Alums in Exile

Granted that it is self-imposed exile, but as Super-Tuesday's presidential primaries begin to report the shifting mood in our 'Homeland' may begin to call us back. However, I do not know how much it will change the cost of living in the cities considered art centers across America.

We have met a large number of artists living in Berlin who also graduated from California College of the Arts. I can think of 6-10 other alumni currently living in Berlin, including R & S. During the summer several CCA faculty will be staying in Berlin, and we are expecting the month of May to be peak season for CCA visitors. With the concentration of alumni abroad we have considered asking the Almni Association for the funds to throw an overseas development dinner, or possibly a party for the month of May.


Glaspavillion

This is a photo of my studiomate ES, he has a degree in painting from CCA and has been living in Berlin for the past 7 months employed as an artist assistant and working on his studio work. For this occasion he was hired to prepare the wall at Glaspavillion in preparation for the Friday night presentation of Chicks on Speed. The night prior to this event Chicks on Speed will be playing at Club Maria as part of the H&M Fashion Against AIDS campaign. Tickets are only €5 and we hope to make it before it sells out.



ES and I have been navigating the Berlin landscape in the search for new studio spaces. We hope to keep the current space and may be taking over the lease to the entire apartment (thus exiling the current residents). Its location in the Neuköln panhandle has all of the features we need, cheap food, a park, a canal, with alot of street culture and multi-purpose store fronts. Last Friday another alumni was working the bar at one of these newly opened store fronts that has been turned into a weekend club with music stages in the front room and in the basement. It is run by a Norwegian couple who also run a print-making studio and have plastered the walls throughout the space with wallpaper of shapes repeated in positive and negative to form patterns (the pattern in the photo below is a christmas trees but is more reminiscent of Hazard warnings).


Pfluger Str 78