Wroclaw, Poland for one day

Italy August 12 – 18

Virginia August 19 – 27

Monterey August 27 – 31

that’s not me

Breaking news:

Try & Make is no longer what it used to be!

Physical space is over, i gave the key back to our landlord a week ago.

Breaking news: we have a new book to explain it all.  It is called, try & make: a little experiment.

It is available to you in three different formats:

1. You can download it as a pdf for free, by clicking this right here:  try & make: a little experiment.  You reading this matters more to me than me making money.  Maybe this is why we could no longer afford a space?

2. I spent yesterday photocopying and stapling hand-made print versions of it, which I mailed to all the people who ever donated money to Try & Make.  I really mean it when I say that anyone who wants one can have one.  Send away for yours by writing to:

1112 E.  Market St. #22B

Charlottesville, VA 22902

Either just ask for one (so i have your address), or, if you are so inclined, send something (interesting thoughts, money) in exchange for it.

3. You can purchase it off the internet at Lulu.com for twelve dollars.  This is the only way that I make “money” off of what I have been working on  for nearly six weeks.  And, then you can own your very own professionally-bound and published Try & Make book!

Stay tuned for Try & Make‘s newest space-less foibles!!

we have a new book coming out hella soon!  It is a book called “Try & Make: a little experiment” and is investigating the meaning of the Try & Make project, socioeconomically, aesthetically, theoretically, culturally, socio-politically, emotionally, spatially, psychologically, geographically, art historically, and self-deprecatingly.

I know you’re probably thinking, “how navel-gazing and self-involved to write a book about yourself!  What does that do for anybody?” but that last question is pretty much what the book is about.

The best part about it: Try & Make members are going to be getting them in the mail FOR FREE.  For all of you other people who never supported me (just kidding?), you will be able to buy it off Lulu.com for twelve dollars.  Not like you will!
I also should add that the new book contains this image:

Heidi & Ashley

Sarah Jean Simmons

Meg Hamilton

Isabella Scott

Lisa Kittel

The opening event will be is this Friday, June 26th at 5 – 9 pm!

Update: what it looked like:

http://charlottesville.craigslist.org/art/1214456721.html

Dear friends of Try & Make,

I want to tell you that I am putting Try & Make up on the market…!  It will be available for purchase for $475, which will include one month’s use of the space, our personalized pencils and big orange bean bag, and a special certificate stating that you now officially own Try & Make.

Several things have led me to this decision, and I will do my best to explain them.  I will say that the project of Try & Make has been a big (little?) experiment for me– to attempt to translate my crazy ideas and desires about art into a concrete use of space and concrete projects and concrete events.  It started out on a really wonderful foot: getting the pencils in the mail felt great, Andrew and I had an amazing time installing his project, Paul’s book was a success, 70-something people came to our big party, we had enough new members to start with momentum, there was even a gossipy mention of me in the C-Ville Weekly.  Yet after some of the initial euphoria started to settle, I found myself getting down about things like what ways I could entice the people of Charlottesville to come in, how we could afford our rent and utilities, what ways could I come up with to raise money… (For example, an attempt to book a hard rock band show whose cover would be donated in part to the maintenance of the space fell through.  Then I thought, wait, I don’t want to even have hard rock shows.)  I am putting my energy and money into the costs of a space that might not even be integral to my ideas about art… in fact, it might actually be distracting me from them.  I can get more into explaining this at our event on Saturday.

Yet I love how much people in town got excited about the space.  Admittedly it is a really compelling (if sometimes maybe daunting) headquarters.  So, instead of letting it get dusty while I fail to feel like what I’m doing is saying what i’m trying to say, I will put it out there for others like YOU to use!

One or two astute people have mentioned that I might consider Try & Make less as a failure if I think of the whole endeavor as one big art project.  It is the whole of the experiment, from the idea of Try & Make months ago up to its selling now, that actually gets close to saying what I’ve been trying to say– not so much the brief and forced use of the physical space itself.  So, if I am the artist and this is my art piece, here is me trying to sell my work.

Please e-mail me if you’d like to buy it! We are having a Sale Event on Saturday at 7pm to discuss reasons for the selling, to negotiate price and situation with interested parties, and to drink wine.  I might add that $475 is actually significantly lower than an actual month of our rent.  It’s really quite a deal…!

love jaymee