alisonboston.com

Another post from ‘Rebecca Fine’s forum , this one from a thread on the topic of Marketing is relation to the principles of SOGR:
Sometimes all it takes is doing what you do with so much passion and power that people can’t help but notice!
My mother sent me this quote from […]

Same Rain: Different Town
I’ve managed to get to four small music festivals in-between my 6 weeks of work here in England this summer, and each has provided something unique.
At Finsbury Park’s FREE Rise Against Racism Festival earlier in the summer, it was three poets and a French duo (names and photos to follow). A […]

Happy Easter, 2007, original digital artwork, copyright Alison Boston

Christmas Spirit 2006, original digital artwork, copyright Alison Boston

Well, I’ve been in Barcelona just over 3 months now and I have just moved into my sixth accomodation (seven if you count the crazy woman I left my bags with for 1/2 a day, then chose not to sleep there for even one night!) […]

It’s time for me.

Life Form by Alison Boston
Mixed textile on tree-free paper.
(25%hemp, 75%recycled, 100% acid free)
One of 60 original art works celebrating the diversity of life on our planet that I have just completed. They are currently being matted and mounted on foam core board and wrapped in cellophane for selling.
(Not a great photo, just posting to […]

Spray Noszel (house paint and chalk on paper) Artist: Alison Boston
I painted this picture today while visiting the studio of local artist Frances Semple.

But why would I call my painting Spray Noszel?
TO BE CONTINUED

There’s an update on Dad’s page with a recent photograph.
I’ve also been editing and linking the posts about the workshops at Open Space, so now most of the artists I refer to are linked to related biographical pages.

Photoa: Alison Boston
Robert Randall stands beside his artistic vision of Domestic Bliss. Just how ephemeral this work will be, reamins to be seen. Will Open Space paint over it when the exhibtion is over? Or will it remain as a home for visiting artists in future shows?
By far my favorite work in this […]

Today was my birthday. I got a digital camera. I hope this means this website will start to have more images.
This is crazy. I just noticed the time stamp on this post is all screwed up.

I’ve been doing a voice workshop all week with Wende Bartley from Toronto. It’s part of Open Space’s New Music Voice Festival. The results of the voice workshop - a collective creation* by the workshop participants - will be presented tomorrow (Saturday) evening as part of the evening’s line up. Tonight the […]

I’ve uploaded some pics from this performance I did as artist-in-residence at Sziget Festival, Art Agora, 2004. Go here Sziget Silk Fire to view.

AppleSeed, a work in progress, Making New Waves Festival workshop performance, February 2006, Photo:Kai Niggemann
View more photos of me in performance here
View more Kai Niggemann photos from the festival here.

Yes, it’s true! The Hungarian band Sziami broke the Guiness Book of World Records for the longest concert given by a band - they played, non-stop for 48 hours!
Non-stop: the rules permitted a 5 minutes break every hour, and if they played more than one hour, non-stop they could accumulate the minutes to take […]

Out walking about last evening, Edith and I bumped into a couple of young Hungarian women who had seen Sunday evening’s performances…They recognised me (yikes) and said how much they liked what I had done.
“What did you like?”
“Your energy.”
“Did you understand it?” I asked.
“I got my understanding.”
“What was that?”
“It was a comedy about […]

Perhaps the most important thing I got from the workshop and the festival is the complexity of creating a meaningful work of art using modern technology. While the workshopping artists were able to realise partially satisfactory technical results, it was the invited artists presenting at the festival who managed to say something with the medium (Max/Msp/Jitter).

The most successful of these isKo Kon nashi, presented on the first evening of the festival (written about in my first post about the festival) and realised by an international collective. Also, last night’s Bridges - presented by quintet.net

In any case, what I love about Max/MSP/Jitter is how straight forward and visual it is. The ability to construct a patch to do what you want, within the capabilities of the software. Jasch compares it to Lego, which I always enjoyed as a kid. But it’s what you can do with a few words, symbols and numbers within all those little boxes that I like so much; and how the numbers give you such precise control over what is happening.

Yesterday I continued in Jasch’s workshop. He started us off with a little Max/MSP/Jitter demonstration that had me spellbound, mesmerised and completely enraptured. (I’ll let you know if I come up with any more adjectives.)

The Making New Waves Festival continued yesterday with workshops during the day and performances in the evening.
I participated in Swiss artist, Jasch’s Eye and Ear workshop where I teamed with a young musician/composer from Pecs and was introduced to working with the Max/MSP/Jitter software I mention in my preceeding post. We are working […]

Another highlight for me, was the fluid, multi-colored, inkblot-like image created by cycling74.com’s Max/MSP/Jitter software - manipulated at this concert by Austrian composer Johannes Kretz. What started as a simple purple circle, flowed, bounced, and morphed into a constantly evolving psychadelic inkblot. It literally flowed with the music - as the Jitter program is designed to directly respond to the intensity of sound.

