Yea, it's my birthday

...Which can be tricky for us sensitive types. I was trying to ready myself but it was still a bit tough waking up alone and making my first cup of coffee, but there was some kind of energy, a softness against my back, bouying me, keeping me from falling completely, nudging me forward, gently encouraging me to create a kind day. Out on the trail before 8AM I ran into some realizations. I don't need to write them down. I know it in my heart. Running listening to the air, the birds and trees my mind drifting between ideas of forgiveness and healing and ultimately at spirit of confidence and determination. My mom sent a note and I replied in a slightly catty tone (I am a Leo!) sending her a link to the shoes currently occupying the top of my birthday wish list. HOKA LOVE! These shoes brought me back to running, something I am really proud I'm able to do again. Heading out soon in fact, today, for a longer run. Shooting for 7 - 8 miles, then tomorrow can be a recovery day. But last night, dinner, Filet Mignon, Glazed Ginger Carrots, Roasted Cauliflower, Brown Rice and for dessert, banana bread with cherries, chocolate and cream.... some Stone IPAs wow!!!! What a treat. I have the energy I think to run a bit longer today.

Birthday wishes.... Hoka ATR Love!

I don't usually think of myself as a flowers type of gal but this morning these couldn't be sweeter! From my hosts at Oberpfälzer Künstlerhaus. Cupcake did not make the photoshoot.

Studio now, Czech writing, German dictionary, SM58 and my laptop that I finally paid off just yesterday!

Our show has also been getting some write ups, most notably from Helmut Hein, MZ, a philosopher and journalist from Regensburg. The article is very positive. There are some errors, Santa Cruz is not a small town... and my parents are not "primeval." Some things get lost in translation for sure. One has to move around the words, try to understand the spirit and meaning and connections. Translation is not a literal exercise. I've been doing a lot of it lately and it's been very satisfying and challenging.

I like this picture! Though I have a little bedhead going on in the back. Dominic and Susanne... I hope to stay in touch with both.

I think I maybe moving toward a new future line of research. It's inevitable I suppose. But I've been reading about Language via David Abrahms wonderful book Spell of the Sensous. I feel as though I should read it again but I'm on to the next, Green Bloc by Maja Fowkes about Ecological Art during the Socialist/Communist era in Central and Eastern Europe. There is something uniquely effective about this work being made during that period of political oppression. And of course I have a personal connection to it, as part of my identity, my ancestry and my contemporary art practice. It's like this maybe: In the USA there is so much abundance and at the same time such civil discontent.

There are layers and layers of social issues from civil rights, reparations for slavery, first nations, womens' rights to equal pay, to have control over their own bodies, and all the socially sanctioned phobias against immigrants, gays, lesbians, trans people, class, economical, racial oppression and privilege....phew to much to name...  so focusing on the environment might seem to some a sort of soft, elitist, or privileged. I don't know, this is just a slowly evolving idea... making ecological work seems somehow less pointed, on point (?) than making work on social issues, I get the feeling at least sometimes.

Yet it only takes a moment to understand how it is all connected. And even then though it carries this sort of utopian hippie leisure class aura. SO in the context of political oppression, ecological work possesses a certain weight possibly because the environment, the plants, animals, bio-systems abused by power structures can be readily imagined as symbols of under-represented or oppressed social classes.

But it's also very exciting to learn about what was going on behind the iron curtain, how these artists were creating an art form and practice that would resonate for decades and generations to come. I'm into it. All right. It's 9AM. I need to get myself up and into the studio. May be a little break in the storm today at noon and would love to run between the rain drops. Here is a list of somethings I'd love to touch on today:

1. Run!
2. Work on new classes 1 hour
3. Work on Lichen - I need to draw up possible track patterns. Made it longer last night and decided some things. The video projections can be simple, and there is a figure/dancer that passes over the 3 separate channels, once alone, then in 3s. in silhouette? 
4. Us needs the vocal track. Transplant existing and sing along with it.
5. Go through video for Us. 
6. Imagine what the last frames might be like.
7. Look at FD-RS project dimensions and make a basic sketch.
8. Important phone call 7PM - 10PM!
9. Read Green Bloc
10. Read Post-Commodity
11. Make visual outline for Deacon essay.