Last Notes on December: Family Fun!

Four days after I landed in Nashville, Tennessee from Singapore, I found myself in Dallas, Texas.

Dad, Dede, and I were spending time with Kerry and Nic, my nephews, and my mother. We even got to visit with my cousin George and his wife, Beth. And I was so excited to finally get a chance to spend some time with Charlotte!!

Our five day trip started off with a bang! Liam was in a big dance recital which I thought was incredible! The theme of their recital was the end of the world. It was titled 12 - 21 - 12 A Musical Parody and was performed by The Plano Dance Theatre. It included dances about zombies and aliens, and hilarious songs that the audience got to participate in like, The 12 Days of The Apocalypse. My sister and I marveled at how great it was to have a themed performance: none of our dance recitals were ever themed back in the day. Liam had a dressing room with his name on it and people that dressed him: such a little superstar!

Liam is remarkably talented in performance. He has been dancing pretty much since the day he learned to walk and he memorizes lines from movies, performing them at the drop of a hat. During this particular dance recital, he was an alien. He wore the most hilarious silver body suit that covered his feet and his head, and on his face he wore giant green sunglasses shaped like bug eyes. He wasn't a bit nervous before he went on stage and he was so excited when the show was over! He jumped up and down and was hugging everyone left and right. We brought him treats, which sent him through the roof!

On Christmas day, the boys woke up excited to see that Santa had visited leaving a trail of glitter.

We started off opening our stockings. Stockings are a big tradition in our family so every time we are together on Christmas, we try to make a big deal out of it. My stocking included a bottle of wine. I think Santa was trying to tell me something.

 

Oliver and Liam got little handmade blank books in their stockings. (When I say they were handmade, what I mean is that they were pieces of paper stapled together.) This proved to be the best-present-ever for Oliver. He spent all morning writing and illustrating a book about a dinosaur that didn't have any friends. The dinosaur ended up pulling out all of his teeth so that the other dinosaurs knew that he wasn't scary and they could be friends with him. He did a reading of the finished book for us and it was splendid. Oliver is going to be a famous author and illustrator, I just know it.

Following our stockings, we began opening gifts. The boys are always first and foremost in this category. I have only experienced Christmas morning with my nephews once and it was when Oliver was about 6 months old and Liam was nonexistent. This year's Christmas was an exciting and overwhelming experience!

While we hope and say each year that we are going to do without gifts or only exchange one, it never happens. Somehow Santa spoils us all anyway. I posted about several of my gifts on Facebook. But here is a partial rundown: earrings, books (my Young House Love book was signed!!), a ring, bracelets, a tiny Andy Warhol statue (hilarious), a hand drawn dragon book by Oliver and Liam, pajamas (a yearly occurrence), a quilt square made by Liam for a school fundraiser, and a suitcase.

 

I brought everyone something from Singapore. Everyone got a t-shirt and a little something else. I bought the boys the most beautiful outfits in Little India. They also both received stick horses made by one of my friends and co-workers at The Turnip Truck. The stick horses were a great idea in theory. However, they quickly turned into weapons of mass destruction and usually Kerry or I was the target.

 

The real crowd pleaser on Christmas day was the dance game. Nic and I went neck-to-neck on a Daft Punk song and nearly died. I won that battle, for the record. Everyone took a turn . . . Even my dad.

(Again: almost every time I won. Just saying.)

It also snowed really hard on Christmas day . . . In Dallas . . . Which is almost unheard of . . . But it was a Christmas miracle that we all enjoyed while sharing drinks and Christmas cookies indoors. Kerry and the dogs ventured out once, but turned right back around because it was so cold. I snapped a picture of her that looks like she was caught on a surveillance camera, trudging through the snow like Bigfoot.

When it was time to leave, the snow proved to be less of a miracle and more of a hinderance.  

We made it back to Nashville in about 16 hours time. It was hard to say goodbye, but I'll see everyone over the summer. And that's always the best: filled with lots of birthdays and water fun!

My Favorite Creative Experiences From 2012.

Some blogs put out posts each month to review what they have previously posted about during that same month. My feeling is this: that's too close to when something really happened. I like the idea of a year in review because sometimes I forget what has even happened (again, this is why I take so many pictures!!). In keeping with my theme of favorites from 2012, I have listed my most favorite creative experiences from this past year. This was a hard list to boil down, as I have been lucky to live a creative life which means creative things are always happening. But I think you will find a wide variety of experiences below that helped make 2012 one of the most exciting and fun-filled years to date!