I submitted my website to a Portfolio Exhibition in Frankfurt Germany and received this message today from the organiser:
This is a message for all who helped make the Portfolio Exhibition a success at the Städelschule Rundgang 2006 in Frankfurt, Germany from February 10-12.
In all, 55 participants from 13 countries contributed real or fictional portfolios […]

Digital Self Portrait, copyright Alison Boston
View more art in the Gallery
What a night mare that was! I nearly went cross-eyed reading the Coppermine Photo Gallery help forum with these obnoxious little people standing with their hands on hips making me feel like an absolute dweeb. You should go look at the Coppermine forum. The figures […]

Sorry! I updated my gallery software and now we can’t look at the pictures I hope things will be up and running again very soon!
LATER: Well, we can all look at it, but the template has changed - from a black background to a white one and it no longer […]

Good Bye Mike, digital artwork, copyright Alison Boston

Now I know I am spending too much time in cyberspace…Art Attack

I used to sleep over at her place, and there is something of the quality of her house in that piece of art. She lived in a small country house in rural Nova Scotia, heated with a wood burning stove. It was such a cosy place. We’d sleep upstairs in her room, in little bunk beds opposite each other, and talk long into the night the way high school girls do.

This was a photograph of a squirrel sitting next to a piece of chocolate layer cake. I manipulated it using ACDSee FotoCanvas 2.0. I have never read the instructions.

Squirrel Flower digital artwork, copyright Alison Boston
Merriam Webster’s Online Dictionary - which I encourage my English students to use because it includes a handy dandy audio component […]

…for a full moon.

Moon Heads, digital image, copyright Alison Boston

Digital Image 09 d, copyright Alison Boston
The principal image I worked with to create Gathering Souls is in this composite image. Can you find it?

Gathering Souls
digital artwork 09, copyright Alison Boston
Digital Artwork 9 is a series. This is 1 in the series. I think this is 9 (c) or (d). The others are notes from which I cut and pasted the two pieces which went together to make the single image which is pasted
38 (?) […]

Looking into My Third Eye
digital image 07, copyright Alison Boston

Maple Leaf Rag:
Textile Art for the New Millenium,
digital artwork 06, copyright Alison Boston
This started as an image of a red maple bonsai tree in a blue pot, now I think it looks like an embossed satin, hence the name.

Meeting of Minds in the New Millenium,
digital artwork 05, copyright Alison Boston
I can’t stop making these images. I fear I will vanish into cyberspace, disappear into a black hole, and never see daylight ever again.
This one took four hours…I still haven’t read the instructions!!
Oh yeah, it […]

…with Protector

Tree Seed for the New Millenium,
with Protector
digital artwork 04, copyright Alison Boston
I’m obsessed.
This was originally a photo of some fern trees in the rain forest, hence the title: Tree Seed for the New Millenium, with Protector.”
The Protector is a shadowy figure standing at the base of the seed. Can you […]

Chocolate Fairy Christmas Card
digital art work 03b, copyright Alison Boston
I am so pleased with my Chocolate Fairy I made this Christmas card… I sent it to all my friends in my address book, and a few people I’d like to be friends with, and a few others who just happen to be there. […]

Chocolate Fairy

Chocolate Fairy
digital art work 03, copyright Alison Boston

Life Chocolate 02,
digital artwork 02, copyright Alison Boston

Life Chocolate
digital artwork 01, copyright Alison Boston
(my first digital artwork)
“Life is a box of chocolate covered possibilities: the filling and flavor are created by our mind.”
Alison Boston
I’m going to contemplate this today, and perhaps I will not crave quite as much chocolate!

I met this artist from Moldova a couple of weeks ago at Ari Kupsus’* monthly salon concert. Ari was exhibiting Alex’s paintings which are mostly bold, striking colors.
I am intrigued by how Alex’s work will be viewed in a hundred years. I ask what it will say about painting from this […]

Not sure if this means I have been spending way too much time at home alone with my computer, or if looking at Tamas Waliczky’s animations sparked something, but I stumbled on NYC’s 1-20 gallery’s website today and while cruising the artists, Kiki Seror caught my eye with her eye…but it was this […]

‘Sculptures’ Tamas Waliczky
A 20-year retrospective of Hungarian media-artistTamas Waliczky’s work opened this evening (Saturday) at Millenaris Park. It’s his first major exhibition in his home town, having left Budapest many years ago for the advantages of living and working in London, Paris, Tokyo and Berlin. Tamas is currently a professor in […]

I was awed by Dennis’s performances: slide shows accompanied by readings from his writings - presented with the unshakeable confidence and surety that he had a right to be there and do what he was doing. And I’ve always remembered the words he spoke to me after my first performance at Gallery 101 - a reading of my work called ‘Nurse Mary Meets the Sassy Squash’ - accompanied by slides of some surrealist drawings I had done. He said -in that very direct and matter-of-fact way he had of speaking - that made even me pay attention:

The Poet

Fairies
VIEW MORE ART IN MY VIRTUAL GALLERY
I got the prices put up today.

