Thursday, June 4, 2009
Friday, May 1, 2009
Stroke of Genius - new reality show
I'm actually curious what will become of this new reality show! Fox bought the episodes and stuff. I think we will be seeing it this fall. What do you think "Cool" or "lame"?
http://www.strokeofgenius.tv/
http://www.strokeofgenius.tv/
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
April Meeting Review
Well, first off, I'd like to thank everyone for coming last night. I personally had a great time and I'm looking forward to doing it again. Also welcome aboard to Simon, Mary and Jothan. Here are the works we reviewed on April 7th, 2009
DJ - NICKEL, TUNA
Alli - NICKEL, TUNA
Gino - FIST, CHAMBER
Bill - SURLY, ZOO
Jim - RANSACKED, FRANKFURTER
Paul - COMPANY, CONCUBINE
DJ - NICKEL, TUNA
Alli - NICKEL, TUNA
Gino - FIST, CHAMBER
Bill - SURLY, ZOO
Jim - RANSACKED, FRANKFURTER
Paul - COMPANY, CONCUBINE
WORDS-April
First things first, Here are the new words for everyone.
Jim: HULK, PLAID
Mary: BASIC, CAR
Simon: BLAME, INSTRUMENT
Bill: VARIABLE, MYSTIQUE
Gino: DEEP, BLITZ
Alli: COASTAL, SMASH
DJ: WHALE, DIAMOND
Jothan: DOUBLE-WIDE, INSATIABLE
Paul: SAMURAI, VALENTINE
If anyone else would like to join in, feel free to grab someone else's words for your first go, next time you won't be so lucky ;)
Jim: HULK, PLAID
Mary: BASIC, CAR
Simon: BLAME, INSTRUMENT
Bill: VARIABLE, MYSTIQUE
Gino: DEEP, BLITZ
Alli: COASTAL, SMASH
DJ: WHALE, DIAMOND
Jothan: DOUBLE-WIDE, INSATIABLE
Paul: SAMURAI, VALENTINE
If anyone else would like to join in, feel free to grab someone else's words for your first go, next time you won't be so lucky ;)
Monday, March 30, 2009
Next Meeting
Hey all. Just wanted to give a reminder that we'll be meeting up again on Tuesday April 7th. My house (66 Regent Terrace, Milford) at 6:30. I'm sure we'll hang out a bit before we get started so just let me know if you'll be attending and what time you think you can make it by. Also if anyone has any special requirements such as video or audio let me know and I'll make sure I'm ready for you to hook up to my tv or stereo if possible. Remember to bring 2 new words with you too!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Get To It
Ok guys... the words are in, Paul and I put all the words on a piece of paper, flipped them over, scrambled them up and then pretended to be you guys and picked. You'll see we didn't cheat because we got stuck with some of our own damn words.
Gino: "Fist" & "Chamber"
Paul: "Company" & "Concubine"
Bill: "Zoo" & "Surly"
Jim: "Ransacked" & "Frankfurter"
DJ: "Nickel" & "Tuna"
I'll throw a date of April 7th out there as a deadline and see what happens as far as meeting up either on that date or close to it.
Have fun and go make something.
Gino: "Fist" & "Chamber"
Paul: "Company" & "Concubine"
Bill: "Zoo" & "Surly"
Jim: "Ransacked" & "Frankfurter"
DJ: "Nickel" & "Tuna"
I'll throw a date of April 7th out there as a deadline and see what happens as far as meeting up either on that date or close to it.
Have fun and go make something.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
First Meeting
Ok, since I called this Make Stuff Now, instead of Later..... I think I'm going to just throw this out there and we'll see how it goes. Tuesday March 3rd at 7pm.... 66 Regent Terrace in Milford (My House). I know this isn't perfect for everyone but I really don't want to sit on this and I think it might be fairly accessible to most of us.... Don't feel like you can't show up late either... I think what we're doing will still be relevant even if you miss some of it.
That being said... anyone that plans on coming.... email me at jimaltieri (at) mac (dot) com with 2 words. I'll mix them up and put them in a hat and then send you your first words via email. I know we don't have a full month but I'm sure we can manage to get something together.... plus we can test this whole thing out and see if it works properly or if we need to tweak the process.
A couple of things to keep in mind.
1. Show something.... it's better than nothing.
2. No excuses.... It's not fair to have people critique stuff and then say... well, if I had more time... or I wanted to do this but couldn't. If you wanted to do it.... then do it and show us that instead.
3. We all see something different when we look at art and I don't really want this to be us sitting in a circle telling each other that everything looks great. Critiques should be constructive and we can't say... I like that - or I don't like that... and not have a reason... so if you're critiquing make sure you have reasons to back it up either way.
