Meng’s Neighborhood

These streets will make you feel brand new,
the lights will inspire you.

I went to NYC last week! I made it to this awesome conference! I didn't have a ticket, but I made it in... AND got to see some awesome galleries and friends new and old! what a packed weekend.

I wore Harrell Fletcher's wrist band to get in! Suzanne Lacy indirectly bought me a beer! I was part of one of the most incredible critical social-practice-art-intense theory/practical conversations since/including all my art classes and it lasted forever but was so good for every minute.

Here is my powerpoint that I gave to the other Elsewherians when we returned:

(ok, it needs more descriptions than when i presented it in person... will update that soon.)

Here are some key points i'm taking back with me.

• utilizing under-appreciated resources in a community - how can we bring value to these non-monetary exchanges?
• where are the non-art people in these conversations? how can we engage in this type of art conversation outside of an art circle -- is it necessary to be considered an artist in order to have the freedom to do these types of projects/get funding within our current system of understanding and advocating art in public practices?
• must get involved with the grassroots groups already tackling the project/ideas i want to consider in my artwork: they are the ones already connected and trusted by the community
• an ongoing need for a revolution: is academia a "safe zone" for us (artists) to develop ideas and projects that go back out into the "war zone" of real life?
• legislative art? does it give more structure/results than more esoteric art pieces? a way of having art take responsibility for it's power and the issues it responds to (benefits from?)
• how do you measure the success of a project -- is it art because it is measureless? does that lead to esoteric and meaningless art pieces? is that ok -- isn't it ok to dream and create without creating measurable results? what if the results are un-measurable and yet still have just as profound an effect as any other act and effort?
• distinct, political goal oriented projects can still have esoteric, indeterminable artistic moments.
  
• how do i avoid over-thinking and critiquing my work to the point that my theory paralyzes my action and making?
• there are always consequences to your practice: but where, and how, and who has control over those ideas once they are out in the world? We have to stop thinking we don't impact -- even if it is only impacting yourself.
  
• "If artists felt like they could do anything, why are 95% making paintings?"
• how can artists instrumentalize their cultural capital?
• do long-term goals paralyze immediate action that could be considered merely a "bandaid" to the larger issue? are the smaller projects still valid? necessary! how can they be incorporated and a valid contribution to/acknowledgment of the larger picture?
• be present to your human condition, compassion, feelings, thoughts, authenticity.
  
  

Here's what a bunch of other people say about the conference:
Claire Bishop
Zefrey Throwell
Zefrey Throwell
Audio Intro

first proposal deadline: November 6!

Call for Performance Proposals
The Art Shanty Projects and mnartists.org are seeking individuals or groups interested in producing programs on frozen Medicine Lake in Plymouth, MN from January 16 through February 14, 2010.

• bags of trash
• bagging, bundling, storing, hiding things away
• secrets
• cocoons
• sleeping bag brigades/forts/fortresses/armies
• sewing circles
• ice cream making
• ice-dying
• slowly made tiny ice igloos/sculptures
• freezing things into the ice
• carnival
• country faire
• rallying point
• a flag pole
• flag-making
• lots of flags all over the place like post-it notes.
  
• claiming lands; making continents; making forts; making a place /territory/rules/games/ways of speaking/walking/doing
• ice-risk?
• drawing maps on the ice
• dress making
• ice-dress-fashion-show
• ice-project-runway
• ice-iron-chef
• ice-friday-night-lights
• ice-freaks-and-geeks
• disney on ice
• installations all over the place
• mousetrap, the human ice-version
• making shish-kebobs
• fax machine games x 100
• ticket to ride out the wazoo
• letter writing
• movie making
• home movie reenactments
• olympics on ice!
• Childhood sleeping bags
• tea parties
• snow cones
• gladiators
• elaborate structures for random competitions(rock paper scissors, jumping jacks, shortest, thumbwars): get evan scofield involved.
• Mobiles... of ice?
• truck-ice-skiing
• sitting in a cool truck.
• trucks in general.
• hauling stuff.
  
