If you need a good cry, love cats or just feeling a bit maudlin today watch this vid

PHOTO BY jESSE jONEs

Watched a program on Brain Plasticity and decided to take up the Uke.

My goal is to be able to play IZ’s Over the Rainbow/Its a Beautiful World

Red Bull received 500 entries from 39 states and 14 countries for its latest Art of Can contest. A panel of judges chose 47 pieces for an exhibit on view at the Galleria through July 25. I am proud to be one of the 47.

What a fun night we had.  I stepped out of the elevator with my Red Bull Champagne cocktail to see none other that Bob Ruggerio, a VP and VIP at Quilts, Inc (and one of my favorite fixtures at festival…always smiling and laughing inspite of what must be a VERY stressful week)   He was covering the event tor the Houston Press.

I quickly found the art car group, as you can’t miss them in a crowd. They were most likely the most photographed people at the event and they didn’t even have their cars <GRIN!> They had come out in support of their President Nicole Strine who had a piece in the collection,  and also for me, the newbie.

Next I spotted an unusual hairdo which I recognized as one of my daughters friends, Cameron Rowe, who I last ran into at Home Depot when I shopping for art car adhesives. He also had a a wonderful piece in the show.

It was a really great opening with freeflowing Red Bull cocktails and loud music.  A great contrast to some staid art openings where people wander around whispering and nibbling on crummy cheese and cheap white wine.

The catalog was fun although I would have loved the pics to be bigger. <VBG>

Here is the Red Bull Press Release

MY RIDE did a blurb on my car and I am at the beginning of the video too

What Fun!!!

A bedside story for kids, but it does say BUTT so if that offends you or your kids don’t watch

Check out the 2008 Red Bull Art of the Can Exhibition

My quilt is at about 60% on the slider bar under 2008 Gallery

Don’t forget to hit spin, that will make it so you can see the whole thing and kinda cool to see it spin

VOTE!!!! Click on as many bars as you think it should get as points.

Here is my new little studio at our little house in Galveston. It was a one car garage. Now we have living space that looks out onto the little garden. The studio is 1/2 mile from the beach. The solid double doors lead to the covered carport where the Piecemobile hangs out. She let’s me use some of her accessories to decorate the studio!!

The Effigy and the Burn

The centerpiece of Burning Flipside is the Effigy located at the heart of Pyropolis. The Effigy is a huge and intricate collaborative art installation This huge effigy is burned on the last night amid great pageantry, debauchery and hedonism. The cathartic release is both collective and individual.

This years effigy was Hula Girl and was a collective structure made of hand made elaborate working wooden gears, pulleys, wheels, cogs and sculptures. At the top metals structures hung from wires. The number of man and woman hours involved is mind boggling. This piece of art will exist in toto for less than a week and then the art will be offered up in FLAMES!

After a hot day that blazed over the ranch, the weather cooled off a bit and people swam and lazed in the creek at Hippy Hollow. After some food, people cleaned up and dressed up for the night’s entertainment.
The wind was high and so were the rumors about the timing of the burn.
The burn was pure spectacle. Lighted Art Cars and people in costumes or nude milled about the effigy in expectation. It could happen any time between 12 and 6 am were the estimates.
Timing for the burn depended on 8 miles per hour wind was the word in the informed art car camp ( the propane for the burn is in the hands of several capable and incredible art car drivers)
Many of us glanced up over and over at the banners and flags over the camp trying to judge the wind.
About 11 it became a little hot and muggy as the wind seemed to die down a bit. The effigy crew came by asking for the propane crew, important doors were banged on and the BURN was officially ON if the wind held at the present levels
We set off for the effigy as the effigy burners went on duty.
The sense of expectation and waiting was palpable.
People began crowding closer and closer to the the effigy while the volunteers on duty asked people to stand behind the imaginary line, which most were quick to do.
Finally the crowd grew quiet and drums began to beat
A huge tribe of fire spinners danced around around the effigy bringing the crowd to a boiling point.

Expectation grew as the Art Car Camp put on their annual Fire Cracker Hat Dance. I watched them assembling the hats this morning and I can say it is an elaborate and well thought out risk. Another burner is always on safety duty and the few newbies allowed to participate are given a lot of help and a lot of teasing <G> They have a bit of an interrnal competition to be the most creative and to be the last hat spewing fireworks! Timing the different components in the hat is essential!! During the FC hat dance the crowd was reaching peak!

After the last hat had blown its last load, a huge fireworks display was followed by hushed silence.
Slowly, the crowd broke out into whistles and tribal noise. The tension was incredible. The ranch resounded with the cries of the multutude
In a cresecendo of noise and emotion, a huge swoosh and a tower of fire propelled by propane set the effigy on fire!

