administrivia
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June 26, 2009
wiping the slate clean
by gl. at 6:15 pm
it's been a very long time since i've posted, and it looks to me like if i wait for the perfect time to give each item the post it deserves, i will never post again.
during the holidays, at the masarie curry party, marta said i changed her life: she attended a collage night once and makes one every day now. it's not often you get to hear something so dramatic or sincere!
but it's been hard because a bunch of awkward things happened at once. my focus has shifted to include arts organizations. i've been spending a surprising amount of time & energy supporting medical causes. my own art has re-embraced theatre. a lot of people have died (including lane, my mom & sven's grandfather). my primary art support group collapsed. my photo routine is broken. the economy shook us. in short, things are in flux.
since sven & i are about to go on a long summer trip, i'd like to tie up some loose ends so when i return, i can start with a clean slate: i'm still searching for the next surge of momentum but i can't move forward if i'm still looking back. so here are some things that have happened over the last year i'm not going to write much about but that are worth mentioning & recording:
events: shu-ju in the rare books room, gems of small press show, red bat & loaded hips show at iprc, white bird dance series, open studios (cirocco moody's raven), shawn demarest's shows, trillium holiday show, handmade nw, little things show, coraline premiere, a puppetlove show, apollo, how to disappear completely, hidden portland book launch, crazy enough, inviting desire w/ bridget, an afternoon on dayna's boat "rapture." plus, dayna went to italy & brought back treats: a fish placemat from volterra in in the cinque terre, yellow italian paper (used to wrap purchaes, in art, as placemats, etc.), a menu with cool image, favorite yogurt jar, a sugar packet, a piece of broken window from abandoned house in tuscany(!) wrapped in italian newspaper, red & white rocks from cinque terre, beach glass from the amalfi coast, a bookmark from assisi, and a metal botanical tag from flea market. then ann gave me a subscription to “where women create” magazine, which is like a “lifestyles of the rich & creative."
teaching: i had a great time teaching gocco at the iprc until the iprc could no longer offer them due to the shortage of supplies. (however, i still provide private gocco lessons, like the one i did with dot.) so i've been teaching creative business classes at the iprc, the library & trillium/scrap. that may come to an end soon, too. i've been re-offering workshops at the studio without being responsible for promotion & registration.
classes: when i first decided i wanted to dip my toe back into the theatre waters, i took a theatre/coaching class: it was a really rocky way to start because she did not believe in encouraging students. so i was both relieved & sad to leave. i had better luck at the 100th monkey's "ninja sewing" series (where i learned about threading, knotting, warp/weft, running stitch, gathering stitch, back stitch, buttons, hem stitch, blanket stitch, cross stitch, whipstitch, chain stitch, split stitch, french knots) and have been happy to be able to make and repair very simple things.
art: "where the sidewalk ends" photo series, "5 reasons" book, comparing down to earth "smoke rings" a year later, "writing our bellies full" reading, fidelio, last big gocco supply order, cast as an extra in TNT's "leverage" (so was trixie!), opsfest, dayna's art buddy invitational (my buddy, sven's buddy).
at the little things show, i picked up a prayer flag by jennifer mercedes because of its title: "a prayer for an inspiring future." yes, please. see you soon.
[gl. as The Lyon in A Midsommer Nights Dreame]
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, classes & workshops, exhibits & events, miscellany, other art, printing, trixie, writing
April 10, 2009
all is well
by gl. at 9:58 pm
comments are better after a little nap. welcome back, comments!
(and thanks, mph!)
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia
technical difficulties
by gl. at 11:25 am
comments are experiencing seasonal allergies. please stand by.
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia
March 10, 2008
mistaken identity
by gl. at 2:11 am
this is just administrivia, but i tweaked the blog template so it's more obvious who's writing which posts, me or sven. :) also, i made the link to individual post pages more obvious (permalink) and linked our names at the bottom of each post to a rudimentary profile page until i figure out how to tell movable type to generate a page with all of the posts from one author.