• puppies! kittens! ice-pet shop! Stuffed animal making!!!!!!!
• locally-inspired play: bring a basically created plot with lots of open spots and involve local volunteers and local issues into the cast/plot: create the props and parts, have easily jump-in-a-ble roles and positions, be flexible to the community's needs.
• People's living rooms. Grandma's living rooms. Memories of grandmas living rooms. What happens in living rooms. What is a living room.
• Canadian border? Where the hell is minneapolis anyway (talk to athena?)
• Written as an outsider looking for a place to be.

The last few weeks have been all about andy warhol, all the time. we were preparing and getting the town excited and ready for us and our celebration of receiving the national Andy Warhol Foundation Grant -- a real honor for us and Greensboro of this national forward-thinking arts recognition. We decided to announce it with a blow-out fundraiser party, aiming to match the national grant award with local donors' contributions.

Well, despite tensions running high, and working non-stop all week to produce this epic, three-floor, no-holds-barred, fancy and fun party, it turned out great. it was fun, classy, just the right amount of weird, warhol, silliness, delicious food, and staffed by some of the most attractive individuals in all of greensboro (we really clean up nice.) I had a lot of fun, I think the guests got what they came for, and we even had Father Time come through and have the chance to see the place all dressed up for the first time -- he was overwhelmed and awed I think.

Some favorite moments, because I'm tired, and because I do best in lists:

• having everything come together magically! every station set up, every bit of junk concealed and transformed into warholian party land! supporting people in making it work and knowing we all were working together to make this an amazing event for everyone.
• the delicious food and fancy drinks! not only did we get to eat such great treats from our favorite Chef Graham (which included walking back and forth from his walk-in freezer, down the alley, to our kitchen table!), but I got to be a bartender at the "Banana Bar" which was quite exciting.
• the photobooth with kirsten!
  
• getting my haircut on the fire-escape! by neighbor and fancy hair-stylist kyle britt! it fits in the theme because of warhol's Haircut films featuring Billy Name and Edie Sedgwick. the end product is a bit short (on one side...), but totally smokin'. and prominently displaying my rat-tail.
  
• seeing old friends!! Les, resident from last summer, and Chelsea, intern from last summer were both there! As well as some great people I've met this year but haven't seen in a while: Brian, Diana, Alister, and Natalie! who I've heard tons about from Blnkt, but now finally get to meet (what a great broad!)
• the banana plush pillow (about 4 feet in length) (in front of the desk). yep. i made it.
  

  DSC_6148-1
• dance party in the bathroom: actually, it was the "Factory Toilet Facilities", covered entirely (ENTIRELY) in tinfoil to resemble this (this too), and additionally with a newly silver-spray-painted floor as a last minute brillz-and-ridiculous idea executed by dan, kaylan, and brian (at about 3 in the morning, the day before the party). It started with the call of Ace-of-Base and just got better from there. the song lyrics, "boom boom boom, I want you in my room. Let's spend the night together, from now until forever" are really not leaving my brain any time soon.
  
• a really delightful sleepover with 5 of my favorite people in my bed... such a late night and so much effort put into making this party happen, that we all were giggle-y and filled with stories of what happened that night and what went into making it happen. needless to say, the space feels a bit empty this evening.
  
• the brunch in the morning, with everyone really sleepily eating delicious strata (prepared by fabulon board members cliff and neal) but enjoying the sun in the alley-garden, and really being with each other in a relaxed and stress free way -- the party is over and we don't have to be crazy anymore!

I'm really excited to continue planning October's events, and make some other amazing things happen around here. It was great to focus and produce such a solid overwhelming entirely gigantic event, but I can't wait to go back to thinking about something other than Andy Warhol... right now his face is plastered (really) all over the facade of the building. That's about 300 Andy Warhols ready to come down and make room for the rest of the season of amazing community, art, playfulness, and magic.