4. Bring two words with you.
5. Take everything with a grain of salt. Critiques can get opinionated and heated sometimes but I've worked on many things with Bill for example... where we disagreed on things 100%, but then I went back and worked on it some more and it was better in the end. So sometimes... it's not so much the specifics of what someone is saying, rather than the process of you being open to revisiting it and owning up to yourself that it might not be the best you can do.
6. Every month is a new project. 2 new words... A complete new start. I think we'd all love to see previous projects if any of us decide to go back and rework them or ad to them but I think we'll have to save that for the end of the meeting or maybe just casually before we start... but I think the focus should always be the new project. I think that a lot of times too, we get hung up on 'fixing' something and don't move forward. This allows us to move on and incorporate what we've learned into a completely fresh situation.
7. Lets try new things.... I think this can apply to music, sculpture, video, photography, drawing, painting - you name it. So lets not always stick to the same medium. Lots of times, if you're trying to get better at say - painting, doing a sculpture will help you take the next step in painting better... for example.
Ok, enough of that... I think this gives you an idea of where I'm coming from. So let's get to it... Email me your words if you can make it or even if you just want to participate through the blog. I'm sure we'll run into a few snags but we'll work through them once they appear.
That being said... anyone that plans on coming.... email me at jimaltieri (at) mac (dot) com with 2 words. I'll mix them up and put them in a hat and then send you your first words via email. I know we don't have a full month but I'm sure we can manage to get something together.... plus we can test this whole thing out and see if it works properly or if we need to tweak the process.
A couple of things to keep in mind.
1. Show something.... it's better than nothing.
2. No excuses.... It's not fair to have people critique stuff and then say... well, if I had more time... or I wanted to do this but couldn't. If you wanted to do it.... then do it and show us that instead.
3. We all see something different when we look at art and I don't really want this to be us sitting in a circle telling each other that everything looks great. Critiques should be constructive and we can't say... I like that - or I don't like that... and not have a reason... so if you're critiquing make sure you have reasons to back it up either way.
4. Bring two words with you.
5. Take everything with a grain of salt. Critiques can get opinionated and heated sometimes but I've worked on many things with Bill for example... where we disagreed on things 100%, but then I went back and worked on it some more and it was better in the end. So sometimes... it's not so much the specifics of what someone is saying, rather than the process of you being open to revisiting it and owning up to yourself that it might not be the best you can do.
6. Every month is a new project. 2 new words... A complete new start. I think we'd all love to see previous projects if any of us decide to go back and rework them or ad to them but I think we'll have to save that for the end of the meeting or maybe just casually before we start... but I think the focus should always be the new project. I think that a lot of times too, we get hung up on 'fixing' something and don't move forward. This allows us to move on and incorporate what we've learned into a completely fresh situation.
7. Lets try new things.... I think this can apply to music, sculpture, video, photography, drawing, painting - you name it. So lets not always stick to the same medium. Lots of times, if you're trying to get better at say - painting, doing a sculpture will help you take the next step in painting better... for example.
Ok, enough of that... I think this gives you an idea of where I'm coming from. So let's get to it... Email me your words if you can make it or even if you just want to participate through the blog. I'm sure we'll run into a few snags but we'll work through them once they appear.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Schedule
Ok, so just to keep this separate from the other posts. Let's talk schedule.
It seems we have two groups here.... one that has kids and is probably busy most the weekend and one that is working later at night. If we go forward with this being more of a critique/idea session I can see this working if we get together after work at maybe 7ish and waiting to start until 8 if that fixes Dan's scheduling. Gino.. chime in here too... are weeknights pretty much out for you altogether or is there something that can work on a weeknight for you? I don't think Tues or Thurs is a problem for me if that works better for Paul. I'm guessing we just need like 2 or 3 hours to do this so 8 to 11 is fine with me. I'm guessing we can do this a my house, or any of our places.... or even a coffee shop or somewhere that is friendly to us hanging out for a few hours. I'll do some more thinking about that but we can for sure do the first one at my house.
I could probably do a Saturday morning once a month as well, not sure how that would work for DJ though because I'm so intimate with his schedule.. i know he has Max whilst Rory is at dancing school with Ella (thereby freeing me up).
Alright... I've said enough.... discuss....
It seems we have two groups here.... one that has kids and is probably busy most the weekend and one that is working later at night. If we go forward with this being more of a critique/idea session I can see this working if we get together after work at maybe 7ish and waiting to start until 8 if that fixes Dan's scheduling. Gino.. chime in here too... are weeknights pretty much out for you altogether or is there something that can work on a weeknight for you? I don't think Tues or Thurs is a problem for me if that works better for Paul. I'm guessing we just need like 2 or 3 hours to do this so 8 to 11 is fine with me. I'm guessing we can do this a my house, or any of our places.... or even a coffee shop or somewhere that is friendly to us hanging out for a few hours. I'll do some more thinking about that but we can for sure do the first one at my house.
