the world at large

culture shock.

2007-08-27T00:57:00.001+01:00

dear america i have a few questions:

why do you drive such big cars?

why is transit such a lonely task?

why don't you know who Herman Düne is?

why isn't your public transportation more efficient?

why doesn't the word 'artist' mean anything to you?

why is there always traffic on the roads?

why don't you know who your neighbors are?

why are guns so accessible?

why isn't the government afraid of the people?

why aren't there more dielects from town to town?

why is cereal so expensive?

why do the shops close so early except for safeway?

why don't you walk more often?

sincerely,
sierra stinson

Road Trip in Southern England.

2007-08-02T18:33:00.000+01:00

It began with a simple idea, to explore the south of the Queens Land by stealing goods when needed and having picnics where it's beautiful and they don't charge you an entrance fee.

in a little red car with one driver

and enthusiasm.

We documented everything.

like sunsets...

sleeping in transit.

pete.

cornish pasty love.

boats.

claire.

Your average campsite poses.

St. Ives

campsite playground.

LandsEnd, where you can stand next to a sign that tells you how far away New York is. We went after hours and found out that they lock up the sign to avoid theft but it usually is on this white post pointing in the same direction, i think.

A wall of fridges and magnets at the Eden project that took us ages to spell our names, because kids kept stealing my 'a' to spell their own name. Like they were more important than us.

The Eden Project: worlds largest green house and mixed message project. They tell you how bad soy is for the environment then give you a free sample of soy milk.

Stonehenge: It costs you 6 pounds to get beyond this fence, luckily i had a historic card and i got in free. Bastards, making you pay for something you can already see. it's not like they put those stones there.

...the road home.

Venice Biennale

2007-08-02T17:56:00.000+01:00

I went to Berlin but only took photos in film therefore I have no documentation to share with y'all. However I have some photos from when I joined my friends Caroline, Ric and Steve in Venice to attend the Biennale. It was cheaper for me to fly there then take a train to Kessel or Munster, Germany where two other art events were taking place.

steve

caroline

ric

This can be a bit overwhelming but i wanted to share just some of the highlights of what we saw at the Biennale, it makes ya wonder "what the hell would you do?"

Jen and my grand U.K./Ireland Trip

2007-08-02T17:47:00.000+01:00

Click here for photos of our adventure

Argyle Street.

2007-07-12T19:31:00.000+01:00

It's nice to have abandoned buildings to break into and take photos of.
Yes, an art student cliché but still a joy in my life...

Apologies

2007-07-12T11:55:00.000+01:00

I have to apologize for not posting anything recently. I began to work strictly in film therefore I have not had any digital pictures to post. However I will have some soon because my sister and I traveled around and took lots of photos so I will find a way of sharing them soon.

much love~

firenze.

2007-04-18T11:01:00.000+01:00

Blair and Joey were in Italy so I took a weekend trip over to see the two native northern californians. We ate gelato and jabbered as we wandered around the streets of florence. It was good to see the two of them, they told me my accent has changed so we will see how long it takes me when i return to california and begin using words like "hella" or "dude"...anyways here are some photos.

joey and the leaning tower of pisa

blair with his dual lip pearcing action

Dad and Woody's visit

2007-04-10T10:14:00.000+01:00

I got two lovely visitors for my three week holiday and we trecked all over this island and that island. From Galway, Ireland to London then up to Dingwall, Scotland and all around the highlands. They lucked out on the weather because it was sunny and beuatiful for all three weeks. Here are photos that both Dad, Woody and I took so I can't take much credit for them. I took lots of video footage and left my digital camera at home in order to take more 35mm footage.

Stone Circle at the Isle of Arran.

The cliffs of Moher, Ireland.

Natalies home in Peckham.

Dad and I at the doors of Westminster Abby.

Woody and I in our usual poses.

The boys.

Ben, Woody and I.

The Natural History Museum in London.

That fish we thought was extinct...well it is now.

An Owl.

Driving Shots.

The north coast of Scotland

Your average highland cow.

The Isle of Skye

I took them to the Necropolis in Glasgow which I thought Woody would really enjoy, here are some of the photos he took there.

Uncle Sam followed us.

We took a day trip down to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in order to see a large scale installation by Andy Goldsworthy, of course they wouldn't allow us to take any pictures, i took this shot without anyone noticing...

This was James Turrell's ‘skyspace’

The beautiful drive home.

okay okay.

2007-03-26T10:15:00.000+01:00

I've completely left everyone out of the loop for some time, my apologies but currently I have to run to my last day at work and will write again soon.

much love.
me

interference.

2007-03-05T11:45:00.000Z

this is an image of one of the forms my video titled "occidental" took part in the 3rd year environmental art/sculpture exhibition. Usually it was projected onto the white wall but Ric Warren's piece "We Have Moved" was constantly moving for the duration of the show and this was a mere moment in which our two works interacted with one another.

belated photos

2007-03-05T11:37:00.000Z

asking for directions

walking out a door.

natalie's living room

my mom took the long flight over to visit me for three weeks. It was the first time I had seen her since May...she looked so beautiful and happy.

sleeping well.

2007-01-24T11:07:00.000Z

Today I received four emails that made me melt into the swivel chair I am currently sitting on in the library. One person was seeing the light in art and it's connection to why we are artists, the other was floating around learning new lessons for the first time, and the third was adjusting to a big transition in their every day. I continue to understand the parallels between my friends and myself, even if we are across the world, immersed in separate realities.

I've realized a lot these past few days, in the fact that it is always best to just be honest with individuals about your perception of them and in being yourself around them. I find this a difficult thing to do at moments when I first am getting to know people, to understand how to continue to be me. It's a funny thought but something I have to do. I also am finding this public art project to be very hard, i hate to admit that but it is causing me a lot of stress and everyday i find it a challenge. However it's also new and exciting, i feel that the individuals within my course are all very interesting and I have something to learn from each of them. I no longer feel like the exchange student outcast that I was last term, ha!

anyways, this Saturday Claire and I have decided to have a mustache party in celebration of our birthdays, she will be 20 and I will be 22. I never thought that would happen, (getting to this age) but at least I am here and feel like I've accomplished quite a bit. I am in love with the world and each individual I am friends with, and those I haven't even met yet. There is so much to learn and many more to connect with, which is part of the reason I am here now. So yeah, I'm breathing so I guess all is well~

Joanna Newsom- Sawdust And Diamonds

2007-01-15T02:13:00.000Z

From the top of the flight
Of the wide, white stairs
Through the rest of my life
Do you wait for me there?

There's a bell in my ears
There's a wide white roar
Drop a bell down the stairs
Hear it fall forevermore

Drop a bell off of the dock
Blot it out in the sea
Drowning mute as a rock;
Sounding mutiny

There's a light in the wings
Hits this system of strings
From the side while they swing;
See the wires, the wires, the wires

And the articulation
In our elbows and knees
Makes us buckle as we couple in endless increase
As the audience admires

And the little white dove
Made with love, made with love:
Made with glue, and a glove, and some pliers

Swings a low sickle arc
From its perch in the dark
Settle down
Settle down my desire

And the moment I slept I was swept up in a terrible tremor
Though no longer bereft, how I shook and I couldn't remember

Then the furthermost shake drove a murdering stake in
And cleft me right down through my center
And I shouldn't say so, but I know that it was then, or never

Push me back into a tree
Bind my buttons with salt
Fill my long ears with bees
Praying: please, please, please,
Love, you ought not!
No you ought not!

Then the system of strings tugs on the tip of my wings
(cut from cardboard and old magazines)
Makes me warble and rise like a sparrow
And in the place where I stood, there is a circle of wood
A cord or two, which you chop and you stack in your barrow

It is terribly good to carry water and chop wood
Streaked with soot, heavy booted and wild-eyed;
As I crash through the rafters
And the ropes and pulleys trail after
And the holiest belfry burns sky-high

Then the slow lip of fire moves across the prairie with precision
While, somewhere, with your pliers and glue you make your first incision
And in a moment of almost-unbearable vision
Doubled over with the hunger of lions
'Hold me close', cooed the dove
Who was stuffed, now, with sawdust and diamonds

I wanted to say: why the long face?
Sparrow, perch and play songs of long face
Burro, buck and bray songs of long face!
Sing: I will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay
Just to lift your long face

And though it may be madness, I will take to the grave
Your precious longface
And though our bones they may break, and our souls separate
- why the long face?
And though our bodies recoil from the grip of the soil
- why the long face?

In the trough of the waves
Which are pawing like dogs
Pitch we, pale-faced and grave,
As I write in my log

Then I hear a noise from the hull
Seven days out to sea
And it is the damnable bell!

And it tolls - well, I believe, that it tolls - for me!
It tolls for me!

