3:30am (after the strike) Title: Meat and Beer

The only thing I remember about taking this picture is that I thought it was hilarious (go ahead and judge me, I can take it!) and had announced to anyone awake enough to listen that this HAD to go onto the backstage blog.  It made complete sense at the time!  : )

The Decemberists- 9pm on Saturday

Rewind 7.5 hours earlier to 8pm on Saturday night…the EMP crew is changing over into the headliner and almost everyone gets a quick break during The Decemberists set to recharge and get ready for strike.  Its been a good, but long day…and even though everything has gone smoothly, the crew is starting to get a little antsy about starting the strike.

We have a whole new group off crew folks arriving at 10pm, right as the show is ending, to help us take the whole thing down.  The goal is to get the staging, power, cable, cable ramps and everything clear from the street as quickly and safely as possible!

Backline folks pack up the guitars, amps, keyboards and mics.

Audio engineers are packing away the monitor desks, front of house control board and audio snakes.

Strike- 10:45pm Saturday night after the show

MPR and some crew are packing away the gear for the live feed and the recording.

We discover at the start of strike that the rented forklift has a propane leak and we are out of fuel.  Hearts stop.  But luckily Tony is there with his Bobcat to get things started and the head of our department finds a vendor in Golden Valley (on 11pm on a Saturday night!!!) with another propane tank!  45 minutes and a quick ride in the Walker van to Golden Valley later, we are forking on all cylinders!

As soon as we can cut a path through the exiting crowd, we move the Decemberists truck into position and start loading cases and strapping them in.

The bands slowly vacate the air-conditioned band trailers backstage (who wouldn’t want to leave such a fun event!?) so we can clean them out one-by-one.  First to leave:  Calexico.  Last to leave: The Decemberists

EMP takes the left over beer (not much left over this year!) and sends the stuff left behind by the bands.  Left behind this year:  one pair of silver shoes and a pair of ipod headphones.  It takes us a while to clean one of the trailers, though…one of the bands had a real “rock star behavior” day!

The trailers move out of the way so the staging can get broken down and motors bring in the roof.

The RV driving crew (David is back driving “Big Mama”) take a trip down to Shakopee to return clean, empty trailers.

The RV crew in front of "Big Mama", The Decemberists trailer- 1:15am on Sunday morning

By the time we get back, the roof is down and the staging vendor is loading up the truck with all their gear. The vendors are mostly gone and the cable ramps and cable is stacked and ready to be picked up on Monday.
Event golf carts are returned to the loading dock.

Rental radios are returned to master planner, Ashley (minus one antenna, sorry Ashley…we really looked for it!)

The only real casualty of the day was my clipboard.  At some point during the day, it was lost.

And then run over by a couple of trucks.

And found at some point on Monday by some kind woman who found it in the street and returned it to the front desk!

Portrait of Jean Matzke by Chris Felver

Early last Friday morning, fiber artist Jean Matzke went out for a stroll in downtown St. Paul with her boxer, Maya, just like she did every morning. As she crossed the street near her condo in Lowertown Artist Lofts, she was struck and killed by a passing garbage truck. The strange, sad nature of the tragic accident has grabbed a number of headlines; but not enough has been published, thus far, about the woman, herself.

Matzke was a fixture in the local art and fine craft scene — in addition to her distinguished career as an artist, she ran a gallery in St. Cloud for years and years before moving to the Twin Cities in the early 2000s. Her distinctive artwork was shown regularly at the Grand Hand Gallery and Textile Center; she was a stalwart of the seasonal St. Paul Art Crawl scene and a lifelong booster of her fellow artists’ work. In the wake of her sudden death, artists from all over the state are struggling to make sense of her loss.

One of Matzke’s friends and Lowertown Lofts neighbors, filmmaker Deborah Wallwork, offers her own tribute to Jean below.

*****

It’s our deepest fear — that your life could be over in an instant. One day you are talking and laughing with a friend in the elevator, about to take your dog for a walk; and then, the next minute, you are gone, kaput, finished.

