Color Collecting

Bios

	Jennie Bastian can make something out of nothing. She is scared of sharks and has some of the cutest, most photogenic cats ever (other than Pants). She received her undergraduate degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and studied Photography (and I think Printmaking) and just completed a masters program at U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee studying photography and how people connect to each other. She is interested in different ways of communicating and is rather good at it herself. At one point she worked for Snow & Graham, swoon, where she also made some lovely prints of her own artwork. Jennie is a master at creating food from no ingredients and documents this in a blog (youremergency.blogspot.com). I met Jennie through Alyce Ornella and flickr where she takes millions of photographs that all contain a certain softness. She thinks babies are adorable and she seems to be as obsessed with her calendar and daily process as I am. Jennie has been in both bad biking and bad car accidents and very well could’ve died but I am glad she didn’t.
	Ashley Bliss is going to be amazing at this project if she can ever find the time. She is a graduate of Wheaton College with a degree in english and women’s studies. Her writing can easily bring you to tears with its tenderness. We met through my roommate, Abby Weissman, and again through a co-worker, Maura Deedy. Ashley is a licensed massage therapist in New Hampshire and she has the right personality for it. She is the type of woman that you hope to know forever so that she may give you comforting hugs when you are old. Ashley is from the mountains of New Hampshire, and worked as the Communications Director of WREN (Women’s Rural Entrepreneurial Network) as an Americorps volunteer. In addition all of this, Ashley has beautiful hair. Ashley, in addition to giving massages, now works in a bakery and bookstore where she makes éclairs and, I bet, a mean cup of tea. Ashley like music with soul and has a great sense of simplicity and home. Ashley, Maura and I collaborate weekly on oatmeal by noon (oatmealbynoon.org).
	Maggie Carey has known many names and nicknames though she is not fond of new people who call her Mags without any sort of precedent. She grew up doing things like killing spiders for fruit loops and eating entire apples just for fun (but apparently never half a cup of seeds since that would be toxic). She is ridiculous, ever so creative, irreverent, and has a rather big mouth, but in a most endearing way. Maggie went to Wheaton College, where she majored in studio art, and now she lives in Maine and will one day make pancakes shaped like farm animals for her future children. She is beautifully fresh-faced, and has lovely flaxen hair (which was recently enjoying a different hue). She only recently got into dancing at a friend’s wedding and tore it up, and she is the captain of way too many online projects, but tears those up too. Her social boundaries are slightly skewed (the extra flavor in these waffles is from chewing up a candy cane and spitting it into the batter) and she can make you laugh and cry in the same email, but ultimately things make sense.
	Maura Deedy is an ultra fashionable socialista. Maura attended Wheaton College where she studied anthropology and sass. I met Maura, excitedly, after observing her hot pink jacket walk across campus for months and deciding that we needed to be friends. We finally met through Neutral Milk Hotel and, soon after, crossed shifts at the graphics lab. It was not until after college though that we became real friends though mutual friends all over the place. Maura attended Simmons College for Library Science. Maura just moved to NYC which suits her more than anyone else who lives there and she commutes to Connecticut where she is the ultimate technology-loving librarian. She gets to speak at seminars all about how we communicate. Maura gets hit on by patrons more than is appropriate because she is totally adorable and owns skirts that I am very jealous of. Maura is an excellent postcard writer and is easy to talk to when you are feeling down. Maura, Ashley and I collaborate weekly on oatmeal by noon (oatmealbynoon.org).
	Becky Fenning is a rather long story. Becky and I “met” because we both dated the same boy in college. We each knew who the other person was, met through flickr, and have since realized that we are personality twins. Our parents have the same names, we love the same things, and we make the same mistakes. As well, Becky’s best friend from Bowdoin is my boyfriend’s twin’s best friend from high school (I know… it’s complicated). Becky is a graduate of Bowdoin College (in my hometown of Brunswick, Maine) with a degree in English. She also has a master’s degree in Library Science from Simmons (though she didnt know Maura) which she puts to use safeguarding original manuscripts of Oscar Wilde and lots of other dead mostly-British people at the Clark Library of UCLA. Becky is an incredible photographer and archivist and has a rather beautiful obsession with family, history and how it affects us (senseofface.com). From her family, Becky acquired one of my all-time favorite noses. Becky and I collaborate weekly on whales and bunnies, a project that has made me a better person (whalesandbunnies.com).
