no flying without molestation

in case you haven't heard, TSA's new policies with regard to airport screening has gotten a bit out of hand. one security officer (whose job it was to repeatedly grope randomly selected folks who didn't want to go through the backscatter x-ray machines that show off your naked body) actually said that when you buy a plane ticket, you are giving up a lot of your civil liberties. to find out more about the experience of one guy who preferred the metal detector, but was refused access, read here.

here's my idea for how to let the big wigs know that we aren't down for this bullshit. in the spirit of improv everywhere's annual no-pants subway ride, we should just keep on strippin' when they say we have to take off our coats, shoes and belts.

step 1: do the usual selection of line and tray(s) for your stuff.

step 2: when you have to lose the belt and coat and shoes, keep taking your stuff off, with a straight face and casual demeanor.

step 3: when you're down to your skivvies (or less, if you're so inclined), stroll up to the metal detector, instead of the friggin giant x-ray box machine. if you are stopped, or redirected to the x-ray machine, continue to step 4.

step 4: try again to go through the metal detector, explaining that you wish not to expose yourself to the radiation. if necessary, explain also that they don't need to send you through the x-ray, because you have assisted them by showing them what they would see anyway. try to keep this conversation public, rather than letting them drag you off to the private booths where they practically get away with murder (legalized sexual assault). this is about raising awareness and concern, so it's important that the other (ahem, clothed) passengers see/hear what's going on.

maybe if this catches on, and a certain day/week/month is proposed so that lots of people can do this en masse, we can get someone's attention and let them know that buying a plane ticket should NOT equate to giving up your civil liberties.

jewelery designers with whom i am falling in love

These are in no particular order. I can't rank one above another, because I love them all, sometimes for the same reasons, sometimes for very different reasons. You wouldn't say you had a favorite pet, or a favorite child, would you?

#1 Edward Everett Oakes.

Bio: Born in Massachusetts in 1891, Oakes was a second-generation Arts & Crafts master who had the good fortune to study with two beacons of the movement -- Frank Gardner Hale and Josephine Shaw.

In 1923, the year he won a Medal at the Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, Oakes was pleased to learn that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had acquired a pendant of his for its permanent collection ("the first such purchase made from a living American craftsman" according to Edith Alpers in the British Jewellery Studies, Vol. 3). This was a source of pride -- in a small catalog of wedding rings that he issued, the last page included a photograph of the object with the caption "A MASTERPIECE BY EDWARD EVERETT OAKES IN THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART."

Why I'm in Love: His love for all forms organic, asymmetrical and whimsical totally woos me. Also, he frequently bezel sets his stones, which to me gives the pieces a feeling of delicate sturdiness, and a lack of pretentiousness, which is needed for something you'll love so much you'd wear it every day. If his stones aren't bezel-set, you might find them peeking out of what seems to be a bouquet of leaves (a more romantic image than what first came to mind, ET's face poking out of a pile of stuffed animals) floating in the form of what it seems magically collided into a piece of jewelry. Can't get much more lovely than that.

#2 Joanne Cooper.

Bio: Joanne is an expressionist painter. A sculptor. A jewelry designer. And somewhat of a Renaissance woman. Her work is alive and bold, full of pure energy and raw emotion. Originally from Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of a noted Professor of Marketing and Economics, Ms. Cooper initially followed her father’s lead and studied economics at Northwestern University. But ultimately she moved to New York to follow her passion as an artist. Studying painting at the Art Student’s League, she was soon exhibiting her artwork in shows throughout the Northeast; winning National Competitions in juried shows at the National Academy of Design, Newport Festival of the Artist; and one-woman shows in galleries in New York, Chicago, East Hampton and throughout the East Coast.

Ms. Cooper started her career as a young painter back in the pre-feminist mid-60’s trying to balance her creative vision with her responsibilities as a young wife and mother of two. Painting 5-6 hours a day while her children were off at school, she stole time in her studio between preparing meals, doing homework and managing a family and household.

Moving between painting and sculpture, Joanne eventually applied the movement and flow of expressionism to the ornamental medium of jewelry design. During a successful 20 plus year career creating what she calls “Body Sculpture” working with semi-precious stones, silver and gold.

Why I'm in love: What's not to love? I'm a sucker for leaves, and it seems, so is Ms. Cooper. This cuff bracelet rocks a personality that I imagine to belong to a ballerina on an archaeological dig. It's bold, beautiful, soft and intricate. It looks like it was made in a similar fashion to that ceramic pot in the movie, Ghost-- a mystical spirit guided the artist's hands through a sexy art-making moment of zen. Oo! Sign me up!

