To Market this City

Also- In case you don't know much about Colorado Springs, this youtube video explains a few of the features of the Springs area.

Illuminated

"Stories amuse; facts illuminate. Stories divert; facts reveal. Stories are for cover; facts are for real." - A Whole New Mind.

I think this is the beauty of documentary vs. fictional scenario: Truth.

Inspirations

So, I meant to post this to the blog a while ago, but I read some in this book, "A whole New Mind: Why the Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future," and I thought everyone can use a little new media inspiration. So I just wanted to share some quotes with you all- some that I found simply quintessential to the book, along with my thoughts/interpretations of it.

1. "Drawing is not really very difficult... seeing is the problem"

*Many times, we don't stop to look around the world to witness the art of everyday. We live our lives to the city's beat, distracted, scrambled and often simply lost. But how can

we ever be truly aware of the world around us if we don't have it bluntly pointed out in

our faces? To me, the answer lies in seeing with our hearts, not our eyes and minds.

2. "It's not true that what is useful is beautiful. It is what is beautiful is useful. Beauty can improve people's way of life and thinking."

* Sometimes, we can focus so much on the 'beauty' in art, the 'beauty' in life. But what

we miss out on is often a realization that we are culturally, socially and psychologically

defining our worlds. We have the power to change any impression, of even the most

unattractive aspects of our world into beauty, but we just focus on the more ascetically

pleasing aspects. Maybe we can make a change in this way, maybe it makes us stand, stagnant.

3. "Experience is the most important part of living, and the exchange of ideas and human contact is all life really is: Space and objects can encourage increased experiences or distract us form our experiences."

*When you think about 'experiencing' something, what comes to mind? Places?

People? Maybe some visual memories? Not so much the sensations, like the feel of the

cold snow on your hands or the taste of coffee during the conversation with a friend,

but I find I remember the visuals. The way things looked sticks with me more than the

'experience' of the time. I won't be able to feel the pain of tripping over my own feet, but I can still 'experience' a laugh from remembering the looks of my friends when they saw me fall. Sometimes, life is easier to record visually than sensorily.

4. According to a passage about the elements of design, proximity is defined as: "Items relating to each other should be grouped close together"

*In relation to our environment, do we not surround ourselves with items that we relate to ourselves? It seems to me, we are drawn to find similarities between ourselves and our world. Maybe we want to find meaning, maybe we fear being isolated; but that doesn't mean that we can't seek out all our differences, our oddities, and how we disconnect.

5. "Stories are easier to remember--because in many ways, stories are how we remember. Narrative imagining--story--is the fundamental instrument of thought... Rational capacities depend on it. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining... Most of our experience, our knowledge and our thinking is organized as stories."

*We have our whole lives to live/experience. But how do we remember every aspect, how will we continue to exist after we die? Our stories preserve our essence as human beings; whether through our children, our friends and family, or in recorded/permanent form.

But its all about making the story worth telling.

Remembering Those Who Serve

Driving down main street its hard to miss the brown and gold banners with the names of soldiers on them. There are quite a few. We live in a military town so we are use to seeing daily reminders of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the newspapers. Lander is not a military town but they have not forgotten their citizens that are serving in the war zones. The art club at the Junior & Senior High Schools have made banners that proudly bear the name of each deployed soldier who either lives in Lander or graduated from Lander High School. The banners fly on main street as a daily reminder to all of the soldiers who are away serving. Let those who protect us not be forgotten.

Standing in Silence

So these images were taken as a storm was rolling in through the mountains. Can anyone else feel the silence in these? It was incredible! This is exactly why I love nature so much. Literally the only sounds while I was standing here were the wind quietly blowing through the vast mountains and my own breathing. I've gotten so used to the sounds of the city, cars passing along, horns, kids playing, dogs parking, planes, sirens, etc. Its not very often that I can hear the silence that I love to hear, and honestly this is the only place where silence doesn't scare me. I hate being able to hear myself thinking....when I'm home. When I'm here, the silence is therapudic. I could have spent all day standing here and listening to the wind, and as the storm coming over the mountains progressed I started hearing faint sounds of thunder, and then it started to rain. Didn't stick around for that because this was a good couple hours outside of town, the last thing we needed was to get stuck up there in the snow. I do love the overwhelming sense of calm though, something I just cant quite achieve in the same way in a crowded city.

