Please continue following the progress of Smalltimore (formerly known as Charm City), at
www.smalltimorethemovie.blogspot.com
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Cut, and... moving on!
THIS is incredibly frustrating. I have not been able to get online for more than a day now, and I am so itching to write, so at the moment I am writing in my Text Edit mode and I'll save the doc and copy and paste it later. This is my final post on www.charmcitythemovie.blogspot.com - go right now to www.smalltimorethemovie.blogspot.com to read about how the screening of the rough cut went, and to continue to keep up to date with the progress of the project. It has been an incredible year, writing this blog... time to move to the next level. Thanks for reading, and please continue to do so on the new blog!!!!
~ Jeanie
~ Jeanie
Thursday, December 25, 2008
I Got You a Little Something...
I've posted some behind-the-scenes photos in an album on my Facebook page. You don't have to be a member to look at it:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50000&id=759412855&ref=mf
Merry Christmas!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50000&id=759412855&ref=mf
Merry Christmas!
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
"Take Care of the Luxuries...
...and the necessities will take care of themselves." This is probably my favorite quote of Dorothy Parker. Not only because it sort of gives me license to do whatever I want, but also because it is largely true.
Making a movie, despite it often being rather grueling work, is a luxury when it comes down to it. So many people out there want to do exactly that. Not that many get to.
With the emotional, financial, and physical assistance of a LOT of people, I got to do that. I put together the luxury, the screenplay, and one by one the necessities took (and are taking) care of themselves. Every time it seemed that I had reached the end of my resources, something or someone new popped up to help me solve the problem. Someone letting me use a location, someone sending me a check, someone tutoring me on an aspect of filmmaking I knew nothing about, whatever. And now that I am about to embark on the fine-tuning of the movie, this remains true.
As I have said here many times, "Smalltimore," is my love letter to Baltimore, and especially to the creative community that thrives here. I crammed over a dozen Baltimore artists' works into the film itself - paintings, sculptures, photos, even three different jewelry makers. And now it is time to really work on the soundtrack, which will be all original music by Baltimore musicians.
There were some people I had in mind from the very beginning who are already on board, such as T.T.Tucker & the Bum Rush Band, and Jennifer Swartout. There are a couple other local favorites whose music I used for the rough cut, but I haven't approached them yet about the real deal. I'll start that in January. When I secured Joyce J. Scott in the role of Mrs. Talford, I learned then that she had a CD of her own, and some of that music works PERFECTLY, so I am super-excited about that. You can see some of Joyce's paintings in the movie also, so she is truly the triple-threat of "Smalltimore."
There is another Baltimore singer/songwriter who I had in mind from the beginning, to be involved on the soundtrack. Her name is Niki Lee (www.nikilee.com). I had read about her in the City Paper a few years ago. She has a very interesting story, about how she secured the musical rights to Dorothy Parker's poetry from the NAACP for, I think, $600. An exemplary case of, "ya never know until you ask."
I got to see Niki perform those songs a couple summers ago at a show she had at the Creative Alliance. I didn't get to meet her at the time, but I did buy her CD, "Here Lies Dorothy Parker".
A couple weeks ago I started digging around online and found her website. I gathered from her blog that she had moved to California, and I thought, hmm, maybe she's blown up and she won't want to be involved, or she'll want a bunch of money that I don't have. I roamed around on her site and she has another CD out, titled, "Here". A little blurb about the CD says you can hear about her life in Baltimore in these songs, like the guy who lived in her driveway. I thought that was funny, and so Baltimore, and I looked at the title of the song, which bears his name. And this, being Smalltimore... I know the guy.
I figured that was a pretty good icebreaker, so I took a chance and wrote to Niki, sent her the link to the new trailer, and a few lines about the project and how I'd love to use some of her stuff, and that we have this mutual friend. She very graciously picked up the phone and called me from California last night. We had a good chat and she is psyched for me, and definitely wants in on it! I am so happy about this, and it is just the impetus I needed to get me to be EXCITED about going back to editing after New Year's. There are only a few scenes in the rough cut that have the permanent music laid in, and those scenes are so much more powerful because of it. I can't WAIT to get back to the drawing board!
Making a movie, despite it often being rather grueling work, is a luxury when it comes down to it. So many people out there want to do exactly that. Not that many get to.
