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Cyrus and I met at a bar called Beulahland yesterday. We talked about being professional amateurs.

Building Relationships, Drinking Beer, Free Serving Trays, etc.

I believe that drinking good beer with someone else inspires great conversation and serves as a catalyst for developing relationships. I find that the conversation will often be centered on great beer and how what you are drinking at the moment compares to some other beer you drank last month. From this connection you can talk about many other things and a relationship can bloom over a pint or two. When I organize events around drinking beer I am mindful that it is a relationship building activity.

Last Sunday, I organized another beer event as part of a larger event series at Portland's Igloo Gallery. I hand-made serving trays that people could take home with them. The serving trays would hold two sampling glasses at the same time - a gesture I thought was symbolic of relationships between two people. So I paired beers based on who I was talking to, the nature of the conversation, as well as attempting to explore taste pallets. The best part of the event, for me, was that I had put a large amount of energy and effort into building these serving trays that I was just going to give away for free. In other words, the product of my labor was an object that was designed to cultivate relationships, as opposed to my labor being used by some business to make more money for that business.

Beerandscifi.com

Recently my beerandscifi blog got a tremendous amount of attention. It all started when io9, one of the leading sci fi news blogs wrote an entire post about my blog. Within a matter of hours I had been linked to by many other blogs and my latest post "Top 10 Sci Fi Flicks for the Thinking Man (beerandscifi version)" had received lots of attention on Plime, Metafilter, and Reddit. That post was basically a response to Rotten Tomatoes, who created a list with the same name, but I found it a little dull. Maybe this attention normal for most blogs, but this is the first time something like this has happened to me so it was very very exciting. I thought I'd share that with you.
Here's the io9 post:

It's just nice to know that I've spent all this time watching sci fi movies, thinking about their relation to issues I'm interested, and that when I have something to say it about it all...people are interested.

And then here is an image from another blog that I found particularly flattering. I can't post the images from every place that linked to me because that would just be a little weird:

Beer Pairings for “Everyday Magic” at the Igloo Gallery

Everyday Magic is an events series that will activate the Igloo Gallery in Portland. It ran in December 2008 finishes up in January 2009. Based on the concept of the Everyday, events will include presentations, demonstrations including how to brew beer at home, skill sharing, project sharing, dance parties, experimental meditation, film screenings, music, and potluck food-making and eating.

For my contribution to Everyday Magic I am handmaking serving trays (see image above) that guests will be able to take home with them. On the serving trays I will be pairing beers for them that will match the food they are eating and the conversations they are having in the gallery. The idea behind my project is to show that the act of drinking beer with friends can be one that builds relationships and has the power for social change. Good beer makes for good conversation.

Where? Igloo Gallery - 325 NW 6th #102 Portland, OR 97209
When? Sunday, January 18th from 2-5pm

Stopping, Breaking, and Moving

Over the Christmas Break I purposed to not make any art. I visited my family in California and I asked them not to talk to me about art or school. I wanted to spend my break enjoying my family and friends and not become worried about all the looming deadlines coming up. Maybe I need to learn some skills in time management or some techniques for relieving anxiety. Maybe I need to realize that my job, my art, is okay to talk about and that it doesn't need to stress me out...but I'm not there yet...I'm sure my parents would have loved to know what I have been up to but I really needed time for my brain to settle down and I needed to rethink what I was doing and why.

When I got back home and started up school again I began thinking about a few things:
-I am under no obligation to like art, attend art events, or talk about art with anyone if I don't want to. Here when I say "art" I think I'm talking about the scene of art and the systems in place to support and cultivate that scene.
-Why should I make art just to make it? If I have something important I think I need to do, then I can do it. If not, why bother? Explorations can be included, and I think it's good to explore.
-Let's get priorities straight: Family and Friends are first. Then a few other things. Art is way down the list.

When I got back from school I dropped a few different things that may have been keeping me from doing things that I feel I need to be doing. These may have been because of time constraints and/or from my increasingly evolving ideas about productivity; I don't need to pile things into my schedule just so that I have things that fill my time. Now I have more time to rethink what I'm doing and really make sure that I'm satisfied with the choices I've made.

On another note, I've been reading through an online summit about the paradoxes of slackerdom and I would recommend it for all you interested in what it means to enjoy life, doing what you think you need to do, and the differences between leisure, procrastination, sloth, and slacking off. Not sure exactly what to make of it all at this point but it's fun to read.