1.  Museum and Menagerie: As I mentioned here, the first month of 2012 had me working on Safe Haven's Museum and Menagerie event. Local photographer Allen Clark worked with the circus, photographing the animals and people behind the scenes. We hung the work and created an event around the circus theme. On the night of the event, each photograph was auctioned off and all of the proceeds went to Safe Haven. The night of the event was magical . . . For one, it snowed. It didn't snow at all that winter except on this night. And for two, I helped arrange for Fall Dance Company to perform and watching them was truly spectacular. For weeks this event generated press. It was honestly one of the best parties I've ever been too, and I got to help make it happen! Hooray for things!

 

2.  Making hearts with Emma: In the first year that I knew Emma, we attended Meg's Valentine craft party at Art and Invention. This was before she moved away to Medford, Wisconsin. 10 years later we found ourselves together again in Nashville. So we spent the afternoon at Meg's making wooden hearts. We got there early and stayed late. And, we had a blast! (Then I moved to Singapore. Perhaps one of these days Emma and I will live in Nashville again at the same time. Hopefully it won't take another 10 years for this to happen.)

3.  Deliciously Happy: One of the hardest and most rewarding shows I have ever put together, Deliciously Happy combined workshops taught at 4 schools in the Nashville area, video footage from each location, and my artwork. Funded in part by a successful Kickstarter campaign, Deliciously Happy proved what I knew all along: collaboration works!! I met some truly amazing people during this project and they inspired more in me than I previously thought possible. (I have 5 more Kickstarter rewards to finish up and then the project will officially be complete!)

4.  Sitting on a panel for Nashville's Arts and Business Council: Because of Deliciously Happy's successful Kickstarter campaign, I was asked to sit on a panel with other creatives who used crowdfunding as a source for making projects happen. I was floored that I was chosen to be on this panel and amazed at the graciousness of the audience. Most of the 75 person crowd personally thanked me for being there and ended up stopping by Belmont's Leu Gallery to see the show.

5.  Writing a paper about my nephew Oliver: For two semesters I attended Belmont as a graduate teaching student. Realizing the program wasn't for me, I accepted my current job in Singapore and left Belmont permanently. However during my time there, I wrote several papers. One of them was on my nephew Oliver. The full paper can be found here.

6.  Curry vegenaise: Most people know how much I loved working at The Turnip Truck. And my most favorite part of my job was working in the kitchen making things for people to eat. On the days I got to make the curry vegenaise, life was perfect! We used curry vegenaise to make the curry chicken salad that we used on sandwiches and in salads. The smell was intoxicating! And the colors and textures were amazing. Thankfully on my last day there, they let me make it one last time and I took some pictures of the process. Now my friend Corey is running the kitchen. I hope they are putting as much love and appreciation for color in their curry vegenaise as I tried to do!!

7.  My little hut with Lockeland: Over the course of 2012, I exhibited work in 8 solo and collaborative shows. One of the most interesting shows I was involved in was a collaboration with Camilla Spadafino and Lockeland Design Center Elementary School. I worked with her 2nd graders on making elements for a small hut that we then exhibited at the Metropolitan Nashville Arts Commission (MNAC). Additionally Camilla invited me to create more elements for the show by working with the larger school community during Field Day. It was such a fun little project! And the opening reception was awesome! The MNAC had their outdoor patio set up with snacks and juice boxes, chalk and bubbles. It was so great to watch the kids playing during their opening, all while looking out over the Nashville skyline. Not a lot of the students showed up for the event though, and to this day I will not understand why. Oh well.

Blue Is a Really Scary Color . . . from Lindsey Bailey on Vimeo.

8.  Teaching with Emily Holt: A few weeks before I left for Singapore, I had the absolute pleasure of teaching a University School of Nashville camp with Emily Holt. We devised a food/art camp and it was hilarious! We made everything from cake robots to screen printed aprons, clay pizzas to cardboard carnival games. The kids had an absolute blast! I hope we get a chance to teach this camp again one of these days . . .

9.  CREATE 2012: The very week that I left for Singapore, I found myself teaching teachers at Middle Tennessee State University. As part of CREATE 2012, I facilitated 3 workshops based on recent projects I had completed with young people. Two of the workshops were focused on parade arts and one of the workshops was focused on teaching teens about fashion design using recyclables. The teachers who attended my parade arts workshops were so much fun! It was awesome to be able to work with adults the same way that I work with kids! And come on: the conference was titled "Stop! Collaborate and Listen". How could I not love a Vanilla Ice-themed arts conference? So looking forward to next year!!

10.  Moving to Singapore: The end.

Just kidding. But seriously! This move has probably been one of the most creative and risk-taking adventures of my whole life. It's been a colorful, creative, and tasty ride that I continue to blog about weekly. Hello-halfway-around-the-world! I'm preparing to be jet lagged for the rest of my life!