Lowertown artist Jean Matzke was killed a week ago, struck by truck at the intersection of 5th and Sibley, close to Mears Park. There’s a memorial there, one of those ad hoc folk shrines — roses and sunflowers, photographs and news stories, all bound to a lamp post. That Jean died instantly is maybe a blessing; but it also left a hole in many lives. Here was someone who held many threads in her hands; an individual who gladly took on many roles and made many connections in the circles of her community.

Jean was, first of all, a bright smile you encountered at the Textile Center, the WARM meetings, the St. Paul Art Crawl. A can-do person, she was enthusiasm incarnate, someone who’d jump in to help out, who took up others’ ideas and ran with them. Never one to complain, she embraced life and its challenges with a little twinkle of humor, in way that was both admirable and charmingly self-deprecating.

Jean Matzke, "Tangled"

Being so warm, upbeat, engaging, she was, naturally, a light to others. A wonderful artist in her own right; she was also loved for being one who served. She ran a gallery in St. Cloud for many years, and she continued to be a resource for many artists and students from outstate who came to the Cities. After she moved to St. Paul, into Lowertown Lofts Artist Coop, in addition to showing her own work, during the Art Crawl, she organized a “theme wall,” where she curated and hung a show of other members’ work.

That was Jean, always looking around to see what she could do.

I loved her work the second I saw it. It’s deeply personal, and yet, intellectual. She was thinking, through her art, about the life she led–about being a woman, a mother, a passionate reader. Her art took the thread of her life and worked it intensely into the fabric of the world around her. Interested in the figure, in the combinations of text and image, she put her ideas in a medium that is rich with feminine history — is there a woman out there who doesn’t lust after fabric? And yet, somehow, hers is a medium that still hangs in the halls of art history under the rubric of “craft.” Jean made art: pieces that are serious, thoughtful, playful, and expressionistic.

Jean Matzke, "Fall at 5"

Stubbornly independent, full of energy and optimism and physical stamina — at 70, Jean was vital, as antsy and eager as a young teenager. At a gathering which friends recently held in her memory, there were many stories about Jean climbing up 14-foot ladders, hauling great boxes of exhibit materials to and fro in her capacious van, refusing all offers for help. She walked at least five miles a day; on the day of the accident, she was probably on her way back to Lowertown from her ritual route around the St. Paul Cathedral, arriving back home as the sun rose above the buildings at five in the morning.

We couldn’t keep up with her.

I’ve been thinking about Jean and thinking about threads–about how so many stitches, in embroidery, are circles. Each stitch is like a tiny brush stroke, in each one you have to travel into something and then find your way out.

I’m thinking now about how there’s always two sides to a cloth, the one you see, which is realized, an image created through meticulous and demanding labor; and then there’s other side, the one that is a tangle of knots and cut ends.

Paul Klee defined drawing as “taking a line for a walk”; it’s a phrase that fits if you think about embroidery as the complex elaborations of a thread.

One of Jean’s recent pieces is about tangles. Another one is about the fear of losing one’s memory–a different kind of tangling, so I’m told.

In Greek mythology, three ancient crones weave the threads of Destiny. Clotho spins the Thread of Life, Lachesis allots the length of the tether, and Atropos positions her scissors over the loom for the final snip. One by one the threads are cut in this life, almost unnoticeably. And sooner or later the garment or quilt or weaving is freed from that endless spool.

We in the arts community were all devastated by the suddenness of this loss. At the Lowertown Lofts, we held a remembrance ceremony. We all brought candles and lit them, one from another, told stories, and brought them together into a brilliant shrine of many points of light. Someone sang a Tibetan prayer, and another person did a releasing of the spirit. Improvisationally, as artists, we knew we needed to turn this tragedy, to tuck in the threads, tie up the loose ends.

Jean didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. Her thread was precipitously cut. But the embroidery of her life, her work, goes on.

–Deb Wallwork

Sound Check, Rock the Garden 2009, photo by The Current

There have been a plethora of reviews and blog posts about Rock the Garden coming through my google alerts lately, and they’ve been overwhelmingly positive. My summation of the reviews and tweets I’ve seen so far boils down to two major points:

• The new layout with the stage facing south up the hill was a big improvement.
• The Decemberists finished the show off pretty well.

