Songs, Stories, & Squiggles
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Wearable Art!
For those of you who have wondered if you could wear my drawings, the good news is in: now you can! Adventurous Art! by ALLIDA store on Contrado.com See two shots of a jacket with a redbud leaf from my Songs of Urban Ecology Series. The first, a night shot was taken in northern Michigan…
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Kuunkukka (Moonflower)
Before her death in 2015, my mother and I planted Moonflowers (Datura Inoxia) in a few parts of the yard where they continue to flourish. Rather than blooming during the day, Moonflowers spin open at night, unfurling their origami buds into a five pointed star and emerging into a broad phonograph trumpet. My mother loved…
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Ubiquitous Obsolescence
Ubiquitous is an adjective that describes seeing something everywhere, so much so that its presence is taken for granted. Dandelions are ubiquitous, they are everywhere, they survive being chopped and mowed, and their deep taproots mean that they also sometimes even survive being uprooted. Plastics are also ubiquitous. They are everywhere, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible,…
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Mahtava: Spectacular Inflatable Art
Mahtava, which is a movable site specific inflatable art installation, is designed to be a show-piece. Tendrils emerge from a pod that seems to breathe, dangling over the central market, moving and changing colors to create joyful fun while the DJ and others jam out. The process of creating “Mahtava,” which means spectacular or awesome…
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Riverway Lullabies
During the summer of 2022, with my schedule shifted from the regular school year, the afternoons felt expansive. I would take my bike and just ride, looking for interesting spaces and people along the Riverway, in Brookline, and along the Esplanade. Having picked up the flute when I began the project, “Songs of Urban Ecology,”…
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Emerging Wonder: A Shadow Ballet
Lewis Carroll played with time and scale throughout Alice in Wonderland in order to reframe the quirks of British culture. It’s publication in 1865 coincided with the end of the American Civil War, and despite optimistic framing at the time, vestiges of both British and American culture still contribute to inequitable systems of power.
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Breathe: Art Lives in Community
“This morning I have been pondering a nearly forgotten lesson I learned in high school music. Sometimes in band or choir, music requires players or singers to hold a note longer than they actually can hold a note. In those cases, we were taught to mindfully stagger when we took a breath so the sound…
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March Spring Winds
March Spring Winds is a contemplation on tensions that coincide as seasonal change crashes into human emergence from the pandemic. Created through a meditative practice on internal ecology, the video consists of a sequential drawn animation combined with an improvisational flute melody to evoke the interplay between complements. As plants sprout and animals emerge from hibernation,…
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Looking Back, Looking Forward
Four years ago this weekend, in the midst of concern over the potential for our country to unravel after the 2016 election, I had an opportunity at the last minute to create something at an arts festival in Ypsilanti, Michigan. My head was a mix of fear, worry, protectiveness, hope, connection, and disconnection. Although my…
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How to Make: Origami Jumping Frog
In honor of the Partners for Amphibian and Reptile Conservation’s first annual Amphibian Week, I will be publishing two amphibian related activities. Each activity will require about 90 minutes altogether if you do all the parts, and each contains some observation, some playful learning opportunities, and concludes with a Maker project and a chance to…
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Songs of Urban Ecology: Cathedral of M-14 Fugue
What spaces around you do you ignore? Stop, Observe, Listen. The Second Song to Urban Ecology, this one was actually begun first. It was originally a photo series that I took in one of my favorite parks, located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. M-14 is an expressway that runs between Ann Arbor and Plymouth, which is…
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Make it Out of the Ordinary: Pixel Magic
Join the #pixelmagicmoon challenge and contribute to our collaborative reIMAGINEd FOOLmoon CommUNITY!