The Writing Vein

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

event: book arts, interdisciplinary exploration, and the creative process

Write and build your own book with Clare, Tif, and your new collaborators in an intensive two-day weekend workshop at the end of February.

"Book Arts, Interdisciplinary Exploration, and the Creative Process" is open to adults of all skill levels. Experienced book artists may find it especially engaging. Sign up by February 19 at Oregon College of Art and Craft or email studioschool@ocac.edu to receive a tuition discount.

Collaborations burst our bubble of solitude and return us to our individual work with a deeper understanding of our distinct voice. Similarly, explorations into unfamiliar disciplines and media enrich our individual creative practices while offering new, challenging opportunities for contextualizing our work.

BOOK ARTS, INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPLORATION, AND THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Feb 28 and March 1, Saturday and Sunday
9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Tuition received before February 19: $170
Tuition received after February 19: $190
Studio materials fee: $25

This workshop is taught by the collaborative team of book artist/letterpress printer Clare Carpenter and writer/editor/performer Tiffany Lee Brown. With their guidance, participants combine hands-on studio work with discussion and exercises exploring intuitive process. On the first day, students develop book dummies, maquettes, and sketches of their ideas, focusing on how content informs presentation. On the second, students integrate their writings and structures in a collaborative project.

Class number BA 701
phone 503 297 5544
Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC)
8245 SW Barnes Road
Portland, OR 97225 www.ocac.edu

TIFFANY LEE BROWN & CLARE CARPENTER, INSTRUCTORS

To read more about the instructors, go to 2GQ, where this post was originally found.

Monday, February 2, 2009

but I never go back

Next Saturday there is a reunion I was invited to attend; and I will. But I hate the word or hate the concept is probably more accurate. I don't hate this group of people and it could actually be fun. It's just that I never go back. Or haven't until now. So here I go, again, trying something new. It must be the year for stepping out of what's familiar.

I learned to not go back from my mother. She's the expert. "Don't look back because you'll only get slapped in the face. There's nothing worth going back for, anyway." My family doesn't hold reunions and no one would go, even if someone tried. A legacy of the ultimate "letting go," although it is not quite the spirit of how this phrase in usually intended.

This reunion is for the Portland Women's Theatre Company, in which I was involved for several years when we first moved to the area in 1985. It could be fun. A couple of the people I've seen here and there over the years; others I haven't seen nor heard from at all. I was involved in the middle years of the group (which has been defunct for a while). This reunion was sparked by the interest of a woman researching the history of the group along with some other resources in the area. That woman just happened to be a student in one of my partner's classes. So, in some ways, my partner is partially responsible for this reunion or at least for lighting the spark of inspiration which led to this project.

So, with hope for a paradigm shift of understanding, I will go to the reunion which is, thankfully, being held at the home of one of the people we have kept in touch with since that time. And I will go into it with a positive outlook and deep down the awareness that, again, my mother's lesson may not be the whole truth. Maybe sometimes you can revisit the past and have it be okay.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

not-quite-lucid dreaming

So it seems that I actually *d0* compose stories while I sleep. Or something. (There was a discussion a couple weeks ago in the forums of a writing workshop I'm doing which was about writing while sleeping.)

I vaguely remember the following conversation - or part of it - with my partner in the early morning hours. Early morning for me, since I didn't go to bed until about 4AM - and I know that some people are getting up, or, gasp, already up and dressed, at 7AM. But not me, today. Anyway, my partner had the idea to write down "our" conversation and give me the transcript later.

So here's how the conversation went - remember that I was acting, and in the moment believed myself to be, awake and coherent - :

me: I forgot to get her weight (pause) her measurements. What's-her-name Green. I need her weight.

S: why?

me: For the rocket stuff. (pause) I don't know why. I'm just supposed to get it.