Passing the Puck

This video cracks me up. I did not get any video of her mom but this mom was all in to it and yelling like crazy. All of a sudden her little baby starts clapping and cheering along. It was really cute and it made me start thinking about how we pass things on to the next generation. We pass on our passions and our traditions to our children and siblings. At the CC hockey game there were people of all ages whether they are alumni or not come together against a common foe, the other team. Sports bring families and cultures together and most all families pass on this tradition and loyalty on. The next video is the next step in that process. Young boys and girls emulating their heroes on the ice in a half-time mini game. Breeding our next generation to cheer on.

City Dionysia - The Bacchae: Final Touches

The costumes of the chorus were the easier to interpret. Dionysus and the chorus themselves often discuss what is typical of a Baccant follower, and so, it was just a matter of interpretation of the wear. Keven wanted the chorus to be animalistic and to start off pretty and gradually get more sinister, tribal and dirtyas the show progressed. The costumes, though skimpy, had to be durable. There is a lot of baccant joy, slinking, and dancing to be had, and if the costumes are flimsy, there are much body parts to be seen. After several fittings, the actresses are dressed, and after much tweaking, each maenad found her own distinct way of trying her sarong, and crazying up the hair - adding leaves, tussles or gel. The makeup of the chorus is also very tribal and scary - though beautiful in a creepy way.

The men of the show also got some special attention. Dionysus in his god form (not pictured out of respect) needed to shine. His final costume had to be magnificent and awe-inspiring, yet fearful at the same time. His costumer played with reds, golds, glitter, horns, big pants, tight pants in all sorts of variations to make his final piece. There are also a few old men in the show, and finding ways to make their faces up was a learning experience for them. They needed wrinkles, accessories and color to their beards to get the final effect.

And of course, there had to be blood. Several gallons will have been used by the end of the show. many of the characters have blood on them, if not drenched in it, whenever the story dictates. With only a few hours until opening, the creative process of the BACCHAE has ended, and the performance part will soon begin.

Break a leg.

"Ten thousand men cherish ten thousand several hopes for the future. A few may achieve prosperity in this live, the others may fall short. But the man who takes each moment's happiness as it comes, I call truly blest."

-Danielle Doyle

Experimentation and Control

The wonderful world and the options with photography!! Lol. So this is an inversion I did on my camera, lately the question of digital vs 35 mil has been bouncing back and forth in my head, photography is my passion and my choice form of art, and I do shoot digital pictures, but my excitement has been about 35mm for the last 8 years. I enjoy being in the darkroom, and for some reason I'm hearing a lot of debate about whether or not digital or 35mm offers more control over the images... they both do, but in very different ways. I enjoy being able to alter my photos on a computer from digital images, but to be honest I enjoy darkroom manipulation just a little bit more...Just something I thought I'd throw out there, I don't know why it has come up around me so much lately and I've noticed that many photographers that may start out shooting 35mm eventually convert to digital as technology molds us. I have thought about it, I've also considered color film? That is something I never did unless it was strictly for recreation. I shot a lot of color pictures when I was first starting out, but have never done darkroom work with color film. I'm definitely considering it, just to experiment now that I take things more seriously. Color, black and white, digital.... all bouncing around in my head. Anyone have any comment or experience on this? =)

Rainbow "Graffitti Falls"

I had to go find this place for myself after one of you blogged about it. Im all about finding new places to visit. I love mini adventures. I truely cant believe there is talk about ripping this place apart. If they where so worried about perserving the beauty and/or the wildlife why is there a bridge right in the middle of it.

The Halem Homestead

There were two Halem brothers who homesteaded in Lander around 1900. One was married the other was not. The property we bought has the remains of the cabin of the single brother on it. My husband and I have tried to find out information about the brother but have not been able to find out much except for one story. The story goes that he liked to go into town and have a few drinks and then would fall asleep in the back of his wagon. His horse knew the way home and would pull the wagon all three miles back to the homestead without any guidance. Don’t know if the story is completely true or not but if so that was one smart horse.

