I changed around the design on my blog a wee bit so that I could make the pictures as large as possible.  How does it look???  Things are going swimmingly in New Orleans.  Alaina and I spent the majority of yesterday evening attempting and failing at gel transfers.  Definitely the poor man's screen print.

Be sure to check out Alaina's blog: alainavb.wordpress.com to see her side of our summer story.

I have been reunited with my digital camera charger!  Time to celebrate!

I found this video on Nowness of Florence Welch singing this Buddy Holly tribute.  The video was shot in New Orleans and the sound has Cajun influences.  It has such a great mood? feel? I really don't have any vocabulary to describe music, but I like this.  The funky Cajun stuff makes her voice more soulful.

http://www.nowness.com/day/2011/6/2/florence-welch-x-buddy-holly

My photos from Local Histories are going to be in Hillsborough for this show (following text is the press release from the Orange County Historical Museum) :

June 3 - July 6, Local Histories II: The Ground We Walk On

Opening June 3, Local Histories II follows Local Histories: The Ground We Walk On,an exhibition at 523 East Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. Local Histories IIincludes work by NC artists or by artists with strong ties to NC. From the original 56 artists, 24 are included in Local Histories II.

All of the artists explore the idea of "local histories" and Alfredo Jaar's concept that "place cannot be global". Local Histories IIexplores the global and the local, the similarities with which localities are experienced even when separated by vast geographic distances, as well as specific differences. Several related themes run throughout the show: time, history and memory; the ways locales frame identity and experience; the organic trace of the human on objects; and cultivating communities. In exploring these themes the artists engage questions such as: How do places manifest histories? Whose stories are told? What stories are lost, and can they be recovered? What truths and fictions do places offer up for our consideration? These investigations of place show us that the many grounds on which we walk are not so different. At the same time, these artists prove that every local history can be uniquely interpreted and significantly represented.

Participating Artists: Sophia Allison, Alexis Bravos, Molly Brewer, Ian Brownlee, María DeGuzmán, Travis Donovan, Ashley Florence, Gail Goers, Heather Gordon, Michael Gurganus, Elizabeth Hull, Ann Pegelow Kaplan, Cathy McLaurin, Morgan Muhs, Allyson Packer, Jody Servon, Leah Sobsey, Tracy Spencer, Julie Thomson, Paul Valadez, Michael Webster, Amy White, Ripley Whiteside, and Denis Wood.

Please check it out if you didn't get to see Local Histories I!

I have been in New Orleans for about two weeks now and things are beginning to move along and take shape.  Everything from getting reconnected with the New Orleans Community Printshop to moving into my new apartment with Alaina makes New Orleans feel a little more like home. 

The street artist Swoon is in NOLA creating an installation for the New Orleans Museum of Art that is opening on June 10^th.  Swoon specializes in massive woodblock portraits of her friends and family set into convoluted urban landscapes that she prints and wheat pastes as part of cut paper installations.  So cool.  Best part is that she is really lovely in person and introduced herself to us as Cali and was totally laid back about us being in her workspace.  Meg invited Alaina and I to tag along to the warehouse where Swoon is working and help for a few hours on the installation.  Here is Alaina painting in some of the forms on a woodblock print.