11.  Experiencing Boracay: The Philippines has been my most favorite creative experiences of the year. I'm not sure what it was that created this feeling, but I think it had to do with being the perfect combination of chaos and beauty. Seeing the sunset (and rise) over the water at Boracay was absolutely breathtaking. I have never seen anything like that. At one point I had to stop posting pictures of water and just hope that everyone understood how beautiful it was. It was an incredible experience. And like any good performance piece, I'll only get that true experience once.  

12.  Batik: Hands down the best thing I have ever made this year, perhaps even during my lifetime.  Visiting Widya in his personal studio and having him teach my friend Cheryl and I the process of batik from start to finish was unbelievable. I work in the studio all of the time and never have I seen a transformation during an artistic process like I saw with the batik process. I ended up giving my sister my batik for Christmas and she was so excited! I can't wait to visit Widya again and continue learning about this incredible process. Perhaps this is where I will apply for a Fulbright . . . We shall see!

To many more creative experiences in 2013!!

Fa La La Friends . . .

Where did the time go? I have been out-of-town for the past 3 weeks, and things--primarily blogposts--are beginning to pile up . . . It's amazing how much preparation goes into the holidays and then poof: they are over and done with, almost like they never happened. Thankfully I am a picture-taking-freak, so I am left with visual memories that keep me smiling for months.

On the night of my last day of teaching for 2012, I flew out to the United States. I split my time between Dallas, Texas and Nashville, Tennessee. It was a big trip for the very fast-paced, brief 3 weeks I was there. I ended up getting a really nasty cold that left me with a man-voice for most of my vacation. The last time I was sick was in January of 2009. Since I don't get sick often: when it hits, it hits hard. I can only attribute this to being trapped on a plane for 26 hours, then turning around and road-tripping for 12 hours. Going from extreme temperatures (humid/hot to cold/snow) didn't help matters, either.  

My trip to Dallas was primarily family-related and will be featured in future blogposts. My trip to Nashville included madcap adventures with some of my most favorite people on the planet, and having a cold did not slow me down one bit.  

Most of my time was spent in East Nashville, where I used to live and work. East Nashville is great because most of the people that I hang out with live there, so everyone is close and it's easy to get around. Not-to-mention, things are always happening: there's always somewhere that's open, a place to go.  

Lots of the people that I hung out with over the holidays are people that couple as my mentors, collaborators, or fellow artists. It was so nice to be able to catch-up with people and talk about art, process, and teaching! I was lucky to see people that I had planned to meet-up with, but also to meet new people. New people who have similar passions and creative sensibilities.

Andee (top left image) and I were lucky to catch each other on New Year's Eve . . . I was so happy to make this possible, as I was beginning to think we would miss each other! She has scheduled Buoyant Echo as part of SKyPAC's summer series, which I am totally excited about! (Corey and I went to Bowling Green to check out the space, which I'll tell you more about soon.) Andee, Stacey, and I started our New Year's Eve at Dwayne and Greg's. We had a great time. I only wish it could've lasted longer! Next summer: be prepared ladies!!

Rebecca and Gary (top right image) met me for dinner on the last night of my vacation at a fabulous little Indian restaurant in the Woodlands, centrally located. We have been friends for just over 10 years. This trip would not have been then same without seeing them. I will definitely need to schedule more time with these two on my next venture across the pond. I'm happy they were able to fit me in during this crazy holiday time!

Camilla Spadafino (above bottom image) is the almighty art teacher extraordinaire. She teaches at Lockeland Design Center Elementary School in East Nashville. This image is from our first of two meetings (she didn't approve any of the images from our second meeting, haha). We are holding globes because we are about to launch a big international art project between our students. She has been instrumental in helping me process what I am doing/how I am teaching over here in Singapore. She is a great source of comfort to me and, although we live millions of miles apart now, I know that she is someone that I can reach out to with questions, concerns, or just to brainstorm over a cup of coffee (via Skype, of course).

Rachael (above left) is one of my most favorite new people I've gotten to know in 2012. Andee introduced me to her towards the end of 2011. Rachael works for Safe Haven Family Shelter and was putting together a fundraising event called Museum and Menagerie with local photographer Allen Clark. She asked me to help facilitate the space transformation--which ended up being quite beautiful--and now we're friends! Yay! It truly made my day that we were able to make our little coffee date happen . . . I look forward to working and playing with Rachael even more in the future!

Ms. Margaret (above right) is my ceramics professor from 2007 - 2009 at the University of Texas at Austin. I was a lucky, lucky girl to be able to meet her (and Tony Sonnenberg) for a lunch at her house on the Sunday before Christmas in Dallas. I can safely say that I would not even be close to where I am now if it hadn't been for her. She is a constant source of inspiration and motivation to me. Whenever I am making something--now and forever--I always ask myself if I am doing everything I can possibly do to make this art piece what it needs to be . . . And that stems from Margaret. I joke that my mantra is:  WWMMD (what would Margaret Meehan do). But it's no joke. It was a Christmas miracle that we were able to see each other, and I hope this holiday happening continues.

