Free Documentary Films

I found this site, Free Documentary Films, where I can stream 1,800 documentaries. Plus they are commercial free.

I'm seriously considering cancelling my netflix account. Why pay $8 when I can stream for free?

On Free Documentary Films, I just watched The World According to Monsanto, which talks about this multinational company who's trying to control the world by owning all of the seed.

Thoughts from Bioneers Conference 2011

Bioneers is the largest, annual environmental conference in the USA. It’s like TED talks, except with a hope filled focus on how to take care of the earth. The three day conference happens every October in the San Francisco Bay Area.

The one session that I connected with took place in a small tent, that seated a couple hundred people. Everyone was barefoot and sitting on the ground. We held a council and shared our knowledge on how we have experienced the divine feminine and the divine masculine.

To me the divine feminine isn’t a goddess. Instead it’s a balance of traits that I‘m searching for, the ones that will make me most effective and content in life. Women are known for being nurturing, but they are also fiercely protect their loved ones. Within myself, I want to be a whole person, both a cook and a bread winner. Then if it happens, find a man who is also actualized and together we’ll be like iron sharpening iron.

Just as women have natural strengths, men do to. I think of the divine masculine as a benchmark for the men I look to date. Are they gentle? Do they know when and how to protect? Are they humble? Are they compassionate? Do they guard their health as being the most important, for how else can you serve without life?

We talked about the imbalance of masculine versus feminine power and how men and women need to treat each other as equals. The session was co-facilitated by a man who looked like my late grate-grandfather, Popsi. He said it was up to the men to honor and respect the women by giving us space to do what we do best: taking things deeper, being creative, forming communities, sharing feelings…

Hearing from this Popsi look-alike that ladies should be praised and valued as essential, was edifying. I felt important. I felt vital. Being apart of this circle meeting gave me the further conviction to better myself, to find that balance of traits within.

Janet Echelman: Taking imagination seriously | Video on TED.com

What are Cactus Lights?

Cactus Lights are hanging lights that have either glass or plastic repurposed containers for lampshades that are then shoved inside of a black, knit matrix.

After knitting the black cord into a giant sock like shape, I color the glass containers, drill holes in them for the electrical and for the support structure to go through, and then wire the lights with LEDs and hook them up to a touch pad.

Each light that I've crafted is unique to fit its home. All of the elements are variable: the length, the scale of the containers, the number of strands per cluster, the theme, the color of light… The light is soothing, like sitting around a Christmas tree.

More about the Cactus Lights:

Andrew’s 12 foot tall Cactus Lights
Glass Cactus Light Commission 
More of my colorful art, on my portfolio site, ElizabethSymington.com.

progress on glass Cactus Lights

Since 2009 I've created different versions of my Cactus Light. It's a simple design that is like a Chinese Finger trap game. I knit an elastic tube and shove containers for lampshades inside of the tube. When they are hanging the objects stay in place, just like when you are pulling really hard to get your finger out of the trap, making it more lodged in place. I then wire the lights with LEDs and hook up to a dimmer touch pad.

My current commission for Cactus Lights are the first of their kind- I'm using glass containers for the first time instead of plastic. That has brought on all sorts of fun challenges to solve. These are photos of the progress for the glass Cactus Lights. There will be three strings of hanging lights, the longest being 7 feet tall.




I collected glass from thrift stores and arranged them on the floor to figure out the order they would hang in.



Then I photographed them and edited out the background, to give myself a visual of what the light could look like. I played around with coloring the lights in digitally, only to find that's not how I enjoy working. I'm analog. Give me markers and paper!




The biggest challenge was locating a supplier for the elastic cord, since how I had run out of the cord I found from a thrift store back in 2009. After three years of looking, a seamstress, Carolyn Craft, with her wonderful industry knowledge knew exactly where to get it made. Within two weeks of talking to her I bought the fabric and had it cut into cord. The three year long search was over! Time to start knitting!




This is a mock install to see how the colors, shapes and length looked in the space. It was super helpful working on-site as apposed to my home studio. I could get a feel for the room and what would work in there.




The lights will hang in between three of the windows on the left. The space is a music room with the world's most comfy love sac (aka enormous beanbag like chair that is stuffed with memory foam). The comfy sac is just out of picture on the right. I'm going to enjoy lying in it looking at the lights.