With the emotional, financial, and physical assistance of a LOT of people, I got to do that. I put together the luxury, the screenplay, and one by one the necessities took (and are taking) care of themselves. Every time it seemed that I had reached the end of my resources, something or someone new popped up to help me solve the problem. Someone letting me use a location, someone sending me a check, someone tutoring me on an aspect of filmmaking I knew nothing about, whatever. And now that I am about to embark on the fine-tuning of the movie, this remains true.
As I have said here many times, "Smalltimore," is my love letter to Baltimore, and especially to the creative community that thrives here. I crammed over a dozen Baltimore artists' works into the film itself - paintings, sculptures, photos, even three different jewelry makers. And now it is time to really work on the soundtrack, which will be all original music by Baltimore musicians.
There were some people I had in mind from the very beginning who are already on board, such as T.T.Tucker & the Bum Rush Band, and Jennifer Swartout. There are a couple other local favorites whose music I used for the rough cut, but I haven't approached them yet about the real deal. I'll start that in January. When I secured Joyce J. Scott in the role of Mrs. Talford, I learned then that she had a CD of her own, and some of that music works PERFECTLY, so I am super-excited about that. You can see some of Joyce's paintings in the movie also, so she is truly the triple-threat of "Smalltimore."
There is another Baltimore singer/songwriter who I had in mind from the beginning, to be involved on the soundtrack. Her name is Niki Lee (www.nikilee.com). I had read about her in the City Paper a few years ago. She has a very interesting story, about how she secured the musical rights to Dorothy Parker's poetry from the NAACP for, I think, $600. An exemplary case of, "ya never know until you ask."
I got to see Niki perform those songs a couple summers ago at a show she had at the Creative Alliance. I didn't get to meet her at the time, but I did buy her CD, "Here Lies Dorothy Parker".
A couple weeks ago I started digging around online and found her website. I gathered from her blog that she had moved to California, and I thought, hmm, maybe she's blown up and she won't want to be involved, or she'll want a bunch of money that I don't have. I roamed around on her site and she has another CD out, titled, "Here". A little blurb about the CD says you can hear about her life in Baltimore in these songs, like the guy who lived in her driveway. I thought that was funny, and so Baltimore, and I looked at the title of the song, which bears his name. And this, being Smalltimore... I know the guy.
I figured that was a pretty good icebreaker, so I took a chance and wrote to Niki, sent her the link to the new trailer, and a few lines about the project and how I'd love to use some of her stuff, and that we have this mutual friend. She very graciously picked up the phone and called me from California last night. We had a good chat and she is psyched for me, and definitely wants in on it! I am so happy about this, and it is just the impetus I needed to get me to be EXCITED about going back to editing after New Year's. There are only a few scenes in the rough cut that have the permanent music laid in, and those scenes are so much more powerful because of it. I can't WAIT to get back to the drawing board!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
A Bassist by Any Other Name...
Sleep is still screwed up. My mind won't shut off, though I have far less to do on a daily basis at the moment. I have not watched (and therefore have not edited) any part of the movie (other than the trailer a couple times) since I watched it straight through last Thursday. It is hard for me to stay away from it, even though I was looking forward to a break from it. There are things I know are wrong with it that I want to work on. But that won't change what I will be showing at the screening on Saturday anyway, so I am not watching any part of it for nine whole days so that I can see it with somewhat-fresh eyes, to see what else I need to fix, or maybe even what moments are just fine and I am being too critical of them.
I kind of miss seeing my cast every day, too, and I am looking forward to seeing almost all of them on Saturday. Every time I watch a scene, I think about the goofy things that happened while we were filming it. Unfortunately, since we were filming on the P2 cards, we didn't have the luxury of just letting the camera roll all the time and capturing a lot of those funny offscreen moments, because we had to conserve space on the cards. There were some days we filled them completely. But I remember the little screw-ups that were amusing, and for the most part have forgotten the ones that were annoying. Like having kids, you forgot the bad stuff quickly enough that it makes you want to make more...
Probably my favorite blunder was made by my brother. He came up from Florida in order to see me on the set for a day before going to Ocean City with some of my other relatives on vacation. I felt bad because I had ZERO time to hang out with him really, but it meant a lot to me that he was there and got to see behind the scenes for a day. It was one of the days we were filming at the Wind-Up Space, and I threw him into the scene as a bartender. You'll see him in the first scene that takes place there. Though he threw in a couple other lines that one would just naturally say to customers ("What can I get ya?", etc) I only gave him one SPECIFIC line. He had to hand a beer to one of the main cast, whose character name is Thom who is playing in a band in the bar. All Ted (my bro) had to do was hand Thom a beer as Thom walks offstage, and say, "ThomBomb!" This is Thom's nickname, and this action established that Thom is a regular, everybody knows and loves him.
