Busy week here as I get all the logistical stuff done for my cross-country trip next week to El Paso and Berkeley. I will be at two places in El Paso, the popular Downtown Arts/crafts fair and Farmer’s Market, as well as at the El Paso Museum of History during it’s National Day of the Cowboy festival, Old West Fest.
I’ve been busy 3-d printing some of their suggestions for items for the flag, including logos of the local college and minor league sports teams, as well as collecting various other outdoor gear and western/cowboy objects.
Museum of History is a stone’s throw from the Rio Grande and border. The Old West Fest where we will hold our Shared Spaces event will celebrate not only the Cowboy but also the Vaquero.
In this case all the Museum’s volunteers are tied up with Old West Fest, so I needed to find my own helpers for the event and photographer. A quick gig post on Craigslist got about 10 responses while I ate my lunch before I was able to take the post down. I have three great assistants now and looking forward to training and working with the team.
After El Paso I will head up to Berkeley, where I’ve just been approved for a free spot during Foodieland Night Market where thousands of people are expected, over the weekend of Aug 3,4. It promises to have an Asian flair and I’m hoping this might be a fresh (and very Californian) way to understand Berkeley, through it’s Asian-American community. Outsiders seem to understand Berkeley as a sort of echo of the 1960s Free Speech Movement, but those who live there know the majority of people are more culturally mainstream and ethnically diverse even if they lean solidly Blue-State in their politics. We’ll see! I grew up in the area and will stay with my brother, with a number of family members and old friends promising to show up. “Everyone please bring a small rigid object for the flag that is meaningful to you, 1-4” in size! ” It’s become almost like saying Hello for me these days.
Sather Tower or the Campanile on UC Berkeley campus. I was the 4th generation in my family to attend or teach at Berkeley and look forward to the visit!
It will be a sprint to get everything done here, get down to El Paso and get that piece done, get up to Berkeley and get that piece done (about a week each) and make it back to New York in time to host a group discussion on August 15. But if nothing untoward happens with the car I will have time to catch several places on my 2019 bucket list, including Crystal Bridges Art Museum, Marfa’s Donald Judd works (Chiananti Foundation), and the SF Museums. On the way back I hope to swing past some of my galleries in Seattle and Kansas City to talk to the owners about new works etc. There will be lots of windshield time which hopefully will lead to new ideas for artworks. The last time I drove through Nebraska I spent most of the time thinking about Robert Henri, who was from Nebraska, who combined NY School/Ashcan sensibility with Midwestern work ethic in the early 1900s.