I could probably do a Saturday morning once a month as well, not sure how that would work for DJ though because I'm so intimate with his schedule.. i know he has Max whilst Rory is at dancing school with Ella (thereby freeing me up).
Alright... I've said enough.... discuss....
Some Ideas
So, driving home last night I did a lot of thinking about this and a year or 3 ago, I had a similiar idea and was trying to remember the details of my idea. Here's my concept. We all say we're going to do things that we want to do.... but at least I personally feel like we either aren't motivated or don't prioritize doing that thing.... there are other things that come up and we push it to the back of the line. But if you have to do something for someone else, it seems to get done because it's not for yourself.
After thinking of the logisitics of all this, I think it might be hard to have enough time, or space, or whatever... to produce stuff during our meeting.... but it should rather provide the motivation to make stuff throughout the entire month. So the meeting would be more of a show of what we've produced.... and then a critique by everyone in the group. Plus if some of us are interested in the 'how' of what someone is doing, we'll have time to share tips about different materials... equipment.. software.. etc. I would say the most important thing is knowing that you have to show up with something in hand to show for the month and being ready to have that piece critiqued on it's own.. free of excuses why it may or may not be your best work.... it has to be your best work.
So basically the meetup provides the motivation to make stuff. It provides a forum to bounce ideas off your peers and get your work critiqued so that you can improve your work.
Finally, I think that when given this blank canvas, most of us spend a year trying to figure out what the perfect thing to do is... I know I've done it myself many times where I spend lots of time figuring out what it is I'm going to do and planning it out and then I end up doing nothing. So my final proposal is this. That we each bring 2 concepts with us to each meeting, we put them in a hat and then pull 2 out..... and our work for that month incorporates those 2 concepts. So say I pull out "snow" and "farting".... well, I'll be trying to shoot a photo of a snowman farting, or doing a sketch of that, or making a webcomic about that (Paul). I think this is kind of important and the thing that gets me most excited about doing this.... because you know as soon as you get those pieces of paper, you'll have ideas flowing and I think it's the limitations of those concepts that will really help us to move forward and just start creating right away without wasting a lot of time on ideas.
The other thing I think that will happen is you'll get these limitations and all of a sudden have ideas that you really want to do that don't incorporate them.. which is really what this is all about... getting the juices flowing and inspiring you do more work for yourself.
After thinking of the logisitics of all this, I think it might be hard to have enough time, or space, or whatever... to produce stuff during our meeting.... but it should rather provide the motivation to make stuff throughout the entire month. So the meeting would be more of a show of what we've produced.... and then a critique by everyone in the group. Plus if some of us are interested in the 'how' of what someone is doing, we'll have time to share tips about different materials... equipment.. software.. etc. I would say the most important thing is knowing that you have to show up with something in hand to show for the month and being ready to have that piece critiqued on it's own.. free of excuses why it may or may not be your best work.... it has to be your best work.
So basically the meetup provides the motivation to make stuff. It provides a forum to bounce ideas off your peers and get your work critiqued so that you can improve your work.
Finally, I think that when given this blank canvas, most of us spend a year trying to figure out what the perfect thing to do is... I know I've done it myself many times where I spend lots of time figuring out what it is I'm going to do and planning it out and then I end up doing nothing. So my final proposal is this. That we each bring 2 concepts with us to each meeting, we put them in a hat and then pull 2 out..... and our work for that month incorporates those 2 concepts. So say I pull out "snow" and "farting".... well, I'll be trying to shoot a photo of a snowman farting, or doing a sketch of that, or making a webcomic about that (Paul). I think this is kind of important and the thing that gets me most excited about doing this.... because you know as soon as you get those pieces of paper, you'll have ideas flowing and I think it's the limitations of those concepts that will really help us to move forward and just start creating right away without wasting a lot of time on ideas.
The other thing I think that will happen is you'll get these limitations and all of a sudden have ideas that you really want to do that don't incorporate them.. which is really what this is all about... getting the juices flowing and inspiring you do more work for yourself.
Monday, February 9, 2009
WE NEED TO MAKE STUFF
Talked to Paul today and we decided we need to make stuff. We're all slackers and should force ourselves to create things of the artistic persuasion now before we get all wrinkly and old and dead. So let's make stuff. I propose some sort of group event once a month where we get together and share what we've made and then actually make something. So get your cameras, your sketchbooks, your poetry diary... whatever you want to create more of that might lend it self to getting done during our meetup and bring it with you. How does the first Monday night of each month work for you guys? Let me know. We'll work it out.
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