Wet-Your-Whistle-Wednesday (WYWW): my church while I was living in Nashville. Brainchild of Mona (below left), WYWW was a Wednesday get-together that featured food, drinks, and karaoke. And I joined them almost every week, or as many weeks as I could! While I was in town for the holidays, we met for caroling and homemade eggnog (incredible). We caroled up and down Fatherland in East Nashville to raise funds for Fannie Battle. Above, Stacey and I are donning our crowns that we found in our Christmas crackers later that night. Dwayne (below right) and Greg also hosted a get-together on New Year's Eve. Hooray for being able to see everyone twice! But next time folks, we need a full-on Lindsey night (not unlike the marathon party or Jason's graduation party). And I want to be able to spend time with everyone. I didn't even get to see John, Jason, or Shawn. And I barely got to see Marc, Jackie, Kevin, and Laurie. Boo-ninja-boo.

The young lad you see in the image above turned 40 a mere two days after Christmas. Hard to believe that I have almost known him now for close to 10 years. His parents organized a surprise party for him in Kentucky, but I was in Dallas at the time. Happily we were able to catch up when we both got back to Nashville. It was great to see Mr. Lyons while I was in town. We laughed all the way through dinner and drinks at Chago's! As always, it was too short of a visit: I could've done with another basket of chips and some more tortillas . . . Next time.

Emma and Chris!! My two most favorite people in the world . . . And they're engaged!! Chris gave me the low-down on this big happening the day before he popped the question, which happened to be the same day I left for Dallas. I'm so excited for them! The big date is set for the summer. I snapped the following hilarious picture of them on New Year's Eve. I still think this should be their engagement picture.

Emma and I spent almost every day with each other while I was in Nashville. And still it wasn't nearly enough time. We went to No. 308 a couple of times, Edgefield once, 3 Crow once, and spent ample time sipping wine while on the computer watching videos (old and new). We even got to Skype with her mom on New Year's day, in our pajamas. Pretty!  

I wouldn't know what to do if I went to Nashville and Emma wasn't there . . . How did we live apart for so long between 2005 and 2011? She's absolutely precious and I was so happy to be able to ring in the new year with her! Can't wait until this summer!  

I don't know what it is about East Nashville that keeps me coming back for more . . . The neighborhood itself reminds me a little bit of Austin, a little bit of Brooklyn, a little bit of Lexington. The only thing I can think of are the people. The people I have met in East Nashville are completely genuine and happy. My friends there are like extended family, the cool cousins that you want to hang out with on the regular.  

One of my first days back in town found me having lunch on the lawn with these friendly ladies from the Turnip Truck. Before Lindsay (above right) and I went off to pet some cats and dogs at the Humane Society, we ate hotdogs with Tara (above, next to me) and Nicole (above, next to Lindsay). While I wasn't able to visit with everyone I used to work with at the store, I was able to get some much-needed bond time in with a few folks. It was good to see Earl, Corey, Chae, Nicole R., Matt, Sharon, Bemis, Kathryn, Nicole M., and Phillip. More please, next time. I want a whole day, people.

Kelly and Milo were a treat to meet up with . . . It was so exciting to see how much Milo had grown, just in the short 5 months that I have been gone. His verbal skills are through the roof! We went out for dinner and toyed around at their house for a bit. A few days later, Emma and I met Kelly (and Bettina, visiting from Chicago) for drinks. Kelly is my go-to gal for music. All kinds of music. And with the 5 mixed cds I brought home to Singapore with me, I should be good-to-go until this summer. Kelly is coming off of one of her best creative years yet, and it shows. She lit up talking about possibility and growth for 2013!! I am very much looking forward to this year and seeing what's in store for both she and Milo.

My last most favoritest person I got to see over the holidays was Corey (see below, next to the angels). Corey Newton is collaborating with me on a giant project called Buoyant Echo. He and I met while making sandwiches at the Turnip Truck. He is an extremely talented musician, more of which I will tell you about soon. We got to hang out quite a bit while I was in town and after Skyping with him over the past few months it was good to see him in person and see his studio, really hear him talk about his music. I can't wait to share more of our conversations with you.

I wasn't able to see everyone, and I'm truly sad about that (Bob Kucher: I'm looking at you). Hopefully I will be able to better plan how to fit everyone in during my next visit . . . It was the holidays, which can be a hairy time! I was thankful to meet new faces like Derek Gibson with OutCentral and Chae from the Turnip Truck; and share some great conversation with Carmen Noel at Barista Parlor (my new coffee joint) and Annika Best at Bongo Java.  

Happy 2013 friends! Let's keep this going!!