1. foot-baths. my feet get really really dirty when i walk around barefooted, especially in the wet-floor dishroom. as anthony and i discussed, it's really good that my feet are small and fit in small buckets.
   
2. more doing, less planning. as many of you know, i do a lot of scheduling, planning, making planners, making schedules, reworking, list-ing, etc. in fact, i would go so far to say that I am really quite a master spreadsheet maker (really learned from the best -- my grandfather). They are my specialty. BUT. one problem is that I end up spending a lot of time making lists, and then the time is gone and I have yet to accomplish something. strange. So this week I have experimented with the phrase, "more doing less planning" to much success i think. examples:
3. i finally did my room installation! it's a full-forced fort (ya hear that will!?!)!! so much so, that in combination with anthony's fort-esque installation, we're really ready for full-blow friendship-wars between our two basecamps. ideas for what to throw at each other, please drop a comment.
   
4. kitchen labels. i might learn how to spell "labels" someday. i finally took it on and am looking at my role as Kitchen Kommando as an art piece exploring domesticity within a necessarily highly functional context. Any ideas or recommendations about food-artists or kitchen-artists please send them my way.
5. working on my website! ok, still nothing to show. i know i know. but i also have reassessed my goals and i'm going to be making a very basic one first, and upgrading it as i go and as i figure out how to do more web-coding-internetz stuff. 
6. organizing my digital life. i moved to an ELECTRONIC CALENDAR. what?!?! and organized my internet bookmarks to not be so centered around my hampshire life (tear). AND, i joined twitter. i'm not sure what this really is useful for, or if it's a good idea or not, but whatevs. now you can follow more random online thoughts of mine. ok, this is a slightly boring #6, but i know you all are really interested in what i've organized recently, and my digital social life.
   
7. posting on my blog. and my more professional blog. which is a little intimidating trying to blog professionally.
   
8. looking up residencies and places to go for next year... hub-bub in spartanburg SC? working within the miami school district as an art person project maker leader teacher? setting up a art-workshops-community-building-organizing-recycled-sustainability-bike-coop-mobile-old-school-bus tour/project with mr. J gamble using the bus from this project!!?! going to israel?
9. applying to go to israel. on birthright free trips gift wow! possible idea: extend the trip and stay in israel and do a residency there or something. ideas?
10. maybe i should rename this post: "ideas?" or "please talk to me?" or "leave some comments dudes!"

i've also been missing everyone who i don't see everyday, and even some of them i do see everyday, a lot. so, i miss you. i know it's dangerous when i start reminiscing about first semester division 3... cause i know how hard and upsetting that was too. it's kinda scary taking on your life and doing stuff with it. declaring that i'm up to something big and i'm out to make a difference. i almost couldn't even write that cause now you all know and will hold me up to that. darn.

i'm really really really excited for my upcoming visitors: my parents!! and then, allison!! wow! what a treat! oh man, so excited. in fact, i made a map of greensboro aliya hot spots (ok, some of them are specifically for my dad, and some are just kinda lame, but.) for their visits! Look how cool this place is! look how much fun you'll have if you come to visit me! limited time only. i head south november 7th. ish.

OFF TO MAKE SOME LUNCH!
(note: we as a collective have finally become slightly tired of eating so many frozen black bean veggie burgers. they have been the staple of all of our diets for at least the past 4 months, and i love them, but i am also slightly over-burgered-out...)

from toni subira, visiting resident artist from Spain, after listening to a night of me cracking up at the dinner table lost in my own joke of saying "toni _(insert random word that ends in "ni", usually "macaroni" cause that's all I could think of)_":

"aliya maravilla" = "aliya wonderful" (!)

wow!! thank you so much, toni macaroni!!