Though my wrists and my waist seemed so easy to break
Still, my dear, I would have walked you to the very edge of the water
And they will recognise all the lines of your face
In the face of the daughter of the daughter of my daughter

Darling, we will be fine, but what was yours and mine
Appears to be a sandcastle that the gibbering wave takes
But if it's all just the same, then will you say my name:
Say my name in the morning, so I know when the wave breaks?

I wasn't born of a whistle or milked from a thistle at twilight
No, I was all horns and thorns, sprung out fully formed, knock-kneed and upright
So: enough of this terror
We deserve to know light
And grow evermore lighter and lighter
You would have seen me through
But I could not undo that desire

Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh desire
Oh-oh, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh desire

From the top of the flight
Of the wide, white stairs
Through the rest of my life
Do you wait for me there

some recent drawings...

2006-12-30T17:51:00.000Z

just thought i should share a little bit of my doodling with y'all.

All Done.

2006-12-12T13:30:00.000Z

Fall term is officially over.

It's nice to be finished with all that fun stuff and now that I feel adjusted to Glasgow and the structure of this school I feel a bit more prepared for the projects coming up next term such as a public art project and possibly being placed in a professional practice for a little bit.

I am completely delayed on creating presents for everyone back home but I trust that eventually when my gifts arrive they will hopefully be worth the wait. It's actually really nice to be spending a holiday away from "home." I love my family dearly and will miss them but I've come to an understanding of knowing that you don't necessarily have to be present for people to know you care about them. I feel an unconditional love towards them and that is what matters. On thanksgiving I had the most beautiful conversations with my sister, brother and mom. I felt like we were so present with one another and there was such a strong connection it made me so happy to hear their voices and what they are up to on the other side of this world.

For my assessment I presented several videos that were each stage of my adjustment since I arrived in Glasgow, the first being escapism; spending hours on the computer attempting to make contact with everyone back home.
The 2nd one being displacement; everything seemed to be disconnected and at odds with one another, i felt like i didn't know necessarily what i was doing here it took me some time to find a balance and for things to resonate.
The third stage was connection, where I met certain individuals I could open up to and they taught me so much, including showing me around this city and helping me find myself here. Through this I was inspired to create and eventually have an emotional shift in the way I was going about living here.
My final piece, which was the 4th video was my 3-channel installation that I used for my critical feedback session. It was a reflection of my travels and all that I have taken in since I departed from the States in May, each channel conversed with one another through visuals that were sped up and slowed down, disconnected from their own audio tracks and eventually creating an atmosphere of time passing without one single narrative, drifting along and ending with a recording of the call to prayer that I heard five times a day when I was in Turkey. I am satisfied with what I created within this term but it all is still a work in progress. I have much to learn and many ideas to eventually do something about.

Well, I've rambled on long enough about my past creations.
love and cheers,
s.s.

morganlove.

2006-12-01T23:25:00.000Z

thanks to the postman i don't get to listen to it.
but it's still art.

paris photos

2006-11-12T00:51:00.000Z

Finally here are the photos from my excursion to Paris during reading week with several of my friends.

we woke up bright and early to see the sunrise from the plane.

finnola and all of us reflected in her glasses.

nina and the sunlight

art i witnessed and became a part of...

La Tour Eiffel

the earth at a tilt

the moon

abstracted by a tree

The Louvre

wandering.

clowns.

the flight home...

2:48AM

2006-11-11T02:57:00.000Z

current:
listening to "Something Vague" (by Bright Eyes)
happy with dinner (homemade chili)
looking forward to tomorrow (technically today)
feeling productive (wrote three letters)
questioning everything (and always will)
thinking about wonderful conversations (with claire)
pondering (what to do with myself)
listening (to life)

indeed.

intuitions.

2006-10-28T14:49:00.000+01:00

why are things so confusing?
I woke up today to the strong sense that I should stay in Glasgow instead of taking the bus to london, therefore I got ready and pondered as i stood in my room contemplating leaving or not...then i decided to stay.
So here I am.
Now what?
I've been creating and writing, It feels good to sort out the things in my head. Heres a little bit of what I've wrote about my process and what I am exploring in my art...let me know what you think of it. Writing isn't my specialty, i would rather draw about it but articulating is alo very good.

"I feel that the more I glean the more I decipher what this puzzle is that I am in. That is the common thread in my art that you asked about. So in order to understand these words I listed I need to look up their definitions and then find my connection to them, what they mean to me and the difference in how they are related or not related to the association...my work has been very personal and introspective lately and I feel the need to reflect that. I want to have a conversation with the audience and reflect that within the multiple channels. I feel what would make my work successful is if I stay true to life as my living art, therefore what I create is a byproduct of what I am living and how that is expressed. It is all a reflection and by working every day on my work and myself they fuel one another and learn from one another. To understand synchronicities and what I am drawn to, what I glean and where things illuminate."

reminiscent.

2006-10-22T20:19:00.000+01:00

Said "hello" to the ocean yesterday..
Claire and I danced our hearts out last night.
Today was my third day in a row of going to Tchai Ovna and drinking tea.
Visiting with Nina's mom made me miss my own.
Made a postcard and wrote two letters that took me three days to finish.
Spoke to my dad today, it was calming and familiar.
Tomorrow I am going to begin editing all of the video footage that I have gleaned over the past five months.
Began writing down everything that seems significant.
Constantly learning and listening to the tides of life.

Excursion to Ayr.

2006-10-22T19:52:00.000+01:00

October 13th, 14th and 15th.

2006-10-16T12:33:00.000+01:00

-burrito night (a success!)
-coronas and lime (perfect w/ burritos)
-harold and maude (introduced it to 4 more people)
-good people (in glasgow)
-naps (upside down in bed)
-pedro almodovar book (about a porn star)
-7 drawings (3 good ones)
-search for paddy's market (not open sundays)
-mono veggie burger (soooo good)
-the peoples palace (comforting)
-red toy airplane (childhood memories)
-the barras market (belt buckles)
-search for shoes (no money)
-eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (amazing again)
-peepshow (brilliant and creepy)

my flatmates

2006-10-10T02:23:00.000+01:00

These are candid shots of the five people i live with.

Greig

Finnola

Pete

Tash

Kyle on the right

weekend.

2006-10-09T14:33:00.000+01:00

This weekend consisted of the following:

a posh/tramp party (i was posh)
dancing (on sticky floors)
me telling off sleazy eastern europeans who were hitting on my drunk flat-mate. (i was bigger then them)
free pasta (from the guys who saw me tell off the sleazy men)
late night walking (including conversations with strangers)
breakfast at a place called Chocolate Soup. (basically giant bowls of hot chocolate, amazing.)
losing people on the bus (we are all here now)
being made fun of consistently for my "american" accent.(it just seems to never get old)
watching a band from S.F. at an art venue/vegan restaurant/pub/record store. (all in one!)

sitting.

2006-10-09T01:17:00.000+01:00

1:36AM

2006-10-05T01:44:00.000+01:00

I feel like creating.

seattle born painting student and norwegian architect student smoking.

Olympia to Seattle.

2006-10-02T10:18:00.000+01:00

So I've been missing Seattle and Olympia a lot lately and then brendan sent me this link. Check it out, I've done this drive possibly over a hundred times. Honestly.

Footage of the Drive From Olympia to Seattle in 1988

Saturday.

2006-10-01T00:38:00.000+01:00

-went to the market (bought cheap fruit)
-made burritos for flatmates (success)
-walked everywhere (it was a pretty day)
-used my tote to carry everything i purchased. (Im trying to not use plastic bags for anything any more)
-did research (watched The Work of Directors)
-read a little bit (about Doug Aitken and Shirin Neshat)

this is what i look like lately...sort of.

2006-10-01T00:21:00.002+01:00

not so serious of course, that's my picture face.

My first taste of Scotland.

2006-09-27T11:47:00.000+01:00

the edinburgh castle, with constructions after the fringe festival.

some poor elks head that was in one of the Queens many homes.

the famous william wallace

and some decapitation

a piper

Tim photographing sheep

My homestay Family
Margaret MacDonald and Patty

stairway to heaven

pictures finally!

2006-09-26T14:26:00.000+01:00

GRAHAM HUDSON, artist in residence Installation in London

for more info on Hudson

yeah, this was cool. Ever seen that Pink Floyd Album? Well here is the album, my picture is from a different angle but the building is the same one.

a vegetarian on a meat eating island.

2006-09-20T16:25:00.000+01:00

Hello my loved ones,
It’s been a little while since I dropped a line. Everyone seems to be settled in back in the states, my family is adjusting to each of their new homes. My mom is living out in the hills of Forestville in a home where she can relax and paint, my dad is living in Cotati with his fiancée and her daughter, my brother is living with friends in Santa Rosa and my sister is living in Portland while teaching 3rd grade in Washington. This is the longest I have gone without seeing all of them. I have been in London for the past month living with Natalie and Ben, the lovely ones I met first while couch surfing. They made me feel at home and I enjoyed every moment with them. It’s funny how thanks to the Internet you end up really making friends for life. They are the most loving couple I have ever been around and every conversation we had I learned from. It was a tough limbo period of this trip to just wander around London with nothing that I had to do but I felt that London taught me so much and it will always be one of my homes.