	James Weston Fishwick is an Episcopalian and all around stand up guy. This is a relief to his parents (a minister and school principal, respectively) because when he started getting tattoos and dying his hair blue, they got a little worried. He has since cleaned up his act (sort of). James knows an awful lot about music, and until recently, it was not a good idea to discuss this topic with him. James’s other interests and hobbies include choir, ESL tutoring, yoga, and cooking. He also apparently knows how to do some stuff with the internet, and exercised this ability for Color Collecting.
	Leah Fusco is a role model for moral goodness and exploratory outdoorsiness but, more importantly, she is wicked fun. She is always up for a secret mission or a fact finding adventure and when you are sad she will cheer you up by playing with food coloring or making macaroni art. She is very good at grammar and is a valuable resource for all things herbal. I met Leah in sixth grade homeroom where we sang many a Phish song together and made mixed drinks that involved soap. Leah currently lives in Canada where she just finished up a master’s degree in Sociology from some school in Newfoundland where she sometimes sees icebergs and drives along trying to catch them. Her future plans include instigating revolutions of all topics including politics, food and the correct spelling of commonly misspelled words. Leah and I collaborate on a project that no else can really understand (thingsIwanttoshowyou.com) and the dammit revolution.
	Jamie Gagnon is psyched about everything. He is ultra involved with way too many scenes for me to comprehend and somehow still manages to get to Boston to see his lady friend, Nicole Orlando. Jamie is my source for information on shows or random things happening on the internet through his multiple collaborative blogs (mccrappy.com and mildeuphoria.blogspot.com) and he talks as though he might be on speed but I’m pretty sure he is not. I met Jamie through Keith (my male companion), very soon into my relationship, and was welcomed with hugs and hot dogs. He quickly became one of my favorites. Keith and Jamie were in the same fraternity for hippies at WPI where Jamie completed a degree in Biology. He is now a grad student at Brown, studying molecular biology, and is often sent away to conferences because he is such an expert in this profession. He just moved out of a warehouse and back into an apartment he lived in years before and which is decorated with many plants. The bathroom smells like clean boys which is very nice. Jamie’s hair is out of control and grows amazingly fast. Jamie can pick up any instrument and immediately make it produce usable sound. He is dangerously good at rock, paper, scissors and likes everything that I like.
	Ben Gancsos once threw a man through a window and eats blueberry waffles for breakfast! He is a boy who loves collections, projects and helping strangers and that makes him a-okay in my book. He is a multilingual Hungarian (really!), who now resides in Connecticut, just outside of the city. Ben graduated from the International Center of Photography in NYC and is the only person I know who is a photographer as an actual trade, focusing on humanitarian and social justice projects and the performing arts (bengancsos.com). Ben helped create the website of oatmealbynoon.org out of the goodness of his heart and runs his own daily blog (www.proofofbeing.com). Ben hates wedge shoes and uggs (yet, shh, owns a pair of purple uggs) and just voted for the first time ever. Ben has an impressive collection of photo books (many first editions and/or signed) and has had work in many, many publications including The New York Times. Oh, and he likes bohemian girls with a splash of harpers bazaar. (That part is a quote)
	Jamie Golden is extraordinarily welcoming and out going. Jamie is Nicole Orlando’s best friend and attended Clark University, studying psychology. She is getting her master’s degree in Sociology from Lesley University and hopes to work with under-privileged children. I met Jamie at a warehouse party where Jamie Gagnon lived and again, more so, that following new years. Jamie is Jewish (really) and vegan. Jamie is marrying another good friend of Keith’s and they are perfect partners in crime for camping adventures and barbecues. Jamie is incredibly good at peeing in the woods and is not afraid of bears. Jamie likes a good beard, has awesome sunglasses and makes me enter into giggle fits. Jamie and I both have trouble sleeping and we both like Project Runway. Jamie creates art though I haven’t seen it yet and I am using this introduction as my invitation to come see it. Please? She is also going to be a really great mom.
