The Ultimate work week (+ some) has finally come to an end, and our stuffed animal riding carousel is stable and spinning.
This past sunday we went to "the country" where the gamble brothers live. The gamble brothers are two brothers that help out with the construction of a lot of installations inside elsewhere. Both of them have given us advice on our project. One of them, Ian, is working with another artist, Sarah Witt, on a traveling art project called tepee tour. ( http://plasticparade.org/ ) The foundation of their tepees, which are like 25 feet tall, is made from bamboo which they roast to make look all shiny and neat. So they put up a tepee and built a bonfire where we roasted some bamboo. Good times were had by all.
Elsewhere and its people are really making an impact on both Jess and I, so much so that we asked to stay a little longer then our agreed upon residency. They said sure, so we are now staying till at least the 10th of June. Since we took on a real big project we are excited to have an extra week to work on some smaller fun projects we've been thinking about. Like the castle...
This past week has been Stuffed Robot Sewing Factory Hard Core. Yesterday we finished sewing pods for the 130+ stuffed animals in the Elsewhere collection.
I am finally feeling pretty comfortable with all the people here and I think I am starting to do some more creative stuff. This weekend Elsewhere put on this big benefit that spanned all three floors of the building. After the party we had a post party dance party (PPDP), and it was great. The rest of the weekend was pretty laid back and unproductive. Look how baddass kat looks in this photo. A lot of people smoke here, even though they have a strict policy on no fire/burning things in the building.
After Jessie returned from n'oleans we hit our big project pretty hard. So hard we broke our sewing machine. Today we bought a new one, a Singer (of course), and its working out pretty well so far. We finished cutting all the fabric today, so now we are left with sewing and stuffing. Our tentative goal is to finish this friday with all of the plush pods. Right now they look like a stack of rainbow colored pancakes.
Today marks one week at elsewhere. My lungs have become acclimated to the dusty air and my eyes squint when I go outside. My dress, speech, and food have all changed and my world has been effectively diminished to two three storied buildings. Although these things are strange, I am learning a lot of good stuff about both communal living and living in general. I have also learned a lot about the people who live here. My first impressions were all totally off.
Yesterday was THE BIG CLEAN. Once a week everybody at elsewhere helps clean up the place in preparation for visitors. This week was especially important because this Friday elsewhere is hosting a 200 person party (never been done before). Jess and I were put in charge of the Fabric Workshop and our studio space area (both in pretty bad shape). Its pretty rockin' now, but our studios need a little more awesomeness. Hopefully they will slowly evolve into greatness over time.
We also had our first project proposal meeting. Jess and I proposed a pretty serious project involving all of the plush toys at elsewhere. Its this huge chandelier/ferris wheel thing that hangs from the ceiling. Its kind of hard to explain, so I will just let yall figure it out as I post pics of it developing. This week we collected all of the plush we could find and have starting making pods for each of the animals to sit in. So far we have found about 140 plush toys.
Great weekend. This Saturday was 'YoYo Greensboro' where everyone dressed up and walked downtown with glow-in-the-dark yoyos. We handed out yoyos to the Greensboro people and they joined in our march. Elsewhere does a lot of projects that try to involve the city and I get the feeling that some are more successful then others. I think this one worked out pretty well though - there were a lot of people marching that I had never seen before.
That night Tiffany(our fellow artist resident), Mike, Jess and I went to the new Star Trek movie dressed in appropriate Star Trek attire. The movie, especially Spock, was awesome.
While Mike was here he helped us on the first mini-project Jessie and I have been working on. There is this big shelf in our room with all these plastic toys on it. We took down all the toys, photographed them, and then put them back up on the shelf in a different way. This rearranging and documentation cycle happens frequently at elsewhere and we were treating it as an experimentation.
Lastly, Mike figured out something amazing...
Yesterday was our first full day and it was indeed full. Jess and I went to the Y and got our exercise/shower on, then we started a little bit of work on our room. We tented the bed and started taking down all the toys on the toy shelf in our room so we can document for the database and then put them back up on the shelf in a more sensable fashion.
That night Elsehwere had a muscical event in collaboration with the piano shop a few doors down. They performed Vexations - which is basically this extremely boring song played 840 times back to back. They are still playing it as I am posting this video...maybe 20 hours in? They will hopefully finish later tonight. There was a lot of people here last night, but now its just like one or two people lazily listening. All the elsewhere people dressed up for the party - I kept it cool with an eye patch and a sweet vest. Maybe I'll go a little more crazy next time.
Today, along with the continued Vexation performance, we worked on the small garden outside as part of Elsewhere's urban green project. I helped put down this cement/beer bottle wall that surrounds the garden. After that we worked some more on the toy shelf in the room. Hopefully we will finish that action tomorrow - with the help of our first guest! Miiiiiiiikeeee Chriiiiiiiiistaaaaatoooooossss!!!
Michael Townsend, from Tape Art, is staying at Elsewhere (leaving tomorrow) and doing installations with his two collaborators around Greensboro. So Jessie and I got to know the city a little better by walking to his pieces around town. They do these large scale tape drawings - they are very epic. Before dinner we got to listen to Michael give a talk about his work and his process and he showed some of his other work as well - which was amazing. I think we are going to be exposed to a lot of incredible artists during our stay at Elsewhere. More pics of his work on my flickr.
Jessie and I also got to start working on our room. We have this huge shelf of all these toys in our room and we brought in tons of fabric that we are hanging from the ceiling. I'll show some pics tomorrow of our progress. A very good first day, and I am excited to get into things tomorrow.
I(billy) am more apt to living virtually while Jess prefers "real life", so most of the posts to come will be authored by me. But I will be recording what Jessie and I are both doing and experiencing here at Elsewhere. We leave in three days for Greensboro to start the residency, with Jess currently in Rome and me finishing up school. Much excitement and anticipation from the both of us.
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