I think I need to make this happen.

So, I've had this idea cooking in the back of my mind for quite awhile now.  I think when I get home, it's gonna be time to make it happen for reals.  The exciting part is, I found a grant to apply to that might help me make this easier, and spend less of my own money to get going.

This is what I want to do:

Malagasy Cultural Night/Art Exhibit/Benefit:

- I'll finish my Madagascar painting series (trying to have like 10-12 BIG pieces, and some smaller ones). I've done a few already - they're all inspired by different aspects of my experience in Madagascar with the Peace Corps. Everything will be for sale, along with a ton of 8 x 10 prints that I'll sell for like $20.  All or most profits will go to the organization, PSI  (Population Services International), and will be directed towards their branch in Madagascar. (This organization provides health education, birth control education and supplies, hygiene education and supplies, and things like mosquito nets for families, etc. They're just awesome, and hands down the organization I was most impressed with while I was there....besides Peace Corps of course...haha).

- I have saved a huge pile of the best art that the little kiddos made while I lived in Madagascar. I have pictures of most of the kids who drew them, so I'll have some framed kid art on display also, with their photos and a short blurb about them, beside each one.

- I might give a little talk and/or have a slideshow running of my Mada pictures.

- Of COURSE, there will be Malagasy music going...so good!

- I might invite the UofO Peace Corps Recruiter to come and have a little table there if they want.

- Food, drinks, duh!

- No cover, but a donation jar for $$$ for PSI.

-Try to pick a venue that is on the First Friday Art Walk in Eugene, so lots of people come!


So, that's it! I must do this, no?  I've been chipping away at the series, slowly....painting when I feel like it....but I think this needs to happen soon, while Mada is still sorta fresh in my mind. Yay!!

Not your average internship

This is not your average coffee-making, paper-copying internship.  I have been through about a week and a half of my internship with the Mural Arts Program, and so far, I am loving it!!! Here's what I've been up to:

Project #1:  

On Monday, Thursday and Friday, I am working on a mural at a neighborhood pool in North Philly.  Not until my first day of work, did I realize that this project was under the "Restorative Justice" branch of the Mural Arts Program.  So, when I showed up and met my Muralist that I'll be working under, Andrea, (names changed to protect the innocent!), I was surprised to see her with a team of 5 men.  I didn't really know anything about either of my 2 projects before I arrived or even before I started, only that one of them was at a pool.  I guess I should have expected that a project that big would probably have assistants hired.  So, still not knowing what was going on, I'm making conversation with one of the men and ask, "So, what part of Philly are you from?"  He answered, "I'm coming from 600."  Me: "Oh, ok.." (assuming that was a street? or something?)  Later after talking with Andrea a bit, I learned that all of the guys are a part of an apprenticeship program that helps inmates in work-release facilities (like "600"), or people that were just released from prison.  So these guys are going to jobs classes where they're learning about resume-making and interviewing, and then 3 days a week, they're out learning skills like painting with us at the mural, carpentry, tile working, etc.   It's pretty cool.  Most of these guys were hand-picked out of their prison art classes, for good behavior and showing promise and interest. 

The mural we're doing is going to be around all 4 sides of the pool building. On the inside wall, we're doing a big design that incorporates the "Pool Rules".  It's a geometric design with a daring, bright color palette.  It's a lot of triangles.  Ok, it's basically all triangles.  It's really nice looking, though.  It's also going to incorporate some tile mosaic, and a poem about believing in yourself. 

