New Flowers and Ana Forrest

Ok, so flowers and Ana Forrest are not necessarily related, but I wanted to discuss both topics in one entry. So there ya go.

Alright, so for years I have been wearing flower barrettes in my hair. Many people have commented on them... "those are so cute! Where did you get them?" I have made most of them... so I finally decided to make a big ol' batch and now they are finally for sale on my etsy page.

OK, Ana Forrest. She is an incredible yogini, teacher trainer, and generally amazing woman. She's doing a teacher training in Boston at the moment, which I am not a part of, but I am attending 8 of her morning intensives at Back Bay Yoga. They start at 7AM and last two hours, and they are most definitely intense. She is all about power, healing, and strength... so having that be at the forefront of my brain for two hours is almost a bit emotionally exhausting. Oh yes and she happens to be the arm-balance queen.

I must admit that I was first a bit frightened to take her workshops. I have heard that she can be a bit on the hard-ass side, but I realize that she does it out of love. Ana has a great sense of humor, she does make little mistakes, she is human, and she is a powerhouse of incredible energy. Here's an amazing yoga demo of her at a Yoga Journal conference.

I have six more intensives to attend and I am highly looking forward to the rest of them...

Rachel is, indeed, a yoga teacher.

So I don't think I have mentioned yoga once in this entire blog. Oops.

Last April I started a teacher-training program, Yoga of Energy Flow Training (200-hours) with Daniel Orlansky, Aaron Cantor, and Carrie Tyler. I had been studying yoga with Aaron at Yoga in the Square (Davis Square, Somerville) since August 2007, and he told me about this training he was doing. Without giving it much thought I enrolled and fell in love with it immediately.

OK, that was a while ago. In October I got a gig teaching yoga to the men's basketball team at Brandeis University. Mind you, I had only taught yoga privately with a friend one-on-one; never a whole class. Especially a bunch of dudes! So here I am at 7AM on a Monday morning with a room full of very tall and athletic men... and I totally kicked their butts. It was way fun. Since then I got another gig teaching Brandeis women's volleyball team, men's/women's tennis, and I also do a weekly yoga class with the staff of the Athletic Department at Brandeis. In addition to the Brandeis stuff I have also subbed at Yoga in the Square... I hope to get my own class soon. OH YES and I also just finished a mini 12-hour training with Alice Senko. It's a "hot hatha" training which is basically the Bikram series minus the bull shit. I did the training so that I can teach/sub for those classes at Yoga in the Square. It's a very different style of yoga than I am used to doing, but I still like it a lot. It's done in a heated room... series of 26 postures.... twice on each side...good stuff.

Anyway no deep thoughts or musings in this post... not that there ever are... but I thought I'd share...

OH yes and I updated my website, finally, with a little bit of yoga info.

Needle-Felting....

OK, so I have ventured into the world of needle-felting. I bought this lovely book called LITTLE FELTED ANIMALS by Marie-Noelle Horvath, purchased some roving wool and barbed needles on eBay, and then had a go at this stuff. I gotta say it's one of the most wonderfully bizarre feeling in the world to needle-felt. Basically you create little shaped dread-locks with wool (except they don't smell bad and are soft). How cool is that?

Here's how it works. You get a piece of sturdy foam (the thicker the better). You take some roving wool. Put it on the foam. Take your fancy barbed needle and jam it into the wool. Do it a lot and listen for the lovely crunching noise it makes. "TSH-TSH-TSH-TSH-TSH-TSH." Yes, just like that. After you've poked and prodded for several seconds, turn the forming-dread over. More poking. Repeat. Pretty soon you have a cute little mound of whatever. Add wool to it, do cool stuff, get creative.

Yeah.

So the needle-felted octopus that is shown in the picture above is quite a guy. And he just sold! I've only had him a couple of weeks, but he's been a fun center-piece in my funky apartment. Now he's off to New York! Actually the strange thing is that a classmate from THIRD GRADE (thank you Facebook) purchased it. Go figure!

Alright, I'll try to post more often. I promise. Wait, no I don't. OK. But stay tuned. Ish.

What I love about making stuff

Making little creatures/objects/items/whatever is a very important part of my life. Sure, I go through periods where I just kind of cease to create for a while, but I know it will always come back.

Recently a woman from France commissioned me to make some guinea pigs. When I first received the request, I had to admit to myself that I was a little bit frightened. I hadn't made any creatures in several months and I had never made a guinea pig. Not one. The idea had never even occurred to me. "Oh well," I thought, "I'll just go for it." So off I went. I have now made a total of eight pieces for this woman (she's quite the collector, it seems) and I have also been re-inspired to make more critters.

I started a new series called "yoga critters." So far I have only made four sculptures, but more will be made.

Back to the title of this post... what is it that I love about making stuff? I think it's that there is no set standard except my own. As a classical musician, I have been through the wringer in terms of criticism ("constructive," as they say, of course... right... ), snotty colleagues, snarky teachers, and any other cliche-classical-musician-trait one can muster up. I have also had MANY supportive teachers, colleagues, friends, etc in my musical life, but of course the negative experiences cannot be forgotten. Anyway, when I craft I do not have to worry about someone else being competitive or lame with me. I just make stuff and that is that. If you don't like it, that's fine. As long as I like what I create (and I do!) that should be enough for the world. Right?

Ok. Have a good day.