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia
February 14, 2007
happy birthday, blog!
by gl. at 8:00 am
believe it or not, we've only had "the Scarlet Letters" for two years. can you feel the love? :) the studio's been around longer than that, of course. i was happy to get sven & i writing in the same space, even though we write about things so differently.
thanks to susan, i finally got to make valentines for locals this year! every year i say i'm going to but i never do. (maybe next year that means the 'moes will get one, too!). after the virtual open studio last month, susan offered to host a valentine-making party at her house. hooray! this is just one of the valentines i made: i got to experiment with a lot of different styles and materials.
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, other art
December 31, 2006
end-of-year review
by gl. at 9:54 pm
happy eve! i'll be staying up until sunrise to see the first dawn of the new year. in the meantime, i just sent this to our events list:
Don't let old acquaintances be forgot! Let me remind you of everything you helped create this year at Scarlet Star Studios:
The biggest event was probably buying the house & studio. We hosted a studio adoption party in May, which several of you attended (whee!). We've already made some minor renovations in Sven's "lab" and we painted the main meeting room.
We more than doubled the activities we hosted this year! In addition to the Artist's Way Creative Clusters, free collage nights & independent support, we now offer guided art nights & workshops specially selected from outside instructors. These have been filling fast! We also hosted the Fabulous End-of-Summer August Art Swap that was such a success, we're bound to do it next year, too.
Sven has been immersed in stop-motion animation this year. Primarily focusing on how to create armatures, Sven was hired at Bent Image Lab to create characters for a Bitter:Sweet music video and for an animated special on "Live with Regis & Kelly." Later, Sven got to help a photographer at Laika, which is producing Neil Gaiman's "Coraline" as a stop-motion animation film. He is just now, even as I type this, finishing a film for a stop-motion animation challenge before the clock strikes midnight (visit the blog later this week to watch the movie!).
Meanwhile, I was in four exhibits this year! I did several calligraphy pieces I'm happy with, and even sold a few. I was also a guest lecturer at two different locations, extolling the virtues of a daily writing practice. This year I dabbled in holiday sales for the first time, discovering how much I enjoy promoting the work of people who have taken classes at the studio. I was also delighted to find a new lettersmith activity to love, the very popular wordwear:
http://www.scarletstarstudios.com/wordwear/So we've had a good year this year and you've helped us make it so. Thank you for your support! We're looking forward to writing more, drawing more, filming more and playing more next year. We hope you and your friends make room for art in your lives by supporting local artists and seeking your own opportunities for art exploration and creative self-expression.
with brightest wishes for an artful new year, gl. & sven
in this medium i can specifically and abundantly thank grace & serena for helping sven with his heart's desire, and i can thank everyone who bought a calligraphy piece this year, everyone who bought a piece of wordwear, and everyone who came to one of our events.
i'll begin majorly promoting the next artist's way creative clusters beginning tuesday, so when i wake up tomorrow on the first unsteady legs of the new year, that's what i'll be focused on for the rest of the month. in the meantime, sven will probably have a backlog of posts to catch up on, so we won't disappear completely.
best wishes to you & yours next year. may we each create things that are true for us and find people who will appreciate them. now everybody sing! "we'll take a cup of kindness yet... for days of auld lang syne....!"
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia
March 21, 2006
art updates
by gl. at 11:52 pm
i've added art to several of the CREATA workshop entries:
- communicating through visual symbols
- self-care for therapists
- dreams, active imagination & creativity
- exploring creative arts therapies modalities
- children's graphic development
- intro to art therapy
also, another weathergram:
now me & my sick self will toddle off to bed. today at creative job club we developed a major paradigm shift for artist's way promotional activities, but it'll be a few months before it becomes something tangible...
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, calligraphy, classes & workshops
February 14, 2006
happy birthday, blog!
by gl. at 11:22 am
though the studio's been around for a while, we finally got the blog going one year ago today. can you feel the love? :)
this is part of an iris-fold card i made sven for valentine's day. (michaelmas got a cthulhu valentine card.) happy valentine's day, everyone! me, i'll be working on a piece for the 4x4 art show. and a few other art deadlines that have snuck up on me and caused me to carefully manage my time this week.