I'm really learning a LOT.  I'm learning all kids of stuff about materials and process and what it's like making community murals.  Won't get too specific, but there's really just nothing like the information you get from doing something like this hands-on.  Andrea is amazing at answering all my questions thoroughly.  That was another reason I really wanted this internship, too...because trying to be a Muralist, can be lonely.  You can't get a master's degree in mural-making, as far as I know at least.  Muralists I've reached out to online have been unresponsive, and the other muralist I met in Eugene wouldn't help me because I was her competition.  I don't want to re-invent the wheel, here.  I want to learn how to do this job, and do it well.  But not all that many people do this for a living.  I have a lot of what I need already, but there are a lot of things specifically relating to the business and process of being a public artist/muralist, that they just don't teach you in art school.  And Andrea is here, an experienced muralist and wealth of information.  I get along with her great and feel really lucky to have been placed here.  I'm getting along good with the men at the site, too, while still keeping my guard up. I'm really excited to be on this project - it's a gorgeous design that's stretching my art comfort zone (ME  with a ruler, templates and a level? Not too common in my artwork) and it's also stretching my social comfort zone (not used to working with inmates, either).  I like the "make an ugly building much, much prettier" aspect, combined with the "do-gooder" aspect.  That's essentially what the MAP strives for - both of those, in some capacity, for each project. 

Tune in next time for the GHOST STORY that is Project #2! (No, really, it is.) That's a long story I will tell another day!

Stay cool out there, East Coast! (We hit 100 today!)

Corie

I'm in Philadelphia!

I LOVE BEING HERE IN PHILLY!

  
I arrived here one week ago, today. My facebook status yesterday: 

"Flight to Philly: $256. Rent for room in West Philly: $310/mo. Being face to face with my dreams and destiny: priceless."

 I'll explain why I feel that way in a minute. For now, let me just say that regardless of life-changing internships, the city is cool. It's big, it's hot, it's diverse, it's loud, it's a HUGE CHANGE coming from Eugene, Oregon. I've made my way through cities before, going to summer programs in Chicago, living in Oakland and going to school in San Francisco, adventuring through L.A on weekends during college.  Never been to the East coast though, and the number one difference I've noticed so far, is that things are so OLD!  I feel like my neighborhood is a community of castles: decorated down to the last crystal doorknob, painted unexpectedly bold color combinations, each home unique and yet unified with it's neighbors. I love my West Philly neighborhood!

Besides all the new-ness and exploring, what's really getting me, is this internship. All I've had of it so far, was the orientation (we start working on Monday).  All it was, was an introduction to the other 14 interns and to the program and organization itself.  We played name games. We talked logistics. We filled out tax info.  The part that moved me almost to tears, was when the Director of the organization came in, and started talking to us about the programs and how she feels about them. A short run-down of the Mural Arts Program, and what they do:

• They make community murals. This means, they involve the wall owner, community representatives, and the artist, and come up with a design that represents the community or can show the world something about the people in the neighborhood. Then they paint it, usually with people from the community helping as well. 

• Art Education: They work in schools with little to no art programs, and make murals together with the students to decorate their school, and/or teach art lessons. (This is what I do with Lane Arts back home.)

• Restorative Justice: They work with inmates, most serving life sentences, and teach art classes. They also work with newly-released prisoners, or people just out of halfway houses, and give them an apprenticeships in carpentry, tile-working, building repair, and other types of work related to large scale city mural making. And it's working. Nationally, about 65% of people go back to prison after getting out. After this program, about 13% go back. 

• Behavioral Health: They create studios and artistic hubs within clinics and teach art classes and make murals together. They do this with mental health institutions and rehab clinics - art therapy. 

• Porchlight: They work with suicide prevention programs, victims of violence and other at-risk groups, and put an artist in there to help.

It's using ART as an INNOVATIVE tool, to help save the world, basically. 

This is Peace Corps-style community development. This is about boosting neighborhood economies.  It's building community and self-confidence in school kids. It's giving people in the justice system a way to feel some self-worth and the chance to make something positive with their own hands. It's giving hard neighborhoods a way to claim and be proud of their place in a big city. It's a way of changing things in a smaller, grass-roots type way, rather than through policy or big money. (Peace Corps, Peace Corps, Peace Corps!)

Since getting out of Peace Corps, I've been looking for something like this - a way to combine my art with something bigger. This is what I want to do with my life, and these people are doing it.  And I get to follow them around for 2 months!  I wanted this internship so badly, I applied twice, getting in the second year I tried. I had ridiculously high hopes for the whole thing, and it's relieving to see that they seem to be all they were cracked up to be.

