Guest Post: my doppelgänger Erin Scott~WHAT MOVES ME TO BE ME

tomorrow is my birthday and I have asked someone I follow on twitter to write what it means to be Erin Scott and she should have a good idea since her name is also Erin Scott.  This post reminds me that yes, since I was three, I wanted to dance, be a dancer, and that sound has inspired me since I could walk.  Thank you Erinberry Scott for the birthday gift of a guest blog post.


WHAT MOVES ME TO BE ME

I keep searching my backside for the switch. Or, perhaps between my shoulder blades? Do you see it? It must be there. I have to have some sort of mechanical switch.

I have this overwhelming habit of making movements to music—almost uncontrollably so.

I am immediately reminded of this toy from my childhood—Little Boppers. The commercial kills me, because I feel like that is completely ME! When the switch is on, the toy moves to whatever sounds are produced. The toy-makers intention was for the sound to be music, but, if I recall, the toy basically sensed any sound and would gyrate, as promised.



And when no noise was detected…the toy would be still. THAT IS TOALLY ME!

Now, in some ways, this is great, right? I can sit without fidgeting in that three-hour long project meeting—provided no one in the room breaks out into song. I can enjoy a nice meal out with my husband and not have to be concerned that I’ll break out into dance at the table. That is, of course, unless there is detectible move-inducing music playing. Then we’re both in trouble. Even tense action-scenes in movies: if the music or sound-effects are wicked intense, I can’t stay in my seat! I remember growing-up, I was much like my mother, in that I could not fall asleep without the TV being on. Now, I can’t sleep without being void of all stimuli. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long night.

Naturally, of course, I think we can all agree that we have our particular tastes in music. I believe I am driven to move, dance, or even adjust my posture to some kinds of music more than others. And I am not saying any one type of music is superior—but we all have that short-list of songs that move us.



Whether it be movement in our spirit, movement in our facial expression, and often for me a physical action: a dance step or two, a hug, a little game of tug-of-war with my dog, whatever….

I’ve come to the conclusion that music moves me to be me.

What song or words or vibration (yes, sound can be literally felt) or sound (I’m a fan of ocean waves crashing on the beach) will move you to be you today?


Erin Scott
Boston, MA
www.facebook.com/erinberryscott1
ebdahlia@yahoo.com _______________________ _________________________________

Hart of Dixie

September 26 is the day to be in front of the tv with the channel on CW.  My friend was lamenting this week, the end of True Blood as the season finale has come and gone and while there will be less skin on commercial tv, I have been trying to convince her to get hooked on Hart of Dixie.  

I was lucky enough to see the pilot screenings and panel discussion at the Paley Center for Media for the CW.  Most exciting which the tv guide moderator also pointed out was that the panel had two Friday Night Lights actors-both of which are in Hart of Dixie. Leila Gerstein was charming and she made the point that when she wrote the pilot, the CW was really the only network that still will air hour long comedies or more like a dramedy.  She says she really can’t write serious and it’s a treat to see this story of a fish out of water unfold.  Scott Porter also pointed out the beauty of this show in taking it’s time to tell the story-that it won’t all be packed into one hour long episode.

It takes a lot for me to commit to to follow a new hour long show, and I just hope that it finds an audience and shows that lovely slice of life in the south.  Hopefully it will have a longer run than Lonestar.  For some reason it’s hit or miss when it comes to shows about places other than New York or Los Angeles.

Pilots are an interesting thing-one has to establish characters, a backstory and the promise of a series for a network.  It amazes me how anything in this town gets a green light but I’m so glad that this story gets a chance.  You should give it one too.

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30 Day Photochallenge Revisited

Yes, I know there are only 28 but I live for symmetry

I just wanted to take a look back at my 30 day photo challenge.  

I had been toying with the idea since my week of misery at corporate headquarters for training.  I was looking for something to grab onto, something to be creative with and something to use as a touch point or at least something to ground me.  It was a few weeks later that one of my students from my first years of teaching was chatting with me over IM and was down and out as I was with not making work and a little lost.  We shook hands on it virtually and said we would start the next day.