I used rags and tshirts as reference for figuring out the color scheme. It helped immensely to see the colors instead of imagining them.




Playing around with the idea of going monochromatic.




My home studio- WOW! Talk about a disaster. You can read my mental state and gauge how busy I am by the tidiness of my home. Those of you that know me, know I keep my house very clean.




Note the orange handled pliers on the left. They put the wine bottle into scale. The wine bottle is huge and ridiculously heavy, but oh so cool looking.




Another challenge for this project was learning how to drill holes into glass, so I can wire and hang them. Thanks to the local stained glass store and one of my engineering friends, Paul Franke, I learned that the trick is to use a dremel with a diamond drill bit and water. The water is to keep the glass from getting airborne and into your lungs. I found an eye dropper works best for adding water. I tired using a hose. I ended up very, very cold.





I rarely justify buying tools, but for this project I bought a diamond drill bit set of 50 bits. My cheapo bits were about $20 and they take about 15 minutes to drill a hole 1/8" deep. As opposed to expensive bits, they take a minute to drill a hole. I look forward to upgrading.




After the mock install, I took my color scheme ideas and translated them into marker drawings.




Then I spray painted sample containers, so I can then mix and match and see which colors vibrate off of each other. The trick to lighting design is making a striking light when it is on and when it is off.

As for the wiring, I am playing around with more compact LEDs then I've used in the past. I'm not sure which ones I will go with, but there's time to figure it out.

The plan is to finish these glass Cactus Lights over the next few weeks. Thanks for reading. I'll keep you posted on the progress.


In case you want to look at pretty pictures, check out these photos of Cactus Lights from 2009-Present.

Make your own Shrinky Dinks

After calling around for shrinky dinks and only finding precut shapes, I discovered online that you can easily make your own! Instead of buying the expensive plastic sheets, you can use plastic containers that are either #5 or #6.

You can use markers or if you want to decorate them with pencils first roughen up the surface with sandpaper.

click here to learn how make your own shrinky dinks



I drew this Goliath frog onto a thin sheet of plastic and shrunk it in the oven, making it 1/3 the original size. Shrinking the plastic also makes the plastic super compact and thick (and a tad brittle).

You should look up the Goliath frog. He's the world's biggest frog measuring 2 feet long and of course he's endangered. He's too cool to not be collected. ;-( He is also a delicacy, hence the miniature knives and forks circling him.

September HITS

Welcome back to the monthly post where I recap what went on over the last 30 days in my life as an artist. This month I dragged my feet in writing September’s H.I.T.S., because it takes so much time and energy to evaluate the past month and come up with a game plan for the following 31 days. I’m finding it more and more difficult to do things I find just mildly stimulating, like being on the computer. And yet, without a plan, how can I get to where I want to be or even know where I want to go? One blessings from giving myself a monthly deadline, is that it helps me to finish projects, since how it sounds better that I completed an art project, instead of saying it’s pending.

The biggest shift this month happened mentally. I’ve finally given myself permission to adjust my time so that I’m mostly doing the things that I LOVE, not just enjoy doing. That means instead of talking about how much I love to work out with friends, I actually do this every day. I’m volunteering at the Athletic Playground, where I took an aerial class and learned how simple it is to climb a 20 foot tall rope!

One good habit leads to the next, exercising feeds my interest in learning how to prepare meals that are more efficient, in terms of high nutritional content, time and money. One cookbook that I’m referencing called 3 Bowls, shares that cooking and eating is not only a meditative practice but also very spiritual. I prefer to share meals with friends, so this gives me an outlet to share what I’m learning in the kitchen. Everything is linked together, like in martial arts. Traditionally it wasn’t just working out, but it also incorporated cooking, medicine, body work, spiritual guidance…

I’ve set the timer for writing this post or else I’ll continue to expand it, eating up everyone’s time. Here we go!

Input-

Creative Experiences that have Fueled my Right Brain:

• Thanks to Netflixs and to my eco-art class, I’ve watched many documentaries, which were mostly on environmental issues, biographies of artists and where food comes from.

I saw Mary and Max (which is the only film here that I don’t recommend), rivers and tides, the convenient truth, the inconvenient truth, food inc., The story of stuff, Gas Land, Home, A pixar story, PBS documentary on Warhol, and the Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I typically watch maybe one movie a month and now, I’m actually eager to watch more. I LOVE learning!

