Tuesday, November 15, 2011

first triplet of the lights are born



The first of three new Cactus Lights is finished and installed!
This is the shortie at 3.5 feet tall.
The lime green container at the top is a wine bottle that goes up to my hip.

Photo courtesy of my Sensei, Matt Lucas.
Check out The Open Matt- my Cactus Light is hanging in Matt's music room.
I love trading art for kung fu!

Sunday, October 30, 2011

October 2011 Happenings in the Studio



Welcome to H.I.T.S., (Happenings In The Studio), where I share what I did artistically over the last 31 days. I'm mid-project working on a commission to make hanging lights, which I called Cactus Lights (click to discover what is a Cactus Light).

Since how I just want to finish the lights, I'm going to have a super short H.I.T.S. for this month. I'll make it up to you next month with a video of the installed lights.





To give you scale the strand on the right is as tall as me. There are going to be three hanging lights: 7', 5.5' and 3.5' tall strands.



This is a color test and an experiment with different types of bulbs.

To give you an idea of what they are going to look like check out this post on the progress I made on the lights during October.


If you want to read more check out the Table of Contents for the H.I.T.S.

See you December 1st, 2011 for the next posting of Happenings in the Studio.


Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Jae Rhim Lee: My mushroom burial suit









Mushrooms will save the world



In 2011 I heard Paul Stamets speak at the environmental conference, Bioneers, about how mushrooms will save the world. They are the most ancient, keystone species and yet the least studied.

In the above photo Paul is holding an Agarikon, which is the oldest mushroom. It can live for up to a 100 years and when it's diluted to 1% it's the effective way to treat the Bird flu.

The photo was borrowed from the wiki article on Paul Stamets.






Paul Stamets considers himself the voice for fungi. From his research he's discovered mushrooms that can eat oil spills and nuclear waste, along with a mushroom who's fiber is good for making clothes, and a mushroom that is super dense in vitamin D.

Paul has several patents pending on uses for mushrooms. I was curious to see what exactly he discovered, so I looked up his application on freepatentsonline.com by searching by his last name.








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.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

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