Jes Lee

Month: June 2012

Sleeping? What is that?

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Today has been awesome. We went to the Northeast Farmer’s Market where we got strawberries!! (see photo below) I love farmer’s market strawberries! I always buy as many as I can possibly afford and freeze them for smoothies during the long winter months when fruit is soooo expensive here. We also stopped by a friend’s garage sale where I picked up two Nitty Gritty Dirt Band record sets for a grand total of $1! Yeah, it was a nostalgic purchase really. When I was young I would fall asleep almost every night listening to a NGDB cassette tape. I believe I knew all the words to Mr. Bojangles by the age of 5…that’s normal right? (note: no, I do not yet own a record player, but Mr. FN promises me there is one coming for my birthday!)

Really. It is weird going through a day knowing that you aren’t going to sleep at all until sometime the next day. It is constantly on your mind…”I should sleep now because I won’t sleep tonight…I should do this and not that because I won’t sleep tonight…”

Blah!

I honestly haven’t had a super hard time with that today because I did this last year (kind-of) and I know that once the night starts, the adrenaline starts going, and I hardly notice what time it is. Of course last year I did get to go to a few different places instead of staying in one spot all night, and I did go home around 3am…this year I will be at MCBA until at least 6am (probably later with clean up). I’m excited though! It will be so much fun! If you are Instagram, follow me (Moonsweetie) or follow me on Twitter! I’ll try to post updates all night long!

Of course life doesn’t exactly make it easy for you to just stay up all night and get away with it…and of course our awesome real estate agent called to say there is a showing scheduled for tomorrow… This is good news really! It is great that someone else is interested in looking at our place! And thankfully we were given enough notice to do a little last-minute cleaning tonight, and will have enough time to come home in the morning, take a cat nap, and head out with the bunny. Life is never dull around here!

My camera bag is packed, my batteries are charged, and I have a few granola bars and cans of diet coke stashed for tonight. I promise to give you a full report of it soon!

Yay Northern Spark!

Strawberries!!! The awesome first-of-the-season-organic-kind!

 

A rare Friday update

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June has barely started, and it is already gearing up to be a busy month! It is busy in many wonderful ways though, so I can’t complain at all!

I am working on tons of photos for MCBA now. I love being busy with work for them! At the last Artist Co-op meeting we discussed more upcoming opportunities and deadlines. I know I have bitten off more than I can chew this year as far as deadlines go, but they are all so exciting and there isn’t one I wouldn’t want on my plate! So here we go!

Art-a-Whirl photos should be posted soon! I have all the film developed and scanned. Just a few more touch ups are needed, and they will be good to go! Of course I will post a link as soon as they are up.

This weekend is Northern Spark in Minneapolis. This is the second year for the festival, and it has already become one of my favorites! In case you don’t know exactly what it is, it is a festival that takes place from dusk to dawn…that’s right, all night long! Art centers and artists around the city participate, setting up exhibits, activities, performances, and anything else imaginable they can. Food trucks serve food and caffeine all night, there are special busses and bike paths to get festival go-ers from one place to the next…it is epic! This year I will be spending the entire night at MCBA helping with their event which includes sound, performances, and letterpresses. I’m very excited! (Though I do believe that next year I will plan on not volunteering all night long, and will instead be out seeing the other activities…and of course dragging any and all friends with me I can!) I love seeing how many people will stay out all night, supporting the arts in our dear city on the river. Even the number of people who don’t stay out the whole night, but are out living it up until midnight! It is awesome.

I will be teaching a couple of classes at Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts this summer. As soon as their latest newsletter is posted on their site, I will link to the classes here! In the mean time, you can always give them a call or send an email to get their latest class schedule.

I have been busy filling out applications for winter/holiday art festivals already. We are planning to keep it a bit more simple this year. I think that will be a very wise decision.

The photo classes at Bloomington Art Center have not been going as well as I had hoped. The darkroom classes have not gotten enough registration for the powers-that-be to let them run. We shall see what the fall session brings on that front. My granny used to tell me that nothing is ever so bad that some good doesn’t come out of it. Sometimes those things take a while to see. I believe this situation will be one of those, but I can handle that now.

I am getting back into the mode of experimenting and playing. This is something I have needed for quite a while now. It is so easy to get too far away from the creating, the trying-new-bits, the taking-loads-of-photos, the collecting. Being back in this place is definitely making me a lot calmer about all the deadlines and stresses. Of course, it does help a bit that I have two new cameras to play with, and have had time lately to throw on the pottery wheel a bit more. I have plans of new things to do and try in my darkroom as well. All enlargers have been cleaned and given new light bulbs….they are ready to go! There are gallery shows coming up for me this year and early 2013…and I want to have new work done for them. Wait and see! It will be grand!

New camera #2 – a Yashica 635 medium format TLR found at a garage sale by my dad :)