Stuff

Here are a few things that have been on my mind lately:

Prop 8

Prop-erty Crime. There's been a rise in break-ins in our neighborhood so we're trying to organize some neighborhood walks. Anyone know of creative ways to address property crime in a community?

Obama - the human being, not the politician
photo by Preston Gannaway

Also,
- Auto industry bailout
- Downtown Tucson
- The Invisible City
- Email and web overload!!

What's been on your mind??
self portrait by Marcus during Open Studio Tour Nov 8 & 9 @ El Centro

Art in Odd Places

i went to an opening of the Micromentalists show at Lulubell's Toy Bodega last night and came across artist Eric Doeringer's "fakes" collection. i went to his website and found this awesome NYC happening - Art in Odd Places. Here are a few examples but there are lots more at the website.

NO DELIVERIES TODAY

Miryana Todorova and Hatuey Ramos-Fermín

A series of boxes painted in bright colors are continually loaded, unloaded and moved from one place to another on a cart. The normally mundane job takes center stage as the delivery moves at a high speed and with no clear destination. Pedestrians will be forced to interact with the "moving" process while the colorful delivery boxes continue to question: who sent them, to whom do they belong to?

Time/Location: Friday, October 3 (2pm-6pm); Sunday, October 26 (10am-2pm). 14th Street btwn Union Square and Seventh Avenue.

FREE BOOKS
Eric Doeringer

A box of books labeled "Free Books" is deposited at various 14th Street locations. A seeming act of generosity, the artist has removed the last few pages from each book. The alteration will only become apparent to the reader after he or she has nearly finished the book, converting the cast-off into a statement of art.

Time/Location: Ongoing throughout October. Four undisclosed locations on 14th Street.

Eric Doeringer is a Brooklyn-based artist. He has had solo exhibitions in New York at Apex Art, Soma NYC, as well as locations in LA, Miami, Toronto, Spain, Switzerland, and Prague.
www.ericdoeringer.com

LANDSCRAPERS

Aakash Nihalani

Brightly colored tape outlines rectangular shapes in the urban landscape. In a city made up of rectangular buildings, windows, and blocks the artist plays with a shape that is symbolic of New York City. In the attempt to draw attention to forgotten dimensions and overlooked layers, he creates reminders and portals with cubes that allow pedestrians to see the lines they are surrounded by in a new light.

Time/Location: Saturday, October 4, 11, 18, 25. (12-2pm). Bricks, sidewalks, crosswalks, windowsills, and other locations on 14th Street.

Aakash Nihalani is a Brooklyn-based artist and designer. His recent work explores the use of colored industrial tape as a medium for street art.
www.aakashnihalani.com

Invisible City

I have the honor of being one of the artists participating in The Invisible City project, a site-specific artist laboratory in Downtown Tucson. A collaboration between NEW ARTiculations Dance Theatre and Kore Press, the project brings dancers, writers, visual artists, and musicians together for 4 weeks to create work that investigates public space through process-based explorations and performance.

The first lab was Friday, October 17th. Our public space was the parking lot on the north side of Toole, just east of the 6th Avenue underpass. We explored, climbed, danced, jumped, wrote, and felt what it was like to inhabit the space. Click here to see images from Friday.

YOU, the public, are invited to take part in this project - either as participants or observers. The project will be taking place Fridays from 5 - 7 pm and Sundays from 2 - 6pm through Nov. 9th. Hope to see you come out and interact with the process!

Photo by Krista Niles. (I am second from the right, the blurry figure in red pants!)

Acts of Faith

Faith, religion, and spirituality are on my mind. We are in the midst of the Jewish High Holy Days and today my husband and I went to a Bengali Durga Puja, the annual celebration of the Hindu goddess Durga. I recently read the book, Acts of Faith by Eboo Patel, an Indian American Muslim who founded the Interfaith Youth Core, an organization that brings young people of different religious traditions together to do direct service.

I related to Eboo's experience as an activist college student searching for a way to connect his faith and religion to his desire to better the world. This was also my journey. Being heavily involved in student activism in college left me feeling that something was missing - where was the spirit and soul of what we were doing? Where we thinking about how we were treating our fellow students or just focused on "fighting the power"? Disillusionment led me to work for change on the inside - my personal growth - and within the non-profit world.

Marrying outside my religion has tested my faith and values. Do I really believe that all religions are equal? Can my husband and I celebrate and appreciate both of our religious and cultural backgrounds without resentment or fear? This includes our own religions. For a time, I avoided the Jewish community out of fear of my Judaism being questioned and of my husband feeling excluded. After reading With Roots in Heaven, about Rabbi Tirzah Firestone's return to Judaism, I realized that I want to be connected to a Jewish community - one that is inclusive and open-minded. These do exist, and I am grateful for that.

I struggle with the contradictions. Some Jews consider themselves "the chosen people" and believe that we are a "light to the nations" - an example for other religions. This seems condescending and exclusive. Yet at the same time we have a long history of standing up for the rights of all peoples. Many Jews have explored other spiritual traditions; Jewish Buddhists abound and Israelis are known to travel in droves to India after completing their mandatory military service.



I don't know what all of this means. I do know that my activism stems from my Judaism - the experience of being a Jew in a Christian country, the history of American Jews as union organizers and civil rights activists, and the concepts of tzedakah (justice), and tikkun olam (repairing the world). I also know that I believe we all come from the same source and that the path to peace has to come from acceptance and love.

Acts of Faith ends with Patel's thoughts on religious pluralism, which I believe can be applied to not just religion but ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, and all of the things that divide us as humans:

"I came to one conclusion. We have to save each other. It's the only way to save ourselves."

JewBu definition from www.urbandictionary.com

Paying it Forward

I haven't blogged in a while because I've been occupied with Park(ing) Day and my burrito cart. Now that it is over I am trying to get back into the blogosphere. I was reading the blog Tucson Cowgirl and found out about the challenge Paying It Forward.

This is how it works, as excerpted from Monica's blog:
"I have agreed to send something nice to the first 3 bloggers who post a comment on this blog entry. In turn, those 'first three commenters' who respond to my post will honor the pay it forward concept to the first 3 people who post on their blog… and so on. So if you're interested in participating in this, be one of the first three to leave a comment. Please remember that if you agree to pay it forward, you need to post this acknowledgment on your blog, link to me, and pay it forward to three more people."

I don't know what the something nice will be yet but probably some quirky items I have lying around.

This image has nothing to do with Paying it Forward except that I don't like to post blogs without an image. I suppose an apple is a good symbol for paying it forward in that it pays you with health!

Hobobeque!

This wacky contraption looks like a cousin of my burrito cart! I found it on Instructables.com

a spiritual path..

Ok, I'm veering a bit from my usual quirky topics but I've been inspired by a book I am currently reading - "With Roots in Heaven" by Rabbi Tirzah Firestone. The book chronicles Firestone's spiritual journey which led her from Orthodox Judaism to exploring other faiths to marrying a Christian minister to becoming a Rabbi in the Jewish renewal movement. I haven't finished the book yet but it brings up a lot of issues for me related to my Jewish heritage, my religious family, and my interfaith marriage. She struggles with the Judaism she was brought up with and its exclusivity, the same issue I have felt at odds with. Is it possible to be deeply connected to one's religious heritage while at the same time fully respecting and appreciating the multitude of spiritual paths that exist in our world? She seems to have been able to do this but I will know more when I finish..