#3 James Meyer.

Bio: Mr. Meyer got started making jewelry "relatively late in life" in his thirties. After diligently studying classical languages and history at Haverford College, he decided not to go to law school (as he had been encouraged to do) but went instead to the wonderful Rhode Island School of Design to study sculpture and drawing. He married in 1962 and after some twists and turns (a Fulbright Scholarship to study art at Athens Polytechneion and some college teaching) he came to jewelry as the way to fulfill his artistic desire and make a living. For almost 30 years, he had a retail shop in Williamsport, PA, specializing in his own jewelry and selling other American Craft items. He says it was a truly amazing period in American history in which crafts were revived and were supported by a wonderfully enthusiastic public. In his shop, a staff of about seven people made production jewelry based on Meyer's own designs for sale to other stores as well as their own; they also made countless one-of-a-kind pieces for the shop.

Around the turn of the century, he had a feeling of wanting to simplify his days and have fewer responsibilities, so he had a big sale (“to the bare walls”) and closed the shop. Since 1999 he has worked on his own in my studio in Bastress Township, about 10 miles from Williamsport, doing one-of-a-kind and custom order pieces only.

Why I'm in love: Milgrain! Asymmetry! Patina! Swirly shapes and organic lines! Oh my! I totally love everything about James Meyer's work. He is also unique in his use of green gold (Wikipedia says fourteen and eighteen carat gold alloys with silver alone appear greenish-yellow and are referred to as green gold) and his interplay of different metals (or colors of gold) in a single piece. He has an incredibly delicate hand in his work, but it never looks flimsy. He's definitely a fan of the bezel setting of stones, but his use of playful and nature-inspired shapes, as well as minute details, breathe life into compositions that could come off as otherwise too cold or modern.

#4 Constance Wicklund Gildea

Bio: I actually can't find anything about her yet. Still digging.

Why I'm in love: What's not to love about this carved gold ring! It has just about all the qualities I've listed above, plus it's hand-carved (the wax from which its mold was made, not the actual gold) and it looks like the sort of ring a fairy queen might wear! I especially enjoy the fact that it has a matte finish, making it look even more like it was plucked right out of a garden, rather than off a velvet tray.

#5 Charles Perrella.

Bio: Charles Perrella joined his brother Genaro in 1928 at age fifteen to master the jewelry trade. Charles continued after his brother's passing and became a Master Jewelry and Designer and later a budding entrepreneur. Perrella has always valued hand-made work and the integrity of jewelry construction. He patented his shop after the European factories where people mastered various aspects in the creation of jewelry. He enjoys working with 14k, 18k, and platinum gold to present the highest quality in jewelry. The careful combination of quality metals and stones results in an inspired collection of timeless sensibility.

Why I'm in love: duh. all of the above.

This stuff is really gross. I can't believe I paid 2 bucks for it just now. Granted, I may have nuked it about 30 seconds longer than the directions I didn't bother to read advised, but I still think that's no reason for it to taste like a cat ate burnt rubber bands and then puked them into a bowl. God, even the smell is starting to interfere with my workplace productivity (which I was trying to improve by eating this crap in the first place!!) As much as my disdain for high fructose corn syrup can often be blamed for the cause of convenient foods being less edible than those your grandmother slaved over for hours... I'd have to say I'm letting the diabetes-inducing goop that is the basis of most American foods off the hook this time: Thanks mom, for never letting us eat Chef Boyardee when we were kids. Gross.

So, I guess I'm kind of a big deal... who knew?

As you may recall, I got paid a whopping $200 to blog several times a month for 4 months last year, and people came out of the woodwork responding to my posts. Apparently, kids were choosing to study in Barcelona simply because I made it sound so cool. Go me! A year later, IES is still psyched about my work; I just got this email from them (sans details not needing to be published here):

Hello Brynn,

I wanted to contact you about a new feature on the IES Abroad blog site. The new spotlight feature is titled “A Year Later” details what our former bloggers are up to and how studying abroad has affected their lives one year or more after completing their semester abroad. Based on the high quality of your past contributions to the site, I would like to ask you to share an update.

If you would be willing please share a few (3-4) paragraphs about how your life, attitude, world view, career goals, or future plans have changed because of your experiences abroad. You do not need to worry about logging back into the blog site, you can simple respond to this email with your update and I will be post it on your behalf. Once provided, your update will be featured prominently on the blogs homepage as well as the locations list in the right hand menu.

