I was selected as the <fidget> Artist in Residence for 2012! The piece will premier during the 2012 Philadelphia Live Arts Festival & Philly Fringe. I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to do, but I do know that it will involve video projection integrated into a performance. Lately I’ve been really interested in time travel so I think that will be the theme of my piece. Be sure to check back here often because I will be journaling, posting photos and videos of my progress.
Posted in: Blog, Work
Mark and I decided to wait a couple months after the wedding to take our honeymoon. We ended up getting a great deal through Norwegian Cruise Line on a 7-Day Eastern Caribbean Cruise in a Mini-Suite with a balcony for about $1000/person (which was exactly the price range we were looking for). The cruise left out of Miami the Saturday after Thanksgiving and went to St. Maarten, St. Thomas and Nassau (Bahamas). Because we had off from work for the holiday, Mark and I decided to fly down to Miami early. We were able to use Mark’s credit card points (an accumulation of about 4 years) and only ended up paying $50 for 3 nights at a resort in Miami Beach!
While in Miami, we spent most of our days relaxing on the beach or by the pool. Our first Thanksgiving dinner as a married couple was spent at one of the nicer restaurants on Ocean Drive. I will say that I had no idea Miami is such an expensive city. One cheap activity we took advantage of was the bike share program – for about $5/hour you can take a bike out and return it at any one of the many stations located all around the city.
On Saturday we boarded the Norwegian Epic, Norwegian Cruise Line’s newest ship. Some of the awesome things about the ship are the 3 water slides, ice bar, rock climbing wall and repelling wall. You can also see the Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil! Another thing that I like about the ship is the Freestyle Cruising. Instead of being assigned a time to go to the dinning room (like most ships), you go to dinner whenever you like and wherever you like. The ship has over 20 different restaurants to choose from (some are included and some you pay a cover charge). There are a lot of activities on the ship too like the White Hot Party, Jazz/Blue’s Club and Dueling Piano Bar. My favorite activity was The Newlywed Show where yours truly got to participate as one of the couples! I think Mark and I ended up coming in last place.
St. Maarten was our first stop. We booked the America’s Cup Regatta excursion. For this excursion, you are put in teams to race head to head in a regatta on one of the America’s Cup yachts. Everyone is assigned a specific job that helps operate the boat. I was chosen to be team leader of our boat, True North (KC-87). I took my role as team leader very seriously and made sure to keep morale high on our team. We chanted and haggled the other boats in the race and so of course our boat ended up coming in first place! Seriously though, this excursion was really fun and I strongly recommend doing it if you have the chance.
After the America’s Cup Regatta, Mark and I took a cab to Maho Bay. Maho Bay is right next to St. Maarten International Airport so as your swimming in the beautiful blue water, commercial airplanes are landing right above your head. In fact, you are so close that you can wave to the pilots right before they take off. Be careful though because the wind from the jets is so hard that it can knock you over! Check out this video Mark took of a plane landing (its kinda long so scrub forward to 1:30).
Next stop was St. Thomas where we went to Magen’s Bay, one of the Top 10 Beaches in the World. It was pretty, but I guess I’ll always be a Jersey girl (yea Wildwood!).
Our last stop was Nassau. We booked the Atlantis excursion for the day. It was a tad bit on the chilly slide, but we were hardcore and did every water slide twice. Atlantis was really cool and I definitely think I would like to go back there during a warmer time of year (possible stay at the resort too).
In short, I think it was a successful honeymoon – we came home exhausted after all! Be sure to check out some of the pictures from the trip on flickr.
Posted in: Blog, Personal
Mark and I got married in Bar Harbor, Maine. Everything was perfect– except for the weather. The day started off overcast, just like the day before, but by 11:00 a.m. the storm clouds rolled in and, despite the fact that the radar showed it clearing up by 3:00 p.m., at 11:00 p.m. it was still raining. However, if it wasn’t for the weather, we wouldn’t have gotten this great picture taken by our photographer.
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Posted in: Blog, Personal
I will be doing video design for The People’s Light & Theatre presents The Secret of Sherlock Holmes. I will be projecting different scenes on three panels that move upstage and downstage during the show. The imagery will be black and white and in the style of a Doré etching.