During this last week I met up with the Arcadia University Study Abroad Program in Edinburgh. We stayed at The Carlton and I met five others going to Aberdeen and GSA, all of us from the states. I represented the west coast. Everyone else was from the South, East and Midwest. All of them very nice, I became friends with two guys Tim and August, both are attending GSA. We were set up with a home stay in Sterling, Scotland. The boys got a lovely older couple and I had a woman named Margaret. She was 76 and wonderful, but she couldn’t seem get over the fact that I didn’t eat meat. She even tried to offer me a keesh with bacon bits inside it. But then she realized that vegetarian meant you just don’t eat anything that ever had a head except for a head of lettuce. She was really wonderful and spoiled me. I learned all about her life born and raised in Sterling. We also did touristy things and I got to see the Told Town Jail (with an enthusiastic performance), The Sterling Castle and the William Wallace Monument. Apparently, they hate the movie Braveheart here. Apparently Wallace was 6ft 7in and they were ashamed of Mel Gibson being cast the part. I got to see the original battle sword and it was longer then I am. I was impressed by the giant dents it had.

And now I am here, in Glasgow, finally. I’m living in the student housing with five other people, three girls and two boys. They are all nice and one is from Southern California, but I am the oldest of the bunch. I have spent the past few days wandering around Glasgow and journeying through the Famous Mackintosh Building, the main building for Glasgow School of Art. It is beautiful and if you don’t know who Charles Rennie Mackintosh is, you should look him up because his architecture was beyond his time (born in 1868) and absolutely amazing. He collaborated with his wife Margaret Macdonald, her sister Frances and her husband Herbert McNair. Their work is like a mixture from Japan and European Art Nouveau to traditional Scottish Architecture. The Glasgow School of Art is considered his masterpiece. I plan on taking lots of photos to share with you.

Today I went to the Necropolis, which is a large old graveyard on the largest hill in Glasgow. I took a few pictures and some video footage; it was so beautiful and comforting. It was nice to just sit above the city with all of the elder souls looking down at the traffic and listening to the noises of the world moving around. I felt miles from nowhere and yet in the middle of it all…much love to all of you.

Cheers,
Sierra

goodbye london

2006-09-10T14:06:00.000+01:00

well last night i had a big farewell night out in London.

I will return of course, but for now I'm heading up to the Northern Country to go to school and create.

Natalie and Ben, my current roommates who took me into their home with open arms last night decided we needed to go out and get "pissed"....well, that's basically what we did but in a way I didn't imagine. London always has surprises up it's sleeve for the nights out. We began the night at a five story bar where each room had something different going on including loud DJ music, live blues and just drunk people making out downstairs. Sara and I got ciders and yelled over the loud music while everyone else did the same with their drink of choice. Then we all decided to move on to a place where there would be dancing because Natalie really wanted to dance. So we headed over to a club that had the longest que outside, wrapped around the building, it didn't look promising for us to get in when one of Ben's friend Johnny and his sister said that we could jump the que because they are on the guest list. I had never encountered anything like this before but it actually worked perfectly. We ended up being let in right away, after they checked our bags and took my water bottle (bastards). Then we entered the crazy club and danced, well I sort of "mock danced" to the silly music and everyone standing around looking cool. We got more drinks and before we knew it Sara and I were drunk...and we had a lot of fun. After the horrible band "I am Insect" began to perform we all decided it was time to leave. We soon found ourselves wondering the streets, our troop now consisted of six of us, we had lost two or more in transit. We found ourselves at the infamous restaurant Belle Italia, known for being open 24 hours where we ate food to sober up. Took the bus home and rambled into our unconcsious worlds....it was wonderful.

On My Way

2006-09-08T16:47:00.000+01:00

Well, in a few Days I'm on my way up to Scotland to meet up with the abroad group and then get settled into Glasgow into student housing(eek!). We will see how it works out, apparently I will be living in a flat with five other people, we share the living room and kitchen but I get my own bathroom...I've never lived in anything like that before so I'm a little anxious. However I am really looking forward to creating finally!

Morgan has asked me to collaborate with her on a documentary for her video class at Cornish so I will be taking footage of Glasgow, Scotland, and the locals there while she gleans footage from Seattle and surrounding areas then we will see what happens when we combine our perspectives. I always really enjoy working with her on projects so this is going to be a different experience since we are doing long distance.
I also am working on creating a CD cover for Ben's demo that he just recorded back in Olympia. Just something small to be photocopied in order to fold into a sleeve to hold the CD. So I'm actually pretty busy which is refreshing, I was getting pretty bored for a little bit without anything to do and no motivation. Once School begins it's going to be overwhelming but after last night I can't wait to be making some videos. Natalie's friend Annike Bosma shared all of her videos with me and they were very inspirational. I also shared all of my work with her from this past year and she gave me some really great feedback on them. I also began to think about how I use language. She was from Holland so English is not her first language, therefor when watching some of my videos she was lost because she didn't understand everything being said, that made me think about how I would really like to play with that idea of language and make it easier for people all over the world to understand even if there are words...and such. I don't know if that makes sense but it was a thought and might be a direction to take in the future...

24 hour clock

2006-09-04T00:39:00.000+01:00

I had been a little sick for the past few days when my lovely roommates Natalie and Ben dragged me out of the house yesterday to go to a small gallery opening with a number of artists who did works in helium balloons. The who was somewhat dissappointing(the artist's didn't think about the weight of the objects placed inside the floating balloons) although there was a nice one that I took photo of.

We ate free cake and met up with Ben's fellow graduates of the art school Saint Martins where we, along with everyone else in the gallery was led by a man with a lit up green wand to a hidden venue of sorts that was supposed to be close by for the afterparty. It turned into a 45 minute walk throughindustrial areas, around a park, through some locks for the river and into a hidden warehouse next to a canal.

The afterparty consisted of cheap beer, projected videos, loud usa/european music from the 80's, a strip show of a woman who was wearing pink valour and lots of art students dancing. It was fun and rediculous. I met lots of people including an unrelenting boy you said i should couchsurf on his couch, luckily natalie told him to leave me alone and then told their friend Hendrik to buy me a beer. Hendrik was a nice guy and what began as just a beer ended with me being deserted by my friends natalie and ben and leaving me in south london with him to make sure i was safe and had a place to stay(you gotta love friends).

Normally this wouldn't be a situation that I was okay with but I knew that Hendrik was a good person, he wasn't trying to get with me and we just got along so I felt safe. We ended up rambling through the streets with several other graduates, one who looks like Albert Einstein, one who was from the states and getting married in order to stay in the U.K. and others who I never got their names or stories. After our long ramble into the city and to our bus stops I had decided that I could stay at Hendrik's given there was a spare room. (This wasn't the first time I've had to do this in London) So we end up in his giant flat that happens to be on the River Thames, his parents bought it for him and his brother to live in.(lucky) So I drank tea, ate honey for my throat and passed out around 5am.

Today I awoke around noon to the boats going up the river. I ended up looking at all of Hendriks photography (which was beautiful) and wandering around yet another part of london I've never been to. He showed me a gallery space that I have to show work at. It is my dream home-Morgan, you would love it.

the photographs were interesting and the space was amazing, we wandered around and i just got more and more ideas for a show of my own.

Afterwards we went to the oldest pub in London, and ate some food while watching a little blonde girl wearing a bright yellow t-shirt, flourescent green fairy skirt and pink sandels dance around her parents. By the time I got home it was 6PM, exactly 24 hours since I had left the house. A lovely day/night/day it was.

Art.

2006-09-01T17:19:00.000+01:00

In the past few days I've wandered around London looking at the exhibitions. I went to the Tate Modern to see french artist Pierre Huyghe's first solo exhibit in the U.K. "Celebration Park" It consisted of 10 rooms with installations including neon signs, film, architecture, and posters. What was exceptional about this show was the fact that he had chosen to present an integrated installation of new and recent work rather than a conventional retrospective.

There were a lot of references to things I have been thinking about lately like "Modern Times" which is the title of Bob Dylans new album and Charlie Chaplins old film(one of my favorites)which examines the organization of labour under capitalism. In Pierre's case he had a giant neon sign I do not own Modern Times Which could also invoke how we use and divide time, or set aside free time, in modern capalist culture.

One of his videos titled This is not a time for dreaming tells two parallel stories, one historical and one contemporary, which unfolds together as a single puppet show. It made me want to really try puppetry. Here are some photos of the exhibit that i gleaned from the internet. They can explain more then I can through words.

the artist and himself.

still from This is not a time for dreaming

these were GIANT revolving doors, they would dance around the room slowly. I found them to be quite beautiful and surreal.