As with any and every scene, we had to do it a bunch of times, due to noise issues, getting it from different angles, and getting a couple safeties once we got it right. Ted did good the first 5 or 6 times. How could he not, it is one word, right?
Somewhere around the 7th take I think, the five other people in the scene hit their marks and delivered their lines perfectly, and my brother approaches Thom with the beer, reaches in his direction, and clearly says, "ThomJOHN!"
No one flinched (and BELIEVE me, it was all I could do not to burst out laughing, but this was one of the days we were running short on card space), Ted walks off camera and looks at me like, "WTF?" Just the look on his own face, wondering how the hell he could have possibly screwed up ONE word, is an hysterical moment I will never forget. And, of course, will never let HIM forget.
I kind of miss seeing my cast every day, too, and I am looking forward to seeing almost all of them on Saturday. Every time I watch a scene, I think about the goofy things that happened while we were filming it. Unfortunately, since we were filming on the P2 cards, we didn't have the luxury of just letting the camera roll all the time and capturing a lot of those funny offscreen moments, because we had to conserve space on the cards. There were some days we filled them completely. But I remember the little screw-ups that were amusing, and for the most part have forgotten the ones that were annoying. Like having kids, you forgot the bad stuff quickly enough that it makes you want to make more...
Probably my favorite blunder was made by my brother. He came up from Florida in order to see me on the set for a day before going to Ocean City with some of my other relatives on vacation. I felt bad because I had ZERO time to hang out with him really, but it meant a lot to me that he was there and got to see behind the scenes for a day. It was one of the days we were filming at the Wind-Up Space, and I threw him into the scene as a bartender. You'll see him in the first scene that takes place there. Though he threw in a couple other lines that one would just naturally say to customers ("What can I get ya?", etc) I only gave him one SPECIFIC line. He had to hand a beer to one of the main cast, whose character name is Thom who is playing in a band in the bar. All Ted (my bro) had to do was hand Thom a beer as Thom walks offstage, and say, "ThomBomb!" This is Thom's nickname, and this action established that Thom is a regular, everybody knows and loves him.
As with any and every scene, we had to do it a bunch of times, due to noise issues, getting it from different angles, and getting a couple safeties once we got it right. Ted did good the first 5 or 6 times. How could he not, it is one word, right?
Somewhere around the 7th take I think, the five other people in the scene hit their marks and delivered their lines perfectly, and my brother approaches Thom with the beer, reaches in his direction, and clearly says, "ThomJOHN!"
No one flinched (and BELIEVE me, it was all I could do not to burst out laughing, but this was one of the days we were running short on card space), Ted walks off camera and looks at me like, "WTF?" Just the look on his own face, wondering how the hell he could have possibly screwed up ONE word, is an hysterical moment I will never forget. And, of course, will never let HIM forget.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
And Miles to Go...
Sleep is not coming any easier to me, but I think it is just because my pattern is totally screwed up from going to bed in the wee hours of the morning for almost a week. Then I wake up when I have to, do things I have to do, then somewhere in the afternoon I can't keep my eyes open, fall out for an hour or two... I wake up refreshed, yes, but then I can't go to sleep until 4 or 5am again! This is getting me a little nuts.
It is nerves, too. I picked up the burned DVD from Charlie (God bless 'im) this afternoon and watched it straight through to make sure there are no surprises. There was only one word of dialogue that wasn't on there, and I am sure it is something that I accidentally deleted or pasted over while I was editing and is not a big deal at all.
I don't really know how to describe how I am feeling now. I feel like I should be saying things like, "relieved, happy, satisfied," etc. And I am certain I am all of those things, but I don't really feel them. I think I am just spent, an empty vessel, and I have to relax and wait for my reserves to fill back up.
Watching the movie on a 42" screen was way different than watching it on my laptop. I was afraid it was going to look worse, but it was actually more forgiving.
