AUX 3

Hey...so, I'm just now posting photos and video from last Saturday's AUX 3 - EXPERIMENTAL ARTS FESTIVAL, which happened in downtown Athens at LITTLE KINGS and our local art house movie theater, CINE. Missy and I actually performed at the very first AUX event as THE FRENCH TOASTS, and then at AUX 2 we participated in their craft fair. This year we decided to just be spectators (especially since we missed seeing most of the bands last time) and shoppers. We spent the day picking and choosing which bands/films/performances (I think there was like, 30+ participants to choose from), running back and forth between home and running errands. The day started off nicely with a little craft fair in Little King's blacktop courtyard:





An abbreviated version of the band DARK MEAT kicked off the event, eventually leading everyone on a short parade over to Cine and the following event. It was fun to see the bewildered looks on motorists' faces as the procession crossed the intersection and made it's way down the street:


AUX 3 2436 from Raoul de la Cruz on Vimeo.



















(yup...there were people playing animal horns/antlers)


AUX3 2460 from Raoul de la Cruz on Vimeo.

The Dark Meat parade segued into a performance by FLOORSPACE studio's YOUTH MOVEMENT WORKSHOP. This was one of my favorite moments of the festival because I thought about how peculiar it was...these little girls doing modern interpretive dance...and then I thought how cool it was to live in a town where something like this can happen and be celebrated:


AUX3 2463 from Raoul de la Cruz on Vimeo.

Later on that day we popped back into Cine to see KILLICK perform with his specially-made one-of-a-kind baritone guitar slash bass harp hybrid:




AUX3 2470 from Raoul de la Cruz on Vimeo.

We ducked back in to Little Kings to see ELF POWER's Andrew Rieger and Eric Harris perform a noisy 15-minute jam with HOWLING JELLY, and then back to Cine to see OUR NEW SILENCE:






AUX3 2480 from Raoul de la Cruz on Vimeo.

On into the evening we stopped into Cine to see Missy's friend (and former trapeze instructor) Julie perform with her band MAPS AND TRANSIT. They did a mult-media performance which incorporated live music, shadow projection, and aerial acrobatics:







Afterwards, we dashed over to a jam-packed Little Kings to witness the spectacle of BILL DOSS AND THE FLASH CARD ORCHESTRA. Bill (who is a member of OLIVIA TREMOR CONTROL) conducted a gaggle of Athens musicians via the use of FLASH CARDS. He would show the cards to the band and the audience (who also participated in the performance) and they would improvise according to the directions or "moods" written on the cue cards:





Here, the audience and band are instructed to howl like wolves:


AUX3 2503 from Raoul de la Cruz on Vimeo.

This was a command for everyone to stomp their feet, followed by a card that said "bubbles popping":


AUX3 2504 from Raoul de la Cruz on Vimeo.


Missy's editor at FLAGPOLE (who publish her weekly comic), Larry, played bass in the band BRAVE NEW CITIZEN, who were awesome, of course. By the end of their energetic performance, Missy and started to feel the effects of a long Friday and an even longer Saturday finally catch up to us...we left for home soon after Brave New Citizen, regrettably missing THE ICY DEMONS festival-closing set...




AUX3 2516 from Raoul de la Cruz on Vimeo.


AUX3 2517 from Raoul de la Cruz on Vimeo.

Nilla Forty-Four

Last saturday, we took NILLA to the vet for her yearly check up. She was well behaved, considering, though she was really meowy on the short ride to the FIREHALL 4 animal clinic, which is literally right around the corner from our house, next to the fire station. Surprisingly, she didn't peep when she "got the thermometer", but she did let out a couple of yelps when she got her vaccination shots. The doctor gave Nilla a clean bill of health...though, she did suggest that she lose a couple of pounds over the next year, after she weighed in at 17 pounds. BIG KITTY!

Weekend Wind-Down #44

(Missy posing with the house she made for the benefit art auction)

Friday night was the HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS benefit art auction for the Athens Area HABITAT FOR HUMANITY WOMEN BUILD. The crowd was lively and at times, it was difficult to get good shots of the art that was for sale. By the end of the night every piece in the show had sold. I took a few pictures at the event and even shot a little video...








HABITAT 2395 from Raoul de la Cruz on Vimeo.

