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02/05/2004: "JUMP (Juneau Underground Motion Picture) Showing, Art openings, and shrimp"

Tonight is another windy rainy night on Douglas Island but at least there are no Taku Winds. I went down to the Douglas Harbor after work tonight to check on my sailboat Rozinante and it appears my harbor angel has been back. Many times when I check on my boat after a heavy wind, I'll notice that someone has retied my lines.

I can tell because of the type of hitch used and also that they tend to have the stern hug the slip where as I usually have the bow in tighter. Regardless, it is very nice of whomever is doing it. I know there are lots of people who live down there full-time and people are pretty good about looking out for each other.

My friends Emily and Corey are now living in a Harbor community in Vancouver BC and her stories of life on their boat makes me so envious. They are only there for a few years and then they'll come back to Douglas where they own an adorable little house right up the road from me. I'm looking forward to their return but hopefully I'll have a chance to go cruising with them on Iona before their return. They spent all last summer cruising around the little Island chains, I believe in British Columbia. sigh. They have a much bigger boat than mine, but they used to own Rozinante and they're the ones who got me into sailing, for which I am eternally grateful.

I got suckered into buying some jumbo Alaskan shrimp at the seafood counter today when I went to pick up a small silver salmon filet. It was %50 off. I just steamed some up and now the whole house smells fishy, even though the shrimp were quite fresh and tastey.

Well, tomorrow will be a big night for me; the first showing of the JUMP society film festival downtown is going on tomorrow night and the filmmaking club I'm in has three entries in it. I didn't enter the piece I directed because I'm not happy with the audio yet, but they had a nice article about JUMP and about our club in today's Juneau Empire and quoted several of our members. Local festival JUMP-starts creativity: Semiannual event draws on local filmmaking talent.

We are all going out for dinner tomorrow night before the first showing. Somehow I also have to find time to pop over to my friend Heather's art opening at Rock Paper Scizzors; they had this nice article about her in the piece they wrote for First Friday (when all the galleries in town coordinate their openings).

I've said it before but Juneau really is the perfect little town for artists. There are lots of galleries, both commercial and contemporary...plus lots of music, theater, art house movies, etc. I am really looking forward to going out tomorrow.

Sat. afternoon is my first class for Studio Lighting. It's a class being offered through the university and we get to bring the items we want to learn how to do professional lighting for. I'm going to use the products from my sister's business Northern Indulgence. She makes soaps and things using natural alaskan ingredients. She has gotten VERY good at it. All of my co-workers loved the pump soaps I bought from her for their christmas gifts.

Well, I better get going, I'm going to try and get at least the outline of one new painting started tonight. Last night I finished 3 of the mixes I need to send out for the Make Elise a Mixed CD Project. Part of what is taking me so long is trying to do some art for the CD jackets, making the song list, plus I'm trying to include lyrics with it as well. I got one in the mail today, for Jessamyn (I think I spelled her name wrong on the package, oops), the first person to get me a CD. I'm trying to complete them in the order of first received.

It's not too late for anyone else who wants to get involved, I plan to just have this as an ongoing thing and just to make new CDs for people as they send them to me. What I like most about the CDs I've gotten so far, are the personal notes included about what each song means to them...why they love it so much.

Music is so personal that way, just like any form of art...we bring our entire life's worth of experience into interpreting it.

Back to painting...

Oh yah, and I've already managed to lose my super cool super tiny Blink II camera. I took it to work with me on Monday and by Tuesday it was MIA. That sucks!