I write this blog because I want to be able to read back on my own experience later (because it is way too much to remember now), and I also want to give people who are interested in maybe doing the same thing, or just interested in hearing about the process, an inside look at how it all really happens. Sometimes I have committed the sin of omission about some of the bad things in order to keep the peace with people, or not be overly discouraging, or just because during the process I didn't want certain people (like my investors) to worry that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
I'm having one of those moments where I am considering censoring myself, but I think I'll go ahead and speak honestly, because several people I consult with regularly promise me that what I am feeling is normal and natural (and because the movie is really, truly in the can now, and it all worked out just fine).
The truth is, when you have spent literally several hundred hours poring over about 50 hours of footage - think about that, approximately three THOUSAND minutes of footage - and have to narrow it down to (currently) one hundred and three minutes... pardon my french, but you get pretty freakin' sick of looking at it. Think of your favorite joke, or song, or, hmm, scene in a movie, and then repeat it, listen to it, rewind and watch it at least 50, if not 100, times. Is it still funny, poignant, touching, or whatever you used to think it was? I think the word I am looking for is, "desensitized".
So I was pleasantly surprised when I watched the movie straight through today, and in the immortal words of my dear friend Tom Kyte, thought to myself, "This does not suck." Still needs a lot of massaging, but I am confident I am not going to embarrass myself, anyway. But I am still pretty sick of looking at it. And now I don't have to for EIGHT WHOLE DAYS! I am very excited about that.
I think why I am not dancing with joy, though, is because I am ever the hostess, and I will not be able to relax until next Saturday when I see with my own eyes that everyone who says they are coming to the screening actually arrives, and then see that they are having a good time and enjoy the movie, and then come to the reception afterwards. It is just the way I am. I know that all of those things will happen, but I won't relax until I see it with my own eyes.
It will. And when it does, I am going to DRINK my FACE off.
It is nerves, too. I picked up the burned DVD from Charlie (God bless 'im) this afternoon and watched it straight through to make sure there are no surprises. There was only one word of dialogue that wasn't on there, and I am sure it is something that I accidentally deleted or pasted over while I was editing and is not a big deal at all.
I don't really know how to describe how I am feeling now. I feel like I should be saying things like, "relieved, happy, satisfied," etc. And I am certain I am all of those things, but I don't really feel them. I think I am just spent, an empty vessel, and I have to relax and wait for my reserves to fill back up.
Watching the movie on a 42" screen was way different than watching it on my laptop. I was afraid it was going to look worse, but it was actually more forgiving.
I write this blog because I want to be able to read back on my own experience later (because it is way too much to remember now), and I also want to give people who are interested in maybe doing the same thing, or just interested in hearing about the process, an inside look at how it all really happens. Sometimes I have committed the sin of omission about some of the bad things in order to keep the peace with people, or not be overly discouraging, or just because during the process I didn't want certain people (like my investors) to worry that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
I'm having one of those moments where I am considering censoring myself, but I think I'll go ahead and speak honestly, because several people I consult with regularly promise me that what I am feeling is normal and natural (and because the movie is really, truly in the can now, and it all worked out just fine).
The truth is, when you have spent literally several hundred hours poring over about 50 hours of footage - think about that, approximately three THOUSAND minutes of footage - and have to narrow it down to (currently) one hundred and three minutes... pardon my french, but you get pretty freakin' sick of looking at it. Think of your favorite joke, or song, or, hmm, scene in a movie, and then repeat it, listen to it, rewind and watch it at least 50, if not 100, times. Is it still funny, poignant, touching, or whatever you used to think it was? I think the word I am looking for is, "desensitized".
So I was pleasantly surprised when I watched the movie straight through today, and in the immortal words of my dear friend Tom Kyte, thought to myself, "This does not suck." Still needs a lot of massaging, but I am confident I am not going to embarrass myself, anyway. But I am still pretty sick of looking at it. And now I don't have to for EIGHT WHOLE DAYS! I am very excited about that.
I think why I am not dancing with joy, though, is because I am ever the hostess, and I will not be able to relax until next Saturday when I see with my own eyes that everyone who says they are coming to the screening actually arrives, and then see that they are having a good time and enjoy the movie, and then come to the reception afterwards. It is just the way I am. I know that all of those things will happen, but I won't relax until I see it with my own eyes.
