review on activist art, activist architecture, interdisciplinary architecture/art/activist practice. dude. i'm bowing down right now...i needed to see this like 2 months ago, but i'm so glad i ran across it now. a little jolt of inspiration kicks ass.

"Send us your work if leftover people, leftover spaces, and leftover materials are what you do. We'd like to include it on this website and in the forthcoming book"...i'm all over this like stank on do0-dOo.

DUDE, SIGN UP ME UP!

"girl scouts beyond bars": architecture badge

somewhere in the midst of last week i managed to get down to white center to hang out/present/meet a girl scout troop comprised of girls who's moms are incarcerated. they were fast at work on the architecture badge. it took maybe about an hour and a half of my time...and i was so happy that i did it. we get so consumed by our lives and how busy we are and we have to remember to take time for these things. they were thrilled to meet me, had a ton of questions and were surprisingly impressed by my first year drawings that i showed them =). most people think of girl scouts as ultra cheezy. but misc. issues aside i have to give them props on their wide range of programs and activities for girls...many of which are empowering and quite progressive...they have truly addressed the current day and age. i especially appreciate that they are not all about the suburban cookie sale thing and reach out to girls that are underserved...such as homeless girls, girls in juvenile detention and these delightful young women who have an incarcerated mom.

MoAD: Museum of the African Diaspora

opening later this month in san francisco. hope to get down there to check it out.

For the weekend...

urban craft uprising.