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, other art
January 5, 2006
all stopmo, all the time
by sven at 12:22 pm
Lately we have a lot of traffic coming through Scarlet Letters looking at my stop-motion animation work. ...Thank you AnimateClay.com!
As you may have noticed, though, Scarlet Star Studios does a lot more than just animation. ;-)
To better manage topics, I've just added a "stopmo" category to the blog. To see all my stopmo posts at once -- or to bookmark the page that deals only with stopmo -- go to: http://www.scarletstarstudios.com/blog/archives/movies/stopmo/
posted by sven | permalink | categories: administrivia
December 14, 2005
purty pictures
by gl. at 11:43 am
i've added pictures to all our non-blog pages and modified some content, especially the portland artist's way page and the studio page. that's been a long time a'comin'.
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, artist's way
December 10, 2005
scarlet star studies
by gl. at 11:38 pm
i was excited to send the scarlet star studios dba ("doing business as") registration off a couple of weeks ago but didn't want to mention it until i got the confirmation back. i paid an extra $5 to receive a confirmation, and it was a good thing i did, because the state decided we were "scarlet star studies" instead. guess i'll be amending that monday...
btw, because i attempted some google-fu but could have saved myself some time, energy and a phone call to my new tax person: if you want to file a DBA/ABN in oregon, use filinginoregon.com, which is the oregon secretary of state corporate division. just one form & $50 for two years!
but make sure you print very, very, clearly.
[update 12.16: we got the corrected paperwork yesterday! we are officially scarlet star studios! :D]
[update 12.19: wow, that didn't take long. we received our first business junk mail today: 3 different companies wanting to us to enable credit card processing. geesh.]
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, links
December 4, 2005
the power of the portfolio
by gl. at 11:22 pm
we attended jill kelly's holiday open house today. jill kelly is a local author, editor & creative facilitator we keep running across via joanne, creative job club, vicki's art show, the last japanese garden writing workshop, and the art marketing workshop. (and i am shocked & suprised to discover we haven't written about the japanese garden workshop or vicki's art show!)
as naturally shy people, we stayed at the peripheries and nibbled the savory snacks -- until sven whipped out his 2005 art portfolio (a simple black plastic photo album) and then we brought down the house! we were almost the last to leave! we met more people in the last 20 minutes then we did the rest of the party. and of course, upon reflection, what would a party of creative spirits bond over? art! man, i gotta make me one of those! ;)
also of note: before the party we stopped by the mac store and picked up tara, our new terrabyte backup drive! when i get a chance (probably after i get my own shipment of apple goodness this week: a new 12" powerbook & nano!), i'll do the gigabyte shuffle: the 500gb drive will become the new moviemaking device and the 200gb drive will become the new media storage device (definitely itunes, possibly iphoto, but we're not sure yet).
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, exhibits & events
October 8, 2005
two quick news items
by gl. at 11:22 am
finally! we have a scarlet star studios logo! what a relief: i've been trying to be inspired enough to do that for months and months. haven't decided how i want to transform the blog to match, but piece by piece, it will all come together.
also, and more importantly, sven premiered the "let sleeping gods lie" teaser at the hp lovecraft film festival last night! it was the first thing shown -- what a way to open! i heard murmers of approval behind us, especally when the music cue signaled "this can only end well." special thanks to laura grant, who appeared especially to see this!
(and i'm sure sven will write about this later, but it seemed too important to keep quiet about it! if you want a chance to see it on the big screen, shorts block one also shows tonight and tomorrow... :)
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, exhibits & events, let sleeping gods lie
September 1, 2005
fourth fall registration!
by gl. at 2:49 pm
from a woman in salem! that makes three for the wednesday morning group, a number i consider to be minimum fusion for group cohesion, and i have a limit of six, so i'm breathing a little easier for that cluster. i paid to place an advertisement in the soapstone weekly newsletter; though i certainly wasn't planning on placing paid advertisements this round, vicki convinced me it was worth the investment. and voila! no other nibbles from the venue, unfortunately, but i'm pretty happy it generated something. plus, it may motivate me to promote artist's way open studio that way, because free events get listed for free. :)
after my last craigslist post (a new one goes up today), i suddenly remembered that i could check my stats page to see how many times the post had been loaded and then approximate clickthrough to the portland artist's way page! very illuminating (and obvious! i ought to have thought of that before!). alas, analog's stats make it difficult to actually follow a particular ip, so sometimes i have to root through the raw files myself.