It will. And when it does, I am going to DRINK my FACE off.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
To Thine Own Selves Be True
I feel like I am waiting for the weight to lift from my shoulders. It is just sort of perched there now, no longer bearing down on me, but not exactly lifted either. I don't think I will be able to completely relax until tomorrow evening, after I pick up the compressed/rendered, burned DVD of the rough cut of the movie from Charlie, and then watch the whole thing through to make sure nothing is wrong. I mean, there is still going to be lots of things wrong with it, it is a rough cut. But I mean, I want to make sure none of the scenes that I have put together so far have done anything weird, like today when two of the songs that I had laid in mysteriously disappeared and I had to do the work all over again. I am sure it is something that I did wrong, which is why I was anxious to hand it off to Charlie, as it is far less likely (knock on wood) that he will screw it up.
On the way home I was driving past Belvedere Square, which is a mid-point between my place and Charlie's. I had not stopped in Grand Cru, owned by my friend Nelson, for some time, and I thought to myself, why wait to get home to celebrate? I didn't think he'd be there but I actually caught him in, shared some wine, invited him to the screening, and caught up a little bit.
On the way out I picked up a couple bottles of Framboise. Oh my GOD do I love this stuff... perfect to raise a glass to at home, by myself, while I let out an enormous exhale... which is exactly what I am doing right this very minute.
I may actually even sleep well tonight. I have not been able to drift off before 4:00am (and usually 5:00am) for the last 4 or five nights. Usually editing until at least 3:00am, then it takes me awhile to wind down.
It is such a mixed bag of emotions right now. Relieved, in that, as long as all goes well with the burn, I don't plan to do any work on the movie until after New Year's, giving me about two weeks to enjoy the holidays, friends and family, without feeling guilty that I am not working on the movie. It will be the first time I can really do that... well, in about a year! If the weather in the Poconos isn't too brutal, I want to get up there for a few days in the beginning of January, for once not to lock myself away and work my ass off, but to actually RELAX.
It won't be long-lived, though. I am happy with the rough cut, but it is that, rough, and there is still so much work to be done. The edits themselves, the cuts, need some finessing, smoothing over, drawing out some transitions so they aren't so abrupt, shortening others so they aren't so long they get boring, and I need to shave about ten minutes off the whole thing altogether, while somehow adding a scene that I wasn't able to finish in time for the rough cut. But the two things I am EXTREMELY anxious to do is the color correction and getting the music just right.
Music is weird. I have to watch more movies to see how it is really done well. The problem with watching movies is, for me, that I get so sucked into the story that it is hard for me to dissect it, to watch the cuts and transitions and lighting and angles and levels of conversation laid over background music, etc, etc... But I am kind of glad for that. I definitely see movies differently now, and I know I always will, but so far, making a movie has not completely ruined me for watching movies the way that growing up in the restaurant business ruined me for eating in restaurants for a very long time.
Now that I think about it, and actually HAVE THE TIME to indulge my stream-of-consciousness for the first time in... I don't know... skip back through my postings and you tell me... the difference is Baltimore.
My Dad owned and operated restaurants all my life, I grew up behind those scenes, and later waited tables and eventually managed a four-star restaurant in Washington, D.C (the Coeur de Lion, in the Henley Park Hotel). I used to make my Mother crazy because, just like my Dad, if we ate in a restaurant I had to sit with my back to the corner so I could observe (read: critique) every aspect of the room, the service, the presentation, and of course the food. I was constantly making comparisons, which at the time I think I enjoyed, but in retrospect sucked some of the fun out of it.
But movies are kind of different, or maybe it is just that I am different now, after having been in Baltimore for eleven years. I love eating in restaurants now, much more than I used to. I still notice things, I haven't unlearned anything, but it just doesn't bother me like it did when I was all my "Type-A" self back in D.C. I do see movies differently now, and I find myself talking about them constantly, dissecting them with other people who do the same thing. But I haven't lost the ability to get lost in a story. I do find it a little bit harder now, though, if it isn't a good story, well told.
I'm just... happier here, and I was pretty happy in D.C. Baltimore and D.C. are two completely different planets, though. Luckily, being a Gemini, I can appreciate them both for what they are. I am a business person, so one side of me relates to D.C., but I am also an artist, the side of me that relates to Baltimore. It took me a long time to be comfortable referring to myself as an artist in the company I keep here, because I know so many very, very talented artists. In D.C. it was easy to consider myself an artist, none of my friends were, really. They were all into politics, business. None of them wrote, painted, or even played an instrument that they ever mentioned. When I started making friends in Baltimore, I was so overwhelmed by the talent I met that at most I would consider myself to be "creative".