S: You're not making any sense.

me: ... I (pause) ... [snore]

It's a sign of stress when I start having these half-conscious conversations. I don't have transcripts of the previous ones, but do vaguely remember a couple of them. One, I was typing on my partner's back and talking about some filing and reports that needed to be done (this was in the early process of realizing I needed to not be at the job I had at the time). The earliest one I remember was early in my relationship with S; I was trying to get my step-son to stop eating and then throwing up cookies and chopping up the counter with a butcher knife (the little guy was actually fast asleep in bed; I was a new step-parent and was totally unprepared for the role).

Lucid dreaming? No, just processing events of the last couple weeks. It was just funny to have the actual transcript, and to remember that we had a conversation, and that I was partially conscious and it felt so real in the moment. And S has great delivery and timing - so hearing her read it back to me was a part of the smile I was given this morning.

It is also a note to self that there is a stressor in my life right now which needs acknowledgment and/or attention.

Paper Beads Through Lace Curtains
photograph and beads
by Dot.

Friday, January 30, 2009

lift off leads to forgiveness

This has been another intense week. I started to feel disappointed when I came here to post and realized I hadn't said anything since Monday.

Then I thought, hey, wait a minute. Give myself a break, here. I just completed, in the words of Chris Coleman, a marathon. Unlike a marathon, Chris went on in his introduction and welcome to the show, Apollo at Portland Center Stage has two built in breaks for coffee, conversation, and going to the bathroom.

The play is running (no pun intended) three hours and thirty-five minutes. Rehearsal and preparation for this show was long; each of the seven times I saw it required a minimum of 5.5 hours. A total of 60-75 minutes driving and parking, meeting before the show, the show and intermissions, and a little (but not much) conversation after the show. Then there were the times translating the script and practicing at home and with other resources.

Okay. So I posted less than I wanted for this week. I forgive myself. And let's move on.

But I am now late with an assignment for the online writing workshop I am taking. It was due today and I am quickly heading towards midnight. Not that I will be punished - but I wanted to keep to the due dates. Oh well, I missed this one. I will get myself caught up this weekend. After my dragon boat strength & training workout tomorrow morning, going to REI to pick up my ordered gloves for same said dragon boats, and lunch with a friend - and before I go to work Sunday afternoon.

Oh, and around my step-daughter moving in for up to six months; which means her son, as well, on an every other week basis.

It's not that I have anything else on my mind except blogging! sheesh....

picture from the PCS website
and promo flyers for Apollo

Monday, January 26, 2009

turning toward center

Again I find myself spiraling out into the world. I start misremembering appointment times or write them down wrong or even glance at my schedule and still am an hour late. And I think, "thankfully it wasn't a job."

I start stealing from sleep because the assignments need to be graded before the next ones are due - out of fairness to the students. Or I have to send an email to the person who contacted me about a work proposal and they need a fee quote. And soon it's three in the morning and I have to be somehwere at eleven, or nine.

Then there's the writing workshop I'm loving and that's what I desperately want to do. So I steal some more sleep time or cut 30 minutes from my exercise time, which is already reduced in frequency. I want to give feedback to everyone but only have time for the requisite three. Okay, so I squeezed in one more because her writing was so well done and it really touched me.

And the play. I love the theatrical work and this one is long. Great but long. Which multiplies exponentially when prepping for a show. In just a few days that will be done and I will have a couple evenings a week and another 15+ hours a week for other things. Patience. Sometimes being at the end of a big project goes very slowly. And I wonder if I need to do less theatrical interpreting for a year or two, take a break. I've been here with theater before - as stage manager or director or other crew.

And I'm trying to find my way back toward center. Back to the desire I found in Oaxaca, to the hopes I found before that. Back to time for me that is not taken from elsewhere. Workouts that aren't rushed or doubled up as rehearsal. Appointments with the trainer where I have time to shower and change and eat lunch somewhere other than driving to the next thing.

