Naomi

We're moving to Luxembourg!

This was a sudden development in our lives and required some rapid decision-making (the kind I'm usually no good at... must research everything to death). Macsen was offered an excellent job there, when he told me my response was, "Great! Wait, where?" I had always had a vague idea where Luxembourg was on the European map; somewhere Germany/Belgium/France-ish, but had never given it much notice or thought before (sorry, dear Luxembourg!) I suddenly realized that I knew next to nothing about the country so of course to google I went, cramming my brain with as much information I could find. I figured I'd have several months to mull the decision over, examine it from every angle, but no, "They want me to give a response within the next few weeks!" Hence the last minute trip to Luxembourg in July on a secret fact-finding mission.

After we returned I had several sleepless nights trying to decide and had written my customary pro-con list. The con side was virtually empty. Here's why:

Luxembourg has an extraordinarily high standard of living which I'll write more about below, but as for more personal reasons: I'd like to immerse myself in a Francophone country for awhile (I will be in French classes full time after we move) as being fluent and gaining an EU passport has been a long-time dream of mine (also being able to communicate better with Macsen's French family who don't speak any English), we will be able to live in the very heart of the city (something that is nearly impossible in London), the photographer in me wants to see that gorgeous city in all possible light and seasons (it's seriously beautiful, I had no idea), and if that isn't enough reason we will live in the centre of Europe where Paris is only a 1 1/2 hours direct train ride away as are many other travel destinations (we've received an invite to visit CERN in Switzerland so this will make that easier and I'm planning a road trip with my father driving from Luxembourg to France, visiting Macsen's cousin Nathalie in the Pyrénées, Provence, Bordeaux, and dipping into Spain).

Macsen's job offer is an extremely good one; significant pay increase plus moving expenses, much shorter commute (approx. 10 minutes!), and with offices in Paris and Seattle paid-for business trips (with me coming along to see my family) may become a frequent occurrence with the possibility of a transfer to either city at a future date. With the uncertainty of the job market currently it's kind of hard to dismiss these positives. His new boss, Xavier, took us out for dinner and we felt very comfortable with him. Being half French and fluent in the language living in a Francophone country is important to Macsen as well, he'd also like to improve his German (so would I) and have the experience of living full-time in another country besides England (as someone who's had to adjust out of my comfort zone I think it would be good for him too).

Other positives are an excellent socialized health care system and good schools, the average class size is only 15 pupils. 15 pupils! No wonder every child is fluent in 4 languages. (Of course this doesn't matter unless we decide to start a family, but it is comforting to know we have another option besides US/UK/FR if we do.) The city is surprisingly multicultural which is something that is important to me, with many festivals throughout the year celebrating the cultures. Most importantly: The people are incredibly friendly! I found the general friendliness of the city to be higher than many countries and definitely better than London (this reminded me of when I lived in Antwerp, it was such a humble city). We will see how socializing goes, but we already have several friend-of-friend contacts there to get us started, plus new work colleagues, and friends from around the continent who have said they'd like to visit us. The country is dense with forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, castles and ruins so there is plenty to keep active exploring, plus everything available in neighbouring countries. The food quality in supermarkets is much higher and cheaper than in the UK (and the booze is shockingly cheap), the restaurants are mostly a mixture of French and German, but I've heard there's also good sushi and curry available (we shall see!)

The only cons I could come up with:

- I'm unable to study cinematography at the Met Film School in Ealing Studios starting this month as I had originally planned (I didn't enjoy contacting enrolments after all the help and information he gave me), but I've discovered that there is a thriving filmmaking community in Luxembourg as many films are made there partly because of how "untouched" a lot of the historic architecture is; it may be easier for me to get work experience there rather than in highly competitive London and becoming bilingual and holding an EU passport will make me more versatile and useful to any team.

- They still allow smoking in restaurants and bars (it was strange to have my clothes and hair smell of cigarette smoke again. ;)

- Not as much live music as London (I don't think any city in the world can compete with London for music), but taking a break from gig-going sounds appealing, and there are plenty of bands that I love who do come through the city (as I wrote in my last post my favourite band discovery of the year, Solar Bears, played there recently) plus Paris isn't far away.

That was it. That's all the cons.

