10 27 09 Updates

Tom and I met with Margaret Chin and Jason Mango at Taggert Elementary to discuss the possibility of joining forces and working part of the Journeys South project into the curriculum. We also toured the school and met with various persons including Mr. Riffel, the art teacher there. He had done a lot of research at HSP and was pretty sure he remembered seeing me around the reading room. All around, everyone was quite enthusiastic. At this point, Tom and I, in concert with the advisory board need to come up with a proposal that we will shoot back to them and see if it's do-able.

We did more roaming of the neighborhood including the big Vietnamese (?) supermarket at 3rd and Oregon behind the Oregon Diner. As an aside, the prices were extremely low, beautiful produce (though not organic) and all kinds of spices and teas (which I intend to sample).

We then had lunch at a place oddly named "Happy Clams," a Cambodian restaurant right on 7th by Snyder Ave. We were the only ones in the place, were made extremely welcome, and we got to talk with one of the owners who is an artist named Phat Long. He has a workshop right in back of the restaurant, works at CRC, an industrial chemicals plant, in Warminster four days a week for ten hours each day and runs the restaurant Friday-Sunday. The restaurant has a lot of sculptures and reliefs from the Reamker (Ramayana) that he did.

(For $6 I got a big plate of big flat rice noodles and some kind of green vegetable that was perhaps Chinese broccoli all topped off with a delicious sauce. There were additional hot sauces on the table. Very satisfying although it was clear that this vegan request was unusual. The whole menu is either meat or seafood.)

A return visit is definitely in order to talk to Phat and see if perhaps I can photograph some of the sculpture to incorporate into the project and also to talk more about his experiences of immigration and the neighborhood.

Tom and I then proceeded to Stiffel to discuss doing oral histories and we plan to videotape them on Nov. 12th and 13th. I may use some of the videotape in my project at least to inform what I do. I also asked Susan Hoffman to move the shooting at Stiffel to January since I suspect that any shoot I do will end up being THE shoot and I want to have time to prepare.

Today, the 29th, I brought the Pecha-Kucha style slide show that I made for First Person Arts to Stiffel. I was actually able to read my notes since the room wasn't pitch black and it went very well. I was more practiced and I think the group of eighteen or so seniors really enjoyed my patter. I'm hoping to create at least a little bit of a buzz so that by the time I shoot people have an inkling as to what Mural Arts, the project, and me are about.

Next week I plan to do some some photography on the streets of the neighborhood, possibly with the the Graflex, but more likely with my old Rollei that makes a pretty high-resolution image on 120 film. I want to get some images before the weather gets too cold.

Lastly, I am starting to get some ideas for how I want to assemble the final project, but I'm still keeping flexible and my cards close!