Signs. . .What to say about signs? They are oh so helpful and hurtful. They share information and impose rules and regulations, they can make us laugh and cringe. I find them curious, how they so easily control the populous, they ideally stand/hang and yet are so remarkably powerful.

This sign, hangs on the wall of a diner on your way to the restroom.

I post it here for several reasons:

First being it's a cute and it's funny, it makes for great wall décor for the diner in which it hangs.

Second, when I saw this sign I was with a friend of mine. She became incredibly offended by what it says, she thinks it is completely rude to the pig. Now in all fairness, my friend is vegetarian, doesn't use products tested on animals, volunteers at animal shelters and is very passionate about the treatment of animals. Needless to say this sign made her seriously upset, she wanted to take it down. Even knowing all this about her I still thought how strange. . . why get so upset over some restaurants' wall décor? It's just a sign.

Finally, it made me think back to an excerpt from About Cooking by John Berger. In this excerpt, "Why Look at Animals?," Berger says, "They were with man at the centre of his world. Such centrality was of course economic and productive. Whatever the changes in productive means and social organisation, men depended upon animals for food, work, transport, clothing." I think that this sign, in a nut shell, speaks directly to these notions that Berger is talking about.

Little did this sign know what sort of thought would actually be put into it. What sort of larger notions it was tackling when it was hung on the wall. How perspective changes depending on who is viewing it. And what sort of power it has.

City Dionysia The Bacchae: Bacchus Crazed Beats

City Dionysia The Bacchae: Bacchus Crazed Beats

The music of the Bacchae is totally is completely original and impromptu. To keep up with the dark, ominous theme of the play, the music is slightly off-key, random and definitely far from ordinary. A gamelan is played next to an electric guitar, a violin near maracas and in a corner a giant shell f a piano, The Colossus stands, an instrument capable of making the whole theatre quake with a single plink. As the show progressed, the music evolved and as the actors became more centered and focused, the musicians grew wilder and more Bacchus-crazed. The sample below you hear is the starting steps; what the musicians have now is much more frightening and wild.

“This was an inclusive, comprehensive process of music making in many guises – composition, improvisation, performance – research and development, chance and consequence (striking how rare this collective art-creation process actually occurs is in our musical culture). When it works, there is a hyper-exchange, learning process, give and take – and results that have meaning, depth, and musical POWER even in the most nuanced of tiny scrapes. When it doesn’t work, it can be exactly the opposite experience – a quest already in atrophy.”
- Glen Whitehead, Musical Director

“Sing the praises to Dionysus to the beat of the booming drum, exalting in ecstasy the master of ecstasy!”

- Next Post: Final Touches: Costumes & Makeup

Danielle Doyle

WIP

Windows were so dirty @ 'Guru Guru'... kind made for an interesting effect...

Here is the accomping poetry...I am quite rusty...

City never quite slept

As an isominia keep her in a radial dynamic

Dimness and wholeness clothed in bright

High above the pavement and business

Always as outside looking inward

As stars and soul should await their dawn

A history remains within the shroud

Above untamed and the tainted

The moon the other night

It was amazing it had a red hue to anyone who didnt get to see it. i managed to go to palmer park and get a few pictures.

Nature Breaking Through

Okay, so I began this class talking about how I felt about the mixing of man and nature. Has anyone ever watched anything on the Discovery Channel about what happens when there are no longer people? Have you ever noticed the little sprouts of grass that come through concrete? I think it is interesting how powerful nature is. It does make me kind of sad to see how much free open land man is taking up. I'm only 21, but I have lived here my entire life and I do remember when there were large sections of open land in the city... well, in the city and in what used to be the outskirts of the city...and what is now becoming the expanded parts of the city. Things like the pictures that I uploaded are everywhere, and it makes me grateful that at least nature still shows itself in the midst of all the man made objects. Granted unfortunately the grass is dead, this would be much more effective if the grass was alive and green, but it still makes my point. It is so interesting to me to see a line of nature against a line of concrete. I cant help but wonder if what the shows talk about is true, when there are no more humans, whenever that may be, what is going to happen to all the concrete and man made objects when nature attempts to reclaim its territory? Its very complex, I dont necessarily enjoy thinking about the end, but I sometimes cant help it. Just food for thought I suppose =)