So we accepted the offer and tomorrow morning we're driving back to Luxembourg to start apartment hunting and we will be moving in early November. We'll keep the house in London for now while we decide what to do with it so we will have a base here to come back to and visit (we are on good terms with the neighbours on our street so they have kindly agreed to look after it). Now that Macsen has announced the news to people in the industry all kinds of offers have suddenly come out of the woodwork (where were they a few months ago?), one said they will find him a job in their company anywhere in the world that he wants, another in San Francisco, another in Paris... so who knows where we will go after this, it is exciting not knowing! I'm proud of him for being in demand, he got to where he is being a genuinely caring person, it was not always easy and it was often a rough and stressful few years, as I have witnessed. He says that he couldn't have done it without me and my support, whether or not that is true I don't know, but I am so happy for him and his recent confidence boost.

I don't expect Luxembourg to be perfect, I've lived here long enough to not be blinded by romantic idealism; like any city and country it will have its problems and challenges, but right now I relish that challenge and the change!




Passerelle


The city is build around an ancient castle and fortress which sits on the top of a plateau; the Vallée de la Pétrusse with the Alzette and Pétrusse rivers and a beautiful leafy ruin-strewn park cut through the heart of it. Divided between the plateau of Ville Haute "High City" and the valley Ville Basse "Low City" you can either take an elevator/lift or many stone steps to reach each level.



Château de Vianden

One morning we decided to leave the city and drive around the country, with it so petite in nature we figured we could explore a great portion of it in one day. What surprised me was how dense the forests were surrounding the city; for hours it seemed the landscape was nothing but trees, rivers, lakes, with the occasional castle-topped clearing shining like whitecaps on a dark green sea. "Where do all the people live?" I asked. In this part of the country there was scarce evidence of any population. We came upon one such large castle called Vianden where finally we found evidence of life in the cobblestone-laced village at its feet. Driving further on we came across the small town of Echternach and crossed a bridge when suddenly we saw a sign at the end of it declaring "Bundesrepublik Deutschland". We had accidentally crossed the border into Germany.




Alzette River that runs through the Grund quarter

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Girl overlooking the Vallée de la Pétrusse


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The Actress



Casemates de la Pétrusse, tunnels built in the 1600s which stretch for 13 miles underground


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Pont Adolphe


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Clausen Quarter

My dear friend and honorary Swedish brother, Kim, visited me again in October. We had eagerly anticipated seeing each other again, time seemed to crawl since his last visit in spring. He visited during a short break in a busy university schedule so he said he felt like taking it easy while he was here, so we did just that; relaxed, talked, watched movies, listened to music, cooked, went for a hike on Leith Hill, played games, ate Persian food at Mahdi, and saw Up! at the cinema in 3D. Perfect. :)

I also knew he was a big Tim Minchin fan so I bought tickets to see him live at the Hammersmith Apollo, making him the envy of his friends back in Uppsala.

The best film we watched was Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In, it was named after a Morrissey song) which I had saved to watch with him. Some of the subtitles were inaccurate so he translated the Swedish meaning, and even more important, the nuances and cultural references. This was by far my favourite film of the year and I appreciated the extra insight. (absolution I completely agree with your interpretation.) I also introduced him to Blade Runner which, believe it or not, he had never seen.

As before it was agonizing saying goodbye to each other at the airport, unsure when we'd see each other again. A trip to Sweden is definitely in the cards!

Du får mig alltid att må bättre. :)






persian restaurant, mahdi


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darwin's cathedral

charles darwin used to live near this forest and took walks here regularly.


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native english bread tree


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photo by Kim



teaching me how to count in swedish



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My dad put up a timeline of his life and experiences as an artist, which naturally is a part of my life as well. I just read through it from start to finish often laughing, often with tears in my eyes. Always inspired.

I love you, Dad!


Read the full timeline

View his visual painting timeline (scroll to bottom of page, shows how his work has changed and progressed)

Read about his philosophy of life in quotes


Here are a few segments directly relating to me and parts that I enjoyed the most concerning art, music, philosophy, snarg.net, and the history of the net.art movement:


This bio was put together for the teaching of my students.
To give them an understanding of art and the life of an artist.
To explain why I paint, what I paint today.

Music is an integral part of my studio environment.

From the late 70's, I've had an ongoing love of Ambient music with Brian Eno and Jon Hassell being favorites.

Lately Loscil and various mixes my daughter sends me from London, England have joined in with Erik Satie and Claude Debussy to become the background to which I paint.

PLEASE NOTE: as of May 20, 2009
the visual timeline and the timeline are still being edited and updated.


mid 1976 -

After extensive reading on other artists lives, I realized that to make a living as an artist was difficult, if not impossible. Decided that to be happy I'd need to find happiness in the simplest of things in life.

