saatchi showdown

It's voting time. 10 stars. You know you wanna...


http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/showdown/index.php?showpic=7503

the business of art

I listed to Alyson Stanfield's interview with Paul Dorrell and was pleasantly surprised to get great insights into artist-dealer relationships. http://www.artbizcoach.com/resources/dorrell.html

I would guess that her workshop is equally useful.
Enjoy if you are in the area.
Joelle


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Alyson B. Stanfield
303.273.5904
alyson@artbizcoach.com

FLORIDA ARTISTS SET THEIR ALARMS ON MARCH 25 TO GET IN ON
SELF-PROMOTION SECRETS

March 16, 2007--They're not going to come knocking on your
studio door. Ever. No matter how incredible your art is you
have to get out of bed (and get out of your studio) and
share it with people. If you've been throwing darts and
praying for the best for your art career, think again.
Successful art careers don't just happen, but are the
result of hard work and savvy skills. Alyson B. Stanfield
of ArtBizCoach.com is flying in from Colorado to share
self-promotion secrets with artists in Central Florida.

Artists should make plans to attend the Shameless
Self-Promotion for Artists workshop on March 25 from 9:30
a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Art Center Manatee in Bradenton.
If you roll out of bed early that Sunday, you'll learn:

--Nine things every artist needs for promoting their work.
--Why the process of writing your artist statement is
critical to your marketing (and how to make it pain-free).
--How to build a network of people who are essential to
your success.
--Creative ideas for marketing your art.
--What promotional materials you'll need and the rules to
follow when creating them.

You should absolutely stay in bed on Sunday if:
--You think you know everything already.
--Have no desire to make a living from your art.
--Believe that if your art is good enough, you'll be
discovered.
--You have a highly contagious virus.

On the other hand, you should set your alarm and join the
other shameless self-promoters if:
--You are fired up about sharing your work with the world.
--You're ready to put into place the tools you need to
advance your art career.
--You realize you can't succeed on your own.
--You're highly entertaining and can provide comic relief
at the breaks.

The workshop is $75 and includes lunch. Get registration
details at
http://www.artcentermanatee.org or by calling 941-746-2862.

Stats on Women in the Foreign Service

from http://kennedy.byu.edu/events/pdfs/shippy_12sep04.pdf
___________________________________

"Women in the Foreign Service"
Ambassador Ellen Shippy, Diplomat in Residence, University of NM
12 September 2003

The United States has approximately 288 posts abroad in 162 countries. These are primarily embassies and consulates, which are "branch embassies." The Department of State has approximately 47,000 employees, of which 5,500 are Foreign Service Officers, 4,000 are Foreign Service Specialists (support staff), 7,000 are Civil Service, and 30,000 are Foreign Service nationals. With respect to women, 34% of FS officers are women; 31% of Specialists are women, and 61% of Civil Service employees are women.

At senior levels, the senior Foreign Service and the senior Executive Service, women represent 25% and 30% of senior Foreign Service and Civil Service positions.

Now let's talk more specifically about women in the Foreign Service. The first woman joined the FS in 1922. The first woman ambassador was appointed in 1949; she was ambassador to Denmark from 1949 to 1953. The first woman assistant Secretary of State (for public affairs) was appointed in 1973. The first woman to head a regional bureau was in 1985. The first female Secretary of State of Madeleine Albright in 1997...Yes, there are sometimes difficult questions to deal with, such as dating, marriage, children, employment for your spouse...the same questions male FS officers are dealing with.
_________________________________

The last sentence reminds me of the many questions I am asked and ask myself about my focus on only female expats when both men and women face challenges when they chose a life overseas. From what I observed as an expat, in families, typically the women gave up their careers if one spouse sacrificed a career. My concern was that if the movers and shakers of the 21st century are people who can successful navigate an international career, then I wanted to know how women were doing in this arena. I flashback to statistics about teachers overseas. Although I do not have exact figures, I recall that a high percentage of teachers in international schools were women, but a low percentage high-level administrators were female.

Wow. I'm really enjoying updates from an expat in Estonia at http://www.illumineerima.com/. She has a good eye for the absurd. Check out her recent entry. Here's an excerpt to wet your whistle:

Her caption: "I think my favorite promotional item was this deck of cards. Blue for boys and pink for girls, apparently."

Creative Capital

I just attended this amazing artist retreat by Creative Capital. You should definitely attend these workshops if you get a chance.
http://pd.creative-capital.org/

The schedule for their upcoming retreats are at http://pd.creative-capital.org/calendar.html. Maybe you can write your state's Division of Cultural Affairs to support your state's artist by inviting Creative Capital to your community. Florida paid for me.