Terra Incognita/Isla Ociosidad Topography of Idleness Island translated into data then used to create this structure and animatronic panguin.

still from film Streamside Day about a U.S. suburbs special day of celebration.

After that exhibit i went to a miniature exhibit held at the Jerwood space where one of the artist's Tessa Farmer took apart dead bugs and created whole worlds of them reconfigured into other creatures and fairies suspended out on birds and hedghogs.I had never seen something so fascinating, delicate, and small.

I cant wait to get back into school and begin creating...it's been too long.

Today.

2006-08-29T23:22:00.000+01:00

This morning I awoke and felt a little homesick.
I had a dream where I met up with my old friend Angie Wilson. (i've haven't seen her since sophomore year) and I really missed her when I woke up. Then I began to miss California and everyone there along with all of my other friends in the United State... but then I was reminded by an ad in TIMEOUT magazine that Michael Franti from Spearhead was performing for free at a place in London...so I went and felt right at home, with all of the hippies of london singing along to Michaels beautiful song including politics and love. I was brought back to San Francisco and Portland where have seen him perform before and realized how amazing it is that there are people just doing what they need to. My friend Sylvia is like that, she just went to Ghana and Burkina Faso because she had to go and document on her own what was going on there. Michael Franti did the same in Iraq. It brings me joy that people are that strong and compassionate. After I saw Michael Franti's performance I trusted my intuition and wandered towards where my friend Sara and Caitlin were staying in a hostel and sure enough i saw them across the street that I was walking down.
Sinchronicity always let's you know.

just in case

2006-08-22T14:07:00.000+01:00

if you have missed any of the posts just scroll down to the archives and click on any of the dates.

cheers.

Platform Art

2006-08-21T14:17:00.000+01:00

Platform for Art is London Underground's public art programme; designed to showcase and celebrate the art scene.

Chiho Aoshima
"City Glow, Mountain Whisper"
Gloucester Road Tube Station

St. Pauls Cathedral

2006-08-18T14:27:00.000+01:00

wonderland.

a visit to william blake

2006-08-17T19:57:00.000+01:00

playing some music for william

intertwined

sylvia

fragments of a giant piece of graffiti art

2006-08-17T19:52:00.000+01:00

Wandering around London

2006-08-17T19:37:00.000+01:00

jagged parliament

ben and big ben

an egg for parliament

how about six

the largest bicycle wheel in the world

the glorious dead

the one and only sphinx

Rainbow Gathering in the Yorkshire Dales

2006-08-17T19:27:00.000+01:00

Brittas Bay in Ireland

2006-08-17T19:19:00.000+01:00

stray photos.

2006-08-17T19:00:00.000+01:00

the stray cats of istanbul

a lovely stencil

our love with the universe is official

the last sunset we witnessed in turkey

facts.

2006-08-16T18:09:00.000+01:00

Glasgow (Glaschu in Gaelic; or Glesca in colloquial Scots) is the largest city in Scotland and the third largest in the United Kingdom after London and Birmingham; as well as being the most populous unitary authority area. It is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands. People from Glasgow are known as Glaswegians. Glaswegian is also the name of the local dialect of Scots, commonly known as the Glasgow Patter.

cooking.

2006-08-15T00:23:00.000+01:00

i've started cooking.
so far i've accomplished making soup.
split pea soup and potato/carrot/tomato soup.
for never having cooked much on my own these two were major accomplishments.

even ben was impressed. since he isn't going to be around for a year i need to learn how to cook my own healthy meals since i will be living in the home of the Haggis.

Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish. Although there are many recipes, it is normally made with the following ingredients: sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver, and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately an hour. It somewhat resembles stuffed intestines (pig intestines otherwise known as chitterlings), sausages and savoury puddings of which it is among the largest types.
yum!

but if you have any vegetarian recipes then send them my way and i will test it out because i don't want to eat this...

read them. i do.

2006-08-02T11:49:00.000+01:00

for anyone interested, i recommend these two blogs.

the little prince brendan ford-sala

miss dani saves the world

enjoy.

at the end of an adventure

2006-08-02T11:39:00.000+01:00

there is always a goodbye.

the bee keepers

2006-08-02T11:36:00.000+01:00

a human stuck inside a dogs body

2006-08-02T11:34:00.000+01:00

we made friends in the underground city

2006-08-01T20:48:00.000+01:00

the "american dream"

2006-08-01T20:42:00.000+01:00

how could we say no?

Göreme

2006-07-30T16:20:00.000+01:00

in search of a cave

home.

our eyes.

2006-07-30T16:19:00.000+01:00

ben.me.brendan.

The American Dream in a ditch in Turkiye

2006-07-30T16:14:00.000+01:00

Places we’ve slept and People we’ve met…
-overnight buses, to and from central turkey. Being sprayed with perfumed pine sol throughout the night, being served poor tea and worse coffee, yet still feeling pampered on the infamous Turkish bus lines.

-Caves, both official and unofficial. The official pension was in the town of göreme, which is the central town in Cappadocia, a cousin to the southwest of America. Giant mushroom shaped phallic rock formations and cliff sides with caves carved into them by 4th century Christians in the form of churches and living spaces. The entire city looks like it is out of the Flintstones, the first star wars movie desert scenes or like an elf city. The people were relievingly friendly and social compared to everywhere we have been so far. We journeyed out here to escape from the cities and to sleep under the stars and hear silence. In town there were many hotels/pensions that utilized the caves for tourism. Our first night we stayed in one which was nice but uneventful unless you count the small white poodle with uncannily human like eyes and an appearance much like the dog/dragon “falcor” from The Neverending Story. Ben had the strong suspicion that this dog was actually a human who had offended a witch or perhaps a fakir, who put a spell on him, casting him into the form of a dog. Unfortunately, after a short and inconclusive conversation, Ben realized that his attempts were futile, because the person probably wouldn’t have spoken English.
The second day we set in search for an uninhabited and therefore free cave to sleep in. It took all day wandering three valleys finding only boarded up caves, one which was a church filled with broken glass, another which was tainted by human excrement and another which Brendan’s imagination turned into a sacrificial alter. Finally towards the end of the day we found the perfect cave that was as close to vertical as we would’ve attempted to climb, in a mountainous rock. Home sweet home. A dusty floor, a crumbling roof that was a couple inches too short for Brendan and Ben’s (now bruised) poor heads, but it was a quiet and magical little place. We could see the stars through the round doorway, had shelter from the wind, as well as from the heat of day and cold of night, as the mighty rock remained stable between the extremes of temperature and the mosquitoes couldn’t find Sierra (she has a sever allergy to their bites). We’ve learned on this trip that mosquitoes have an uncanny ability to only bite Sierra, one morning she woke up with a swollen shuteye from an ambush in Istanbul. You will find photos on her blog along with pictures of the human/dog and the rest of our journeys. We found that the best Imam (the call to prayer) experience was out in the cave in the evennings it would echo through the valley and harmonize with itself.

-A car, a 1972 baby blue Ford Convertible. The American dream, slightly shrunken down for Europe. Ben and Brendan had their eyes on it ever since we arrived in Göreme. It winked at them so mysteriously every time they walked past its parking lot. So when we made the decision to stay a little longer, we found ourselves driving through Cappodocia in this dream vehicle, rented at a ridiculously cheap price, feeling as though we were riding on a cloud, if clouds were made of steel and rubber, and had a left turn signal that refused to stop blinking. And a spectacle we were driving through the little towns of central Turkey sticking out like…like… like three of kids riding through a rural Turkish town in a rented old convertible blasting Led Zeppelin and soaking in the dry mountainous landscape. We felt a little silly. But it was also really fun. We rode the dream to an underground city called Kimakli. 8 floors deep and was 4,000 years old, Kimakli was used in more recent eras by the people living above ground as a place to escape extreme weather and invaders. But nothing is really known about the original people who hollowed out these cities in stone, One of the benefits of this place are that it is extremely cool when it is hot outside, and warm when it is cold. In fact, we have been drinking fresh squeezed orange juice all of this time in Istanbul, and wondering where the hell good oranges are coming from at this time of year…it turns out that masses are stored in another nearby cave city, as the conditions inside create a natural refrigeration system, preserving oranges for up to four months longer then they would stay good above ground, without degrading the taste at all. It is said they actually become more flavorful over time. Brilliant.
Afterwards, we drove farther south to Ihlara Valley, which has the fifth largest canyon in the world. That night we drove deep into the farmlands near the valley, where the American dream car revealed its mechanical reality. This symbol of over stylized quickly became a rather large burden to us, as it firmly made the decision to lock itself in reverse in the middle of our attempt to make a u-turn on a country road. Tensions heightened as the car backed further and further off the paved road and down onto the empty field beside. We eventually decided to wait until morning before making any major decisions. So meanwhile we nestled ourselves in under the million stars overhead, with countless shooting stars blazing across the sky, crammed into the seats of now immobile Ford. It seems like sometimes the simplest wish, such as to sleep out under stars, requires the most complex arrangements to be granted.
We woke with the sunrise, and clear heads, and a large question mark looming above us. We spotted two farmers among stacks of boxes only a stone’s throw away, and we quickly looked up essentials in our English-Turkish dictionary, such as “Help,” “Car,” “Push,” and “Please.” The farmers turned out to be a Father and his Son with bright and gentle demeanor who were already familiar with our problem. Mehmet, the father quickly introduced himself and asked us if we wanted tea and then followed us down to the car. He made a quick evaluation of the situation and then hopped under the car and unlocked the gear by hand. After he took the car for a glory ride he permanently fixed the car with a wire and a pair of pliers and the offered us tea again. By this time we had silently declared him as our hero and were well acquainted with his son Kamal who spoke a wee bit of English. We discovered the stack of boxes that we noticed earlier actually contained bees. This was a family of beekeepers, the most intriguing and mystical profession in our eyes. What we thought would only be tea actually was a feast prepared by the mother in their little home. It was the best meal that we have had on this whole trip. We offered what we could which was a bag full of peaches and Sierra created a new way of eating flat bread which everyone soon caught onto. For over two hours we conversed through our Turkish dictionary and hand gestures, we never felt so at home and cared for in all our travels. We exchanged information and left with 2 kilograms of fresh raw honey. Ben had been searching for good honey since January and was finally satisfied. Sierra got a harmless bee sting and took Polaroid’s of everyone. We said our grateful goodbyes and returned the (blessed? cursed?) car as quickly as possible.

