Seattle Day 3 - SAM, EMP and Open Mic Night
Trip Start
Feb 28, 2005
1
9
45
Trip End
Ongoing
Seattle,
Washington,
United States
Wednesday, March 9, 2005
First I want to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). I'm not really into old paintings, I like things like sculptures and photography a lot better - my favorite gallery is the Saatchi Gallery in London - go there if you can. The temporary collection at the SAM was China - Past and Future. A collection of photo and video based art. I found most of the pieces in there really good and though it was a small collection I was in there for about 3 hours. The main pieces I liked were ( and I will try and explain them as well as I can):
* Painted Face - 4 pictures of the same man, each one with more and more writing on his face until finally he is all covered in black - very creepy looking. It took 8 hours and the people writing on him had to only write on him in Chinese - and use only one word.
*Plaited string Face - A massive photograph with loads of knots on the front where the face was, as you walk round the back all the string is plaited together and in the end makes on big plait. The man who did it took years and plaited it all himself.
*Bodiless Mirror Man - A man who holds a mirror round his neck and takes pictures so that it looks like his head is floating - in the sky or on the street for example. It was hard at first to figure out how he had done it!
*Vidoe of cartoon on Torso - a real man's torso that was filmed with drawing on it, like a cartoon. The character did things like get in the man's belly button, or cut him open. It was very clever and funny to watch.
*Man trapped under water - You walk through a light tunnel with a picture framed on the floor of a man under water looking like he is trying to get out.
*Hand with photo in it - Just a hand with a small black and white photo in it, but I didn't notice there was a finger missing until I read the blurb. It made me realize that I don't particularly pay as much attention as I should.
*Old & New Pictures - A guy found some really old pictures of groups of people from the army for example, and then tracked down the people that were still living. It was interesting to look at the changes/similarities in appearance.
*3 pictures of a man- One satellite picture of him standing on the street, one picture of his nail and one microscopic picture of the nail.
There was a lot more, like a massive photo of a man with a metal screw in his leg, an androgynous naked man and others I have already gone on enough! I didn't particularly understand the pictures, but admired the artists imagination and ability to complete the prices.
If you want to see more the web site is http://www.icp.org/exhibitions/china (but it doesn't show half of the goods things, and I wasn't allowed to take pictures in the gallery), and the ISBN number for the book is 3-8654-036-8 - it's on my Xmas wish list!
I went round the rest of the gallery which wasn't that interesting to me. I saw Andy Warhol's Elvis, and some other classics, plus some paintings that I really could have done myself which is irritating. I also saw lots of pieces by Native Indians of Seattle and a good glass collection - I didn't know they could do the things they had with glass - I'll have to go to a glass blowing class some time.
I then took the Monorail (which really makes me think of The Simpsons episode) to the Experience Music Project which is a massive funky building dedicated to music. In there they had some collections dedicated to the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix etc, even having some of their original outfits. However, the bit I enjoyed the most was at the end where they had loads of sound/recording booths where I got to play drums, learn to use different pedals for the guitar and also sing in a booth - with headphones and everything. I felt like a rock star and my voice sounded pretty damn good.
I returned to the hostel for free evening meal of spinach lasagne with Deborah, Matt, Autumn (from Texas) and Tremal (from Seattle), and watched Open Mic Night - with free beer too.It was fantastic - everyone was either very talented or just down right funny.
*Michelle Clark who was a bit like Avril Lavaigne and is a little celebrity in Seattle
*Zack Caveman - a busker who's music was fantastic, and I am going to try and get one of his albums
*Tremal - a big black dude with dreds who wrote a poem about his ex-girlfriend saying that he was sorry that he was horrible to her - it was really cute
*Dee- a big cuddly black guy who tries to be mean but really can't sang 'Still of the Night' with a wonderful voice.
*Noah and Yukato - who had met the day before and wrote a song especially for it, and I can still remember the words now, it was that good.
*Michael - who worked at the hostel and has written a book called The Dead Celebrities. He was an excellent reader with perfect timing and witty writing.
*Charlie Buttwater - a real old skinny punk who just kept playing the same chords and just saying a few words, sounds boring but it was funny.
*Rap - 2 guys and Dee who we shouted words out to and they rapped about it, I felt like I was in the set of '8 Mile'.
Even though I had been practicing singing during the day I didn't have the guts to get up and do it myself though I nearly sang Happy Birthday in the style of Marilyn Monroe to Deborah as it was her birthday.