Not only did the workshop expand my professional network, but it also gave me strategies to focus on goal to work more effeciently and be more financially stable. I'm excited to use their techniques.

boredom, skip the first 15 min

Ok. I'm giving it a second listen, and I think you could skip the first 15 minutes of that link...

boredom link

Yea! It's up = http://broadcast.uwex.edu:8080/ramgen/wpr/bok/bok070204b.rm

Or you can go to The Best of Our Knowledge website. (http://www.wpr.org/book/)

http://www.illumineerima.com/

I'm really enjoying the emails that I automatically get from http://www.illumineerima.com/. This blog contains the type of entries that I orginally wanted my blog to gather in one spot, sort of like what http://newsgrist.typepad.com/ is to art. I just applied to a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts during May and hope to use that time, in part, to tweak female-expat.org into something closer to my original vision.

To the Best of Our Knowledge on Boredom

Shortly after arriving in Tallahassee, I learned that the city has one of the best NPR stations in the country and discovered new favorite programs like To the Best of Our Knowledge (http://www.wpr.org/book/). What more? To the Best of Our Knowledge has a fantastic website where folks (say the dear expatriate readers of this blog) can visit and listen to their own time. With this in mind, I was not upset to find myself mid-broadcast of a fantastic hour on the topic of boredom because I thought I could listen to the rest later. Right? Apparently wrong. The show is not yet properly archived, but as soon as it is, you should check it out. Boredom, restlessness and curiosity drive many of us overseas, and therefore, the show provided some much needed insights into the topic. Please take a listen. I'll try to keep an eye on the site to provide a more direct link asap.

Gemstones and a Wedding by Nicola Jane Barratt

I guess we're all collectors. When we go to a new place, its nice to
bring home something to remind us of all the fun we had - something to
put on the mantle and make us think of sunny beaches on a cold winter
day. Well, moving to and living in different places lends itself to a
more extreme form of collecting for Jeff and me. In Bahrain we
collected carpets – 16 I think in all. In Zambia, it was art - giant
abstract oil paintings, sculptures in ebony and mahogany, masks,
doors, tables and beds from tribal kingdoms. So what do you think
I've chosen here? Here's a hint - I'll be able to bring all of them
home to show off every summer, on my fingers, through my ears and
around my throat - yes - it turns out that Madagascar is the latest
treasure trove of precious gems – some say the world's finest
sapphires and rubies are coming out of this island now, and as
exploration is only a few years old, gem hunters are not in abundance
and gem buyers are in even shorter supply. So the laws of supply and
demand are working in our favor and there's some beauties to be had -
that geology undegrad degree is coming in handy for something! Many
of the less precious gems are in even greater abundance. Amethysts
are literally for sale at the supermarket as are topaz and aquamarines
in sizes up to 4 carats! Jeff bought me a beautiful watermelon
tourmaline necklace – something I've always wanted. More to the
mainstream, he also bought me a 2 carat star sapphire and had it set
as a ring.

All this came about because Jimmy Freeman and Chandra decided to come
to Mad and get married! They asked us to have wedding rings made so
Jeff went about figuring it out. He came across a 2 man team of gem
dealers who are now regulars at our home! Yes – they do house calls!
They came to the house with about 50 stones of every size and hue. We
chose a lovely royal blue sapphire for C and a big red garnet for
Jimmy. Then we decided to get some ruby earrings and some sapphire
earrings as well – what the hell!! Since then we got a beauty of a
pink sapphire for Cindy and some huge jade earrings for me and really
I could keep on going for a while! Did I mention the new petrified
wood coffee table

The wedding was under a big banyan tree on the beach. The kids and i
collected coral and made an aisle for Auntie C to walk down. We
picked hibiscus flowers off the bushes nearby and made a bouquet. Jax
walked her down the aisle, Tigi was best man and ring bearer, Gabby
was flower girl. Jeff did a beautiful job with the service and Billy
and i did photos. Hope you're all well! More soon, Nikki

Conference on Cosmopolitanism

What I attended during Florida State's Film Lit conference on Cosmopolitanism (http://english.fsu.edu/filmlit/) on Friday, February 2, 2007.

1) Gender and Genre
Room: 123A
Dennis Bingham, Indiana University, Indianapolis, "The Biopic Gets the Guillotine: Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette"
(Exceptional presentation #1 because of the presenters sense of humor and incredible insights into a movie that some considered sheer fluff. Dennis reminded us of the autobiographical nature of Sofia's films in that all of her main characters are women in privileged positions, because of their social / cultural context, and we watch how they use their positions of privilege. In this way, it reminds me of my Female Expat Project since I focus on expats that have a choice about where they live and how they spend their time.)

