I am back in Oakland for a couple of days. I am teaching a piano lesson with the supremely talented, Drea Lusion, (http://drealusion.com/) I spent a good amount of time working with Drea this summer helping create Sh'Bang, the festival of ideas outside of Bellingham Washington. Here is a little clip of the Faith Faucet Talent Agency Zone that I created with some helping hands at Sh'Bang:
I started the project Faith Faucet, as concept for a talent agency, aimed at empowering artists and talented individuals to tap their natural abilities as if they were natural resources that can be used to create a positive cultural change in our society. Since many artist and people can feel helpless and hopeless when they read the news...With humanities natural resources at risk, in the hands of capitalist corporations and a very confused government. Faith Faucet talent agency exists to reassure humans that we have resources within ourselves that we can tap and not let go down the drain with the rest! We need to inspire and empower and encourage each other to take action and turn Americas shit show into a beautiful carousel of possibilities, ideas, talents, and art that mirrors and nurtures the brilliance on nature.
Some of my favorite parts of this installation/zone are:
1. the Faucet! to the right there is an invisible faucet with multi-colored water droplets coming out. For a couple weeks I made these drops with recycled fabrics, and vine maple as the frames. While I made them I often listened to sermons by brilliant black ministers. I listened to them from a podcast station called BMA: black media archive. They have in incredible archive of black ministers, including my hero Martin Luther King Jr. They also have interviews with black doctors, artists and activists. This is my go to listen when I am craving knowledge and information while I create art works. I highly recommend checking it out, if you are in need of motivation to make a change in your life and in the world.
2. The Ghetto Dome! I truly adore the ghetto dome. It looks pretty posh in this video, but it came a long way. In the beginning of the summer I was gifted a retired burning man tent. I used if for about two weeks, but when the rain came back to Washington I found it was not a useful living space. I purchased a 10x10 pop up tent and grocery outlet to protect my work space and belongings from the rain. I had a vision of turning the pop up tent into a majestic taj mahal looking dome with ornate decoration. I painted and sowed up the tent with white house paint. Soon after there was a big wind/rain storm that hit us. The newly installed faucet became tangled and adorned with tree branches, but the main structure stayed up. The wind storm also mangled the 10x10 pop up tent, to the point that is was not functional as a shelter. I did not have many other resources to make this dome happen,..so with the help of some beautiful volunteers, I was able to jimmy rig the pop up tent, and hold it up with wires that I tied to the strength of the trees. We hoisted the dome tent on top, with much laughter and some amount of doubt. once on top, I cut a hole in the center of the pop-up and the dome and stuck a small tree truck in it, it was laying close by and had been knocked over by the storm. In a couple days I had the jankiest structure on the property. I was a bit embarrassed, because many of the other building projects that were erected for the festival came into fruition with lots of skills, and tools, and natural building materials. I presented the dome to my artist friend Evelyn one night, she saw it and said, "oh....is this your ghetto dome?" haha! and with that thought I fell in love, I realized that even though I did not have the knowledge or resources to create a proper structure, I had made due with limited skills and resources. All at once I became proud, and excited to adorn and showcase the Ghetto dome to the fullest. I dedicated it to ghettos all over the world, and to the people that everyday pull though with very limited resources and still manage to create something out of nothing, some kind of shelter or space, to hold them. I made the Ghetto Dome sign out of an old yoga mat, which was really fun and satisfying for me, I got to transfer my cardboard skills to a new medium, which was much easier to cut and it took the paint and made it POP. I topped the dome with an umbrella that I got from a free box, and I had sewn an old plastic table cloth on the edges which gave it a kind of cupcake effect. My fairy art mother granted me to used those brilliantly bright sails and woven walls that accentuated the zone and dome even more.
SO this is just a part of the work that I did this summer when I was on hiatus from the city and my camper van woes. This was all unpaid work and I used the little money I had to create this site, but that is just what I was compelled to do in order to be submerged in meaningful work, and fulfilling art projects, that also taught me many things and made me believe in myself that much more. Here in the Faith Faucet zone I conducted a handful of talent agency auditions, played host to live performances and performed my one woman show Billie Holiday Impersonator.
I am curious what my next big project will be! but first I will tour with the extraordinary Karl Kummerle!
here is a video clip of him using his gifts to stir the hearts and minds of the people!
Some of my favorite parts of this installation/zone are:
1. the Faucet! to the right there is an invisible faucet with multi-colored water droplets coming out. For a couple weeks I made these drops with recycled fabrics, and vine maple as the frames. While I made them I often listened to sermons by brilliant black ministers. I listened to them from a podcast station called BMA: black media archive. They have in incredible archive of black ministers, including my hero Martin Luther King Jr. They also have interviews with black doctors, artists and activists. This is my go to listen when I am craving knowledge and information while I create art works. I highly recommend checking it out, if you are in need of motivation to make a change in your life and in the world.
2. The Ghetto Dome! I truly adore the ghetto dome. It looks pretty posh in this video, but it came a long way. In the beginning of the summer I was gifted a retired burning man tent. I used if for about two weeks, but when the rain came back to Washington I found it was not a useful living space. I purchased a 10x10 pop up tent and grocery outlet to protect my work space and belongings from the rain. I had a vision of turning the pop up tent into a majestic taj mahal looking dome with ornate decoration. I painted and sowed up the tent with white house paint. Soon after there was a big wind/rain storm that hit us. The newly installed faucet became tangled and adorned with tree branches, but the main structure stayed up. The wind storm also mangled the 10x10 pop up tent, to the point that is was not functional as a shelter. I did not have many other resources to make this dome happen,..so with the help of some beautiful volunteers, I was able to jimmy rig the pop up tent, and hold it up with wires that I tied to the strength of the trees. We hoisted the dome tent on top, with much laughter and some amount of doubt. once on top, I cut a hole in the center of the pop-up and the dome and stuck a small tree truck in it, it was laying close by and had been knocked over by the storm. In a couple days I had the jankiest structure on the property. I was a bit embarrassed, because many of the other building projects that were erected for the festival came into fruition with lots of skills, and tools, and natural building materials. I presented the dome to my artist friend Evelyn one night, she saw it and said, "oh....is this your ghetto dome?" haha! and with that thought I fell in love, I realized that even though I did not have the knowledge or resources to create a proper structure, I had made due with limited skills and resources. All at once I became proud, and excited to adorn and showcase the Ghetto dome to the fullest. I dedicated it to ghettos all over the world, and to the people that everyday pull though with very limited resources and still manage to create something out of nothing, some kind of shelter or space, to hold them. I made the Ghetto Dome sign out of an old yoga mat, which was really fun and satisfying for me, I got to transfer my cardboard skills to a new medium, which was much easier to cut and it took the paint and made it POP. I topped the dome with an umbrella that I got from a free box, and I had sewn an old plastic table cloth on the edges which gave it a kind of cupcake effect. My fairy art mother granted me to used those brilliantly bright sails and woven walls that accentuated the zone and dome even more.
SO this is just a part of the work that I did this summer when I was on hiatus from the city and my camper van woes. This was all unpaid work and I used the little money I had to create this site, but that is just what I was compelled to do in order to be submerged in meaningful work, and fulfilling art projects, that also taught me many things and made me believe in myself that much more. Here in the Faith Faucet zone I conducted a handful of talent agency auditions, played host to live performances and performed my one woman show Billie Holiday Impersonator.
I am curious what my next big project will be! but first I will tour with the extraordinary Karl Kummerle!
here is a video clip of him using his gifts to stir the hearts and minds of the people!
If you would like to help us on our tour you can donate via paypal to Karlamilugo@gmail.com
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