The crowd went wild and different parts began to burn

The crowd sat in rapture as the structure began to burn on in earnest. The metal parts at the top fell into the flames as the crowd roared, emotions rising and falling as each part took fire and was consumed

The safety crew stood by controlling the direction of the burn.

About 30 minutes later the structure had fallen inward and the safety crews rolled the various out fittings into the bonfire which went on burning all night.

The crowd broke up with a sense of collective release and went off to examine their experience or depending on their stamina to dip back into the craziness in the satellite camps
One of the fire spinners who had spent months on the Effigy helping build it sat quietly in camp choking back tears. The firecracker hats stood smoldering in a ring about the skeleton with the art car artist tag around his neck
The costumes began to be shed for comfort and the camp chairs began filling up at the art car camp as people gathered and swapped impressions and jokes and stories. An amazing number of people from other camps stopped by to thank and pay their respect to these incredible artists and to the people who have been making the burn happen for years and who tonight made reality a spectacle wrapped in illusion and fire.
About 4 am the generator at the art car camp switched off, a light rain began to fall and I went to my tent as groups drifted off to slumber or fantasy.
The remains of the effigy smoldered on this morn as the last revelers went off to sleep or off to pack up and out everything they had brought with them

Burning Flipside (or Flipside) is an annual alternative arts and performance festival staged in the RUGGED Texas Hill Country west of Austin. Modeled on and loosely associated with Burning Man, Flipside is one of several Regional Burns around the USA.

Many of the core values of Burning Flipside are borrowed from Burning Man, and the same short, memorable terms are used for them, namely:

* No Spectators. Every attendee is expected to participate in some way for the event, with a performance, art piece, other form of creative expression, or volunteering to help.
* Radical Self-Expression. Art and gatherings at the event have few restrictions; many emphasize taboo subjects, politics or alternative lifestyles
* Self-reliance. All participants are responsible for their own food, shelter, water, and other necessities at the event.
* No Vending. Flipside is a non-commercial event; sales of any commodity (the one exception being ice) for cash is not allowed and may cause eviction from the event. Instead, a gift economy is used. Giving one gift in exchange foranother is considered good form, but any kind of quid-pro-quo is a violation of the gift-economy rules

* Leave No Trace. An extension of the self-reliance principle applied to outdoor living, requiring all participants to respect their environment and clean up everything they bring in. Since the event takes place on a rented campground,
used by other events during the year, participants try to leave the site cleaner than they found it rather than in an identical condition.

Theme camps

Groups of participants build a structure or area for public entertainment with an underlying theme. (Example: The Art Car Camp has many cars lining the playa.)

Interestingly enough within the many tribes there seem to be some clans which hang and play together but seem abit separate from the whole but which come together when needed. A sociologist would have a hey day here!.
All night and day camps sponsored games and fun aand people were gifting things from food to things that glowed or blinked in the dark. A good story or joke was genrously accepted and applauded. The vibes of good will abounded.

You could take a nude yoga lesson, learn how to belly dance or spin fire or have a free massage during the sweltering afternoon hours or go for a swim at Hippy Hollow. People lined up every am at the Ice camp to refurnish the ice in their coolers. Monday morning the Ice camp put on a snowball fight in the playa. Coolers of crushed ice were eagerly plundered by ice warriors looking to make the perfect snowball and score a coupe on their friends or enemies!

Performances — Flipside has a number of performance spaces that are used by musicians, theatre groups, DJs, pageants, and interactive performances many of which go on all day and night. OK my favorite was not the 80’s music that started at 4 and went to 8 am when I wanted to sleep <G> but she did go after “Beat It” by Michael Jackson with gusto!

Art Installations

Flipside community members bring art to the event for display, including large freestanding works, fire art, and interactive pieces. This is an event staged by the artists, for the artists and of the artists. Lookey Lous are discouraged by a limited number of tickets sold through a controlled system and a need to prove your contribution. After securing a coveted ticket you must show you have what is needed to survive for the duration and must also be accompanied by a sense of adventure depending on which group is volunteering at the greeters station. You may be asked to play a game or spank a bottom for admission. A sense of play is needed at Flipside, if you are hot and bothered or easily offended this is NOT your our event!!
One guy sat up on what I can only describe as a perch or throne most of the weekend, bursting out into an awseome light show and huge fiberoptics music driven diplay when night fell. . He was obviously indomitable for I never could not catch the perch empty no matter when I looked, and I can go without much sleep fairly well during the warm months since I store sleep up like a bear in the winter. <G>

Find more photos like this on ArtsHouston

Photos at the Parade Geoffrey Hartnett
Photos the night before the parade by Jesse Jones