Tarbrush

I haven't updated my progress in a really long time! I have had one interaction with the person who I am documenting- I actually forgot to tell anyone but I am changing the person I am talking to. I am still interested in documenting Kellie but have decided to focus my attention on a person named Tarbrush or Chris Janinni. He is a really interesting and talkative person who works on the Balclutha, a ship that is docked in Fisherman's Wharf. 

The reason I met him was because I had gone to a sea chanty sing on the Balclutha, with Becky and some friends and during the sing they had a 25th or so anniversary for a volunteer that worked there. I thought maybe I could go back and talk to her at some point because it seemed like an interesting place to work and if she had been there for 25 years (or for some number that deserved and anniversary) then she probably had a lot of stories and could maybe tell me why she first started working there. I called the Maritime Museum a while later when I got my courage up and asked who I could speak to that would be interested in talking about the ship and why they work there. They gave me a number for Chris who they said was in charge of the ship and had an office on it and told me to ask him. I called the number but it kept ringing and there was no answering machine. I called him again the next week and he picked up, he said he doesn't use that phone very much because and ex- employee from 3 years ago still thought he worked there and keeps calling and asking when he can work again! He said he would be the best person to talk to so I met up with him and talked to him for a couple hours. 

I think I started out by asking him how he started working on the ship and he told me about how he was a Geology teacher traveling in New Zealand in the 80's and was camping in campsites and staying in hostels and he came across this ship called the Sophia and the people that lived on it told him that he could stay on the ship instead of a hostel and so he did and ended up talking to the people that were taking care of it and it was some kind of communal hippie boat that people worked and lived on and had shares in. He stayed on the ship for a while and was helping them out and eventually decided to put his money in a share and start traveling with them since they were about to go dry docking, I think it is called ( i learned a lot of ship terms), he sailed with them for a year and then the ship sank! He said he was on a life raft for 5 days before a Russian ship picked them up. He ended up back in Los Angeles and didn't really want to teach "the crypts and the bloods" so he decided to work on another ship this one was called the Bounty. I don't remember how long he was on that ship but that is where he got his nickname Tarbrush which is the name he refers to himself as. I'll tell you all about that later cause i'm tired.

I have a lot of tape of him talking and he is a good speaker. I was more comfortable using a little tape recorder but they are on those little MC-90 tapes and I am kinda wondering how I am going to get them off of it and into the computer. I am going to research that more and maybe mess around with recording it onto my computer with some kind of video setting? i dunno. I am still going over the tape and finding what I like in it. I don't like hearing my voice in the background saying yeah.  I have another meeting with him tomorrow hopefully, and I am going to try not to say yeah so much and just nod when I am listening. I will tell you more later.

First Friday

First Day

I was really excited about the introductions the first day of class. Nervous of course for my own, but it was really interesting learning about people. I was glad that there was a volunteer to start us off and that she was so outgoing. She seemed to make things more comfortable and then also the fact that we can ask questions and that the introductions are more of a conversation between everyone. It made it a little more easy to think about ourselves in a resume style ( highlighting different things that made each person, ourselves).

The first day of class was my first time seeing the website Learning to Love You More and it was interesting thinking about artists now having every medium as their disposal and thinking of different things as mediums for creating. Also the discussion about what an artist is and who an artist is and whether or not anyone is an artist. It is hard for me to define what an artist is just as it is hard to define some kinds of art. I think that if someone makes something with the intent at having that seen as a piece of art it is easy to define that as art, but sometimes we see things that may not have the intention of being a piece of art and we turn it into that or tell a person that what they are doing is art like or artistic. Usually that is when someone is creating something outside of themselves that has an element of them in it- whether they know it or not. I am still not sure what i think exactly. Part of what was interesting about talking about that in our class was that(what makes art/artist) in other classes i had that week we were also talking about the same subject just with a different slant on it more dealing with the materials and the craft of art and whether that is important or not, or if it is just the idea that is important.

I am excited about the project, the first day i didn't really know who i wanted to document i had some ideas but i think i was more excited about trying to talk to strangers, or meeting new people. I talked to people about it right away, partly the excitement about the Learning to Love You More website too because i know people that would really enjoy it if they didn't already know about it. One of the people that i talked to about the documentary project was a friend of mine named Kellie who i think jokingly said that i could document her and she gave me the idea of documenting someone through receipts.  The more i thought about it the more i realized i do want to have her as a subject for my project, as well as maybe doing one on a new person i meet.

I apologize for this post being late.