Started to realize that poverty was more a state of mind than anything else. In that even if you have relatively nothing it doesn't mean you should see yourself as being poor. This was also when I started to notice that when I really needed something, somehow what I needed would always appear. Started to think about, "What does one really need?"

Decide to buy time instead of things. When I sold a painting for $1,000 I'd buy 3 months. One time my brother and I lived on a 5 pound can of peaches and a 5 pound can of peanut butter for 2 months while he played the guitar and I painted. We would only eat when the hunger pains were too great and only eat enough to relieve the pain. We knew we were strong and young and that the most important thing to do at this time was practice our trades.


1977 -

The "punk" movement at the time was Dada. I couldn't help but to think about what I had read by Tristan Tzara after the Dada movement had come to and end (1923), "Once Dada became popular, it was no longer Dada." And so it was, for both the hippie and punk movements.

At this studio I met Erich Werner who lived in the building. Erich was quite young at the time (only 17 years old) and I highly admired his intellect and way of thinking.

It was from Erich that I first heard "Evening Star" by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, which started my love of ambient music.

Erich once said to me, "It's not good to be behind your time or ahead of your time. What's good is to be *in* your time."


1978 -

Once I asked Charles (Emerson) if art has anything to do with spirituality.
Laughing he said, "Of course it does!".

One day I told Charles, "I would rather paint small poetic paintings than big, vain, egotistical paintings." His reply was, "Well Jef, only small people paint small paintings." To this day I'm not sure if I would agree with this, but he got me thinking.

Charles told me my works are the works of a West Coast artist.
Asking "Why do you say that?" he replied, "Because what you know about art has come mainly from books and it shows in your work."

I didn't understand exactly what he meant until 14 years later, when I visited Paris.

I said to Charles, "I'd like to express in my paintings the maximum of complexity with the maximum of simplicity." he replied, "That's a noble pursuit."

From Charles I learned the *crescendo of color*.


early 1979 - studied conceptual art.

Thought that if Western Culture's path was to be taken to the extreme, the whole world would become a museum with millions of guards. Started thinking that Public Art should not be allowed in the public for more than two years and an artists work should have a fugitive element to it so it doesn't last longer than the artists life time.

Became intrigued by the speed one can move through ideas when using small formats. I started using what I call "the flushing period". This is a period of time when I would work as fast a possible to get all of my ideas out and down so that what comes next is something never thought of before.





mid 1980 - my daughter Naomi is born!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D


(our dog Shire, my mom holding me, and my dad ~ N)

Naomi had a "natural birth" to a cassette tape playing
"Ambient 1: Music for Airports" and "Music for Films" by Brian Eno.

Started to understand the importance of love in art which started my ongoing questioning of "What is love?". No one has taught me more about this question than my daughter, Naomi.


(me as a baby and my mom. ~N)

Started listening to "Heroes" by David Bowie. Absolutely loved side two.
"V-2 Schneider"
"Sense of Doubt"
"Moss Garden" (Bowie, Eno)
"Neuköln" (Bowie, Eno)
"The Secret Life of Arabia" (Bowie, Eno, Carlos Alomar)

late 1980 - played in the band PPku.

Charlie Schmidt - drums
Jef Morlan - bass
Val Hauer - vocals/noise makers
Pam DeMillo - vocals/noise makers
Scott DeMillo - vocals/noise makers



(mom and dad in back, my cousins Pam and Scott, Charlie in the front and me in the center as a baby. ~N)



mid 1983 -

Started cutting out of Masonite huge representations of the people I'd been painting. An arm, a head, some legs would be cut from 4'X8' sheets of Masonite and assembled at the joints with bolts. This created figures 12' to 18' in size and being bolted at the joints could be moved in a variety of ways. Several figures together would be composed on a large wall, using the wall as the canvas. (I remember playing with these cutouts, they were like giant masonite dolls! ~ N)





late 1983 -

First computer, a Timex Sinclair 1000, started programing for the first time. Got my first color TV.


late 1984 - had the longest running exhibition of artwork at The Vogue night club (3 months) with an installation of the cut Masonite figures.

Saw "Amadeus" which started my love for Mozart.

Once a year for the next 18 years my daughter and I would watch it again. We had it memorized.

"MOZART!!!"
dada da da - da - dada da da - da - dada da da - da - dada da da ...

hahaha! love you Gnome! :)



1985 - first synthesizer (Casio CZ-101) and 4 track recorder (Tascam 424) purchased with a drum machine (Oberheim DX) and bass (Rickenbacker 4001).


late 1985 -

did the first full wall graffiti in Seattle on the south wall of The Vogue and performed there with my brother as TwoCanDo.