Aliya and ATown.
we're in it to win it.
esteeemed members and co-founders of the Awesome Rat-Tail Club.
new roomies and future interior-decorators of the red room up front.
he can reach the top of the refrigerator, and i can grab stuff from under the sink.

We went on an adventure today and worked out at the Y, went on the water slide, brainstormed potential part-time-jobs in Greensboro that wouldn't kill my heart, visited our friend Kirsten at work and got delish coffee drinks, bought toilet paper, tampons, and deoderant, got lost and ended up talking to some really swell fire-fighter people and checking out these terrifyingly awesome crashed school busses and cars which I guess they use for training fire fighters for emergency situations? and then invited them to come check out Elsewhere and luckily I had some elsewhere august posters and cards in my car so they are gonna hang them up in the break room. Then we checked out a convenience mart which Anthony was sure would have awesome weird old sunglasses but actually they turned out to be way over priced but I did in fact get a really sweet North Carolina Facts ruler for $1.00 and then we stopped being lost and made it home at last.

 

Found this on the way into the YMCA to catch the end of the last half-hour slot of water-slide time of the day: I think it is now our TEAM BFFForever business card. I am the purple headed one. He is the orange headed one. This picture is a sign from above that our team is totally for realz. We might enter the olympics.

as many of you know, i am a very talented half-glockenspiel player. my instrument was gifted to me by the dumpster gods from Hampshire College's Children's Center back in Fall 2008, and since then I have slowly been restoring it, building a new frame with the assistance of my advisor Greg Kline, and adding some piano felt with the assistance of my friend J Gamble. I designed and produced a custom back-pack carrier bag and have carried this beautiful instrument across six states. It has performed in two official bands ("Let's Be Friends" and "The Rockin' Apocapies"). I can honestly say that as of tonight, I officially feel as if I am really starting to understand the instrument -- we are becoming one. we are understanding each other like friends, and we are ready to continue to the next phase of our relationship, moving beyond random noises into what could maybe become songs? tunes? melodies? cohesive audio-visual-tactile art experiences?

Officially presenting, an award-winning, original piece:

"The Soup is Hott Tonight"
Performed by Aliya Bonar and Amber Phelps Bondaroff; remixed by Amber Phelps Bondaroff
July 2009

After this incredible collaboration and band experience, my half-glock and I felt more comfortable to take on new musical challenges. Two of the residents at Elsewhere right now, Sally Dean and Florence Peake, are exploring the different rooms in Elsewhere through dance and movement. They heard the wondrous sounds emanating from Amber's and my recording session, and asked me to participate in their process. I was really excited about this opportunity, and even though things are busy and crazy, I wanted to make sure it happened. Tonight we went to the third floor to the "ghost room", where past residents Derya and Casey transformed the room into a place to commune with the ghosts of Elsewhere, complete with clothing "portraits" and sunken chairs where the ghosts sit. Sally and Flo moved through the space and I played my instrument. And it was so magical. I kept stepping outside of myself a tiny bit and thinking, man this is so silly. I'm playing an instrument I don't know how to play and they're just moving around randomly, but then I'd step back into myself and realize that this was totally awesome and fun and beautiful and inspiring. We were creating this musical physical event and piece together! I felt like I could actually play this instrument! I vaguely could decide what bell to play to produce the feeling I was getting from watching them dance, and it sounded like something on purpose!

so, while you are only experiencing really half of the performance, here is another original, award-nominated piece:

"A Trio of Whispering Third-Floor Bird Friends"
Half-Glockenspiel performed by Aliya Bonar, Dancing performed by Sally Dean and Florence Peake
August 2009

Tonight when we were eating dinner, I asked everyone to hold hands, and take a breath, in honor of my aunt who passed away this last weekend. It was something she always insisted on doing when we ate together, taking the time to appreciate the food and the company and the day. Even though it was kinda silly, everyone did it -- and we even took two breaths. Aunt Elisa, I miss you incredibly. Your spirit and energy and life is being passed on to so many people you will never even know. You are an inspiring being whose willingness to feel so deeply and express that so authentically has contributed to me being able to allow myself to play a broken instrument in a ghost room installation with two women dancing around me. I feel very blessed to live in so many magical worlds and be supported by so many different families.