...left above and caught the end of:
2) Global Longing for Form
...to see Weihsin Gui, Brown University, "Kazuo Ishiguro: National Cosmopolitical Impressions" + Wendy Lee, Brown University, "The Unintentional Comedy of Teaching World- Respect in Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle"
(High energy presentations with a humor and joy found in the books presented made for time well spent. Barry Faulk asked an important question about the timeliness of questions about complicated questions of identity and cultural forms as the ideal way to introduce political questions. Adorno and his belief that art cannot embody political questions, only point to them, was discussed. For any artmaker with any ounce of social awareness, these questions come out constantly, and I am reminded that I need to revisit Adorno, the man who questioned how anyone could “write lyrical poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”)

...after lunch
3) The Military and Militarism Room
(Left this sesson during the first presentation because I was bored with ideas about women as mere ornamentation and the insistence that we pay more attention to women's POV during the war. Important to say, but no new insights provided)

4) Liquid Modernity
(Good to reminded Jim Jarmusch film's in relationship to liminal spaces and the ambiguity of otherness in Lost in Translation, but again, no new insights gained. Perhaps I am getting tired of sitting, but I continually wonder, do these people not know that points are best driven home by examples and visuals. Admittedly, Power Point can be misused, but when talking about the films, why not project the film stills allowing the images to be the visual focus of our contemplation while you present your paper? It would be so much better than giving us a bad xerox copy of many images and only showing a short clip form the movie.)

5) Keynote address = Tim Brennan
(Tim Brennan was dull, and the response John Marx thankfully shook things up. Why keep asking these same questions, Marx asked? Barry Faulk discussed a synergy at present that prompts us to revisit questions about globalism. I agree. The room felt restless, tired of the day's intellectual masterbation and eager for real action, whether in our classrooms or beyond.)

6) Darwin's Nightmare
(Important, powerful film, but my brain is mush, and I'm desperate to make my own work with a political conscious and a eye on circulation to people without lots of pocket change.)

film lit conference

FSU's Literature and Film Conference on Cosmopolitanism is approaching, and I'm getting sooooo excited.
More at: http://english.fsu.edu/filmlit/
Schedule at: http://english.fsu.edu/filmlit/filmlit_schedule2007.pdf

Titles like "Spaces and Places" and "'I'm Not an American, I'm a Nymphomaniac': Spectatorship, Cosmopolitanism, and Trans Identities," are actually causing me to drool with anticipation. (Ok, not something I should admit on my blog but whatever...)

melquiades

I watched two movies last night, namely:

1) The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70035191&trkid=90529)
2) Mostly Martha (http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=60025545&trkid=90529)

Both were good, but the first was incredibly satisfying, partly because I see the female expat project in everything. Flashing back, I focus on the dullness of a small town and the restlessness created as a result. The setting breeds characters looking for an escape—into an affair, a mall, a telenovela, a porn magazine, the nostalgia of a hometown called Jimenez / Cincinnati, or into another country with a lover or mission.

hey art lovers, see david byrne

Good article by David Byrne about the Art Basel Miami Beach fair that I attended by have yet to process.
More at http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2006/12/1271006_miami_b.html

Just starting my class "This Question of Moving" at Florida State. Should have lots of great details to blog soon.

Two Recommendations for Holiday Joy

1) Nowhere in Africa (Nirgendwo in Afrika (2001), German)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0161860/
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/nowhere_in_africa/

Focused on the story of the Redlichs, a German Jewish family forced to move to Kenya during WWII, the movie taps into the larger themes of displacement and adaptation. Having won the 2002 Oscar for Best Foreign Film, the film paints the expat experience in a thorough and satisfying way. Always with the Female Expat Project in the back of my mind, I naturally focused by how the international move affected each character. Every Redlich grows stonger, but the emotional weight of losing family to the Holocaust and new debates about home psychologically stretches them thin. The locust scene poignantly echos their struggle and the destructive nature of a survival of the fittest mentality. Some critics complain that the movie is buried in a nostalgic, rose-colored haze, but the view must recognize that the story is told from Regina's point of view. In this context, what is told and not told (the natives being painted with childlike wonder and the colonists practically ignored) makes more sense. I highly recommend this film to anyone experiencing the expat experience.

2) Happiness: A History by Darrin M. McMahon
http://www.amazon.com/Happiness-History-Darrin-M-McMahon/dp/0871138867/sr=8-3/qid=1166883080/ref=pd_bbs_3/002-1999856-7868810?ie=UTF8&s=books

I haven't read the book, but it's on my Christmas wish list so I'm hoping to write more about it in the near future. As expats choosing to bounce around the globe, searching for a life that is more satisfying, I'm curious to know how our innate restlessness and resulting lifestyle figure into a historical account of happiness. Perhaps the author (admittedly a friend from Florida State) does not tap into our particular twist on the quest for happiness, but I'm excited to read the book and find out. A fascinating premise for a book.

arrival-project by Susy Bielak

A friend of mine is doing a project related to the expat experience. Please help her out by emailing her at susybielak@gmail.com or posting your comments here. Also check out her website at susannahbielak.com.