It has been a long journey, and I have had my hands in a lot of things since I have been here, but I finally feel I have found my voice, found what I was meant to do. I always liked the restaurant business, it came naturally to me, and that led to the hotel business, which did as well. But business is what I do, or rather, what I am capable of doing. Being an artist... that is who I am.
On the way home I was driving past Belvedere Square, which is a mid-point between my place and Charlie's. I had not stopped in Grand Cru, owned by my friend Nelson, for some time, and I thought to myself, why wait to get home to celebrate? I didn't think he'd be there but I actually caught him in, shared some wine, invited him to the screening, and caught up a little bit.
On the way out I picked up a couple bottles of Framboise. Oh my GOD do I love this stuff... perfect to raise a glass to at home, by myself, while I let out an enormous exhale... which is exactly what I am doing right this very minute.
I may actually even sleep well tonight. I have not been able to drift off before 4:00am (and usually 5:00am) for the last 4 or five nights. Usually editing until at least 3:00am, then it takes me awhile to wind down.
It is such a mixed bag of emotions right now. Relieved, in that, as long as all goes well with the burn, I don't plan to do any work on the movie until after New Year's, giving me about two weeks to enjoy the holidays, friends and family, without feeling guilty that I am not working on the movie. It will be the first time I can really do that... well, in about a year! If the weather in the Poconos isn't too brutal, I want to get up there for a few days in the beginning of January, for once not to lock myself away and work my ass off, but to actually RELAX.
It won't be long-lived, though. I am happy with the rough cut, but it is that, rough, and there is still so much work to be done. The edits themselves, the cuts, need some finessing, smoothing over, drawing out some transitions so they aren't so abrupt, shortening others so they aren't so long they get boring, and I need to shave about ten minutes off the whole thing altogether, while somehow adding a scene that I wasn't able to finish in time for the rough cut. But the two things I am EXTREMELY anxious to do is the color correction and getting the music just right.
Music is weird. I have to watch more movies to see how it is really done well. The problem with watching movies is, for me, that I get so sucked into the story that it is hard for me to dissect it, to watch the cuts and transitions and lighting and angles and levels of conversation laid over background music, etc, etc... But I am kind of glad for that. I definitely see movies differently now, and I know I always will, but so far, making a movie has not completely ruined me for watching movies the way that growing up in the restaurant business ruined me for eating in restaurants for a very long time.
Now that I think about it, and actually HAVE THE TIME to indulge my stream-of-consciousness for the first time in... I don't know... skip back through my postings and you tell me... the difference is Baltimore.
My Dad owned and operated restaurants all my life, I grew up behind those scenes, and later waited tables and eventually managed a four-star restaurant in Washington, D.C (the Coeur de Lion, in the Henley Park Hotel). I used to make my Mother crazy because, just like my Dad, if we ate in a restaurant I had to sit with my back to the corner so I could observe (read: critique) every aspect of the room, the service, the presentation, and of course the food. I was constantly making comparisons, which at the time I think I enjoyed, but in retrospect sucked some of the fun out of it.
But movies are kind of different, or maybe it is just that I am different now, after having been in Baltimore for eleven years. I love eating in restaurants now, much more than I used to. I still notice things, I haven't unlearned anything, but it just doesn't bother me like it did when I was all my "Type-A" self back in D.C. I do see movies differently now, and I find myself talking about them constantly, dissecting them with other people who do the same thing. But I haven't lost the ability to get lost in a story. I do find it a little bit harder now, though, if it isn't a good story, well told.
I'm just... happier here, and I was pretty happy in D.C. Baltimore and D.C. are two completely different planets, though. Luckily, being a Gemini, I can appreciate them both for what they are. I am a business person, so one side of me relates to D.C., but I am also an artist, the side of me that relates to Baltimore. It took me a long time to be comfortable referring to myself as an artist in the company I keep here, because I know so many very, very talented artists. In D.C. it was easy to consider myself an artist, none of my friends were, really. They were all into politics, business. None of them wrote, painted, or even played an instrument that they ever mentioned. When I started making friends in Baltimore, I was so overwhelmed by the talent I met that at most I would consider myself to be "creative".
It has been a long journey, and I have had my hands in a lot of things since I have been here, but I finally feel I have found my voice, found what I was meant to do. I always liked the restaurant business, it came naturally to me, and that led to the hotel business, which did as well. But business is what I do, or rather, what I am capable of doing. Being an artist... that is who I am.
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