SPEED QUIZ!

Here's the result from our interview with Kate last week. Doesn't she look just great? And she was so much fun too.
Yeah Kate!

Pancake Mountain's Rufus Leaking and Kate Pierson of the B-52's

exhausted

but also happy. The prep work for Aromatic is just about complete. 99% is done. The finishing touches tomorrow morning before we open, just to put that final shine on things. I feel like I can relax for a couple minutes and actually breathe.

The site looks fantastic. Fan. Tas. Tic.

and I might get a few hours sleep tonight. Perhaps something to eat might be a good idea too.


I'm really satisfied with how my space came out. Maybe that doesn't sound right but "happy" doesn't either. I like it, I feel like I did want I wanted to do and I'm pleased with how it all turned out. That better?

I've been using the stairs too often while on site putting out fires and such so I'm not getting a whole lot of roller skating time in. And with tomorrow being opening night and a gazillion people expect I'm thinking the skates aren't getting any use this weekend.

(ahh, but after we close down for the night... watch out!)

Artomatic 2008

The Biggest Artomatic EVAR!!1!!! opens this Friday.

With over 1,000 artists. Really, I counted. In fact, as of yesterday when I last did a tally there were exactly 1,115 participating artists.

There will be music every night. Workshops of all sorts. Activities for kids on the weekends (workshops, kid movies), Fire dancers, Belly Dancers, Comedians, Dance groups, Theater performance...

and Tattoos.

Yup. Not only is there a Poetry Lounge, a Dance stage, a Film room, two large music venues, an Education room, a Visual Arts Resource Center, an Artomatic Store there is also a working Victorian styled tattoo parlour on the 12th floor, courtesy of the fine folks at British Ink.

Something for everyone - and then some.

I'm on the 11th floor - the floor with the bar :) and one of the super cool fancy lounges. Come by and see the show, you won't be dissapointed.

Artomatic opens Friday, May 9th and runs through Sunday, June 15. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays. New York Ave metro stop, M street exit. Paid parking will be available in the garage under the building.

Check out the photos on the Artomatic Flickr Group:http://www.flickr.com/groups/artomatic/

Artomatic is a free event - check out the event calendar at http://www.artomatic.org/event for a complete listing of all the happenings.

Artomatic 2008

We have hit the 1,000 mark and it keeps going up. 1,000 artists participating in the 2008 Artomatic.

(1,013 to be exact, last time I checked the registration files.)

Artomatic has floors 4-12, and the very large rooms on the main floor (which are going to be the music areas/stages) and something special on every floor: a tattoo parlor on 12, the bar on 11, an education workshop, a huge theater/film room, a poetry lounge, a Visual Artist Resource Center, the Artomatic store, and open lounges on every floor. I made a list one day of all the special section and what floors they were on, and left it there on site. Trust me - something for everyone. (Even workshops for kids on Saturdays!)

And, yes, the Fire Dancers will be back. Our performance calendar is packed this year, we've got bands and happenings every single night we're open.

This building was completely empty when we took it over - we have had to run electricity, lights, build all the rooms, build the partitions for artists to have walls to display on... it has been an incredibly huge undertaking. And I'm very impressed at how quickly so much has been done. I haven't hammered a single nail (I've been in meetings for most of my time. Or maybe it just seems that way.) but the folks in the EM committee have been working their asses off. I think some of them have moved into the building, or maybe it just seems that way because they are always there making sure everything is being built and set up properly.

But now comes the hard/fun part - less than two weeks to get my space ready to show. Let the craziness begin!!

Artomatic opens on Friday, May 9th.

Pancake Mountain in Rolling Stone

Pancake Mountain in Rolling Stone, originally uploaded by Tracy Lee.

They like us, they really like us.

#4 in their Top 10 of TV and the Web

Photo by me, the byline is along the spine, Tracy Lee

the Cave of Caerbannog - revisited

What I did during my Spring Break

glued to my chair in front of the computer for over a week.

but it's done. The Artomatic site went live last night and registration was turned on this afternoon. Web things seem to be rolling along quite smoothly so I can now turn my focus to the numerous meetings I need to either arrange or attend. Wheeeee.

For the next three months Artomatic is my life.

Hopefully I will have time when I'm not working FOR Artomatic to create some new art to hang IN Artomatic.

testing

is flickr breaking the code?

Friday

my new favorite camera, originally uploaded by Tracy Lee.

My new favorite camera.

Trying some different things photo-wise which means moving away from the Perfect Million Pixel Digital Image and towards the Crappy Cheap Plastic Camera with Film, and just going to see where that takes me.

And I'm keeping my eye on the Polaroid stock to see if I need to grab up what remains or if Fuji will swoop in and take over production - and make it cheaper. Buy now and pay more or wait and risk not getting any?

The DCist Photo Exposed show opens tonight, I'm going to head into the city early to beat the Christmas rush. That and so I can get into Jaleo for a dinner of tapas shark and calamari. And some sangria to wash it all down.

Glass3 in Georgetown is having an event tonight as well so if you haven't seen that show it closes this weekend and it is worthy of a trip.



So - Amazon has been pushing this new Bauhaus album on me for the past month in my recomendations and I've just been ignoring it because - what, another remake? Another best of?

NO! It's a new album. As in NEW new: all new songs - wtf? I did a quick check - yup, Siouxsie is still out there cranking out the records as well. If the Smiths get back together then the 80s will have come full circle and I will fully expect the apocolpyse to be around the corner.

(Yes, I ordered it.)

The new NIN is interesting, he's been sneaking new stuff in when I wasn't paying attention. When was the last time I went to a concert that didn't involve Pancake Mountain? I can't remember.

Stuff

orchid, originally uploaded by Tracy Lee.

Flickr has been flaky this week and I've lost the ability to see when all my friends have posted new photos. I miss my daily photo stream!

Daniel Johnston Dance Party last weekend at the Black Cat for Pancake Mountain, tonight we've got a photo shoot for the next DVD cover.

And my weekend is packed with Artomatic meetings.

I did some macro photos yesterday as I'm working on growing orchids. A new crop of flowers all bursting at once. When I let the camera choose the exposure & d.o.f. it prefers to go with a very low depth of field. When I'm shooting macro sometimes I want to up this so more than a tiny little bit of the shot is in focus. The problem with this is with an increased depth-of-field suddenly ~everything~ is in focus... including all the dust on the lens and the sensor. Suddenly I'm spotting negatives again.

Never realized how dirty all my gear was. Ick.