'Tis Partch season, which means an early-morning flight from Boston to Orange County and a festive layover in Dallas. Why didn't I fly to Los Angeles? I have finally flown enough times in the last couple of years to get a free flight, but of course American Airlines doesn't make it particularly easy for me. Whatever. Another change from this year is that certain family cars (my old Volvo, ahem) have been sold and so there is not a vehicle available to me. My father was kind enough to rent me a car, and for this I am very appreciative. He rented through Midway Rental, which has an office at the Airport Radisson Hotel at LAX. He also gets an amazing discount because he "knows people." Anyway, yesterday I took a Primetime Shuttle (or whatever it's called) from the John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana to LAX. The driver hauled ass and it only took 40 minutes. That was nice.

At 3 PM I arrived at Midway with all my luggage, including the adapted viola, and I was patiently waiting for the car people to pull up my records. They had no record. Then a second guy who worked there found my information, and said, "Oh, the car is in West LA." Goody. I called up Daddy-dear, put him on the phone with them, and of course he did his usual terse-tone thing (I hate that, but hey), and the guy on my side of the line said, "Don't worry Mr. Arnold, your daughter will have a car this afternoon." I felt like such a JAP. Anyway, I know that I was probably supposed to get some not-snazzy car, which is perfectly fine with me, but this particular Midway facility only had luxury vehicles. I was a little frightened.

Five minutes later, a guy pulls up in a silver 2008 Dodge Charger. It looks like this.




"Here is your rental car, Ms. Arnold."

"Oh shit," I thought. I've never driven something even remotely bling, and now I am supposed to be 100% responsible for this homey-mobile for two weeks.

So I sat my fanny inside, he showed me how to start the thing (it has a crazy not-key-apparatus thing), and I drove off. Just like an old lady with an erect back and hands at 10 and 2 o'clock. I cannot let anything happen to this car.

Before going to my parents' house in Palos Verdes, I had to stop at my favorite weird Asian store in Torrance. I parked the car, pulled out the key, and the radio and dash lights were still on. "What the fuck is this???" I called Midway and said, "Hi Freddy, this is Rachel, the girl who rented from you guys about 30 minutes ago. Can you please tell me how to turn off the car?" He kindly explained that I had to OPEN THE DOOR and then the car would turn itself off. "That's spiffy," I thought.

Anyway, I am trying to drive this thing as infrequently as possible. I have rehearsal tonight in Mt. Washington and it is the only drive I am making today. I actually walked down the hill ::gasp:: to the store today from my parents', and some random old man on his lawn said, "Is your car out of gas?" I answered, "No because I'm not driving it..."

Aside from all of this, ya'll should come to our Partch performance(s) on May 30/31st at REDCAT.

Quick random thoughts.

I am graduating in a month. This is good.

Walking outside in sunny 70-degree weather gives me such a sense of pleasure, even when I am really tired.

The Diva Cup is the BEST form of menstrual protection ever. Check it out.

My cello needs to go to the cello doctor and get help.

I still do not know if I got the job in Providence...

I love teaching cello.

I want to start doing collage-art.

I love my man-person very deeply.

I got a free flight to Los Angeles on American Airlines because I have racked up enough miles WITHOUT using an AA credit card. Go me.

At some point I want to be a pet-owner again. I used to have fish, a turtle, rats, cats, dogs (at various points in my life) but it has been a while since I have enjoyed these little critters...

More clay creations need to be made. Cowgirl, dog scratching its ass on the ground, cat licking its butt, more earrings, and more cello-art.

OK, that's all for now.

Take care, kids.

Pink Village

My younger brother used to attend a school in the Northeast part of Glendale during the early 1990's. We lived a few miles southwest of the school, so driving there in the 1983 blue Volvo station wagon was always a bit of an adventure. One could take surface streets to the school, yet my mother usually took the 2 freeway because it was faster and more convenient. Upon exiting the freeway we would always pass a set of houses that were situated on a hill that overlooked the city. The houses initially caught my attention because each and every one of them was pink. There was a certain mysteriousness to them that I wanted so badly to experience, yet I did not verbalize this desire until my mother finally suggested one day that we "go on a drive" after dropping my brother off at school.

"Yeah, let's drive over there," I said, pointing at the houses. "To Pink Village." What a name I had given it. There was one main road that led to Pink Village, and it seemed like a fairly unremarkable road from where I would normally gaze at it from a distance. Yet that morning the road was a winding portal that led to a beautifully mystical place that had only lived in my mind before that day.

At the top of the hill, we reached an intersection. My mother, always allowing me to make my own decisions, asked, "Which way should I turn?"

"Left!" I said, without any good reason. Shortly after that the homes were visible. Every single one of them was exactly like the one next to it. The addresses were as long as phone numbers. One of the few differences was that some homes had the garage on the left and others had it on the right. The gardens varied slightly as well. Some families chose to plant rosebushes, others had irises. I guessed that the only way the residents of Pink Village knew which garage to park in at night was to count and remember which belonged to them.

My mother and I shared a certain relief that we did not live in a place like Pink Village. "What if we lost our house?" I was certain that I would lose my house, especially because of my less-than-stellar sense of direction.

On the way down the hill, we drove near an empty patch of land that was covered in the most beautiful wild flowers I had ever seen. My mom pulled over, we got out, and walked around. I had no idea what any of these flowers were, but they were incredible.

"Pretty soon houses will be built on this land," my mother said, "and these flowers won't be here any more." This saddened me.

"Why? Aren't there enough houses in Pink Village already?"

Of course not.

We walked around a little bit more, picked some flowers, and decided to continue driving down the hill. We passed by a few more look-alike-house-villages (I did not yet know the term "tract home"), and I felt a certain nostalgia for the pre-Pink Village days. Now that I had a better idea of what it was like, I could not help but feel slightly let down.

I looked at my new bundle of flowers, and I wondered if they knew where they came from.

We never drove back to Pink Village.