Was published in a book on Seattle Graffiti.


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It's been a long time since I've written a proper update here, being distracted with things going on in my life plus the ease and immediacy of updating my friends on what I'm doing via Facebook and Twitter meant I fell out of the habit of posting entries. Initially it was a relief, after posting here regularly for 9 years it felt good to not think about writing, editing photos, and html for awhile, but now I'm finding myself missing the slower and more detailed pace of journaling, including the more meaningful interactions in comments. These networks have their place, but so does LJ.

Much has happened in the past 4 months and I may write more about that later, but right now all I want to write about is my friend's visit while the details are still fresh in my mind.

There are some people who you feel you have waited your entire life to meet and after meeting them you can't imagine how you lived so long without them. You are lucky if you find this person at all, even luckier if you find more than one. Kim is one of these people.

Kim and I began talking online 3 years ago under random circumstances, immediately I knew there was something about him and eventually we began talking daily including by voice chat on Skype. He is Swedish and English is his second language, he found speaking to me was a good way to practice his English and he has improved it by miles (or kilometers as he would prefer me to say) since we first spoke. He is one of the few people I know of who has read my entire journal from start to finish. We have so much in common personality-wise, including funny little idiosyncrasies, that he almost feels like a long-lost brother. I have called him the brother that I always wished I had while growing up as an only child (perhaps it's better this way, we get all the positives without the bickering). He's helped me through some of my most difficult times in a way that no one else could and for that I will always thank him. We decided this year that it was finally time to meet in person so during his break (he is a chemical engineering student at Uppsala University) he flew over from Sweden and spent a week with us. At first there was the usual anxiety before meeting someone you've been speaking to online (something I've done many times through various social networks, gaming, forums, and journaling), but as soon we saw each other at the airport and gave each other a long-waited-for hug that all melted away. We felt instantly comfortable around each other.

It was a week that went too fast; we did so much including the obligatory tour of London, but our favourite days were the ones just kicking back together talking, listening to music, and watching films. I cooked him several meals and gave him his first taste of Mexican food (fish tacos with homemade salsa and guacamole), pumpkin pie (Europeans are always weirded out by this one until they taste it), and a French-style seafood meal (he loved them all). As for his first impressions of London he said his most enjoyable day was the one we spent in Brick Lane and Shoreditch, further confirming my belief that London is only good if you explore the outer boroughs and stay out of the centre. I gave him a bagful of gifts that I had picked up for him here and while traveling over the last few years and he gave me some distinctly Swedish gifts in return, plus a necklace which he had waited 2 years to give to me. He told me that I dress "French", which he said he liked (at least it wasn't in the negative sense of "you wear stripey shirts and smell of garlic.")

After an incredible week we had a tearful goodbye at Heathrow, we are already planning the next time we can see each other again. Rarely have I met someone so refreshingly genuine and intelligent. He will be embarrassed when he reads this public praise, but it has to be said. :)

Many photos below the cut.



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me and my new light-capturer

(photo by Kim)



my first video with the Nikon D90.
rocking out in the park to a music box (don't ask).
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We spent a day in the Natural History Museum which I had never visited before, the queue was horribly long and stretched down the street so we went in via the side entrance which only had a wait of about 5 minutes. It was great to go with someone who could geek out at bones and rocks as much as I can. I wanted to see the dinosaur bones the most, but there was a 30-min queue inside the museum for that section so I decided to return on another less tourist-infested day. The museum architecture is incredibly gorgeous, probably the closest thing you'll get to a cathedral dedicated to the natural world. Every stone pillar, tile, stained glass window, and ceiling was carved or painted with images of animals and plants.

I think the best part was the woman pointing to a fish fossil while saying to her young son, "That's the kind of fish Jesus would have eaten." Sort of the wrong place to be espousing creationism.



me photographing the carvings

(photo by Kim)
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We were strolling by Rough Trade so we decided to pop in and discovered it was "Record Store Day" with a variety of musicians scheduled to play. It so happened that we walked in just in time to catch dubstep producer Caspa with Rod Azlan on vocals. The entire store was shaking with bass and I became a bit giddy. Kim and I have a lot of things in common, but music generally isn't one of them (except for Siouxsie and the Banshees); he has no idea about dubstep, but when we walked in he said, "I don't know what this music is, but I like it..." Another convert!



(photo by Kim)


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Jag saknar dig mycket.