Getting Closer!

Today we formalized our invitation as a clas for our group exhibition. This culminating event for graduation will be held in May, and the install begins late April. Here is the image of our postcard for the exhibit. Not to brag, but the Concept and image were my idea. I'm really just glad that we didn't have our faces all over the thing. Its not really suppose to be about us, but rather the artwork.

If you are in the LA area, or are able to get out of town to visit, I do hope you can join me for this event.

Opening: Pulse and Parcel

This year I had my first solo-show opening at Side Street Projects in Pasadena, CA. The install took me about 2 weeks to complete, totally around 40 hours. This is definitely one of my most ambitious projects to date, and the largest as far as scale and conceptual scope. All that said, the opening was also a success. The afternoon opening of about 30 people brought people from different communities together for a two hour window of parcel claiming and spatial engagement.

My 28th Birthday

This year for my birthday was vastly different than last year, as I was heavily consumed with my first solo-show opening at Side Street Projects. There are 3 pieces featured there, including a 3/4 acres outdoor installation that will remain up for 1.5 months. This installation was very time consuming and a new feat for me. I did however, take the day off of installing for my birthday, but did spend most of the day at school in class.

At the end of the day I came home to my awesome partner in life that had a home-made cake waiting. To continue the celebratory feel, we went to a local wine and tapas restaurant called Brix in Silver Lake, CA. After sampling a few flavors and some wine we headed back home to cut into the cake, opening some presents and rest a little before the next day started again.

This birthday I gave myself one of the best birthday gifts, a successful opening!

Update - Thesis & Work

It's been a long time since I have updated here, but it needed to be done. I am now in my last semester at Otis and working on my thesis project entitled, "Pulse & Parcel."


This is Side Street Projects, the place that I have been working as the Community Programs Manager and Alternative Routes Teacher. I am also been allowed to execute my community component and sculptural land component at the sight.


Here is a detail of the flagging tape that I am using to demarcate an individual plot.


This is a photo of a test plot. I am trying out the materials to see how they hold up to weather.

More updates to come!

Thanksgiving 2010

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to spend it together. Between the both of us being in school, we haven't had real quality time together. It was a real treat to get out of the motorcycle and head up to our favorite little spot: Morro Bay. We weren't able to get a room at our usual hotel, so we opted for another, pricey place and decided to only stay one night. We drove up Thanksgiving day, encountered a little traffic on the coast, but made it by 3pm. After checking into the hotel we changed and headed out to our favorite little wine shop for a tasting, where I had a great Beaujolais. Next to dinner at Windows on the Water, where we had a front row seat to the sunset. It was very romantic and the food was great!


the sunset during dinner


the view from our hotel balcony


Ready to ride back home!

Halloween 2010

This year for Halloween James andn I dressed up as gnomes. I didn't get a photo of the both of us, but here is a photo of just me. We went to a friend's house for a party. We also baked 2 large pumpkins, and picked our pumpkins from Cal Poly's pumpkin patch again this year.

My Costume:


We also went to a dog costume at our neighborhood dog park in Silver Lake, CA.


Good Times!

Back to School...and Work!

Months have gone by since I swore up and down that I was moving on from Otis and not going to finish my MFA. Well, over the summer I spent my time job searching and interviewing for the few jobs out there. It was scary times, and while I got real close to a few jobs, it was a lot of rejection.

It was down to a week away from when school would have been starting for me, and I had just had an awesome interview with a really cool arts education non-profit in Pasadena. I had pulled out all the stops for this interview and felt really good about it. After a couple of days without hearing back, I started feeling bad about leaving another program, and felt like I just wanted this degree for what ever reason, that I couldn't explain or quantify.

I talked to my program director and somehow had convinced her into giving me more scholarship money and accepting all of my transfer credits. That means I would only need to take 4 more classes to finish this degree. Finally I heard from the job that they had hired someone else, someone that had just graduated from my program. This really made the decision for me, and with the new deal I had worked out with the school, I was going back, just like that. Months worth of stress and laboring over decisions, how to make decisions and utter denial was all resolved in 3 days. Sometimes time fixes things.

In going back to school, I was able to convince this non-profit, to create a position for me, and hire me on part-time. They would partially be paying me through my work-study. So going back to school actually gave me a job. At least I won't risk spending a year job searching and can finish this degree--part-time at that!

I am also still planning to apply to 2 graduate programs this year for the following year. One is in Urban Planning, and could be finished part-time while I start working. The other is a full-time program in Public Health. I realized that no one job path/degree is going to give me what I'm looking for. So the plan is that I will do both. Create a professional option where I can make money in an ethically responsible way and fund my own artwork.

This is of course only the plan for now, and I am open to new opportunities and change, so only time will tell, but I'm looking forward and enjoying the present.