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, artist's way
August 23, 2005
tinkering
by gl. at 11:47 pm
i'm tinkering a little with the blog. wanted to start with the easy things: category tags for each post, a clearer category header, some reshuffling of the sidebar, and hey, look at that! some explanatory text! there's always room for improvement, but you know my motto: something is better than nothing. :)
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia
August 15, 2005
the outer limits
by gl. at 9:57 pm
we're having technical difficulties. please stand by.
update: this has been resolved. thank goodness, because sven was biting his lips in anticipation wanting to write about the "mopey method" above.
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia
July 8, 2005
do the hustle
by gl. at 12:07 pm
think of this as a word problem:
if...
emet has 7gb of space free and planet camino has under 1gb of space free and almost 28gb of movies live on camino when they should really live on emet and carl has deposited 25gb of music between camino & emet
and...
planet camino is the scratch disk, beginning to throw messages about not having enough room to breathe and you're in the middle of a movie project you've been working on for years and even your 7gb is looking a little tight
and...
new moon is specifically for music but you're afraid to add all this unknown music to it because it will mess with your perfectly arranged music library.
what do you do? you have 25 minutes.
okay, put down your pencils.
yes, i know, the answer is obvious, but i procrastinated about it. finally i imported all carl's music into new moon and created two different playlists: one w/ just carl's music to be reviewed at leisure, and one with everything except carl's music to be kept clean and nice. and itunes has that nice "find duplicate songs" command which will come in handy later. to fill the vaccuum left behind, i moved the movies onto emet where they belonged, which still left more than 8gb of space on emet and over 30 gb of space on camino. everyone wins!
(yes, 8gb on a 200gb drive is still a little tight. but it will do until sven figures out how he wants to handle longer-term storage for film projects.)
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia
March 11, 2005
creata: creating soul
by gl. at 10:46 pm
taught by an art therapist from spokane, washington. guided meditation: a heathered hill in ireland, fading sunset to a full moon, a black panther, a beach, a cliff above the sea. do you want to walk to the moon? or do you want to dance with her?
one of the interesting things about doing the creata thing the second time around is that i've been able to actually make some contacts. the organizer recognizes me from last year and said it was interesting to hear more about my story. i've met two student art therapists because we've all been to the same sessions and they're both interested in the possibility of artist's way (it's too bad it will start in fall, which is forever from now!).
the other interesting thing is that i've managed to find another field where people care about the letters after your name more than they care about your experience. licensing art therapists is a hot topic, and this was the first facilitator to say it didn't matter and i could feel people cringe. and you might, too, if you had spent over $30,000 for an art therapy degree from marylhurst.
i wish i had a more streamlined way of getting art from paper to blog. i want to add more images to posts (especially on the ART blog...!) but it seems like so many steps for so little gain. camera/scanner > tweak, tweak > tweak some more > save image > upload > link.
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, artist's way, classes & workshops
March 10, 2005
scarlet spam
by gl. at 11:42 am
aw, little ol' scarlet got her first spam today! soon she'll be all growed up!
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia
February 14, 2005
the pretty scroll paper
by gl. at 1:08 pm
it's valentine's day. welcome to the new scarlet star studios blog!
i received an email today: "Hi there. Are you the person who writes sentiments on the pretty scroll paper with the calligraphy writing? I would like something made. Please write back."
why yes! i am the person who writes sentiments on the pretty scroll paper! i should add that to my business card:
Gretchin Lair
Writes sentiments on the pretty scroll paper
Artist's Way facilitator
whee! :)
posted by gl. | permalink | categories: administrivia, calligraphy