Blue Mouse Monkey Blog

First of all, Paul Wells is incredible. More so than that web page is letting on. He’s creative, smart, articulate, multi-talented, has a has a hybridizing mind, and is a terrific facilitator. If you ever have a chance to take a class with him or hear him speak, DO. Okay, got that over with!

The faculty at the Animation Institute are Rose Bond, Suzanne Buchan, Paul Vester, and Paul Wells. I’m in Paul Wells’ ‘stream’, but the streams come together at lunchtime and for a late afternoon session.

I’m taking this class to open up possibilities for different types of work to come together. I’ve been a visual artist since forever. Well, officially since 1986 when I graduated from art school and started showing. Then I got into the digital realm in about 1999, starting very slowly, and gradually building skills to the point where I now run my own web design company. Then a few years ago I suddenly and unexpectedly started writing fiction. (Yeah those are adverbs. Whatcha gonna do about it?) A novel sort of fell out of me and I’ve been cleaning it up ever since. I hope to have it presentable enough by the end of this year that I can start exploring ways to send it out into the world.

Event Horizon, Julia Stoops, 2007

But these things I do: 1. visual art (mostly painting), 2. website design (with a little bit of client-commissioned animation) and 3. fiction writing (mostly a novel) have not come together. They have informed each other, definitely. Each discipline enriches the others. But I still pursue the disciplines separately. The formal and technical concerns of each discipline  are demanding enough that once I’m engaged in one, it’s all I think about. Shifting gears into another discipline is hard, and is a cause for anxiety. My ‘painting brain’ does not want to think about usability and information architecture. My ‘website brain’ isn’t clued in to character development. My ‘writing brain’ never considers revealing mysterious shapes within layers of translucent color.

And why not? As soon as I wrote this, I thought, wow, that’s interesting. But when I’m in the middle of the making, the medium-specific questions I ask are already so requiring, that others get crowded out.

Why? Several reasons. Firstly because the digital and fiction writing practices are relatively new to me. I’m still looking for a level of facility that lets me step back from worrying about ‘getting it right’, into a place where I can truly play. Craft is still an issue with fiction writing and digital work, in a way that it’s not with painting. Not that I’m the world’s most facile painter, but compared with the other two disciplines, I started younger and I’ve been doing it longer. There’s a level of comfort and familiarity in painting that isn’t there yet in the other disciplines. Not to imply all my paintings come easily: they don’t. But when they don’t it’s okay. Painting does not generate the kind of anxieties I experience with fiction and digital.

Secondly, for the last few years I have also been preoccupied with a fourth thing: running a business. With no background in business, and no role models among family or friends, learning how to create and manage a business is a steep learning curve. One that’s charged with the excitement of charting ones own course, (Yeah, a cliche. Whatcha gonna do about it?) but is also labor intensive.

And my ‘business brain’ claims to be far too busy dealing with demanding practicalities to spend quality time playing with color, character, and other things that it says will have to wait. The books have to be balanced. The seminars have to be listened to. The client follow-up is intense. The options have to be weighed. The business plan must be reviewed. The router needs rebooting. The subcontractors must receive explicit instructions. And so on.

So it’s in this context, during this week-long space that I was able to carve out of my daily web design studio routine, that I am exceedingly grateful to be taking ‘Devising Narrative Structures: Script and Storyboard’ with Paul Wells, during Boundary Crossings: An Institute in Animated Arts at PNCA.

An incredibly accomplished composer, arranger, and performer, Mark Orton is known for his several bands, including Tin Hat, as well as his composing for films such as Everything Is Illuminated. Mark’s site is rich in music as well as visuals, with a Joseph Cornell inspired aesthetic. There’s even a ‘radio’ filled with dozens of tunes you can play while you’re looking at other websites. Check it out, and plan to stay a while.

Portland’s new mayor Sam Adams is an arts advocate. Let’s show him that Portland supports his beleif in the importance of creativity in the modern world.

Image from Sam Adams's website

WHAT: RACC’s State of the Arts address to the Portland City Council

WHEN: Thursday, March 12th at 2:00 pm

WHERE: Council Chambers at City Hall
1221 SW 4th Avenue
Portland, OR 97204

The Creative Advocacy Network, a new non-profit working towards a regional dedicated funding solution for the arts, is working hard to make sure that the Regional Arts and Culture Budget is preserved by Portland City Council and they have sent us this notice and request.

On March 12th at 2:00 RACC will be giving their “State of the Arts” presentation to Portland City Council and describing how last year’s investments in the arts benefited the City. This is the first step in the FY10 budget process. We need to have the Council Chambers full of arts supporters to send a strong message:

The Arts CAN, and must live here.

The Council will be facing major budget issues this spring so our objective is to pack the Council Chamber with arts supporters to show the Commissioners that the arts and cultural community have a strong voice. We all know how many people there are living in Portland that are in the arts and care passionately about the arts, but we need to insure that the Council understands this too. Please come out and show your support.

If you know you will be attending please RSVP to info@theartscan.org

For more information visit www.racc.org/advocacy/local.php

Julie Perini takes on the world!

Julie Perini recently relocated to Portland, whereupon I had the pleasure of meeting her…and pretty soon I was designing her a fab new website! Her short videos investigate her immediate surroundings as well as larger social structures with humor. Julie is cooking, with a recent show at PCC Cascade, and one up right now at PSU. Check it out!

Banana tree in snow. Our neighbors have a banana tree. Which is pretty ambitious here above the 45th parallel. Every winter it disappears, and every summer it pops back up over the top of the fence. Here it is receiving the shock of its life.

Swirly snow. A study in movement.

Hummingbird in snow. I hope it survives the upcoming week of below-freezing temps.

moss

Walking in Washington Park today, my zoomy eye spied these secret and magical worlds. 

Okay, so my new camera has a macro function. Now that I’m losing the closeup range of my eyesight (just old age, nothing serious), this camera will have to fill in for me!

pine

Time’s slipped by fast, but I wanted to get a word in about our party last Saturday. Before it becomes embarrassingly late to do so. Like it was embarrassingly late for us to hold a housewarming party months after we moved into the Ford building, so it became a first anniversary party instead.  Jimmy Thomas and I were super lucky to get into this building before it filled up. Whether we can stay as rents rise remains to be seen, but for now it’s a great place to be. The party was fabulous. You could hear the noise all the way down the hall (which runs a city block long). There were supposed to be photos but someone (not mentioning any names, but I’m married to him) got so absorbed in talking to people that he forgot to take any! Maybe there will be some from the second anniversary party.

David Kennedy - architect

A new website for architect David Kennedy was launched today. David’s main creative focus is in hospitality, but in his 20+ of practice he’s also done residential, commercial, and institutional work.