Again, here I am. Wondering where that central ground is. No longer searching for balance or perfection (whew!), but looking for that area where life is more comfortable. Where I can write without guilt or my internal project manager breathing down my neck to hurry up. Where I can have a couple days off in a row and maybe even a third day now and then, for added fun and a little escape. A central ground where there is room for times when I have to or want to work a little extra (how many hours to be able to buy the plane ticket to Albuquerque and rent a car to Taos?). A comfortable fluid place where breathing is easy and laughter happens regularly, and I don't need to trade sleep for creativity.

Ahhhh.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

new writing/theater: "Apollo"

Apollo
written and directed by Nancy Keystone

at
Portland Center Stage

Gerding Theater at the Armory
128 NW Eleventh Avenue
Portland, OR 97209
503.445.3700

Now Playing through February 8th
with a sign interpreted performance on 1/29/09

If the brilliant collage artists Robert Rauschenberg had created a play, this is what it might look like. One of the most adventurous productions ever offered on a PCS stage, Apollo is an epic, multimedia examination of post WWII America which explores the birth of the U.S. space program, its employment of former-Nazi rocket scientists, and their surprising intersection with the Civil Rights Movement. Using the U.S. mission to the moon as a symbol of our country’s greatness, Apollo probes deep into the question: what did we sacrifice to become the America we are today? And was it worth it? Through a kaleidoscopic array of theatrical methods (movement, text, video projection, music), Keystone reveals the costs and ambiguities of human aspiration and progress.

[From PCS website.]

Thursday, January 22, 2009

event: "Shimmy Shake & Share"

Grace Constantine of Deviant Dance (a performer in 2GQ's Public Works series) joins a fabulous list of performers to raise funds for the Winter Homeless Shelter. January 24th at 6 pm in Vancouver, Warshington [sic]. Keep reading for details.

Shimmy Shake & Share Dance Festival
Benefit for Winter Homeless Shelter
St. Paul Lutheran Church
1309 Franklin St.
Vancouver, WA 98660

January 24th 2009
Evening show 6pm, doors open at 5:30
$10 donation, all ages

Here is a list of the evening performers:

Raks El Sehr
Carol Love
Taheya
PURE
Oberon
Zaina
Jewels
Scottish Country Dancers
10 min. intermission
Jane Archers Troupe
Karla
Khmer Angkor dance troupe (parents are allowed in with their child)
Grace from Deviant Dance
Bhrigha Gypsikelt
Caravan Dance Collective
Saqra

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

ding dong

The baton of power has been handed over. Now is the time of President Obama and we are all waiting to see what changes will really happen, because it does take more than just one person to pull them off.

But as I listened to his inaugural address in my car and listened to the poet in the cafe, waiting for my soy latte, I finally felt a change. As Obama was speaking, it started. Between Obama and the poet, the NPR announcer said something and I felt a weight actually lift off of me. The air cleared a bit and I took a breath.

I am sitting sipping my coffee and wondering about change. His change. Our country's change. People's change.I think he's a fine person and I'm skeptical of how long and how much change will really be possible. So much damage, it won't be quick.

And I realize that, even if he is blocked on positive social change, even if he turns out to not be as New as some people hope - there is a change.

As of this moment, Black/African-American people can see themselves on the presidential stage in this country. It is no longer only a hope or wish or belief, but there is a non-white president. Someone up there to point to and say, "see, it can be done."

Saturday, January 17, 2009

event; writing workshops (free)

Write Around Portland

presents

Days of Writing

February 9th - 20th

Celebrate Write Around Portland's 10th year by joining them for 10 Days of Writing — free, two-hour workshops open to everyone. Write with them for one workshop, or come for all 10!

Writing journals, pens and snacks will be provided. These workshops are perfect for both the new and seasoned writer.

You can register by phone at 503.796.9224, via email at tendays@writearound.org, or can just drop in at one of the locations listed below.

10 Days of Writing are made possible by a generous grant from the Multnomah County Cultural Coalition and the Oregon Cultural Trust.