	Michela Maxwell is not from California but when you first meet her you think she could be. I met Michela during my brief stint at Guilford College and she is by far the best thing I found there. Michela graduated from Guilford in three years with a degree in literature and minors in both art and psychology. She has lived everywhere from New Orleans (where her boyfriend had sex with his brother), Rochester, San Francisco to New York City where she easily became a designer for some initial (MPF?) place where she fell in love with ampersands. Michela has met Martha Stewart and is the related to a nice man who once offered to pay for my abortion (if I needed one!) because he is a just a nice man. Michela sees through people fairly easily. She is extremely funny, shockingly feminine and has the same speech patterns as I do. Michela recently moved to Alabama with her boyfriend, Evan, where she started her domestic future. She just launched her own AMAZING quilting company called Napoleon (napoleonquilts.com) and makes her own soymilk. She has raised plants beds and documents her new life in The Rowe School for Girls (roweschool.blogspot.com).
	Allie McGinty is a little spitfire of wacky energy and flaring nostrils. She is the little sister of my bff, though not so little. She loves Rob Thomas and Gossip Girl and basically everything awesome. She likes baseball but gets dismayed when it rains. Allie attended Dartmouth College for a degree in anthropology modified with classical archaeology and her real name is Regan. Allie works for Outcome in Boston where she does something with projects about medical trials and they inevitably think she is either adorable or insane. She is unbelievably good at Halloween costumes, though she got on the bandwagon a little late if you ask me. She is also not my least favorite McGinty (anymore).
	Nicole Orlando is a graduate of Clark University with a degree in studio art. She is eternally upbeat and dresses with an incredible sense of color. She is blond and sassy and has the nicest smile of anyone I know (no offense everyone else). She is (fake) Jewish and vegan and brings her own earplugs to rock shows. Nicole works at Partners Health Care in Boston in development so we speak the same language. Nicole and I met through her boyfriend Jamie Gagnon. Jamie, Nicole, Keith and I traveled to Chicago last summer for a most delightful vacation which included beluga whales, water parks, art museums and vegan hot dogs. Nicole has tattoos on her wrists that say mother and father in sign form and a new knock-your-socks-off script of Love is Simple across her back. It really is.
	Alyce Ornella’s life is made of art and music. Alyce hails from Kentucky originally, before heading to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to create collage projects focusing on sound. Alyce is working on a project focusing on where we come from. She is very honest about her life and what it means to her and studies the land and its role in what we are really doing here. She currently works at Spindleworks in Brunswick, Maine where she is an artist mentor for adults with disabilities. It might be the best job ever. Alyce has the most becoming script handwriting and has eyes you kind of sink into. She drives the boys mad but she is taken by a sports-obsessed lad named Roscoe, who also loves the Appalachia. I met Alyce through our friend, Old Man Winter and through a mutual experience with an unhealthy situation. Alyce plays music in many Portland bands on the renowned l’animaux tryst label (lanimauxtryst.com). Alyce is an expert at apple picking and inspires me in more ways that I can say.
	Abby Weissman is incredible. Abby was my college roommate (attempt # 2) and there is an endearing story about why that i cant post on the internet. Abby is an avid runner and land-lover and a wild haired gypsy child who is usually covered in dirt and/or something sugary. She is my favorite writer/poet of all time (including the big shots like Neruda) and I’m pretty sure she’ll never stop moving. Abby has worked as a teacher at Carrabasset Valley Academy for the last three years and before that worked on a mountain serving pancakes. She is now the Director of Introductory Programs at the New England Nordic Ski Association, which is, coincidentally (tada!), in Portland. She attended Wheaton College, studying writing and collecting beautiful things. I could hear her music through my walls and am filled with nostalgia at hearing anything singer/songwriter-y. Abby has a wildness about her that is both romantic and incomprehensible and she makes me feel pretty damn inspired. Everyone needs an Abby.
	Molly Wiebe is a complete nut job and basically my ideal kind of friend. She loves theme parties, art, and basset hounds and has an appreciated love for colorful and fun stationary. Molly grew up in Bangor and is a friend of Abby Weissman. She also attended Wheaton College, studying studio art and political science. Molly may be the most talented and approachable artist I know, though she says she doesn’t make art anymore. Hopefully this project will jump start her because once she fashioned a self portrait of a Molly-sized house made of words and color and general domesticity that still blows my mind 5 years later. Molly is currently a Project Coordinator at Tajima Creative in San Francisco, a city full of social responsibility love and consistent 70 degree days. Molly once bought a boyfriend a rocket! for this birthday and, just like, me, has to eat a lot of tater tots. Of course, Molly’s most becoming personality trait is her undying love of The West Wing (best show ever) and, until recently, the best president a country could ask for. Conveniently, Molly’s father looks almost exactly like Rob Lowe.