Live Music and Poster Design

Do you remember the last show you went to before the pandemic?

For me it was Maya Bennett’s show at the Roxy, previously known as The Syntax Physic Opera. Maya had asked me to take photos for the show that night on March 7th of 2020. I remember the coronavirus was beginning to make headlines and the talk of a city-wide shutdown was in the back of everyone’s mind.

Despite my own paranoia to stay home, I rode my bike down to the Roxy and arrived late. Late enough for people to show up before me, so I’m not the only one there and can blend in more easily as an introvert. It was a Saturday night and the people were outside congregating and smoking American Spirits. I walked through the front door and said hello to Eve, a longtime friend and doorman of the establishment. They let me through and I found my way toward the stage. The opening group was wrapping up cables. As Maya and the band began taking their place, I remember being fully immersed in the moment and thankful I was there. The music started and soon Maya’s voice filled the room. I snapped a few photos and found a quiet corner of the bar to edit and send some over to her.  

I have a passion for live show photography, it’s one of my favorite ways to be present and experience the music.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that experience lately. So even though we can’t go to concerts and shows right now I have been channeling that desire into poster design. The goal is to make a band poster every week that conveys the band's style of music and genre. Here are a few posters I've made for a few musicians here in Denver. If you like these posters you can follow me on Instagram at @hallanadium

I'm excited to share this process with you all.

BAND CREDITS AND LINKS BELOW:

Maya Bennett  

The Corner Girls

The Other Black

Kiltro

Joseph Lamar

This Time Next Year

Sipping on green tea in Cap Hill, thinking about where I want to be in the next year. I know I want to move to New York City but where I want to be in life is still unclear.

This year has been life changing for me. Through trial and error I’ve formed new habits for my well being and have taken root in my daily creative practice. I don’t know where my life is going or where I’ll end up, but I feel confident I’m on the right path. There are three creative practices I do everyday. The vlogs, posters, and writing. The vlogs are a documentation of my creative journey. The daily posters are an expression of my creativity in the digital art space. My writing is an attempt to transcribe my practice and expression into words.

I’ve committed to this for the forceable future. Making creative work for the past 56 days has forced structure in my life that wasn’t there before. Structure that was desperately needed to make it through this year. This time next year I hope to have made daily practice even stronger. As for now I’ll make the most out of this present moment with family, friends, and those who are close to me.

Completely Unoriginal

My work is completely unoriginal and I’ve been aware this entire time. I hear a voice in the back of my mind, whispering, “you’re not good enough. I't never goes away.

Sometimes it bothers me sometimes it doesn’t. Earlier today I was trying to sketch this church in my neighborhood. I’m looking at it now and completely hate it. I look at these vlogs and hate them too. I look at everything I’ve made and just want to delete it all and start over. As much as I want to I don’t, because thats not the process, thats not my process.

Today I decided that it doesn’t matter if I’m not good enough. My purpose is to understand the world around me through different points of reference. When I’m making a poster, editing photos or learning a new program I’m exercising my creative eye to see things differently or just the way they are. One skill I’ve learned this year is the practice to quiet my mind and be present in the moment. I’m still learning this, but now I understand. My practice moving forward is learning to see. I’m only scratching the surface of what this is.

It feels like a new chapter in my life. The turn of a page and the opening of a new door.

December 21st, 2020

It’s nice outside on this Monday afternoon. It hardly feels like winter. All the snow has melted away into sheets of ice trapped behind buildings and alleyways. I might go for a walk later. It’s exciting to think about the new year, and that this year is finally coming to an end. I think it’s better to live in the present though. Thats what I’m trying to do.

My main focus for this year has been managing my time and making space for the creative projects that are important to me right now. So I”ll break the projects into manageable portions through out the day. My first objective is to establish a consistent routine of making content every day. Although the quality of my work is very low, I believe overtime my personal style will improve, same goes for my graphic design and illustrative work. As of right now I’m still learning the basics of the applications, but because I’m practicing everyday I’m pushing myself to learn and refine my skills, and that’s what matters to me.

December 20th, 2020

I slept on my futon last night. I try not to do that because I always wake up stiff. I don’t mind around this time of year though, because across my futon is this raggedy old Christmas tree I bought from Goodwill, fake and loosely covered in multi colored lights. I’ve been making the most out of quiet nights to myself, watching movies, and drinking wine, sometimes beer. During the winter I revert to a nice red I can pair with dinner. Last night I watched, “The Cat Returns”, directed by Hiroyuki Morita, a Studio Ghibli film. I fall in love with the use of color and attention to detail every time I watch a Ghibli movie. So last night I fell asleep, consumed in color and it was lovely. Now I sit in the morning light as I sip some coffee and plan my day. I’m just taking a moment to be thankful for this morning and today. I’m going to begin my concept draft for today’s poster design.

Day_031 - Facing My Fears

I met with my therapist today. We talked about fear and how the parts of my life I’m afraid of. In the moment it was hard for me to grasp but now I see the areas of my life I runaway from. Things like posting vlogs to youtube and writing leave me hiding away in distractions. I do not feel comfortable with my writing at all. In college I would do whatever it took to avoid a writing assignment. I would wait till the last minute to finish a paper. My fear kept me from picking up the pen all through out school. Writing everyday has helped though. Eventually I’ll take a writing class, but there’s plenty of online resources I can get into.