-Rumi. We took a bus to the town of Konya, where the beloved Sufi Poet Rumi known as Mevlâna meaning “our guide” lived and was buried. He has recently gained recognition in the west but he has been highly respected here for a long time. His poems are about many things, they are mystical and loving. There is no way to sum up Rumi; you just have to read his poems. Konya is a major pilgrimage sight for Muslims and is home of the Whirling Dervish also known as Mevlevi which was organized by Rumi’s son. We went to the Mevlâna museum and found it to be quit unique in the way that it contained all mediums of art, including instruments, stone carving, book making, architecture, clothing, paintings, sculpture and writing which is all following the same tradition of Rumis work which is following and expressions the divine. It also was the resting place for Rumi, his father and his son as well as many other Sufis.
That night we attended the Whirling Dervish ceremony. The Whirling dervish symbolizes in seven parts the different meanings of a mystic cycle to perfection. Contemporary science confirms that the fundamental condition of our existence is to revolve. There is no object, no being which does not revolve. The whirling dervish of Samâzen causes the mind to participate in the shared similarity and the revolution of all other beings. The feeling of watching this is still inexplicable and would be expressed better in person.

-Elvis. Another noteworthy character who is known to have taken residence in Konya, and who will perhaps go down in history, is Elvis - a charismatic, clever and slightly devilish carpet salesmen who imparts rugs, shenanigans, and tales from his underground shop, which is more stage than carpet shop, really. He was a great conversationalist, monologist, and jokester, and we talked for hours. He made it known that he was an honest cheat, and that his true calling was show business, and not retail, but that his talents could enhance and enrich even that seemingly dry profession. We had many cups of tea with him and his apprentice/nephew in the short time we were in Konya, and again felt that we were leaving newfound friends too soon, but also just as quickly as we met them.

Afterwards, we returned to Istanbul in good spirits, where Brendan took off up the route that brought us here, through eastern and central Europe. We are spending our days writing lengthy documents such as this one, avoiding the hot afternoons, creating and ambling about with Nick and Teresa, browsing through endless piles of trinkets in the magical junk and jewelry shop down the street, and readying ourselves for the final leg of our joint adventure, and Sierra’s ultimate (albeit temporary) destination- the United Kingdom.

wandering.

2006-07-30T14:49:00.000+01:00

family...

2006-07-30T14:46:00.000+01:00

island life.

2006-07-30T14:34:00.000+01:00

the five of us took a daytrip to an island outside of istanbul.
it was much needed.

mosquito bite.

2006-07-30T14:27:00.000+01:00

mondays not a mosque day

2006-07-17T13:38:00.000+01:00

today we attempted to go to the Aya Sofya only to find it closed of Mondays...no mosque today. We are planning a trip out to eastern Turkey maybe to the poet Rumis homeland and out camping along the Tigris or Euphrates river...Either way I will be happy to be out of a city and closer to nature. Its strange to be so close to Iraq and Iran. To know whats going on across the border and the fact that the country I am from has everything to do with it.

drawings

2006-07-16T14:28:00.000+01:00

ive been drawing a lot here in istanbul, maybe its the influence of the mosques or being around such creative individuals all day long...

istanbul

2006-07-16T14:22:00.000+01:00

the blue mosque

sunset in europe, moonrise in asia

2006-07-16T14:07:00.000+01:00

train ride across romania and bulgaria

2006-07-16T14:01:00.000+01:00

lounging under the clouds

2006-07-16T13:46:00.000+01:00

budapest castle

2006-07-16T13:27:00.000+01:00

istanbulconstantinople

2006-07-15T17:07:00.000+01:00

Marhaba dear ones!

Current: living in an apartment in the Istiklal Caddesi district in Istanbul, Turkey with Brendan, Ben’s brother, Nick, Ben and Brendan’s cousin and Teresa, Nick’s girlfriend.

The last time you heard from us, we were in Budapest. After that, we lost ourselves in a labyrinth under a castle, and then lost ourselves in a labyrinth in a train station, and then found ourselves on a train to Istanbul to meet Ben’s long lost kinfolk. Sometimes perfect moments appear unexpectedly in the space between two points, when in traveling we are focused on the destination we are headed to, forgetting that the adventure is all along the way. We were reminded of this on our 36 hour ride along the tracks through Eastern Europe towards the edge of the Asian continent, in a carriage containing only five individuals making the full journey, two of which were us, one was the train man, and two were a Canadian couple named Hugh and Shirley, two inspiring individuals, teachers by trade and students of life. Moving at varying speeds through hand-tilled fields, abandoned Soviet housing blocks and mills, we got a sense of history and of the future through what we were seeing. We talked the hours away, expanding and reworking our ever-changing understanding of the human condition, and the condition of humans living today, through insights into our minds, our histories, and the changes that will undoubtedly take place in the immediate future. They were just the people that we needed to meet at that moment. Our conversations tied into many things we had been talking about and working through in our minds and lives; their lucid, practical, and thoughtful insights into these problems we all are facing now, regardless of age, gave us a sort of boost into the next chapter of our travels.

As we watched the scenery change from the horse drawn carts, shepards, shanties, deserted buildings of Romania and Bulgaria into the more modern constructions and highways of Turkey. We were lucky enough to have Hugh narrating the political, social and economical factors that created what we were seeing. We arrived in Istanbul in the afternoon and were joyously tackled by Brendan and Nick in the middle of Taskim Square where we were told to get off the grass by the two policemen regimented to guard the Ataturk statue. We talked for three days straight until we felt caught up enough to begin exploring the city that surrounded us. Istanbul lies half on the European continent and half on the Asian continent divided by the Bosphorus River. One evening we took a ferry across the golden horn and the Bosphorus over to the Asian part of Istanbul. The sun was setting over the European side and the full moon was rising along the Asian side. As they faced one another we sat in the middle out on a rock-stacked peninsula. Across the water we could see tall buildings with satellite dishes, silhouettes of countless mosques, and a building on a hill that was once the seat of the Ottoman and Eastern Roman Empires. One could make up all sorts of fancy metaphors, sitting there in between the moon and the sun, in between the cultures and regions we refer to as “The East” and “The West,” let it just be said that we enjoyed a beautiful sunset. Then we tagged romantic graffiti on the side of the lighthouse, and got back onto the boat.

We visited The Grand bazaar where they like to say “hello friend” and “lady, I know what you want” attempting to sell everything from fake Luis Vitton bags to salvaged artifacts from Afghanistan. We tried the Turkish traditional drink “Raki” which is an aniseed flavored grape brandy that tastes awful and costs much more then it is worth. We’ve continued to avoid the mass amount of “Doners” that are on every block consisting of meat roasted on a revolving vertical spit. But the food is cheap and we’ve had a lot more luck in finding good vegetables to cook and non carbonated water to drink. We’ve made ourselves a home away from home here in what used to be known as Constantinople before the time of Ataturk, whose portrait you see in every restaurant and store. We don’t talk about him, though, because we don’t want to go to jail. Ahem.
Throughout the day, the many mosques around the city pick up their microphones and sing out Ezan, the call to prayer which occurs five times a day. One is happening right now, actually. Each one is a different voice, and has a slightly different style, and multiple calls together can sound either like many voices singing together, or like a distorted argument in song.

