Dancing with Light II

I've been daydreaming about an LED hula hoop for months now. This is the one I decided I'm saving up for.

Sandia Prep Alumni in the Visual Arts

The alumni art show is a collection of work from alums who are currently studying or pursuing careers in the visual arts. The exhibit features artists' work in painting, photography, ceramics, fiber, jewelry, printmaking, and drawing.

Altered Landscape I, acrylic on paper, Corie Chambers, 2012

RE:MIKE / RE:IMAGINE Central Santa Fe

The Saint Michael's Drive Corridor is the heart of central Santa Fe and the intersection point for all four of Santa Fe's city council districts. It's a vital area anchored by the Santa Fe University of Art & Design and the CHRISTUS Saint Vincent Regional Medical Center. In between are important neighborhoods, dozens of crucial businesses and great community organizations. The RE:MIKE event is a continuation of existing and previous efforts to encourage residents, citizens, business owners, students, commuters and everyone who has a stake in the area to lend their voices to its future.

Saint Michael's Drive is one of the major east-west streets in Santa Fe. The idea behind the RE:MIKE project is to recognize the history of the area, identify its values, its needs and develop plans to revitalize the corridor into a more comfortable and inviting urban space. As part of the project's kick-off events, urban planner and designer Candy Chang spoke about her work and the power of personal introspection in public space. She combines urban planning, street art, and graphic design to transform simple objects like stickers, stencils, and chalkboards into powerful tools that spark conversations in public spaces around the world. The title of her presentation was Toward Better Public Spaces: Transforming Our Cities Through Art and Design. She talked in length about how we share or don't share information in urban areas and what we would or could reveal if given the opportunity and tools to do so. Santa Fe was recently added to one of Candy's projects called Neighborland, where people in various cities around the country can voice their desires, needs and concerns for their neighborhoods.

This is a birds-eye view of a portion of St. Michael's Drive. The bare plywood sections represent existing structures. Using styrofoam cubes, participants can build new structures and visualize their placements while imagining what kind of space it could be.

Will Shuster's Zozobra

"Each year The Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe stages the burning of Will Shuster’s Zozobra, kicking off the annual Fiestas de Santa Fe on the weekend following Labor Day. Zozobra centers around the ritual burning in effigy of Old Man Gloom, or Zozobra, to dispel the hardships and travails of the past year.

The Fiestas celebration began in 1712 to celebrate an expedition by Don Diego de Vargas, who reconquered the the territory of New Mexico. Zozobra became part of the Fiestas in 1926, and the Kiwanis club began sponsoring the burning in 1963 as its major fundraiser. 



Local artist William Howard Shuster, Jr. – “Will” (1893-1969) conceived and created Zozobra in 1924 as the focus of a private fiesta at his home for artists and writers in the community. His inspiration for Zozobra came from the Holy Week celebrations of the Yaqui Indians of Mexico; an effigy of Judas, filled with firecrackers, was led around the village on a donkey and later burned. Shuster and E. Dana Johnson, a newspaper editor and friend of Shuster’s came up with the name Zozobra, which was defined as “anguish, anxiety, gloom” or in Spanish for “the gloomy one.”

The effigy is a giant animated wooden and cloth marionette that waves its arms and growls ominously at the approach of its fate. A major highlight of the pageant is the fire spirit dancer, dressed in a flowing red costume, who appears at the top of the stage to drive away the white-sheeted “glooms” from the base of the giant Zozobra."

In all the years I've lived in New Mexico I had never been to the Zozobra burning. To be honest, the entire event is quite anti-climatic; the actual burning of the puppet only takes about 10 minutes. Fort Marcy Park gets jam-packed with people and the scene looks like a huge mosh pit. I heard from many people that this would undoubtedly be the case. Over the decades Will Shuster's artistic vision and purpose for creating the marionette has been overshadowed by the event turning in to a huge party. That being said, I am glad I went to experience it for myself.

On a similar note, an interesting article on why this year's Zozobra was a serious bust:
http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/blog-3814-zozo-fail.html 

All Music is Folk Music...

... I ain't never heard no horse sing a song.

~ Louis Armstrong

This year, the Four Corners Folk Festival was an eclectic mix of bluegrass, country, blues, folk and rock 'n' roll. Below are some of my favorite new discoveries.

I had heard of and listened to Railroad Earth before, but seeing them live was a whole new experience. They jammed out like the Grateful Dead, and I overheard someone call their style "psychedelic bluegrass."

The first-ever recording of Woody Guthrie's original 1947 lyrics.

Dancing with Light

Quixotic Fusion is an ensemble of artists from various disciplines including aerial acrobatics, dance, fashion, film, music and visual FX. This inventive group of artists goes beyond the limits of any specific art form, challenging traditional perceptions and creating a total sensory experience unlike any other for its audience while exploring infinite possibilities of movement, sound and multimedia.

Turning 90

Age 23 in 1945

90th birthday celebration

Skiing in Colorado Thanksgiving 2011

On July 30th, my grandfather turned 90. It blows my mind to think of how much culture, politics, and life changes over a seemingly enormous amount of time.