Happy 4th of July

Bliss danced with her friends, and photographer Sidney Erthal on the 4th of July and we hope your holiday was just as beautiful. Sidney Erthal’s 2010 Burning Man photos.

A treat showed up in our email box last week from Roy Two Thousand, who I met at the Bliss Dance Opening Ceremony on Treasure Island. He sent a time lapse video of the opening, with his original music.

And as a special treat, Roy Two Thousand also sent along a time lapse of Burning Man 2010, just as we are gearing up to head to the Playa next month. Enjoy!

To read more about the Black Rock Arts Foundation bringing Bliss Dance to Treasure Island – Click Here

Bliss Dance on Treasure Island photo: Sidney Erthal

Sometimes people ask me why I still volunteer for Burning Man and the Black Rock Arts Foundation after more than 10 years, and I tell them, “Burning Man and the Black Rock Arts Foundation have changed my life”. They have brought breadth and depth to my life in ways I never imagined. I have come to love the gift of art, big art as it turns out. Who makes it, why they make it, where they make it and best of all, how they make it? Thus, one of the gifts in my life is that sometimes I get to meet art in its formation. I love the process. In late 2009 I ran into my friend Lloyd Taylor, (Our Lloyd died a few months ago, we love you Lloyd, Be Cool) and he said he was the production manager on a 40 foot statue with Marco Cochrane and the Bliss Dance Crew, and it was for Burning Man 2010. I was intrigued. And he invited us out for a visit. We met the artist and his crew and we met Bliss Dance.

So a few weeks later when I got a note from Lloyd that said “With the arms and left leg mostly complete, we start the left upper torso this week. Soon we will be attaching some mesh skin and testing lighting. So come visit us at Bliss Dance on Treasure Island, help if you can or just chill in the great space with killer views.” I was thrilled and had to see Bliss Dance as she changed and grew. So off we went. And guess what, I fell in love. She was amazing, even the prototype for the piece was stunning and she captured my imagination. 

Then a few week later we stopped by again and I could not help but blog that we could see Bliss Dance Emerging. Throughout the spring we would stop by, maybe take some cookies or burritos and see the progress. Spring turned into summer and it was Burning Man season. You know how that works at your house. You start connecting more with your campmates, getting excited to see what the art is going to look like and de-dust everything so you can take it to the Playa and get it dusty again.

I blogged from Burning Man 2010 and could not help but include Bliss Dance.

My huband, MonkeyBoy goes to Burning Man in very early August to help build Black Rock City, so I hang our with my friends and since we are art geeks, we packed our lunch, took food for the Crew and went to watch the Assembling of Bliss Dance .

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Exploratorium After Dark

There are over seventeen Art and science installations demonstrating a myriad of optical and tactile phenomena, including Mark Lottor’s Cubatron that graced Black Rock City this past year. If you’ve seen the Cubatron from across the playa and attempted to place it somewhere within your field of vision as you moved towards it, you understand how this optical resolution thing can work.

Melissa Alexander who organizes “After Dark” regularly participates in Burning Man and told me that the Exploratorium has a history of showing works by local artists of all kinds and there are quite a few pieces they’ve shown that were first seen on playa. The artists’ work from Burning Man tends to resonate with the kinds of work the Exploratorium has supported historically. There are some interesting parallels between the Exploratorium and Burning Man. At one time the Exploratorium was one of the few places in San Francisco that supported the kinds of artists who tend to work interactively and with technology, and the people interested in the Art and exhibits featured there are typically participants who are from a diverse cross section of the population.

The event is tomorrow so get there early to get in. The exhibits typically run from 6:30 to 9:30 and this is a one day event. The Exploratorium is at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3601 Lyon Street San Francisco.

Resolution
Thursday, January 7, 2010
6:00–10:00 p.m.
Bar opens at 6:00 p.m.
http://exploratorium.edu/afterdark/

Sharpen your senses at Exploratorium After Dark.

From sharpness to saltiness, distinguishable differences are the basis of perception. Discover the role resolution plays in how we see, hear, taste, and feel, and how our minds synthesize sensations into an understanding of the world.

Play with perception through special exhibits, build a pinhole camera, or behold your tiny surroundings in the Tiltshift-o-scope. Experiment with illusions, monkey with magnification, and size up your taste buds with a supertaster test. Explore the exquisite optics of Yumito Awano’s drinking straw sculptures and see days slip by in Ken Murphy’s A History of the Sky. Throughout the evening, thousands of LEDs will light up Mark Lottor’s Cubatron with spectacularly dynamic patterns.

for more information go to http://exploratorium.edu/afterdark/

Hope to see you there!

Please join us for the dedication of Tree Spire, a permanent installation, on Thursday, December 10th at 12:30 pm.

A gift to the families and citizens that enjoy Whitaker Park!

Funded by Burning Man and exhibited in Black Rock City 2007, “Tree Spire” was the first project created by the Seattle art collective, the Iron Monkeys.  They created 4 fifteen-foot tall trees that were part of the “Mangrove”, a group of simulated trees fashioned from recycled industrial materials, surrounding the center-focused icon The Man.  These artificial trees were not burned: they survived to subdivide the blue of other skies.

Brought to the south bank of the Truckee River in downtown Reno, on the corner of Sierra Street and Island Avenue after the 2008 Burning Man event, the “Tree Spire” was displayed in the center of a collection of eight tree sculptures made by five different artist collectives called The Mangrove.  The creative works were made from construction waste and reclaimed materials.  The Black Rock Arts Foundation and a Project Grant from the City of Reno’s Art and Culture Commission funded this project.

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