Here’s a list of the reviews that I’ve run across:

• East-lake.net posts a lengthy play-by-play review, including a good deal of pictures and short reviews of each band.
• The Twin Cities Daily Planet reviews the show with a several photos.
• The Star Tribune has crowd reactions and gives the show a mixed review. There are a few more tidbits in the Pop Life blog.
• About.com’s review goes into some of the logistics of the stage placement.
• MFR has another review and came away pretty impressed by this year’s lineup of bands.
• Pop Culture Junkie reviews the show with YouTube inlines of the band’s different music videos.

And here are photos I’ve seen go by:

• The best group is probably from our partner The Current’s flickr stream, with 82 photos and 5 videos, many by twin cities video personality extraordinaire, Chuck Olsen.
• City Pages has a slideshow of 40 shots from the show.
• The Star Tribune posted 9 photos, including some great action shots of the band and crowd.
• emoeby posted a collection of  18 shots to flickr, perhaps giving the best sense of the size of the crowd.
• Plesserchick has 18 photos, including some close-ups of Solid Gold (I think) and Colin Meloy.
• WontonBrutallity has a small collection of 6 photos, including a couple night shots and a guy drinking beer.
• danlwhelan posts a large collection of iPhone images on MobileMe.
• Jacob Walter Photography posted a collection of 38 images, including a couple panoramas.

If I’m missing any reviews or photos, let me know in the comments.

We also captured a time-lapse video of the stage being set up and people filtering in to watch the show. Unfortunteately, the software we were using to connect to the camera wasn’t the most reliable and crashed a few times, resulting in some gaps in time. That said, it is still neat to see the stage go up and the size of the crowd grow:

On a side note: I was not able to attend the show, but was able to follow the happenings from my phone in the middle of Wisconsin. It wasn’t quite as good as being there, but following a twitter search for “rock the garden” gave me a good play-by-play and heightened my sense of missing out. Thanks to all the tweeters who kept those of us not there posted.

In celebration of Gay Pride, the Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival and St. Paul Jewish Community Center present the Minnesota premiere showing of an Israeli GLBT documentary, Stefan Braun. Fabulous archival footage of Tel Aviv’s gay life from the 1950s immerses us in the world of society furrier Stefan Braun and the man who loved, worshipped and stood by him for 39 years, Eliezer Rath. Braun’s charisma and zest fascinated not only Israel’s wealthy matrons, chic models, and his many lovers, but also his extended family for whom he was a patriarch and benefactor.

The short film, A Trip to Prague, will also play at this event in case you missed is this March at the festival. Click here for a synopsis.

Discussion on Project 515 and marriage equality following films!

Minneapolis Jewish Film Festival and St. Paul JCC Present Stefan Braun Monday, June 22, 7 pm St. Paul JCC (1375 St. Paul Avenue), $6 St. Paul and Sabes JCC members/$9 public

]]> http://blogs.walkerart.org/filmvideo/2009/06/22/more-queer-film-screening-tonight-at-the-st-paul-jewish-community-center/feed/ http://blogs.walkerart.org/newmedia/2009/06/22/build-a-bridging-firewall-cheap/ http://blogs.walkerart.org/newmedia/2009/06/22/build-a-bridging-firewall-cheap/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:07:12 +0000 Nate Solas http://blogs.walkerart.org/newmedia/ http://blogs.walkerart.org/newmedia/?p=862 New Media has a number of development servers located in-house where we get stuff done before releasing it out into the wild.  Until last week these were protected by an aging OpenBSD firewall running packet filter and all was well until midweek when the motherboard failed.  Not having a spare ... New Media has a number of development servers located in-house where we get stuff done before releasing it out into the wild.  Until last week these were protected by an aging OpenBSD firewall running packet filter and all was well until midweek when the motherboard failed.  Not having a spare on hand, I was scrambling for a solution.

Linksys wireless router

Being familiar with the dd-wrt project, I was pretty sure I could build a firewall out of a Linksys router.  We went with the WRT54GL, currently as cheap as $50 on Amazon.  (We bought local so we’d have it sooner, and it was a bit more).

