June 24

THE PREP:

Well... today was our big day. Long, ass day. But an important day. We began by meeting at the Fatima luas stop (like three stops closer to town than my usual stop.) I jumped in the car with Siobhan and we drove to the Fatima Center. They are like this giant, beautiful resource center for people in the Fatima public housing. They spent like ten years making this building a reality, and it shows. It's extraordinary. They toured me around there for a while and I met a bunch of people, then we got the TV we were there to pick up in the first place.

(Reading the paper at the luas stop.)

(A project done at Fatima, participants made clay hearts and wrote prayers on them.)

(The amazing view from the roof of Fatima.)

(Amazing view.)

(The kid's art studio. Huge and incredible.)

We stopped by at St Andrew's Community Centre (where the launch is being held) and dropped off the TV and other stuff from the car.)

(St Andrew's.)

Our next stop was St Michael's Estate. You've seen it before in pictures, it's the building with all the images pasted in the windows. We stopped there to pick up a giant speaker and the microphone equipment. There it was also sprung on me that I will be teaching three photography classes to little kids from the projects in July... Mom, can you believe that? ME working with children? Teaching them photo stuff? There's gonna be someone that works there with me at all times, but I'm still pretty terrified... me and kids don't really get along.

(Crazy inside of St Michaels.)

(Rita's Office. Where I learned about the children...)

(The speaker was really heavy.)

We then met the Magpie guys at St Andrews so they could set up the projector and the equipment to show the film we were screening tonight.

(This is the giant hall we were showing the film in.)

After we let them in to set up, we went BACK to Common Ground because the books had still not been delivered. Siobhan was kinda freaking out. We waited from 1pm-3pm. Had some lunch. Finished reading the paper. Called the delivery man several times. They FINALLY showed up! Right at 3! We packed them in the car and went back to St Andrews.

(The to-do list.)

(Yayyyy books!)

(Ran into friends on the way out.)

(Putting up the images and artists statements. Remember I typed and mounted all of those? People better freakin read 'em. ha)

(Logan and I had a good system going.)

(Chris outside preparing his speech.)

THE LAUNCH:

(Guests beginning to arrive in the hall.)

(Siobhan, Mary [the director of the Dublin Art's Council], and Anne Maree Barry [video artist].)

(Some books on the table.)

(The launch in the studio.)

I took like 300 pictures from the launch, but those about sum up the different parts of the evening. After the event, we cleaned everything up and left by like 8:30. I got out my map upon leaving and tried to figure out how to get back to the luas. Logan [who is part of the studio team] and Steven [his partner] laughed and insisted on taking me there. After getting off the luas, I walked to the bus stop to find Megan there! Random! We rode home together and as we walked back to Shanowen.. we ran into the whole group! They were heading to the Ivy House as we were heading back. Quite a coincidence.

(Random meetings on the bus.)

(Random meetings on the street.)