What’s your favorite Random Acts of Silliness moment?
I love it when RAS installations inspire people to create! Watching my grandson Ira build his own (deceptively simple, but richly narrated) fairy house and seeing the Curious Collections submitted by all ages at the “show and tell” event during the Cabinets of Curiosity exhibit are some of my favorite RAS moments… so far!
What’s your dream RAS project?
My dream RAS project has happened in so many forms already—but I am super looking forward to creating a moving diorama scroll (aka “crankie”) fueled by hot tips from visiting artist Katherine Fahey. I’ve dreamed of a crankie festival happening in Bozeman for years and wow! It’s actually gonna happen!
Art destination you'd love to visit?
If I could blink right now and open my eyes at any art destination, it would be the Van Gogh Museum or a Yayoi Kusama exhibit or the Morris Hirshfield exhibit at the American Folk Art Museum.
What are you inspired by right now?
What fills me with the breath to create is a my own curiosity about what will develop. In music or art, I often start with a clear idea, but am soon engrossed in new fascinations. I love that surprise element to art–not just mine, but everyone’s! It’s like digging for treasure—you never know what you’ll discover. It might be something priceless, or weird, or disappointing, but you would never know if you hadn’t started digging in the first place.
What’s on your nightstand?
On my nightstand is my iPhone, bookmarked to my favorite Librivox reader, Peter Yearsley, reading musty public domain books that most people might find pretty boring. I just find it funny that some Victorian guy was extremely excited about orchids, or that someone would take the time to earnestly read aloud tables of herring sales in 19th century London.