The first step after flashing the firmware with the latest dd-wrt build (v24-sp2) was to take off the antennas and turn off the radio.  The last thing I want for the firewall is to be broadcasting an SSID and allow wireless associations.  This actually requires a startup script on the router, with a line to remove the wireless module so it won’t try to reenable itself:

wl radio off
wl down
rmmod wl

Good start.  Next I needed to bridge the WAN port with the LAN ports, which ended up being a struggle until I found the easy options in the dd-wrt GUI.  First, set the LAN to use a static IP and make sure you can connect via another machine to configure it.  You’ll also need to enable SSH access and remote configuration - but be sure to lock this down once the firewall is running!

Once you have the LAN configured, you need to set the WAN connection type to “disabled”.  This will give you a checkbox to bridge the LAN and WAN:  “Assign WAN port to switch”.  Lastly, under Advanced Routing set the Operating Mode to “Router” so it stops trying to do NAT.  Apply these settings, and you’ll basically have an expensive dumb switch - all traffic shows up on every port, and there’s no logic at all.  We’re halfway there.

Being unfamiliar with iptables (we use OpenBSD and pf for firewalls around here), I was under the impression that iptables rules would work in a bridging environment.  This is not the case: bridged packets don’t reach iptables at all!  The best I could do was block everything (manual restart needed), or otherwise blow up the configuration (manual restart needed) as I tried to mess with the bridge.  This was an incredibly frustrating learning curve as everything I could find made it sound like this was the way to configure a firewall in Linux, but it just wasn’t working.

Note to keep you sane: don’t do any of this testing in the startup scripts or you’ll brick your router, guaranteed.  Do it all from the command line with a known-good startup.  That way it’s a simple (but annoying) power cycle to get things back up.

The trick, it turns out, is a kernel module called ebtables.  Luckily, this is included in the dd-wrt build, but it’s not turned on by default!  Add this to your startup script:

insmod ebtables
insmod ebtable_filter
insmod ebt_ip.o

And, ta-da, all your iptables rules will start impacting packets!  Now it’s just a matter of configuring the firewall rules.  We’re using something like this:  (vlan0 represents the LAN ports, and vlan1 is the WAN port)

# drop everything by default:
iptables -P FORWARD DROP
# clear the old rules:
iptables -F FORWARD
# forward stuff that's established already
iptables -A FORWARD -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
# let connections out:
iptables -A FORWARD -i vlan0 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT

# firewall access rules
iptables -F INPUT
# WAC ips can get to fw:
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -d 1.2.3.4 -s 4.3.2.1/24 -j ACCEPT
# drop everything else!
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -d 1.2.3.4 -j DROP

# ... snipped all the actual access rules and packet flood protection ...

The only trick here is the last few lines which limit access to the firewall machine itself.  We can’t use the FORWARD rules since these packets are destined for the internal hardware and not forwarded, but we do need to limit access via the INPUT chain.  In this example the firewall has IP 1.2.3.4 and the network I want to access it from has 4.3.2.x.  That way I can leave the firewall’s remote access turned on and limit it to our network.  (because there’s no terminal access you can’t make it a truly transparent bridge or you’d never be able to change the config!)

I admit I’m a bit nervous posting some of this in case there’s a glaring security hole, but it seems good to me.  Anyone see anything they’d like to warn me about before we get hacked?

And there you have it!  For the cost of a cheap router and some time (not much, since you can just follow these notes!) you have a full-featured bridging firewall running on dedicated hardware.  With a little extra work it would be easy to get VPN running and much more…  I’m hoping for years of service from this little guy!

( Hat tip another DIY firewall solution that I’d really like to try someday. )

For nearly three decades, the Walker has been recruiting recent graduates and junior professionals to work as fellows in its design and visual arts departments. As full-time, full-fledged staff, fellows experience the entire scope of graphic design and curatorial work in a museum, while bringing with them fresh energy and new ideas. A number of Walker fellows have also gone on to prominent positions at museums and design firms around the world. As their time here draws to a close, the 2008-2009 group talks about what brought them here, what they’ve experienced, and what’s in store as they move on.