• I went to a disparate showing of live music and performance. One night I saw a punk band perform at a house (or was that the venue?) that was charmingly “punk” in its design and it was so much fun!!! I also heard brass bands and acoustic performers at the Bay Vibes Fest. I also saw an aerial dance troupe, Bandaloop, repel down a 8 story building and dance on the side of the building. With the live music and lighting design it was pretty cool.
• Not sure how this related artistically, but as a side not I got to use my motorcycle helmet and gloves for the first time. When I get a bike, all I’m going to do is ride. It was nice knowing you. ;-)
• I heard about an annual show in Portland, OR called the Time Based Art (TBA) exhibit. The audience gets to interact with the art and manipulate it. Next year I’d love to either create a playground for people to explore or to just go and check it out.

Output-

What Goes in Must Come Out:

• It’s silly but I LOVE organizing spaces, objects and data, making them user friendly and aesthetic. I get so much joy in stream-lining tasks, making them so simple that people want to use the system. I got to use these organizational skills for my friend who runs his own patent firm and for tracking the library’s inventory for my eco-arts class.
• Speaking of the environmental arts class that I’m taking at the local community college, I learned an important lesson in respecting boundaries. I chose to make a zafu (a mediation pillow) for one of my projects. I bought materials that were meaningful to me: fabric made from bamboo and buckwheat husks for filling. I was all excited about making the project and getting to have a meditation pillow when I was done. Well- I didn’t get that far.

In the past, I’ve questioned why I bother using a sewing machine, since how hand sewing is so much faster for me. Random, odd ball things break when I use a sewing machine. It makes me super frustrated and the process is unenjoyably.

For some reason I decided to try it again and this time even more things went wrong then normal. After six hours of trying five sewing machines, none would work for me. I decided this wasn’t the way I want to create. I don’t enjoy sewing. I have fond memories as a kid sewing with the ladies in my family: both great grandmothers, my grandma and my mother, but I can’t seem to get a rhythm now that I’m an adult. I decided that six hours of work on a simple pillow and not even have reached the actually sewing part, wasn’t worth continuing. Miss A student didn’t turn in a project and that was ok with me. I got what I needed out of the assignment.

• Several years ago I taught myself to read Braille and last week I got to put these skills to use. I noticed that a classmate’s glasses had Braille on them, so I asked him what it said. He had no clue, so I offered to decode it. I’m so rusty, that I had to reference the Braille alphabet, but I figured out that it said “cold.” Not sure why his Clockwork Orange glasses have the word “cold” on them, but it was so cool that I could give him a clue to the mystery.
• I requested a tour of a gallery in Alemeda, CA that showcases artists who use recycled materials. I got to see the gallery, the store and the studio spaces for rent. I got my questions answered about the art residency program at the East Bay Transfer station (aka dump). Networking and seeing what opportunities that are available to me helped to formulate what I want to work towards.
• I’m revisiting the vinyl record light switch covers that I had for sale once-upon-a-time on my etsy store. I’m making one for my sensei that has the RCA dog on it. It’s pretty cute.
• The most encouraging thing that happened this month was talking with a seamstress about ideas on where to buy black cord. I need the cord to knit the matrix for the LED Cactus Lights. Carolyn had some wonderful insight and I think the end is in sight. Soon I will have this cord (which I learned is actually called binding)!

• Another ongoing project is the bouncy ball curtain. It had some structural issues, that required a restring. It’s a curtain made out of 900 bouncy balls and crazy straws, and from people walking though it, the materials are sagging. It was expected that alterations would be necessary since how I haven’t made an interactive installation like this before or had any prior experience working with these materials.

I’d put off restringing it because I wanted the Chinese manufactures that I emailed about buying crazy straws in bulk, to get back to me. A month went by and nothing happened. I had decided for the collector, Andrew, on his budget for the restring, instead of giving him a full status update on ordering supplies. I finally decided to take my mother’s advice from when I was a kid and to let the other person decide for themselves. It is his art, that’s in his home. Now the ball is in his court, and I’ll proceed as he wishes.

• My other creative outlet is in the kitchen. Over on my food blog, Surprisingly Thankful, I pick a monthly theme and prepare or eat out four times, so to introduce myself to new experiences. September was “Monk food month” drawing inspiration from my stay with the monks.

Thanks for your support. Go out there and create!


Table of Contents for Happenings in the Studio