Now we are all anxious to get out and about so we will stop our rambling. Teresa arrived from Spain yesterday and is a lovely addition to our troupe. Tomorrow we are going to go to the Aya Sofya Mosque (a church turned into a mosque turned into a museum…) as well as watch the Whirling Durvishes and see what other adventures are in store for us…yippie kay i yay.

Love and cheers,
Ben and Sierra

hand cheese with music

2006-07-03T21:13:00.000+01:00

Current location: Budapest, Hungary (6th floor dorm room on the Buda side
across the river from Pest)

We have been buying many bottles of sparkling water mistakenly thinking that they are “still” water. This is the result of our language barrier in the past three countries we have journeyed through and Ben would like to apologize to water for wasting it. neither of us drink sparkling or as they call it here szephakslinv or something close to that… However we do enjoy Budapest, so far we have spent time in the baths, smoked an apple and a mango hookah among nervous belly dancers and played two glorious games of chess inside a hidden bar in a residential part of Pest. Apparently after the Turks invaded Hungary they left behind the bath houses utilizing the hot spring aters below Budapest around which have been built confusing labyrinths with many doors leading into rooms with saunas, cold pools, massage rooms, mud baths, wave pools, hot tubs and showers with naked and scantily clad folks of all ages, shapes and sizes. We wandered our way into the closest bath house we could find and left a few hours later, clean, pruned, refreshed and feeling like we had been admitted into a secret society of water connoisseurs. We plan on exploring another one tomorrow.

Prior to our visit to Budapest we finished our stay in Prague by taking a day trip to Kutna Hora. On our way we made friends with a fellow Seattleite, Marcus and visited the Sedlec Ossuary. The Schwarzenberg family bought the ossuary in 1870 and allowed a devoutly religious woodcarver to use the bones of the overflowing crypt to make works of art ranging from a chandelier containing at least one of every bone in the body to the crest of the Schwarzenberg family to pyramids containing hundreds of bodies worth of bones symbolizing the masses standing at heavens door.

We then took the train to Krakow, Poland where Sierra visited the land of her nose. We were welcomed with a breakfast consisting of four slices of ham, one piece of lettuce, dry cottage cheese, stale bread, a chunk of butter and a large chunk cheese containing bits of ham. It was a beautiful city that held a lot of sad history within its buildings and older generation. Poland’s population of Jews before WWII was over 3 million but since the liberation by the soviet troops on January 27th, 1945 there are only 5,000 to 10,000. The German invasion of Krakow was portrayed in Schindlers List and Auschwitz and Birkenau are only an hour outside of the city. Walking through the streets where this took place makes history seem a lot more real. You could feel the presence of and see in the eyes of the older generation the devastation that once occurred. However you also see the healing of a city where creativity and life hrive and continue as life goes on.

We came across a surprising street performance of a band of 8 young boys who would drag out a drum set into the middle of the town square and proceed to play furious hip hop beats and break-dance for the many crowds passing by. They were quite good. Along with the troupe of break-dancers we came across many accordion players. As you walked across the square you would hear multiple accordionists playing the same song at once in different parts, yet oblivious to one another. It was as if the song was
following you. We found ourselves in ancient secret cellar bars and at Wawel Hill in search of the Wawel Chakra; Ben found it under a tree after we weren’t allowed to lie on the grass near a mound where we thought it might have been. The Wawel Chakra is within the courtyard of the Wawel Castle, it is said to be one of the seven places in the world where Shiva cast a magic stone. Apparently Hindu mythology is following Ben, even into Europe.

Apparently we are the only two people in Europe not attached to the outcome of the World Cup. Every time a game happens restaurants wheel televisions outside, projectors are set up in parks and people gather all around TV’s to watch the futball games. We have witnessed many fans get more drunk and belligerent (England…) during the games. We have noticed team spirit and drunkenness elevate and enhance one another. Ben however is placing all of his bets on the San Francisco 49ers…

We are going to continue our stay in Budapest for a few more days. We have taken a liking to this city and it’s folk music, traces of Turkish culture and welcoming atmosphere where the service is as leisurely as we are. But it will not be long before we journey further east on a 45 hour train ride to Istanbul to meet with a pair of colorful miscreants, modern hodgepodge gypsies who are tangled up in Ben’s bloodline. Hopefully we will get a sleeper carriage and stamps on our passports. On our way from Poland to Budapest we shared a sleeper with three young Irish girls and had our passports stamped three times by who knows what countries, they all look the same at night.

Dnes, ma este, jutro.

p.s. Menyen egyenesen elore (hungarian)

Krakow, Poland

2006-07-03T21:11:00.000+01:00

the bones

2006-07-03T21:09:00.000+01:00

installation in a prague library

2006-07-03T21:07:00.000+01:00

Prague

2006-07-03T21:04:00.000+01:00

and of course the eighties music party scene

A moment in Frankfurt, Germany

2006-07-03T20:52:00.000+01:00

the sea

2006-07-03T20:46:00.000+01:00

we miss tilla

2006-07-03T20:45:00.000+01:00

more gaudi

2006-07-03T20:32:00.000+01:00

dali.

2006-06-26T02:33:00.000+01:00

Prague and all that...

2006-06-26T02:27:00.000+01:00

Greeting friends and family!

this here is sierra and benjamin, we figured since we were going through somewhat the same experiences we might try a mass email together, so here it is...

so now we are in central europe, after a spur of the moment decision in the fully-booked world cup host city of frankfurt that we would head east. now we are in a crowded and lively hostel, surrounded by unfamiliar languages, bad music, kind souls, graffitied walls, beaten leather couches under a sun that never seems to completely go away, or completely come out. we will recount for you some of the events that have taken place in the past couple of weeks.

We ended our stay in barcelona shortly after going to a festival that is held every year called the sonar fest. the original purpose of the festival was to celebrate and explore the artist that is the dj, or to see the dj as a performer and musician instead of someone who simply plays records for people to dance to. though its not the type of thing you would normally find us at, it was really quite a good time, a
giant playground with a broad range of music, from terribly repetitive euro-robot music, to a living disco band still intact from the 70's, to a cluster of very good hip hop acts and a smaller portion of very bad ones. the festival was really ingenously designed, as the diversity of musics all complemented each other. for
example, the disco band, chic, are a group who more than anyone else had their music sampled from drumbeats and basslines during the early years of hip hop, so that the younger generations have only heard them through that. and here at the festival where the dj is king, they sample not just a bassline but the entire bloody band, living and well, in a building like an empty airplane hangar. We danced the night away to digable planets who put on a lovely performance and even after their eight year hiatus they still have the brilliant energy of a sunshiny morning. Sierra danced harder then Ben had ever seen her dance in her life. We shook it alongside drug-addled wide eyed barcelonians until the break of day.

After a swift recovery and little sleep we slipped down the rabbit hole into the world of the madhatter himself Salvador Dali by way of the theatro museu dali in figueres, his home town in a city not far from barcelona. sierra found a new respect for his entire body of work, which includes his mystical foray into the world of jewelry where we found ourselves admiring works made of gold and diamonds - a medium we found repelling up until that point- including a ruby heart that beats just like the real thang. his intention behind making jewelry was to redefine the medium from being elitist and flashy objects of desire to being actual works of art appreciable by all people from all countries and walks of life. he said that in viewing the piece, and understanding to different degrees the original idea of the artist, the viewer creates his own piece of artwork through his perception, and by taking part in this creation, becomes the artist himself. we found this to resonate with us completely, ellaborating upon recent conversations we have been having.

We left our international roomates and ants for a flight that we missedn yet again. we seem to be getting better at this. So we spent one night in Girona and took the next flight to Frankfurt, Germany where to ourn surprise a particularly climatic world cup match was being held between the Netherlands and Argentina. we fought our way through the surreal and circus like atmosphere, where ben mistook a pigeon for a bald eagle, sierra drank nasty applewine, florescent orange clad drunken hollanders raised a ruckus at even the slightest provacation, a slightly withered political protest made its way through the merryment alongside police forces in full body armour ready for war with the very unintimidating and unenthusiastic teenage protesters. these combined forces left us without a place to stay in frankfurt so we hoped on a midnight train for prague. our trip was accented by a meeting with some shmuck who gets paid a freaken salary to write a single song each month in nashville, sierra was stared at while the others slept by a strange man with a comb over, we both were rudely awoken repeatedly by the barking orders of terrifyingly authoritative german police who would intrerrupt our sleep like nightmares, demanding our tickets and passports more times than we remember. ben swears that at least one was actually a ghost.

However we do plan on returning to Germany once the world cup is over and we can find a place to stay. which brings us to this little basement in Prague where it is costing us a small fortune in travelers terms to type this email to you all. Not to mention our struggle with a czech keyboard where the y and z are switched and punctuation is virtuallz inaccessable. But we love you this much so.....