Balaton
VIEW MORE ART IN MY VIRTUAL GALLERY
Thursday: I got everything posted in my virtual gallery. The only things missing are the prices; they will come. Meanwhile, interested buyers can contact me with queries. A big thank you to Hungarian photographer Acsai Miklós who did the photography.
I finally got a proper art gallery […]

Poet, performer, visual artist, socio-cultural commentator seeks patron. (For Real)
Description:
Provides financial/material support necessary to maintain a comfortably luxurious lifestyle befitting a modern day, mature female artist. Immediate needs include a bright, sunny, warm, quiet place to live and work with a water/green view and ready access to pleasant running trails.
This place should […]

I performed last evening on stage at the a38 as a member of Hungary’s newly formed National Howling Theater (Nemzeti Orditoszinhaz). As the only non-Hungarian in the 8 member choir, I feel like last night’s premier was a kind of rite of passage. I’ve performed on Hungarian stages with Hungarian jazz musicians, […]

As usual, this week’s Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone opens my ears to unbelieveably unique music, but even more so, he brings me another mind-expanding story about a musician. This week he introduces me to Vashti Bunyan - a true blue 60’s hippie singer songwriter - she was even a friend of Donovan […]

I am rapping on Anima Sound System’s soon-to-be-released new CD and I need a more visually exciting website.

When I first installed Word Press at the beginning of September, I chose Carol’s Retrospotive as my preferred template, then couldn’t figure out how to install it.
Well, almost two months, and two festivals later - I took the time to read the CPanel manual and work that out and got it installed. Now […]

By Sunday evening, I was completely drained by the BOF festival (9 days of concerts culminating with Courtney Pine) and opted for a fluffy fashion show, but got sidetracked by an unexpected performance from Kiss Erzsi…

People are always asking me why I chose Hungary.
Today, as I was searching my files for the poems I’ve written since I came here, I stumbled on one titled Canadiana. It was hidden in a folder called poems that need work. I opened the file and […]

An exhibtion of Istvan Banyai’swork and the presence of the man himself, brought droves of people out this afternoon to the Godor Klub. Part of the Design Week events, which are part of BOF…
The paparazzi were all there.
But the funny thing was when I encountered Istvan backstage: the speeches had begun […]

The first time I lived in Montreal (in 1989) I was invited by the Hamilton Artist’s Center to present my one-woman performance piece Belladonna’s Adventures in Nah Nah Land. Hungarian-Canadian artist Mary Ebos was curator and also hosted me in her home - where I experienced my first taste of Hungarian Szalona, sauna Hungarian […]

…this exhibition opens today at 5:00 pm at the Ethnographic Museum. Sponsored by Swiss Credit, this is always a very well attended event. I also wrote about this for Diplomacy and Trade.

I’ve also written about Zoltan Lantos here (do a search) and a link to an article I wrote about him is on my non-fiction links page. (01 November, 2004, 21 String Violin Opens …) Zoltan’s violin has inspired me to write some very unusual nature poetry.

I’ve added some details to the visual art page: a partial list of works, with a few links to images.
It was another technical adventure, not the least of which was spending an hour looking for the CD rom with the images on it. I searched in my photo drawer, 3 times, taking […]

…regardless of age and circumstances.
I opened a new category today, and simply called it Being.
I pondered what to call this category, inspired by 101 year old artist Tamás Lossonczy.
After I wrote about him, I thought about my Mother, another amazing artist - who in her forties joined an […]

I just read the post I wrote about Tamás Lossonczy and I have to say, his exhibition makes me feel wonderful. Life is indeed wonderful when a 101 year old artist can sit at an exhibition that spans 70 years of his work and be able to converse and sign autographs. […]

I can compare his style to Jackson Pollack, or Jean Paul Riopelle and there are paintings in the exhibition that look like conversations with Dali.

So, in true anarchistic style, they had a party and invited everybody to come down to the Gödör Klub - which has its own political cross to bear- and find out what they are all about.

The Budapest (Őszi) Autumn Festival, dedicated to showcasing avante garde art, has already presold 25% or double the number of tickets than last year.
I haven’t yet gone through the program to choose the events I want to see, but my first cursory glance has zeroed in on a sitar concert at Trafo.
The […]

Essence of Life Art opened last Thursday (Sept.8) at the Ludwig.
When they say ‘works on paper’, they’re not kidding. One artist - Jusuf Hadzifejzovic - paints on small (35×55) brown paper bags, split and laid flat.
It’s not surprising that socio-political commentary runs throughout the exhibition, what is surprising is how some artists […]

The HVB Bank opened its touring exhibition ‘Europe in Art’ last week (Sept. 7) in Budapest.
Some of the strongest works in the exhibition are the photographs. One of my favorites is Ilse Haider’s Venus. When viewed from a distance the goddess’ face commands attention, while close up, the artist’s […]