Special Edition of PB’s Newsy News

Here is the special Summer 2010 issue of PB’s Newsy News from Oslo, Norway. (450kb PDF) Remember, it is written and created in one day, so please forgive the grammar and spelling. :)

Not the stinging jellyfish...

...that invaded the fjord this summer.

Pictures from Tivoli - our favorite amusement park

København 2010

Summer in Copenhagen

Fjord Life

The Office

This is a picture of my other office. The Sommerbutikken is just what it sounds like, a little store that is only open in the summer (when we get here in June, it’s only open on the weekends). It is the only shop for miles around. Fortunately they serve up some pretty robust wifi along with the fresh pastries and sundries. I used to borrow my neighbor’s wireless when I taught online classes while here, but he has moved away and we have had to find other means. We bought a Mobile Broadband USB device from Telenor, but the 500 mb a month plan I have only allows bare bones web access (meaning I only do email and some course work at the hytte on the broadband.) When I have to upload student critique movies (40-70 mb each) or talk to someone via Skype, I hike down to the Sommerbuttikken and set up office. This set up has been working so well, I have been having fantasies about becoming a “virtual professor.”

Last night was the neighborhood celebration of MidSummer. It was a low-key event with a grill out/picnic, games with prizes and then a big bonfire. There was a parent/child hula hoop contest and potato on a spoon races. All the kids won bags of candy. My favorite game was the stilt race. The kids each “won” a bottle of soda pop when they reached the finish. Then they had adult stilt races where the prizes were bottles of beer. Needless to say, most adults participated in that race.

I am dusting off my Norwegian and finding it mostly in tact after being on the shelf for 14 months. August is starting to help me with my grammar and word selection, a bit dismissive and fussy about it in an “I’m embarrassed by my immigrant mommy” way, but helpful none-the-less.

My summer work is progressing nicely, but has hit a few snags. My large format printer (Epson 2200) has bit the dust. Bummer, I had planned to print lots of iPod drawings and pictures while here. My smaller all-in-one HP is out of cartridges and they cost 240 kr each (about $40). I think I’ll wait until I return to the US to do my printing. Other creative projects will pick up steam after the online course finishes this week. So far, my department chair duties have been manageable by email from afar. There is nothing like getting away to gain perspective on things.

I am still in something of an existential quandary about my creative work and this time away at my art retreat allows time and space to think. It takes a couple of weeks just to gather the clarity to form consecutive, topic related thoughts. This is really the only time of year that I have for great chunks of thinking time, uninterrupted by phone calls, chores, events and all the daily demands of modern life. Recently, I took a couple of tests online for Focus and Multitasking. I had a perfect score on ability to focus, but I couldn’t even complete the multitasking test. I guess I need to “defrag” my brain every summer.

August and I have been making little terrariums for hostess gifts and they are coming out quite nicely. I have been taking pictures of them and will post some soon. My Father-in-Law sold me his Nikon Macro lens for a really good price, so I have started collecting macro shots of the fjord flora and fauna.

Fjord Moods

Laughter Yoga

Last December I became a certified Laughter Yoga Leader. It was through a wonderful training taught by Sebastien Gendry of the American School of Laughter Yoga. I am a longtime student of the various forms of Hatha Yoga (Forrest, Bikram, Kripalu, Flow, etc.) and prefer to be a student. You see, I have this Professor role that I play in my professional life and it is quite a demanding part. Yoga class is the chance for me to be the student, to pay close attention and to follow instruction. It is my turn to be told what to do and how to do it. So, choosing to take the training and lead laughter sessions was not an easy decision. It is done and now I have led a few laughter groups. The results have been wildly positive.

While we were in Norway last year on sabbatical, I had what felt like a radical re-envisioning of my personal mission. My own creative production has been deeply gratifying to me throughout my life. It no longer feels like enough. It is no longer enough to be creative and joyful simply for my own pleasure. I need to stretch beyond somehow. Over time I have settled on the mission to share and spread creativity and joy to as many people as possible. This is an easy thing to accomplish with Laughter Yoga. It is a trickier thing to do with my University students. I have to help them prepare for high level professional work in addition to finding their source of creativity and joy – a much trickier proposition. I have been trying (with varying levels of success) to figure out how to make it more creative and joyful (without sacrificing the rigor). This is a challenge that I relish. I’m sure they’ll let me know how well I perform.

