Rah! Rah! Rah!
Last Thursday night, I started a watercoloring class at the New York Academy of Art in Tribeca — thinking that it would be useful to employ this technique on future projects I’m working on. However, I discovered that not only do I not need to take this course to use watercolor technique, but it’s extremely difficult and a pain in the ass! Therefore, I won’t be attending any more classes! The difficulty lays in placing the color on the page and not having it run all over the paper. While I took it in college, my strokes then were much broader, so it didn’t make a difference. But in this class it did. So much for patience!
So, giving school another go, I took the intrepid step to take another course — this one at ICP. It’s a multimedia course that uses video, photography and sound… and it’s much more to my liking. But, with an upside comes a downside. And that is learning Final Cut Pro. Since patience is not my best friend, I can see the process becoming a difficult one. But I am determined to follow through with it!
The course is taught by Nancy Donaldson from the New York Times, who produces the project ‘One In Eight Million’; an ongoing multimedia project on the Times’ website. The project highlights the lives of different New Yorkers in short video clips, and often tell poignant or funny stories about life in this city.
The pieces in the project are incredible — and for being such short videos, they’re incredibly moving and touching. They’re an inspiration to incorporate multimedia into my own work, and it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I’ve learned (especially in creating my book) it’s all about the art of the interview to create powerful stories. And since I’m a nosy person, I’m well suited for it!
The most exciting thing I did this weekend — and will probably be a new activity — was going to a Baptist Church on 115th Street in Harlem with a few of my friends. I felt like I was at a rock concert, only better! We watched a gospel choir perform, and the music was so moving, and the congregation was so raucous, that I was yelling “Hallelujah” for the whole hour they were singing. If my religion had services like this every week, I would be a regular church-goer! Music is very contagious.
I also made a new purchase! I bought this piece at an art auction. Loving the yellow!
Now I’m off to go work on my tons of projects… and getting a bit overwhelmed! Maybe I should have just gone on vacation this summer like everyone else!