Today we had the Design Presentations and now I am even more excited for the show to open! So mark your calendars, show opens on July 9 at 8:00 p.m. and runs all the way through July into August. You can buy tickets through The People’s Light & Theater website.
Posted in: Blog, Work
The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 2010 Annual Student Exhibition is Friday May 14 from 5:00 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. I collaborated with senior printmaking major, Aimee Denault, to create a video component for her project. Be sure to stop by the show and check it out!
Posted in: Blog, Work
…between the East Coast and Europe is the small, remote island of the Bermuda.
Mark and I just got back from our Royal Caribbean cruise to Bermuda. It was right out of Cape Liberty, NJ (right outside NYC) so it was really easy to get there from Philly (ie no flying required).
The interesting part of the story is how we booked the cruise in the first place. We “won the cruise” by attending one of those crazy interactive (Powerpoint) presentations trying to sell us a timeshare. In the end, the cruise wasn’t completely free (of course), but we still ended up getting a pretty good deal.
The ship was huge! It had 3 large pools, 6 hot tubs, a basketball court, rock climbing wall, miniature golf, and even an ice skating rink!
Despite the bad weather on the way to and from Bermuda, we had a really great time. While we were on the ship, we participated in all the activities like dance classes, jewelry making, scrap booking, Bingo (funny story, we actually won a game of Bingo, but didn’t realize it until it was too late – yea, we could have won $500 our first night…). They had parades and shows on the ship that were absolutely amazing – there was even an ice capades show! One of my favorite shows was the Cooking Demonstration where yours truly volunteered. I got to stand up on stage and make my own chocolate cherry cake and drink cherry brandy while doing so! And of course we ate a ton of delicious food and were treated like royalty – one of the waitresses cut my french toast for me one morning 
The weather in Bermuda was much better then the weather at sea. The days would start off overcast, but by 11am, the skies would be clear and it would be a beautiful, sunny day. We certainly made the most of our two days on the island. We rented a two person scooter to get around the island. This was definitely the highlight of our trip. It made having to travel from place to place on the island our own little excursion. We booked a cave tour excursion through Royal Caribbean where we explored one of Bermuda’s many caves. At the end of the tour there was a lagoon that we could swim in. After the excursion, we explored the city of St. George, which is more of the historic section of the island. Bermuda has a lot of old military forts, so we saw one of the more famous ones, Fort Hamilton, which is located in the bustling city of Hamilton. And of course we went to the beach. The sand was not as pink as I thought it would be, but the water was absolutely beautiful (a little cold, but beautiful). Bermuda was formed by three volcanos, which are now inactive. Because of this, the island is very rocky so there were rocks to climb and play on while we were at the beach.
My rambling doesn’t do the trip justice, so head on over to flickr to see some shots from the trip.
Posted in: Blog, Personal
I will be working with Daniele Strawmyre, Artistic Director of readySetGO, a multimedia performance company specializing in immersive and interactive performance installations. I will be designing visuals and incorporating realtime video for a performance installation she is developing inspired by Japanese ghost stories. It is set to premiere at this year’s Philadelphia Live Arts Festival.
Posted in: Blog, Work
My thesis has been published by VDM as a paperback! You can buy the book on amazon.com
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Posted in: Blog, Thesis
On Tuesday, October 6, I will be filming at the DesignPhiladelphia Welcome House as the founders of Semilla Arts Initiative work with CHAD students to create a mixed media installation. On Wednesday, October 7 at 7:00 p.m. my video will be projected onto the Welcome House. During this time the DesignPhiladelphia Kick Off party will be happening – so come check out my work as well as the party!
Posted in: Blog, Philly, Work
We just so happen to get tickets to the game the Phillies clinched the NL East! I had never been to an important game like that before. When the Phillies won, fireworks went off as all the players cleared the bench to run on the field and celebrate. The stadium was kept open for about an hour after the game ended to interview the players for the fans. My favorite was Carlos Ruiz who simple said, “We are going to do it again.” You can see the last out of the game on my youtube page.
Posted in: Blog, Philly