Prague is lovely and much different then anything that we have ever seen. It is a city that has seen some hards times but is enjoying a bit of a renaissance these days. Also after a trecherously long wait Sierra has recieved word from the infamous Glasgow School of Art. She has been accepted into the 3rd year Environmental Art program for the entirety of the 2006-07 school year.Which was not the program she applied for but happened to be the one she should have applied for because it coveres both video, photography and installation. These happen to be her focus already. We will celebrate tonight with the famous Czech Pilsner which is the geographic equivalant of champagne.

Well, that happens to be all that we could conjure up between the two of us for now.

We love zou all!!! §šý!íýé!!!!!!

èhééìéø§.

bìnýámín and §ierøa

absinthe

2006-06-12T14:58:00.000+01:00

Absinthe (IPA English: [æbsinte] IPA French: is a distilled, highly alcoholic, anise-flavored spirit derived from herbs including the flowers and leaves of the medicinal plant Artemisia absinthium, also called wormwood. Although it is sometimes incorrectly called a liqueur, absinthe does not contain added sugar and is therefore classified as a liquor or spirit.[1]

Absinthe is often referred to as la Fée Verte ("The Green Fairy") because of its coloring — typically pale or emerald green, but sometimes clear. Due to its high proof and concentration of oils, absintheurs typically add three to five parts ice-cold water to a dose of absinthe, which causes the drink to turn cloudy (called "louching"); often the water is used to dissolve sugar to decrease bitterness. This preparation is considered an important part of the experience of drinking absinthe, so much so that it has become ritualized, complete with slotted absinthe spoons and other accoutrements. Absinthe's flavor is similar to anise-flavored liqueurs, with a light bitterness, and a more complex flavor imparted by multiple herbs.

Absinthe originated in Switzerland as an elixir, but is more well-known for its popularity in late 19th and early 20th century France, particularly among Parisian artists and writers whose romantic associations with the drink still linger in popular culture. In its heyday the most popular brand of absinthe worldwide was Pernod Fils. At the height of this popularity, absinthe was portrayed as a dangerously addictive, psychoactive drug; the chemical thujone was blamed for most of its deleterious effects. By 1915 it was banned in a number of European countries and the United States. Modern evidence shows it to be no more dangerous or psychoactive than ordinary alcohol. A modern-day absinthe revival began in the 1990s, as countries in the European Union began to reauthorize its manufacture and sale.

We tried this drink out of curiosity, since it is illegal in the states. It didn´t really do anything drastically different then other alcohol that I´ve tried in the past except that it kept all three of us up until around 6am the next morning, it was mellow and tasts very strong, when you swollow it you can feel it´s presense all throughout your throat and stomach. But we had a good night full of dancing and wonderful conversations.

you have to love slow shutter speeds on digital cameras.

my nose

ben in red

the club that we ended up in, played all the same stuff with the same beat over and over again except for a little bit of aphex twin which is always a pleasent surprise.

tilla

ben and i on the metro around 5am.

hair be gone

2006-06-11T15:54:00.000+01:00

i decided that it was time, after six years of contemplation in a single night Ben snipped off almost a foot of my hair and I was liberated. This is a first for me, so i talked about it for two days straight. Now my neck is a little colder then usual and my head feels lighter.

reflection

2006-06-11T15:52:00.000+01:00

Rainbow

2006-06-11T15:45:00.000+01:00

Antoni Gaudi

2006-06-11T15:35:00.000+01:00

La Sagrada Familia

up close

tha other side

the top

inside

ben and myself (making a funny face)

good ol´religious art.

2006-06-10T17:39:00.000+01:00

some cathedrals

2006-06-10T17:17:00.000+01:00

peckham and benjamin.

2006-06-10T16:55:00.000+01:00

ben arrives from India.

all is well in the world.

dublin piiiicTUREs,

2006-06-10T16:43:00.000+01:00

odessa and myself

2006-06-09T20:45:00.000+01:00

we were bored so we took lots of photos of ourselves at the train station...

brighton

2006-06-09T20:33:00.000+01:00

odessa is obsessed with Pride and Prejudice so we had to check out Brighton, Im happy we did.

london photos.

2006-06-09T18:16:00.000+01:00

peckham (our couchsurfers street)

greenwich

view from the TATE

mullets.

2006-06-06T15:45:00.000+01:00

Well, it has been fun these past few days in Barcelona, sleeping, eating, sleeping, walking, sleeping, and people watching. Ben and I have discovered that the 80´s are back and taking over Barcelona. Everyone has a mullet, and they are serious. There are even three currently in this internet cafe. From the cool kid in elementary school to the older man walking down las ramblas, they are everywhere! Men, women, street punks, pop idols, children, your average part time worker, the tourists are even catching on. I wish i had pictures of what I´ve seen, but they are amazing, spiked, curly, bleached, pink, dreaded...all that you can imagine and more. It only took us a day to count over 20 or so just in Las Ramblas. If you don´t know what a mullet is for some odd reason, I will explain it to you, they began i believe in the 80´s someone decided it would be "cool" even David bowie had one. It is where the hair on the bottom half of your head is long and the hair on the top of your head is very short. If you need a visual, just go to google.com and type in "mullet." You will get all kinds of lovely visuals of this fade that has returned to the fashion world in Spain.

hmm....I guess I´ve rambled enough about mullets. I just thought you would all find it as a learning experience about the pop culture here, I´ve never been a big fan of the mullet, but i know a few people especially if you were in your early teens in the 80´s had one, except my sister. She never jumped on that bandwagon. But I wonder if they will really hit the states, in high school people would do it as a joke but I wonder if they would ever become serious again like I am witnessing here.

anyways, Here´s the update on my life in Barcelona. Ben and I are living in a little apartment in Placa de la Centre with a man from Ecuador and a young man from France. We will be staying here for another two weeks and then off to Germany. The apartment is nice and small, we are in a tiny room with a tiny bed and one big window. Our ceiling looks like the ocean, it even has blue architectural 3-d waves. My dreams have been very intense and realistic lately, I wake up thinking I´ve just visited people in California or Washington. let me know if I have, i always wished i could teleport.

It´s very funny to be in this living situation because, Pastor, the man from Ecuador knows little English and is fluent in Spanish, the man from France knows French and Spanish and barely any English and Ben and I know a little bit of Spanish and no French. So for the most part we ask how one another is, say we are good and ramble around our home. Ben recently has been able to breakthrough by using the ultimate language, of music. If only my photographs or drawings could do the same. but I am shy at times, maybe by the end of these two weeks we will all be speaking French, Spanish and English to one another.

Another roommate of ours are the ants, they seem to have taken over the building and really enjoy going through everything and exploring in search of sweets. I never liked ants in the past but these ones I am getting used to, I guess I'm learning a lot about cohabitating....

....Oh almost forgot a little story I wanted to share with all of you! It made Ben and I laugh. I even drew a picture and wrote about it in my journal. Here it is!
A few days ago we were walking around our neighborhood and came across a large intersection where there were a lot of big buildings, hotels, banks and lots of cars passing through. As we were walking across the crosswalk we saw a family on the corner; a father, a mother and a little daughter. The little girl was sitting on one of those plastic potty training devises on the street. Her pants were around her ankles and she had a book in her lap that she was very focused on, her father stood close by with his arms folded looking out at the world as if ready to fight anyone who questioned the scene, while the mother was close to her daughter talking to her and being supportive of her lesson on the potty. This scene just brought a big smile to my face, never before had i experienced a family that would even carry around that plastic device let alone, set it onto the street corner and have their child use it out in the public. Ben said that the scene would only be better if they were issued a ticket by the police. I just loved the look of this little girl, sitting oblivious to the world around her, reading her picture book, i even saw her as an adult for a second doing the same things. ..well, that is all i wanted to share, mullets and a true public bathroom.

much much love, and happy birthday (yesterday) to my Mom and Ben, and of
course to all you other Geminis.

being fed by the architecture

2006-06-06T15:42:00.000+01:00

Currently I am in Las Ramblas Barcelona. Ben and I have been staying at a little hostel called Pension Dali but soon we will probably be moving into a little apartment that a man who moved from Ecuador lives in. He works at the hostel and is half of my height. Very nice. We will have to see how it all plays out in the next few days. It would be a lot cheaper then the hostel but I am thinking of taking a trip to France or Portugal possibly for a few days.

Last night we went to the Harlem Jazz Club where we watched a free concert, The performance was by Diego Parque and his band, Ben describes them as urban earth children playing flamenco music. It was wonderful, we danced a little and enjoyed the lovely crowd then had the best gelato so far on the walk home.