Back to the Laughter Yoga. I’d like to start a Laughter Club, but my schedule has prevented me from pursuing a location and committing to a day and time. For now I will schedule special Laughter sessions when able and on special request.

Jenny Holzer in the NY Times

Domains - At Home With Jenny Holzer, the Artist - NYTimes.com

"I disappoint myself routinely. If you are an artist and you are honest, you are never good enough."

The Art Compact

For some time, I have been struggling with the focus of my artwork. Mobile Misuse has been gratifying, but I have been driven by the urge to go deeper, to somehow make a comment on the difficult times that have come to pass – difficult on so many levels and for so many people. I am not the most articulate about these things, but I ponder climate and economy and wonder if the Earth might take my daughter’s life before she reaches old age. This is worst-case scenario thinking, of course. A hopeless vision, but one that I think could happen if humankind does not wake up.

I’ve been toying with an idea – an idea that is based on “The Compact” movement. These are people who, beginning in 2006, took an oath to not buy anything new for a year. The movement quickly gained fame and grew exponentially. It seems natural in these times to be attracted to these sorts of movements. So my version of this for the year 2010 is the Art Compact. I will buy nothing new for making art for the next year. No new equipment, materials, paper, colors, adhesives, paints, etc.
Basically the rules of the game are:

1. Don’t buy new products of any kind (from stores, web sites,...)
2. Borrow, barter, or buy used.

Goals of The Compact movement:

1. to go beyond recycling in trying to counteract the negative global environmental and socio-economic impacts of U.S. consumer culture, to resist global corporatism, and to support local businesses, farms, etc;
2. to reduce clutter and waste in our homes (as in trash Compact-er);
3. to simplify our lives (as in Calm-pact)

For my Art Compact I will work to use up the supplies that have accrued over years in my basement studio. I will figure out how to make good work using old, used, traded or free materials. I will write about and document the projects made and the materials used on this blog and my Flickr photo gallery.

Snow Day

Making and Thinking...

in preparation for writing...

Holiday Craft Session

Pictures of things made with my daughter and niece while in Richmond, Virginia for Thanksgiving break.

More iPod Drawings in Process

Same Old, Same Old

I have a serious case of Blogger’s Block. After conscientiously and regularly keeping this journal for the past couple of years, I have been grappling with purpose and meaning. Actually, I have been struggling with purpose and meaning in the largest sense of the words. This blog has really been something that I do for myself, with the secondary aspect being for friends and family. There are themes that I ponder a lot these days; attention & focus, creative processes, the death of the planet (or humankind on an uninhabitable planet), and “what is my true life’s purpose?”

We have gone back to our “same old, same old,” but it can really never be quite the same once you have disrupted your life in such a large way. All three of my little nuclear family members have been altered, modified, transformed by the experience and it can never really be the same. Not that we want it to be, mind you. It means that we haven’t yet found a new foothold. We haven’t figured out a new way of being within the old structures.

Perhaps, this is the way I explore the topics that occupy me. I certainly feel better and more focused having written this. What a relief. Now press “Publish Post.”

Traveling Fool

I am writing this post in Richmond, Virginia. I have been here for a week in order to help my sister take care of her husband – he has just had a liver transplant and is having an amazing recovery.

I have traveled more in the past year than at any other time in my life. The cities list reads as follows: Oslo, Copenhagen, Florence, Volda, Copenhagen, Volda, Stockholm, Lillehammer, New Haven, Richmond, Philadelphia, Princeton, Nags Head, and Richmond, again. I have only listed places I spent two or more nights and I may be forgetting someplace.

It has been a brilliant year. One of the side effects of all this travel is an odd sense of dislocation. No longer here or there, but somewhere in between. It’s almost like I could settle down anywhere I stopped along the way. My continuity has been continually broken – just when I get into a schedule and a rhythm – work, research, exercise, daily life – I am uprooted by car, train, plane, boat or bus. I have an eight-hour train ride back to New Haven tomorrow. I generally use this time to think, read, write, and reflect. Eight hours “by myself” – a rare thing, indeed. I will savor the time.

Distance gives an interesting perspective to your life. Though, I think I have had enough perspective and distance for a while and I long for a good six months or so without travel. I dream of an unbroken daily and weekly schedule – which, hopefully, will settle in at the end of this month when classes resume.

Wake, shower, coffee, breakfast, school/work, dinner, family, sleep and repeat. Mmmmm, it sounds lovely.