More Holga

Thanks to Erin for pointing me to her Web site full of Holga photos, including this one, which I can't stop staring at. Erin has a lot of great shots of the city (and her dog, which of course won me over), but I was most impressed by her evocative wedding shots.

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Correction: this isn't a Holga photo. It was taken with a digital camera. My bad. -Amanda 7.6.06

Hol-ga! Hol-ga!

I could stare at this photo for hours. It was taken with a Holga camera by my friend Kate. She explains that it's a triple exposure: "one exposure from the Hirshhorn Sculpture garden...overlaid with two shots from [other] gardens nearby."

More Holga:

• More of Kate's Holga pictures
  
  
• Holga pictures on Flickr
  
  
• Holga tips and tricks

Are you a Holga photographer? Send me links to your favorite Holga shots of DC and I'll get a list going...

Seen

...at Ontario and Columbia Roads NW:

You were meant for greatness

Spray-painted in pink onto the side of a utility box, in a font that looked like the writing on the side of a Chinese food take-out box.

Cool DC blog alert!

I just discovered the blog Thinking About Art, run by 27-year-old DC resident J.T. Kirkland, and am incredibly inspired by 2 of its features.

The first is Artists Interview Artists. Here's how it works: Let's say I want to participate. I send J.T. a list of 5 questions that he can use to interview another artist. In turn, he asks me 5 questions that another artist has submitted. From what I've seen, the project's strength is how interesting the questions are (far better than the questions I've been asking in my creative profiles)...on the blog, J.T. explains,

"As you likely know by now I find run-of-the-mill artist interviews to be incredibly boring. But there is a great possibility at attaining true insight into the artist's mind and I persist in trying to find the best way possible of getting inside."

Here are some examples of questions submitted for a recent interview:

"Dry spells. Blocks. Brain cramps. What ever you call them, we all get them. What do you do to rehydrate your creative muse?"

"Inspiration can come from anything and everything around us. Sometimes I feel like all the radio channels are full blown open and I am hearing a million djs yammering in my ear, hearing bits and pieces of various conversations. When you are "open" how do you mute the yammering and pick a channel to settle on an idea and work it?"

"Studio Space. Describe your work space. What makes is perfect for you? What would you do to make it better?"

Read more about the project, and/or read the most recent interview.

The second feature of this blog that caught my attention is the One Word Project, in which artists wrote 100-500 word reflections on a single word, which J.T. chose based on his impressions of their work. He published 39 of the 42 submissions he received in a book.

Cool stuff. By the way, my (brief) answers to the above questions are:

• Practice yoga. Take a walk with my dog. Take a nap. Immerse myself in nature. Watch a great film.
• I don't experience a lot of yammering. When I'm that inspired, I take pen to paper, or start typing, and that's when I write the stuff I feel best about.
  
• I don't have a dedicated space for practicing my creativity, but I'd say that having a house has played a huge role in keeping me inspired and productive... different rooms can fit different moods, and I just have more room to stretch out and play.

How about you?

Rats

I have a challenge for you, fellow creative Washingtonians. I need your help.

I apparently have a rat colony living in my house. (Yes, a colony. I imagine one of the rats dressed as mayor...)

I'm not naive - I know that DC is rat central. Anyone living in a rowhouse in the city must deal with them at some point. I know that intellectually. But when you find rat droppings in your pantry, it's not exactly an intellectual moment.

We have an exterminator on the case. He's sealed up holes, put poison in the walls, laid traps. He's managing our expectations: they won't disappear overnight. We're talking about getting rid of them over the next 2-3 weeks.

2-3 weeks!

In the meantime, friends, I need your help thinking of creative ways to get through this. Not necessarily ways to get rid of the rats - knock on wood, I think our exterminator has that covered - but ways to avoid being a nervous wreck. Should I write rat poetry, to commune with my inner rat? Play a really loud recording of cat sounds? Help me turn this into a creative opportunity of some sort - please, I beg you!

Up next: the nest of squirrels in my attic. (No kidding.)

Creative DC Profile: Mark Chalfant

Mark Chalfant wants you to play.

As the artistic director of Washington Improv Theater (WIT), Mark is committed to WIT's mission of "unleashing the creative power of improv in DC," and igniting "a spirit of play."

"Spirit of play," in a town known for doing serious business, and for taking itself way too seriously?

Yes.

But - really?

Yes.

Mark explains: "DC is a city filled with so many big ideas. I think many people let those ideas become more important than their own lives. We walk among many martyrs to many causes." So, what does that have to do with improv? Improv "unlocks who you really are," he says, and "it makes you fearless." On a personal level, Mark says improv prompted him to challenge many of his assumptions about life: "Improv saved me from sealing myself up."

I recently chatted with Mark over email about the art of improv, living a creative life and running an improv organization in the nation's capitol. (Full disclosure: I am a former WIT student and am friends with Mark. I'm also in an improv troupe, Jinx, that performs with WIT troupes.)

How long have you lived in DC? What were your first impressions of the city?

I have been living downtown for 12 years, but I was a kid in the Maryland suburbs. I moved here after college and spending a year in Russia, so I was just so grateful to be on the same cultural frequency as my surroundings. But entering the work world here showed me a city of people whose noses are often pressed way too hard to the grindstone. DC is a city filled with so many big ideas. I think many people let those ideas become more important than their own lives. We walk among many martyrs to many causes.

How did you first get involved with improv?