A few days ago we went to the Temple of the Segrada Familia. In words I feel that I could not describe how amazing it was. I took pictures and gleaned some footage with my camcorder but really it just doesn´t do any justice to Antoni Goudi´s vision. He designed and worked on it for thirty years before he was ran over by a tram and died. Since then Barcelona has been funding through donations to complete this work of art. I hope that it will be completed in my time, I would take a trip across the world just to see it finished. I conquered my fear of heights in walking up it´s narrow towers that spiral up over the city. The whole building is based off of natural elements, the pillars look like tree trunks, the stairwells mimic nautilus shells, the windows and walls look like roses and flowers. I felt at moments I couldn´t say anything, I had never seen architecture like this before and wish that all buildings had this same movement and energy put into it.

Anyways, there isn´t much more I can say for the moment. Ben and I are about to go see a movie, maybe x-man 3 because I feel that some mindless entertainment is needed once in a while to quiet my wandering mind. I love you all and would like to hear what you are up to. Also if you have any random art assignments for me, send them my way. I would love to challenge myself especially in this environment. It´s so relaxing.

love and cheers my dear ones.

city by the sea

2006-05-30T17:09:00.000+01:00

What a place this city is. Where the couples all walk hand in hand and nobody wears long sleeves because it´s too warm outside. Odessa departed back to the states a few days ago and it was sad to see her go, but she is going to have a wonderful summer driving across the states to play bluegrass. Having her here was so wonderful, and now starts this new chapter of Ben and I traveling together. After having not seen one another for over four months and now traveling together for a couple months straight we´ve taken the time to adjust, but Im just happy to be around this familiar face again.

We are currently staying in Las Ramblas, at Pension Dali. Ben has a history of a couple Spanish high school classes and I have a history of traveling through Central America with my sister as my translator but somehow we still get by. We´ve only been here for a couple of days. We missed our flight from London to here because I got us on the wrong train and then realized it, but by the time we were set in the right direction 45 minuted had gone by and we missed our plane and had to spend the night in a hotel by the airport in London Luton. So two days ago when we flew in, we found ourselves with two alaskan born siblings who were going to same direction as us. A women helped us at the train station, she used to live in London and was a good spirit who saw our need for some direction. We then got to Las Ramblas and trecked through the crowds with our big backpacks in search of a hostel. I took in all that we passed trying to get a feel for this city by the sea. It was hot out and everyone was minimally dressed. There were lots of outside restaurants, beautiful spanish women and lots of couples holding hands. A stage was set up with an American rapper (who knows who) was rambling to the audience and trying to learn spanish words to include in his songs. I just laughed at the surrelaism of this event. Really, there are tourists everywhere! But I can understand why, having never been here before, it´s so beautiful and the winding streets and alleys take you for a spin. But all they eat here is meat. We found a good market where we can get some fresh fruit and a falafel place which is very cheap and filling. We might also get set up at an apartment in a couple of days which would be a lot cheaper, one of the people at the hostel ¨knows someone¨ so we will just have to see.

But for now we are just rambling through this city, I think I´ve made up for all of the lack of sleep I´ve had in the past two months. Having no schedule or a clock helps. No alarms to go by except the church bells that go off every hour to remind you that time is passing by.

Dublin love.

2006-05-30T17:01:00.000+01:00

A reunion it has been. Ben arrived yesterday and we spent the evening at Sararose's flat, she was my first babysitter back in San Anselmo,Calfornia and now she is the nanny for Gweneth Paltrow's children and they live next door to her. It seems like a very surreal reality to wake up and have little Apple walk in talking about the rain and showing me her Winnie the Poo Umbrella. We had breakfast with them and then Ben and I came back to Nathalie and Ben's where ben was surprised by Odessa sleeping on the couch. I captured it all on video and it has been a nice day of rambling around and sharing stories with one another. They also have been playing music together, and i recorded a bit and will send it out soon enough.

On another note I wanted to share with you Odessa and my excursion to Dublin. We were only there for three days and were both ready to move in. Dublin was so welcoming and fun. Talk about a tiny city, it only takes 15 minutes to walk from one end to another. But the Irish are very welcoming and there are Pub's that stay awake until 4am. Normally this isn't what i would find welcoming but when you are traveling with a fiddle player and want to dance and get free drinks dublins the place. Odessa would woo everyone with her looks and her musical talent and I would tag along as we were welcomed into the community of late nights. Our hostel was under construction therefor it was really cheap and during the days we would wander around taking polaroids of castles and cathedrals then in the evenings drank guinness
and danced.

We met lots of people and Odessa busked in the streets to make some change for our meals. The tourists would take pictures of her playing and I found it funny because we were tourists as well. But i like it that wherever we would go people assumed we were a french and a swede, until we spoke with our northern californian accents. That always dissappointed the american boys. They came all this way to find two american girls from a state they had been to or even grown up in.

But Odessa and I made a pact to return to Ireland and travel around the countryside and possibly live in Dublin for a little bit...we will have to see.

But now begins the next part of this jounrey, Ben and I are to leave for Barcelona, we will be there for who knows how long and then off to Germany and the Czech Republic. The list of places to go is just growing by the day but I have no expectations for this adventure. It already has taken me down some winding roads of sincrinicity and testing my patience. But I will try to write soon when we get into Barcelona. Odessa should be arriving tomorrow in California, I miss her already.

London welcomes us.

2006-05-22T14:28:00.000+01:00

A few days ago Odessa and I flew from San Francisco over to a city called London, we both had never been on the continent and were very excited about the possible adventures ahead....but we couldn't have guessed what the possibilities for that day were.

After the ten and a half hour flight we gathered our things and waited in the long lines of other foreigners.When we went up to the woman she asked us what our plans were and for our itineraries. Being the free flowing spirits we were, Odessa didn't have her information for her trip home and I didn't even have a ticket. The woman got really upset and questioned us as if we were planning on living here in her beautiful safe country...well we assured her that we would do whatever possible to get back home. We also told her how london was only our first stop, from here there would be dublin, barcelona, istanbul...

But then she filled out a white piece of paper and gave it to me. It said that I was being detained for further questioning. That they would either decide to send us on the next plane home or allow us into the country. Odessa was included because she was traveling with me. I will let you know that Odessa originally wouldn't have been on this trip, as of one week ago she decided to get a plain ticket to london for only 9 days because she had also never been to europe. So back to the heathrow airport, we waited as they offered us tea every half an hour. Then came along a nice older man, the english grandfather. He was to be our case manager. He told us why we were sitting there and how we would have to be questioned (interrogated) and have our bags searched. After we spoke with him we waited another hour until a man and woman walked up to us, both looking young and they took us to our luggage where we opened our bags for them and the rummages through asking questions and collecting evidence for our case.

The evidence they collected from me was the following:
washington state license
visa card
cornish student id
brand new moleskin journal with two entries, one from waiting
modeling portfolio
laptop

Then they gave us back our bags and walked us back to our seats where we waited another half and hour for them to return and take our mugshots. I looked cross-eyed and odessa looked stoned. Very good pictures for two "models." Afterwords we waited another 30 minutes before we were taken into the detainee room. Oh a wonderful room with a TV in the corner and other foreigners. They consisted of a sleeping Indian woman who was pregnant and had a little baby with her, a young guy from pakistan who kept hitting on odessa, an older man from jordan who liked to talk, another indian woman with a young son, a crying girl our age from japan and us; the two american girls who didn't know better then to get a one way ticket. For two hours we waited, did yoga, read, drank tea and watched over the indian baby who was so quiet and happy. He would gaze into our eyes and laugh when we lifted him into the air. We were about ready to adopt him. Then along walked in our english grandfather, he asked for me to come with him and in the other room i was interrogated, he asked many questions and i tried to clarify as much as i could about my open ended trip for the summer and possibly the year. Then at the end he asked me. "sierra, are you a buddhist?" I replied that I believed in a lot of buddhist beliefs but wasn't practising. He then responded by explaining that in my moleskin, it sounded like I was through my writing, he mentioned that he was a practicing buddhist for nine years now. Afterwords I went back into the detainee room with a smile on my ace and odessa was then questioned. After she was done, we waited for another hour until our English Grandfather came back and asked us to step out. In the security room he said "london welcomes you" grins spread wide across all of our faces, including the security and our case managers face. I told him how happy we were to have met him and off we were to London! So we trecked out, took the tube and the train to Queens Road Peckham where we met Nathalie and Ben who offered their couch to us through couchsurfer.com. They were so welcoming and we shared our stories and ate a large homemade feast with them and their friends. Nathalie used to teach art and Ben goes to the university and studies painting among other mediums. Instantly we felt at
home and have been staying here since.

But now Im done with this long ramble. We are going to Brighton today because Odessa has this fascination with the place ever since she first read Pride and Prejudice. Tomorrow we are off to Dublin and then we will return here in a few days.

The Beginning...

2006-05-17T00:31:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow is the departure date for this big adventure that lies ahead.

my current state: tired, anxious, excited

i also have decided that i hate fleas. they seem to jump off of every animal onto me and bite my legs. it itches.