= Noa Segal =

Before coming to the Walker… Graphic design seemed to me to be a practice that allows an intellectual engagement with content and form, and yet exists on a very visual and practical level. My educational path went through music and photography, but I felt that my interest in images and text was not coming to its full expression. The Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, where I completed my studies, was a great school that encouraged students to develop an ability to analyze the given or self-initiated content, and from that to bring into their design a full range of interests and sources of inspiration.

Coming here was . . . Almost like starting all over, thinking about and practicing design in ways that I hadn’t before. Working in this kind of a multidisciplinary place really had an affect on me—collaborating with people working in other disciplines made me reconsider and redefine, repeatedly, my profession and my position within it. I realized that it is fascinating looking back on the phases of the different projects i worked on (i.e proofs) at the walker and be able to see the change and the development of my ability to work with images and text, react to the people i collaborate with and design towards shaping each piece to the point where it delivered their content successfully and reflected my ideas about it.
(fig.1 – 7, different stages of work; fig.8.-9, the final piece: working on film flayer for Queer Takes: weekend of screening at the Walker June 23-26)

(1)  (2)  (3)

(4)  (5)   (6)

(7)   (8)  (9)

Some of my favorite moments were . . . Feeling stuck, tired, uninspired—but being able to leave my desk and go inside the galleries, down to our amazing library, or to the cinema or the theater. Realizing that all of this amazing art is as close to me as my bed is to my shower—and it’s available to me every second of the day! Also, participating in discussions with the design staff that are deeply engaged, hearing how and what this studio would like to do in the future—great inspiring and educational moments that for sure I will try to carry on in my practice.

A belief i’ve developed . . . Is that design means always challenging yourself and trying new things, and that you can’t design without keeping a close relationship to the world surrounding us—culture, politics, nature, and so on.

= Mylinh Trieu Nguyen =

Design first sparked my interest when … I was studying in my dorm at UCLA and heard a student next door animating a cartoon airplane to the words of a John Denver song. It wasn’t what she was making, but more the idea of realizing it that captivated me. She was taking this vague idea in her head and making it into a tangible thing in the world. I wanted that ability.

I wanted to become a walker fellow because … I was questioning the importance of what I was producing. I expanded my practice into the contemporary art world, collaborating with friend and artist David Horvitz as ASDF. This in turn made me more encouraged about my role as a graphic designer, and led me to apply for the fellowship.

My high points and low points here involved … Being assigned my first big project. This daunting feeling overwhelmed me; it was nothing less than that. But through all of the trial and error, working with Andrew Blauvelt and spending countless evenings in the studio (crying), the Walker’s annual report is one of the most gratifying pieces I’ve made. Moving to Minneapolis itself was a test of emotional endurance. The change in geography and social dynamics made it hard at first, and often lonely. But you really develop strong relationships with the other fellows and the people you work with.

Moving on from the walker, i will be … attending Yale’s MFA program in graphic design, developing and expanding my current interests, garnering new ones, and, I hope, cultivating a clear and cohesive methodology. I also want to continue producing work under ASDF, travel, and experience life outside the realm of “work.”

http://www.mylinhtrieu.com/index.php?/ongoing/minnesota-nice

Left to right: Mylinh Trieu Nguyen (Los Angeles); Andria Hickey (St. John's, Newfoundland);Dan Byers (Newton, Massachusetts); Noa Segal (Haifa, Israel) Photo: Gene Pittman

This is a longer version of the interviews with visual arts fellows Dan Byers and Andria Hickey, from a story in the July/August issue of Walker magazine. Design fellow Noa Segal has posted her interview and Mylinh Trieu’s over on the design blog.

For nearly three decades, the Walker has been recruiting recent graduates and junior professionals to work as fellows in its design and visual arts departments. As full-time, full-fledged staff, fellows experience the entire scope of graphic design and curatorial work in a museum, while bringing with them fresh energy and new ideas. A number of Walker fellows have also gone on to prominent positions at museums and design firms around the world. As their time here draws to a close, the 2008-2009 group talks about what brought them here, what they’ve experienced, and what’s in store as they move on.