What I'll actually be doing, is working on one of the community mural projects, under a Muralist working for the organization. It's gonna be a big garden picture, and it's at a pool. SO painting in my bathing suit! :)

 I know I'm gushing. It's just that, I feel such a sense of destiny and that I am on exactly the right path. I don't know where it's going to lead me yet, but I know I'm pointed in the right direction. My heart is happy. 

I will keep this updated....

Corie

EXCITING NEWS!!... And making big decisions.

OMG. I have some EXTREMELY EXCITING NEWS!!! I am going to be an intern for the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia this July and August!!!!

A mural made by the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia

So I guess on this blog I haven't gone through this whole story of my Career Crisis and this Happy Event following the Crisis.

Well.  Since awhile now, I have been considering as many career options as I have considered places I would like to travel in the world.  That is a lot.  Things I have considered doing range from tattoo artist to animator to illustrator, but I knew I at least wanted to be an artist to make my living. I was doing the Artist in Residence thing and totally loving it.  But I knew that someday I will move out of Eugene, and try to have another Big Art Career to do along side with being an Artist in Residence.  I guess I was at sort of a crossroads and not sure which way to focus, so I emailed an old professor and asked for advice. Which career direction did he think my art was best suited for? Well, he didn't answer that question, but pushed the notion that I really should probably narrow it down. A lot. So I gave myself a deadline. A few weeks down the road, I will have thought long and hard about this decision. It's a really scary notion, making this big of a decision. What if I am limiting myself and closing doors by picking just one area of focus for my art career?! I worried but then thought, no, this is just for NOW. I will pick one focus for RIGHT NOW and if at some point I have given it an honest shot, I will pick something else later. So I wrote pro and con list after pro and con list for each career option.  It's a funny thing, trying to make a decision this big, by being this systematic.  Once all the lists were made, it was like I didn't REALLY need to look over and consider them that closely.  Just the act of making these lists was enough to hear what my heart had been whispering to me all along. Now that voice was louder, with the facts all written down instead of floating around chaotically in my brain. A Muralist, that was IT.  With murals, I can work with people.  I can help people brighten their spaces, get more business in their places of business, work with kids sometimes, and paint REALLY REALLY BIG.  Murals are so BOLD! I love almost everything about this whole business of making them.  The answer was in my heart, it just took some focus and some dedication to trying to hear my inner voice, for me to come to the right decision for myself.

So after I had come to that, I felt, for lack of a better cliche, like a huge weight had been lifted. I felt happier and lighter, knowing I only had to try as hard as I can to succeed in this ONE area, rather than continue to dabble in and spread myself too thinly in so many others.

Not even 2 weeks after, I received a call from the Mural Arts Program, letting me know that there was now another intern spot open and would  like to have it?  (I had previously been rejected after making it to be a finalist). YES I WOULD LIKE TO HAVE IT! I screamed in my mind but calmly spoke over the phone. I applied to this last year and didn't get it. Then I applied this year, made it to the finalists, but no cigar. NOW, I was being offered this AMAZING opportunity. It is something I want SO BAD. It's just so funny to me that once I decided this is really what I want to do whole-heartedly, the Universe turned around and gave me this gift, almost seeming to back up my decision, telling me I'd made a good one.

So turns out that sometimes maybe we have to choose a path, and choose it with clear purpose. I heard somewhere that "we can do ANYTHING we want, but we can't do EVERYTHING we want." It sounds scary, like again, maybe we're limiting ourselves.  This has been a good lesson for me though, that choosing something and trying to put all the "what ifs?" and the other roads you DIDN'T take out of your mind, can be a really powerful thing. It's like I've given myself permission to just put ALL my career-starting energy into this one area. Greater things will probably happen this way, than if I just try everything. Sort of like being able to spin one plate better than 7.

I know this is long and preachy so I'll wrap this up. Just wanted to share this bit of good news and a lesson learned recently, with you guys....whoever is out there reading this. :)

One plate for now,

Corie