some magical things happened on the vacation drive home. I was talking with some of the residents (molly, rachelle, and eliza, the esteemed riders in my car) about elsewhere and i could all of a sudden see outside of myself. They talked about how amazed they were to step into this community, one which was so incredibly generous, so enthusiastic, so positive and excited. How they'd never seen a group be so much of a group, so intensely together and dedicated to doing things together, to taking care of each other, to welcoming the new residents in and making them feel a part of the family. How they'd overhear a meeting in the kitchen, and realize that we actually were having a 45 minute conversation and debate about whether or not to cook frozen pizzas on friday (public event) night dinners -- were they easier to make? easier to clean up? easier to eat? cheaper? or just as much trouble as other food? do we even like pizza? They said how amazed they were to see that actually happening with such dedication and seriousness.

And eliza said how seeing that, and seeing everyone jump in so whole-heartedly into molly's performance last friday (which involved all of us performing as some body-system-part --- i was the mouth chomping in the digestive system! it was an incredibly sweaty costume and a really bizzarre experience interacting with people in body-sacks as a chomping/bowing mouth...) inspired her to make bathing suits for everyone in the community, even though it would be a lot of work. that she was totally willing to give as much as we were because she knew it would be reciprocated.

I'm trying to figure out what it is about elsewhere that i have fallen in love with -- and get frustrated by and confused by and discombobulated and inspired and lost in. what is the essence that i am so drawn to, that makes this place -- certainly not greensboro of which i know very very little about -- feel like home? how can this be entirely beautiful, rewarding, real, visceral, tangible as i can reach out and touch my roommate's foot, sweaty and stinking, bubbling and delicious, but also entirely removed, in a world of its own, un-real and imagined. temporary but forever?

i'm not a poet, but i'm an artist so i can say these things. also, i mean them. i am learning to bathe in my confusion and thoughts, instead of continuing to struggle and drown in them.

ELSEWHERE FAMILY VACATION.
to the beach, the outer banks, 4.5 hours from Elsewhere.
leaving saturday morning, 6am. returning sunday evening, 2am (after being rain-swamped out at 8pm and realizing, after some brainstorms, calls to dan's dad, and magic-phone searches that we just had to go home)
an intense personal thinking time in my head, thinking about groups, how we form groups, why we move together so easily and so confusingly at the same time, how much work it is to mobilize a group of 11 people, and how incredible it is to create and be a collective.

inspiration from eliza, community, hott butts, swimming, friends, beaches, road-trips, teams, the color red.

(while dry and theoretically still as-designed)
(after going swimming -- some loosing their "outer panty", some suspenders loosing their stretch and hold, most all becoming much more revealing, while still remaining surprisingly decent)

eliza fernand designed and constructed most of these, i made my own based on her example and guidance.  

1. percussion-based rock-band (me on the half-glockenspiel, eliza singing, dan on the tambourine, rachelle clapping)
2. dance-troupe involving YMCA weights and mats from Yoga Room 1 (co-coreoagraphy with eliza)
3. Scout Troupe Elsewhere (everyone gets sashes and then gives/receives badges based on achieved knowledge and gained appreciation)
4. Kickball Team Elsewhere (utilizing the blue and red team jerseys purchased at Burlington Hospice Sale in June)
5. Centerpiece Competition (yet to be really fully realized)
6. North Carolina History Project (where everyone would do a lecture on one aspect of North Carolina and Greensboro history, culture, or geography and present it back to the group for a collective learning experience)
7. make lots of home-made bathing suits (yes, it's an old initiative, newly re-inspired)
8. make friends in Greensboro (become a part of this community)