As many of you may know, I’ve reluctantly left the American Visionary Art Museum, after quite a few successes, including the community mosaic project and my piece being on exhibit in the 2008-2009 show, Art, Science, and Philosophy. I had a great run with an amazing organization, but I’ve moved on to another of Baltimore’s architectural treasures (two, to be precise), managing the Bromo Seltzer Arts Tower and the School 33 Art Center. The Tower, where I have my office, is a fifteen-story clock tower that now houses high-end studio space for local artists (if you’re looking for a space, please contact me via the web site). I oversee leasing, maintenance, upgrades, and other aspects of keeping these two facilities running at full tilt, and, a month into the job, it’s a great place to work.
The Tower hosts an open studio day once each month, when the building opens to the public to share the studios and work of our artists with the rest of the community. The next open studio will take place from 1-5 p.m. on Saturday, October 17th, 2009, at 21 S. Eutaw Street, Baltimore MD 21201, as a part of the city-wide School 33 Open Studios Tour. I hope to see some of you there, and encourage you to come meet our artists and go for a ride on our 1911 manually-operated Otis elevator. For a whirlwind look at where I work, take a look at the video.
Hope I didn’t make you dizzy just then. Sadly, I can’t show you the clock room or the rooftop in person, owing to legal issues, but man, oh man, it’s neat up there in the secret parts of the Tower.
The change in my working schedule has also had the effect of allowing me to resume my extracurricular activities, like my podcasts, my performance work, and my writing, which means I’ll be posting a lot more work here in the coming year. I’m particularly happy to have resumed the production of my ambient/deep listening music podcast, 12 Minute Travelogues, this month, and will be updating it monthly in October through January to complete the twelve-part series. I’m also working on getting my other podcast, Last Night I Dreamed I Was You, which highlights odd little stories with original music. The stories will be a little shorter than the first experimental episodes, but with thematic threads connecting multiple episodes into larger narratives. Look for the first new episode sometime towards the end of September.
Work on Scaggsville is slowly resuming, as I undo a few overly-ambitious and misguided edits, with the aim of having a version of the book in print (the sonatext limited micro-edition) before the end of the year. Mind you, I’ve been hoping to hit the end of the year for a few years, so don’t count on the deadlines. It’ll be good, though, I promise.
That’s about it for now, and thanks for visiting the site!
Love, your pal,
—Joe.