I was tempted to bid on this house with a heart and eye painted on it. In the end, I put down a couple of bids on this really whimsical and child-like painting that hung above the table where my piece was. In the end, I got outbid when the price climbed to higher than I was willing to pay. Oh well...







We were happy to find out that our friend LAURA, who's an awesome book illustrator, by the way (check out her work HERE), bid on and won Missy's piece:



FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Watching Julie and Kyle perform at AUX.
RAOUL - AUX 3 Experimental Arts Festival was pretty awesome...

WORST MOMENT OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - My tummy hurt.
RAOUL - Nilla getting her shots.

MOST ANNOYING THING ABOUT LAST WEEK?
MISSY - Your cough!
RAOUL - My cough.

WORD OR PHRASE OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - "PIZZA HUT!"
RAOUL - "fly like paper"

FAVORITE MEAL OF THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - The Grit on friday night.
RAOUL - Ice cream cake!

FAVORITE HOUSE AT THE AUCTION (NOT OURS)?
MISSY - I liked Mark Braught's house.
RAOUL - The one with the eye in the heart.

PERSONAL RESOLUTION FOR NEXT WEEK?
MISSY - Try to finish knitting my bear.
RAOUL - Make up for my weekend transgressions.

PERSONAL SOUNDTRACK FOR THE PAST WEEK?
MISSY - Of Montreal and everything on my iPod.
RAOUL - Mahjongg, B52's, Tender Forever

What Happy Tastes Like

Last night we stopped at KROGER after the art auction and dinner at the Grit. On a whim, we brought this ice cream cake home with us, even though we had just bought a slice of scrumptious and all-natural Grit cake. It was just too cute to pass up. And we had a serious sweet tooth attack. And sometimes you just want to put unhealthy junk in your system. You understand.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

This Friday, tomorrow night, is the HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS art auction to benefit the Athens area HABITAT FOR HUMANITY WOMEN BUILD. The art auction is being held at the LYNDON HOUSE ARTS CENTER here in Athens, from 6pm to 8pm and is open to the public. If you're in town, please please please stop by, look at some art, maybe bid on some art, and learn a bit about HABITAT FOR HUMANITY and their cause.

Missy and I (along with about 30 other local artists) are participating in the event. Each artist was given a wooden silhouette of a house to decorate based around the theme of "home is where the heart is". Last year's auction (which was also their very first auction) raised over $3000, and we're hoping to top that this year. We participated in last year's auction which was a lot of fun and we're looking forward to tomorrow night.

This is the house I decorated last year with felt:



And this is the house I decorated for tomorrow's auction. Once again, I wanted to use felt in some way:



I used these sliced up pieces of tree branches from our backyard. Last year, Missy's dad had cut up some fallen tree limbs into these sections. We had been saving them for some sort of project. I took some of those slices and hot glued them to the wood base. Afterwards, I made a little paper template that I used to cut these little house silhouettes out of stiff felt:







I punched hearts out of the middle of each felt house. Then, I carved out slits in some of the bigger wood slices that I could slip the houses into, after applying a bit of hot glue to the bottom edges:





Again, I used my heart-shaped hole punch, and punched out little red hearts from stiff felt, which I popped into the centers of each house. Then, I strung them all together with red thread. I used twigs to make miniature trees:







The piece is called "A Community Was Here Once Before"...now, here's where I get "deep like purple"...I used the house as a base rather than a canvas because I wanted to play around with the notion of the house or home being the foundation for community. The little white houses are actually "ghost houses", and they represent a community that was there once before but is actually no longer there for whatever reason (natural disaster, economic disaster, etc.). The little neighborhood is actually a ghost town. Maybe it's a neighborhood destroyed by fire or flood. Maybe it's a neighborhood that disintegrated because of foreclosure or maybe it was a neighborhood that was only half-way built. Maybe it's a neighborhood destroyed by economic hardship. Or gentrification. Also in the mix is the notion of an ecosystem being destroyed in order to make room for another ecosystem. Forests are cleared to make way for "land development"; trees are cut down to make the planks of wood that are used to build these houses - each house seems to emerge from each of their woody bases, as if they were carved out of the wood...

Anyways...come on out tomorrow night if you can and check out all the different ways these houses were decorated. Buy some unique art and support a worthy cause!