= Daniel Byers =

I got into this line of work because … after some time as a studio art major in college (mostly painting, some textiles stuff), I realized I wasn’t the sort to of person who could be by himself in the studio for hours on end - people, and collaborative work are very important to me. Working with artists and Ian Berry, the curator at Skidmore’s Tang Museum, provided a model for being engaged with artists and artwork - as well as writing - in a collaborative, experimental environment. In a way, I was also attracted to a line of work where taste, aesthetics, theory, history, craft and the sense of sustaining public culture all connected.

My first impressions of the Walker came from …

I’ve known about the Walker since I was an undergraduate at the Tang Museum, and admired the publications (from the magazine to the beautiful catalogs) that came across my desk. It always seemed a sort of beacon of — to use an abused word — maverick integrity, creativity, and commitment to artists. Since working at the Fabric Workshop and Museum I’d always hoped that I’d end up at the Walker one day.

While working here, I contributed … to catalogs for two Walker-organized exhibitions: The Quick and the Dead and the forthcoming Abstract Resistance (opening in February 2010). Equally import were the many, many meetings and discussions with fellow visual arts staff and staff from other departments, which more often than not allowed real discourse — and a good amount of humor.

Other high (and low) points … Quick and the Dead catalog writing and crazy work before its deadline (this was a simultaneous high and low point!); discussions with curator Yasmil Raymond about Abstract Resistance; karaoke with selected Walker curators (they know how they are) at the Art of This benefit; laughing at lunch with the visual arts department.

I love what I do because … I get to work with interesting people, I get to research and write, I get to talk about art, and most important, I participate in the creation of public culture. Curating, is, at its core, enabling artworks — culture — to enter the public discourse, in a public space. I’m committed to the relevance of art exhibitions the same way I’m committed to the survival of newspapers, public space in cities, public radio, small businesses as community meeting places, music venues — anything that allows people to meet around information, opinion, and expressions of culture. We need these spaces more than ever, and sadly they are withering as private culture and personalized content dominate our sense of how to engage with the world.

A Twin Cities image that will remain with me is … walking to work in January: two dead squirrels on the sidewalk, frozen from the cold, separated by a few blocks. Good thing I had a heavy coat.

After leaving the Walker … I will be working as an assistant curator of contemporary art at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh–a position I would not have gotten without my experience at the Walker.

An exhibition I have in mind … involves Charles Burchfield and a few artists from younger generations. Burchfield’s work is hard to place and its incredible otherworldliness has interesting analogs with artists working through the 60s to today.

= Andria Hickey =

Before coming to the Walker . . . my experiences working with artists really centered around my involvement with artist-run centers in Newfoundland and Montreal as a programmer and board member. In Canada these centers form an extensive part of the national contemporary art scene. I’d followed the Walker for a long time, mostly by way of the Web site and catalogues, and I had always admired how it maintained an artist-centric mission. When I received a travel grant from my school (Concordia University in Montreal) to do some research for my master’s thesis on Kara Walker, I jumped at the opportunity and soon discovered the fellowship program–it seemed like a dream job. One thing led to another, and two years later, here I am. It’s been an incredible opportunity to work with and for some of the most exciting artists of our time.

I wanted to come to the Walker because . . . Besides getting to work with some of my dream artists and on dream exhibitions, joining the curatorial team is a very rigorous experience that has challenged me to think outside the box, push myself and my ideas harder. Just observing ways that different curators work is an incredible experience, and as a fellow I really became part of a family at the Walker. I’m not sure if the chemistry comes from the level of dedication, creativity, and brains in the building, or from the extreme cold–winter in Minneapolis is colder than Canada!

Some of my high points . . . hanging the Richard Prince show with Philippe Vergne; burying a skeleton and working out the “spatial voodoo” of The Quick and the Dead with Peter Eleey; trying to fly a homemade hot air balloon at 5 am in rural Minnesota with Tomás Saraceno, Yasmil Raymond, Alberto Pessavento, and James Flaten, followed by a “traditional” Perkins breakfast.