We both failed the first day and tired a re-do and on that day it stuck, we both missed a day or two or possibly fudged a few snaps.  My point and shoot camera went out on me and I decided to blog as well, which added another element.  It was hard and it didn’t create a habit like I had hoped, but it did make me live in the moment and celebrate everyday for what it was, even the mundane.  

Others started their own 30 day photo challenge and posted to social networks.  I was inspiring friends and old students a like and that was interesting as well.  I didn’t look at my work as compositionally beautiful but more documentary.  Sometimes I cared, other times I didn’t but like the fact that it made me pause a moment every day.

My challenger got excited and engaged in art-making again. That was exciting.  One night he wrote: “look at the lives we are touching, all of our friends are doing their own photo thing. We are HEALERS Miss Scott!”

I don’t know if I’d go that far but it was great to see the butterfly effect happen in front of my eyes.

Then another ex student wrote “I want to travel the world” ~this status is actually inspired by looking at your pictures.  I love the 30 day photo challenge and everything else you’ve done.  You’re a trend setter.”  After thanking him for the pick me up for the day, I was then pinged back with “Thank you for the inspiration.” 

And later, my challenger communicated again: 

“Have you noticed that more people are posting photos everyday? --At least on my end they are.  There was a lot of talk about the 30 day photo challenge this week at work.  I was surprised people even noticed.  I have noticed more of my friends putting up pics “just for pretty pics sake”--friends that never do that stuff.

We are changing the world Miss Scott, Me and you in our own little way!-Love it.”  and his company started their own 30 day photo challenge.

My mother finally read my blog and felt like they were daily affirmations, which surprised me since many days, I felt that my blue mood.  Although I am not taking photos every day any more-IT WAS EXHAUSTING! but it has changed how I look at the world and it I still keep a busy and jam packed social life but am able to take time and appreciate all things in it and how funny and ironic reality can be at times.

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True Sacrifice

For the last week, I have been on a media diet.  I do not need to relive what happened 10 years ago.  When I think about it, I don’t wish to share much since it sounds selfish.  I had graduated from graduate school, I was looking for work after an actor’s strike/pending writers strike in Los Angeles.  The job hunt wasn’t going well and I had flown home to see my family in Chicago.  My parents were returning from a trip as well and we met in a very open Chicago Midway Airport.  The eating area had just been remodeled and had samplings from some of the best places in Chicago.  I remember Mom’s statement of how great it was going to be and exciting it was since the renovation was complete.  Days later that would mean that no outside travelers would ever use that area again.

It was a Tuesday morning.  I know because mom had bowling and so I was to drop her off, take the car back home, clean up and then return for lunch and ladies afternoon out.   It was when was turning onto the street I grew up on that I heard that a plane had crashed through one of the towers of the World Trade Center.  I pulled into the house and snapped on the tv, since it felt very War of the Worlds hoax-like.  I quickly showered and drove back over to be with my mother, where a screen had been flipped to CNN and the goings on.  I can’t remember much more than that like where I was when I saw the towers fall but I do recall the thought that I would never find the job I was seeking.  Perhaps that statement rings true today-we’ll never know.

People talk of sacrifice and how over the last decade we’ve been at war, and I wonder how many people really know someone who has served or defended our country. I have only had one person I’ve lost, a classmate from college.  It was 2008 and my birthday.  I was grousing about how I didn’t have a family of my own and I was getting so old at 34.  I then got a text from a friend saying Gary had died from an IED in Afghanistan and all of a sudden, it hit me how young 34 could be at the same time.  

My sister in law will probably never write of this and I can’t do this story justice but the idea of sacrifice comes to mind that a four year old can often be an example more that any adult.  The question of how do we teach September 11 in schools has been one of the repeating themes in what little tv I have allowed myself to see this last week.  My sister in law teaches in an urban choice school where she teaches K4-four year olds in kindergarden.  The school she teaches in, takes a trip every year to the firehouse to teach about 9/11 and show appreciation for firefighters.  Each student is encouraged to give cards or take small gifts to leave when they go to visit.  My sister in law said one of her students a few years back, rushed back to the cupboards before leaving for the field trip and grabbed her baby doll.  She told my sister in law, her teacher,  she just wanted to hold it a little while longer because when the time came to give gifts of thanks to the firefighters, this four year old gave up what was probably one of her few dolls.  My sister in law said she and the other adults could barely hold back tears on that one.  And on a day of reflection and remembrance, I always think of a little girl giving up a baby doll to thank a firefighter for putting their life on the line.

