I love this picture:
Massimo took it. He edited it one way. I edited it another. I combined our edits in layers using Photoshop. I think the blend is perfect.
I love Molly. It sucks that Bickett Gallery closed, but I know she’ll do many more great things.
Kristin has submitted her first post as MBTA writer for Bostonist. I’m so proud! She’s perfect. PERFECT! And she is working with (ish) Jon, another close friend and ones of my favorite people. Yay! This is my favorite line from the post:
Finally, passengers managed to catch a conductors’ attention by banging on windows, shouting and pressing their sad little faces against the glass.
Haha!
I went to Artsplosure yesterday and participated in the Seeing Beyond Sight Challenge. This means that I put on a blindfold and walked around the art festival with a guide (Tom, a Flickr friend) and took pictures of items on a list (non-human animal, something with an odor, self-portrait, a family, etc.). It’s an exercise that was created by Tony Deifell. he has a book of photographs taken by blind teenagers.
It may sound odd, but it was a great experience to help you to understand what it is like to not have use of your vision. It forces you to rely on other sense completely. I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I think I’m a very sound-oriented person. Not that this is surprising to me. I also found myself relying upon smell a lot. Touch was probably third. Vision still played a part, because I knew immediately when I was moving from sun to shade. Families were really easy to locate because of their unique sounds: baby stroller wheels on the pavement, children’s voices, and Mother-ease.
One thing I did notice most was that I was pretty able to just trust that Tom wasn’t going to let me hurt myself, so I just walked ahead… certainly smaller steps than normal, but not fearful as I might have thought. When Tom tried to tell me about what I was approaching, I asked him to stop. I mostly wanted information about when I’d need to turn to avoid banging into someone or if I had to step up on a curve. If you click on any of the individual pictures in the slideshow that follows, I describe my experience of taking them. I think the dog and the Cigar Man are my favorite.
I ran into some people while leading Tom around who were totally cheating! They were younger girls. The girl who was leading kept telling the blindfolded girl exactly when to click and what she was approaching. The blindfolded girl actually pulled her blindfold up while we were with her!
I really enjoyed myself, and I like the pictures I took a lot. The inventor of the challenge was there. It was nice meeting him. Hopefully, I’ll get a chance to see his talk at Quail Ridge Books on Tuesday.
I’m also using this post as a chance to try out a new slide show tool for Flickr pictures. It seems very nifty and easy to use. We’ll see.
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Update: Well, that slideshow totally didn’t work! Click on the picture of me and Tony to be brought to the slideshow!
From the Lovely Molly of Bickett Gallery:
Dear Bickett Gallery patrons,
This is the last weekend at Bickett Gallery. I hope that you will be able to attend at least one of our events. They are all going to be very special. We will be celebrating the gallery with multimedia events, food and drinks. Please stop by and enjoy!
Friday, May 18th
Renay Aumiller and Bickett Gallery present “I Bickett Fluently” a multi-media collaboration featuring independent choreographers, musicians and writer Eric Amling, who will read from his new work. Presenters are from Raleigh, Greensboro , Chicago, and Louisville , Kentucky. I Bickett Fluently consists of six works from active members of North Carolina’s dance world, as well as Laura Chiaramonte, a Chicago-based dancer. Cost is $6. Doors open at 8pm with the performance beginning at 9pm.
Saturday, May 19th
Bickett Gallery presents a night of melodic Indy music featuring Zachary Gresham of the critically acclaimed Athens Ga. band, The Summer Hymns, Raleigh’s Bowerbirds, who performed first at Bickett Gallery and has just released a new record, under Raleigh label BurleyTime Records, The Never of Chapel Hill (Trekky Records) and Deleted Scenes from Washington, DC . Doors open at 7pm. Performances begin at 8pm. Cost is $7.
Sunday, May 20th
Bickett Gallery will have an extended day event opening at 4pm. The afternoon will begin with a screening of Who Gets to Call it Art? a film by Peter Rosen about curator Henry Geldzahler, The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s first contemporary art curator.
Featuring Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock, Larry Poons and many more mid-century visual artists. The film also features The Velvet Underground. The film depicts the New York art scene of the 1960’s and the man who made it POP! Screening is at 5pm.
Performances by a number of local musicians will begin in the evening. Charles Latham, *Sons, Heads on Sticks, Monologue Bombs among others will play. 7pm. Cost: $7