Thank you for your participation,

IES Abroad

I love you Texas, but you're dirty

So an environmental lobbyist group I used to canvass for is (alongside the Sierra Club) suing ExxonMobil for dumping out of its Baytown refinery over a million pounds of toxic air pollutants per year since 2005. Apparently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been bugging the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to tighten up its regulations on air quality and enforcement of current laws, but where government agencies drag their feet, hippy activists usually tend to bang their drums and whine a lot. "Hey, look at us! We're disgruntled! Grrr." This does not seem to be the case for Environment Texas and the Sierra club, however. The lawsuit is set to be filed in federal district court later this summer, and by the looks of the evidence that's been aired against ExxonMobile, BP is hardly alone in the department of negligence. According to the TCEQ, 85% of incidents at the three Baytown facilities were categorized as avoidable or preventable. Classy.

Check out this article for more info, if you aren't too busy picking oil blobs off your toes at the beach, or hacking up a lung in Baytown.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/2215/

finally got that video of claire's roach story on youtube

as some of you may know, i filmed a little story of claire's a while back and it was the funniest damn thing ever. now, i'm considering editing it into something shorter and funnier for a work thing. don't want to spoil the fun, so i'll just post the raw footage now, and see what i can do about putting a sneak peek of the edited version up later. enjoy!!

Hellooooo, Anchorage!

Hey everybody!

I'm super excited to announce that I made it to Alaska safe, sound and ON TIME!! No missed flights (not an option-- the flight I was on was the ONLY one going that day, eek!!) and I've spent the day in Anchorage running errands and eating delicious (and free) pizza with my awesome professors, Dr. VanEynde and Dr. Tynes. Both are delightful, happy people, and I'm very excited about what's to come for the rest of the week. Since I was the first student to arrive, I kind of have an advantage: I was told a few minutes ago that since I helped my profs with their shopping and planning, that they would help me out on my leadership day. It's not cheating, but there are some planning things that I won't really be able to do ahead of time-- like finding where to buy sack lunches in Seward. The internet here is spotty and my cell phone coverage is worse, but as long as I'm in Anchorage, I can text and email (some).

Anchorage is beautiful!!! There are flowers blooming everywhere, and it's overcast, but not too dark. In fact, the lighting is what we photographers consider to be the best conditions-- it's what we call "shadowless light." Oh- and for those of you who are burning up in Texas-- It's 58 degrees here. :) Navigating this town is a little tricky, but we've had fun making lots of U-turns. It's kind of like one big Alaskan roller coaster with Dr. Tynes at the helm! We had lunch at a place called Moose Tooth Pizza-- which, as it turns out, has the highest volume pizza sales in North America! It's named after a mountain next to Mt. McKinley (the tallest in North America) and they have 13 different home-brew beers. They also had homemade soda on tap! Oh-- and the pizza was phenomenal. I'm goingto have to take a food-coma-nap here in a litle bit, but first, I must finish my homework and email it to my profs. (I hope they send alright, I was having trouble with getting very simple attachment-free messages to send this morning.)

Alright, well, I'll try to post in the morning, but it sounds like we're going to be pretty busy. Below is the week's itinerary:

Saturday, July 25 – Anchorage & travel to Seward

Anchorage Street Fair

Travel to Seward; visit Exit Glacier

Overnight in Seward

• Sunday, July 26 – Seward and travel to Ninilchik

Group A; Deep sea fishing, Resurrection Bay for Halibut and Sockeye Salmon

Group B: Hike through Seward, visit Alaska Sea Life Center

Travel to home base in Ninilchik

• Monday, July 27 – Ninilchik

Purchase needed supplies

Class related activities

• Tuesday, July 28 – Anchor Point or Kenai River

Group A: Halibut fishing on Cook Inlet from Anchor Point (reserved for six persons)

Group B: Red Salmon wade fishing on the Kenai River

• Wednesday, July 29 –, Homer and Halibut Cove

Tour Russian village (Nikolaevsk)

Visit Norman Lowell Gallery

Travel to Homer

Boat trip across Kachemak Bay

Lunch and tour Halibut Cove

Return to Ninilchik

• Thursday, July 30 – Hike to Crescent Lake

Travel to Quartz Creek Trailhead

6.4 mile hike to Crescent Lake

Picnic lunch

6.4 mile hike return

Return to Ninilchik

Preparation for departure to Anchorage on Friday

• Friday, July 31 – Travel to Anchorage and departure

Travel from Ninilchik to Anchorage

Plan to depart Anchorage Airport after 2 p.m.

(Cold storage available at airport)