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LACMA last Friday

Last Friday I hit the art museum for a little inspiration. LACMA-LA County Museum of Art just keeps getting better and better.  I feel that since moving here in 1998, I have seen Los Angeles awake and grow up in art and theatre since it always was a film town-not only have I discovered more but I think LA has discovered some things too.

After finding a great discount deal in a tweet, I am now a member of LACMA and it feels as valuable as my library card.  Just like my visits to the Art Institute in Chicago, I have my favorite rooms and I stop by for a visit to my favorite art and painting and say “hi!”.  I noticed that the Jasper Johns studies I like to see were off the wall for now, but there was plenty to take a look at I wanted to peek into the new exhibits that were in ‘member preview’ only.

I was more interested in how my eye kept looking at shadow and play with shadow. This was more interesting to me--that my brain and eye were focused on that than the new work.  It was a different way of triggering ideas and I was blown away by it! It started with Richard Stankiewicz's work which took me back to the artist's loft I stayed in last November for my sound seminar put on the Association of Independents in Radio.  I found the place cheap at the site roomorama and I saw how the woman I rented from put things in a place of honor as well as reminding herself of how to make art through art.  She told me that people look at artists in a different light and she called herself a creative.  Since I was just starting to embrace after all these years that I have to make art, I felt like this was a great time to hear this from this creative.
This discovery of shadow kept popping up in my walks through the gallery and I was enjoying these surprises saying hello back to me, it was my own treasure hunt!
This was a good thing since I was somewhat disappointed in the new exhibits that were in 'member preview'. Edward Kienholz, Five Car Stud 1969–1972 but the work didn’t really grab me.  The gallery is dark and quiet with a bed of sand covering the floor. I didn’t expect to wear my sandals to the art museum and get sand in them! The viewer is only allowed to enter one way and leave through another exit. Part theatre, mostly social commentary and part sculpture the work depicts a group of home grown terrorists that are castrating a black man after coming upon a scene of an inter racial couple “parking” in a truck. The literature to explain and comment on the work reminds us that scenes like this happened throughout the southern United States.  That type of writing always turns me off in others trying to say this never happened in our backyard but those in the northern states were segregated in other ways, not to mention the fact that Indiana in the early 20th century had the most KKK members per capita of any state or the area in LA County I live in had cross burnings and problems up into the 1980s.  Since the work hasn’t been seen in many years, it seems as if LAMA is as proud of the fact that this work is out of storage and is on display again as the content and discussion itself.



I then went out into the Rodin sculpture garden since the writing of how sensual it was to work in clay, always made me a fan of the works and yet again, I saw more shadow on the staircase up above and in the garden itself.  Yes this was probably nearing movie "magic hour" as far as light was concerned but I still saw so much as far as play with shadow and how it will probably find its way into my work in the near future. I even found it among the Giacometti collection.  I have never been a fan of the work (it's no Rodin) but even with my eye and brain playing this game, I found something to love/like about the work on this visit!
It's my hope that the idea of Pacific Standard Time (Five Car Stud and the curation of Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972–1987 are a part of this) has work that grabs me more at other participating institutions.  And so onto look at other works in other museums- this included a visit to Downtown Artwalk Thursday as well as MOCA, where there wasn't enough Warhol and Cy Twombly but company and dinner after kept me happy.





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Sound Walk's Featured Artist

Today, I'm the featured artist for the Soundwalk website.  Most of it you know but some of it is new.
Go check it out and come see the show October 1 in Long Beach.  What I did last year is here. _______________________ _________________________________

LACMA on Friday

I worked the holiday weekend but I now look forward to the time away at the end of the week.  LACMA was an amazing inspiration but I was surprised what I noticed on this trip to the museum.  Outside of the museum, this delighted me most of all! _______________________ _________________________________