A plane crash and some art updates

The post isn't really all that Antarctic, but here are some fun pictures of a plane crash from 1971 to give you your fix of strange things down in the very deep south. It's an enormous pain to ship things off continent, so when this plane went down, the crash was more or less left where it landed.

And now on to the non-Antarctic portion of today's post!

One of my favorite things about traveling and/or ending up in weird remote places is that I get to more or less ignore all the practical, business-y aspects of being an artist and just play around with making things. I make art because it's a joyous compulsion, and I wouldn't be able to stop myself even if I wanted to. But I have yet to figure out how to fully make my peace with the idea of art as a commodity. When I get back from this particular adventure, I think I might just wait tables a few days a week and keep creativity and commerce as separate as possible.... Anyways, my "art career" seems happily far away and abstract from down here, but some of my Northwest art friends have done some pretty wonderful things recently and I am proud of them and would like to share.

People often ask me how I first heard about working in Antarctica and how I subsequently ended up down here. The short answer is: Tia Kramer.

Tia and I met because we both had art studios in the same warehouse space. Tia is a wonderfully talented sculptor and jeweler, and she is also my creative mentor when it come to all the organizational, business aspects of making things for a living. She also always has tasty snacks, and has saved me from low blood sugar many times over because sometimes when I am working, I forget that I need to eat. She was recently interviewed in American Craft Magazine! 

Yay for seeing fabulous artist friends receive the recognition they deserve!

One of my favorite things about writing for an arts magazine is that I get to meet my art crushes. Last summer I got to sit down with Stacey Rozich for an interview for Redefine Magazine, and Stacey's stuff has been circulating like wildfire over the last few years. Stacey recently worked on this incredible video for Seattle's Fleet Foxes. Amazing! I have fallen hopelessly in love with it, and will hopefully be doing some sort of a mini interview (because I have so much free time, right?) with Stacey about the process of working on it.


The Shrine / An Argument from Sean Pecknold on Vimeo.

Annnndddd, last but not least, AJ Fosik! He's been one of my favorite artists for years, and I got to chat with him about his work before heading down here to the ice.