As a poor DC office grunt, with no money to drop on theater tickets, I joined a play-reading group that did cold readings of plays every Monday (the Dark Night Playreaders, it was called). Once a month instead of a reading, we did an improv workshop under the guidance of Carole Douglis, who had been WIT’s original artistic director. The exercises she brought were very provocative. She challenged a lot of the conclusions I was comfortably drawing at the time about life, and she turned out to be right. Improv saved me from sealing myself up.

Tell me about improv as a creative outlet.

“Outlet” is a great word! When you’re improvising in a relaxed and playful state, [the creativity] really does just come out. Every improviser I know has had moments of brilliant wit or emotion that just “happened,” with almost no conscious awareness of what was happening. That’s the zone we’re always trying to play in, and it’s elusive but SO rewarding when you hit it. Like true love.

Improv is also a little scary. It asks you to assassinate your own inner censor and subvert most of the social conditioning you’ve absorbed your whole life. That’s a tall order, and it’s a big job. But when you do it, you can find that it unlocks who you really are in a way that lets you be creative in an impulsive and collaborative way. [Improv also] makes you fearless. Few things are as beautiful to me as a fearless person.

You're in a position a lot of people would envy: your day job is directly connected to your art. What are your favorite things about being WIT's artistic director? What are the biggest challenges?

Favorite is so easy: facilitating creativity. Every brilliant connection made on WIT’s stage, every success that a student has in class, every discovery made in one of our community outreach programs: they are all extremely thrilling for me.

Challenges are many. On a personal level, if I invert your question I could say that my art is now contaminated by my day job. I try to not wear both “hats” at once, or else it really splits my focus. Bigger organizational challenges are the same as for any growing organization: fundraising, growing audience, trying to serve an ever-larger group of stakeholders who care passionately about improv in Washington.

What is it like to run an improv organization in DC?

It’s a trip. I never imagined there would be so much office work for WIT. And SO MANY FILES!!! It’s a huge challenge, because we’re so understaffed (like most young arts organizations). It’s great to be a sort of ambassador for this art form in a city that takes its art seriously, and it’s fun to advance a craft that’s a little more raw and punk than the classical theater that abounds in DC.

What inspires you? What keeps you going artistically?

One thing I thrive on is a challenge. Give me something that seems impossible and I will hurl myself into it with glee. That’s the case for the improvised musical that WIT is mounting this fall: HUGELY AMBITIOUS. On a more emotional level, I’m personally inspired by stories of hope and love amidst the immense challenges and ugliness of the world. Those stories are all around us, sometimes just in a glance you see between two strangers. The shows I’ve done and seen that were the most memorable had characters that were flawed but likeable, usually making big mistakes but getting through somehow.

What advice do you have for people looking for a more creative life in DC?

Get to it already! Don’t let time pass you by. And take an improv class!

Thoughts on Creativity, volume I

Are you a creative person?

How would you define creativity?

To me, creativity is about making something. It's as simple as that, only it isn't simple, because it's so easy to just drift through life passively, without making anything. To me, creativity requires faith, whether you're writing a novel or baking a cake -- faith that it matters, that it's worth it, that you shouldn't just channel surf instead.

I believe creativity is everywhere, we just need to open our eyes to it - in our communities, and in ourselves. Next time you pass a house with a pretty garden out front, or an apartment with window boxes or something beautiful in the window, think about the care someone took to make that happen. Someone chose to put the tulips on the left, to plant an azalea bush, or tomatoes, or basil. Someone chose to hang that piece of stained glass, or those purple curtains.

It's so easy to think creative people are the ones whose names are on the front of a novel, in the credits of a film, the program for a play. But it's harmful to think this way, too, to cast creativity as a prize to be won, rather than a way we all can live, without any credentials, and without anyone's permission. Harmful because life feels so much richer, so much more full of possibilities, when we celebrate and nurture our creativity - when we realize our life is our art. Then we truly begin to live.

Dogs + art = heaven

When: TONIGHT, Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 from 7-8pm

What: Brookland Area Writers & Artists "Dog Days 3" - the return of their most popular reading, dog-related poetry. All readings are free and open to the public.

Where: Brookland Visitor's Center, 3420 9th Street, NE (1/2 block from the Brookland/CUA Red Line Metro)

--Copied & pasted from Stop, Blog and Roll

Creative solutions to DC's problems

The DC Appleseed Center has been running an inspiring campaign called Solving DC Problems, designed to engage people who live or work in DC in designing creative solutions to the city's problems. According to the campaign Web site, 900 ideas were submitted, addressing problems ranging from housing and education to recreation; a panel of judges identified 20 finalists, and visitors to the campaign site were then invited to vote for their favorite proposals.

The winners will be announced tomorrow (6/5), and will receive cash prizes...in addition:

...the three winners will present their ideas to the Mayoral candidates at a forum on June 8. And (project staff) will compile ALL the ideas received during the contest and present them to the public, government officials, and candidates running in the District's 2006 elections. Most exciting of all, D.C. City Administrator Robert Bobb's office will be working with DC Appleseed to identify the most feasible ideas and try to implement them.

Visit the campaign Web site to learn more about the project and to read the proposals submitted.

Sample proposals:

• Growing the Arts Locally
• Free Metro rides for Seniors
• And, not to be missed: Smack people in the head when they do something stupid

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UPDATE 6/8/06: Read about the winners.

So much snow in Buffalo

This is one of my friend Chris Bishop's paintings. It's called "The Fairest," and it's from his Pretty Girls and Robots series. Chris' work will be featured at FireFlies in Alexandria in June.

Chris is a web designer by day, painter (and illustrator, and comic strip writer) by night. He wears shorts to work year-round, and brags about how much snow they get in his hometown of Buffalo, NY.