Thanks,
Joelle
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear friends,

As some of you know, I'm working on a project exploring moments of arrival; when people physically arrive to a new place or reach a milestone in their lives.

A story that inspired me to ask these questions is that of my grandmother, who arrived in Mexico from Poland at the age of six and stayed for the remaining 82 years of her life. She often described her wonder at arriving in Mexico and finding a world more vibrant than she had imagined, cloth more densely woven, colors more fierce, and fruit like nothing she'd tasted before. Upon emerging from the ship, a dark hand of a fruit vendor presented her with a fruit she'd never seen before—a mango, which tasted like a spicy carrot, sweeter than dew, soft and textured. Struck with the new warmth, color and language, she realized that her life would be forever changed.

This story inspires me to ask the question of when and where we experience arrival in its many forms. Moments of arrival can range from crossing a national border, to purchasing a home, to finalizing a divorce, to embarking on a new career, to falling in love.

Over the next few months I'll be collecting stories of arrival. The stories (as anonymous as desired) will be collected into a book or journal that possibly will be published. Please let me know if you have a story from your own life, or from the life of a relative, that you would like to share. I'd like both a description of this moment, in as much detail as possible, and a visual representation of the moment (a photograph from the time, a symbolic object). You can write about the moment and send it to me, or we can have a conversation--whichever you prefer.

In case you're interested, here are some questions to prompt the description. Please use as much detail as possible.
1. Where were you geographically (country, city, forest, desert, beach, suburbia, bar, etc.)?
2. What did you feel like (cold, hungry, ecstatic, sad, etc.)?
3. What were you doing?
4. Who was there?
5. What were memorable images/objects/places/colors from the event?
6. What is your sensory recall of the experience-were there any smells, sounds, touches that are part of this memory?

I hope you're interested. Please let me know. Thank you!

Happy winter.

Susy

expat-blog.com

I just discovered a directory with many expat blogs at http://www.expat-blog.com/en/directory/asia/china/. Please email me at jdietrick@gmail.com about your favorites, or better yet, list your favorite expat blogs here at female-expat.org so we can all see your recommendations. I hope to catch up n my blog reading over the Chrismas break.

food-dietrick

Having just moved to the South, I am occasionally reminded of my Southern relatives and the foods that I encountered in their homes. Before I go on, please realize that my relatives were not from the Deep South—although based on their accents, you might think they were more Southern that they were. They lived around Harrisonburg, Virginia, in the parts of Virginia where they still talk about the War of Northern Aggression. It always amazed me that those same relatives, although only three hours south of my father's hometown in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, believed that my mother had married a Yankee. It's that damn Mason Dixon line that although close to both sets of relatives, once divided that part of the nation.

But back to the food, my aunt in Virginia made a certain type of green beans, a flat green bean often stewed with ham and potatoes, that remind me my childhood weekends in the south. I recently randomly reencountered this green bean in Tallahassee, FL.

Contacts Near Barcelona?

I proposed to do a project for Indensitat in Spain (http://www.idensitat.org/a_index.htm) since this year's theme, HOME / AWAY, connects so well with my overall body of work. The piece will be similar to the one that I did in Beijing (http://joelledietrick.com/2006/artwork.php?m=china), but this time, it will involve a group that is rooted in the place (local Spanish people who are interested in seeing Catalonia recognized as a nation) and one that is unrooted (the expat community). I'm hoping that the event will take place in an alternative space in Mataro called Can Xalant (http://www.canxalant.org/).

Does anybody have any contacts for me in Spain? Thanks!!!!

Food and Embodied Memories

Please contribute stories to Kelly Pendergrast's story about food and memory. See description below. You can email her at kjpender@ucsd.edu.

*********************************************************************************************

I have a request!

I am collecting anecdotes to do with food and embodied memory for a short film project. Maybe that sounds a little theory-ific...

Essentially, I am looking for stories about an occasion that was significant to you in some way and involved (or was accompanied by) the eating of a meal/food. Does that make sense at all?

Can you tell me a story?

-Describe the event/scenario
-What did you eat?
-Why was it significant to you? ( the event, or the food, or both).

(eg you were ate your grandmother's wake with your awkward extended family, eating cucumber sandwiches because they were grandmother's favorite (true story). OR you ate dried apricots and drank cheap wine with your ex-girlfriend in a park in paris while backpacking in france and then puked all over her in the train later on (not a true story)....)

Just a short paragraph worth of story is great...

I would be delighted to have your contribution. Touching, weird, awkward, disgusting - anything!

If you'd like to email me an anecdote, that'd be great. If you are willing to tell your story and be (audio)recorded, that would be even better.