I am most afraid of updating my portfolio. Parts of me think my work as a photographer isn’t enough, but thats not true. I have about 8,000 photos I need to go through. A hundred of those photos are definitely portfolio worthy. The work I’ve done for 303 Magazine in Denver, all the live shows I’ve captured, all the portraits I’ve taken, and all the adventures I’ve had are currently in my cloud storage. Deep in my heart I’m still afraid of my work is insufficient. While there may be some truth to that, I just look it as room for improvement. In the meantime I’m going to take every opportunity to learn new skills.

Day_030

Sometimes I have to remind myself it’s ok to be sad, It’s ok to be depressed. I’ll get to a place in my day where it feels like I’m mentally paralyzed, like I can’t think about anything else but my unhappiness. After I get home from work I’ll stare at the wall and mope around my apartment. It’s pathetic I know, but I’ll do it. Then this magical moment will happen when I really think about the day I had, and things slowly start to come into perspective. I start to take inventory of the people and opportunities I’m thankful for. I’m so lucky to work in a shop where my boss genuinely cares about everyone who works there, and that includes me.

I had to ask for less shifts on bar, and my boss and co-workers have been picking up the extra hours I’m not there, which I’m incredibly thankful for and they know that. Less time behind the bar allows me to do some much needed healing and self care. So that what the journaling and vlogs have been about. (I’m not going to link that here, because I’m not ready to share that stuff. Although its public so anyone can go watch them.) Uploading daily vlogs to youtube fall in line with my passion for storytelling and it’s a good way to track my progress relating to mental health.

If you practice something everyday you will get better. The task will get easier. For the past 30 days i’ve been fully present in my life and have acknowledged the state of my mental health everyday. Coping with my depression has been less of a daunting task. Creating something everyday has made it easier to move forward.

I almost didn’t write this. It’s 4am and I suddenly became very insecure and started to think everything I’m doing is stupid and pointless. That is straight up fear and resistance. I think if I feel that I should push through.

Reaching Out

Yesterday I talked with Lucas Garcia, Co-Founder of Compassionate Colorado, a Denver based organization which delivers aid to indigenous communities. We talked for a good half-hour on the work he does .It was inspiring to hear his story. I believe that reaching out to community leaders like Garcia and hearing their stories is important. It’s absolutely crucial to credit and share those stories with others.

I don’t know about you but isolating for 8 months has been challenging for my mental health. Often times I find myself trapped in my own state of depression, so much to the point where I forget that there’s an entire world out there dealing with issues and traumas of their own.

One day I asked the. question, “ I wonder how other people are coping, all things considered?” That one question lead to a short email thread with a college professor I knew from Metro State University. This is how I came to know Garcia, by an email describing the work he does with his non-profit. It intrigued me so I reached out. Next thing I knew we were talking over zoom. He was excited to talk with me and invited me to go on a delivery run with him. I said I’d be down. I told him why I reached out. I want to collect audio interviews of other peoples experience during this troubling year. The objective is to expand my perspective on what this year has been like for others. Interviews like the one I had with Garcia will be stringed together in a documentary format.

I’ve been trying to do this for years. Now I finally have the habits and routines to make it real. To make it actual to really finish something from start to finish. There have been a lot of failed projects over the years, or ones I’ve just never finished. Life happened and is still happening, but most importantly I let fear and resistance stand in my way. I was afraid of what would happen if I give my everything into a project. What happens to me if that project fails. I’ve learned by trial and error that I’m still here even if my project flops. The only thing left to do is to try again or move on to something else.

Small Talk and Documentaries

There’s a person who lives in my building, she’s cute and I want to talk to her but I can’t. It’s not because I’m incapable of talking to someone, it’s because I’m afraid of intimacy. In my head I’m thinkingI no one wants to talk to me. I mostly feel like this when I get off work, like everyone is just waiting for me to leave. To be honest, I don’t want to be there either. I know it’s all in my head but it doesn’t change the way I feel. This is why I like making documentaries, because having a documentary project gives me a purpose, a reason and motivation to talk to someone new. I’m just lonely, that’s all it really comes down to. There’s me out here in this world trying to find ways to connect with people. The format of documentary filmmaking is interesting because it’s both intimate and professional. There’s a clear line between you and the subject. The subject allows you to come in to their world, and as a filmmaker you learn to see what they see. I like this method because I’m not the one doing the sharing, that terrifies me. Photography and documentary filmmaking has trained me to see the world from a new perspective. I’ve learned to listen to the stories of people I’ve interviewed.

An intimate connection where chemistry is present is something a little more challenging. Such a connection requires me to be vulnerable and open. I tend to push people away in fear, because i’m afraid of loosing someone I connect with.

I’m not going to talk to her, I mean really talk to her. Outside of the occasional small talk we might have when passing one another, I’m not going to make any extra effort to get to know her. The reason is because I’m not emotionally available or mentally ready.

Let me explain, I don’t like where I am in life right now. I just spent six hours working at a coffee shop. It was cool when I was a young 20 something working my way through school. Now that I’m graduated I see that it’s just not for me anymore. To be clear, I’m so incredibly thankful for the opportunities I’ve had to work in some of Denver’s best coffee shops. I need change though, and by change I mean, I need a new challenge that will allow me to grow in a sustainable way. After six hours of working behind the bar, I have to go home and focus on revising my portfolio and resume. I’m trying to find a sustainable career path that suits me. I have no idea how to do this, so it’s requiring all my energy and focus. So right now, theres no available attention to give to someone else. As badly as I want to be in a relationship, I just can’t right now and it’s the way it has to be.

There’s still small talk though. It’s not much but it’s something. I can have short conversations with 6 feet of distance. Now that we live in a world where being isolated is the new normal, I appreciate the random talks with strangers, at work, outside of work, wherever I can get them really. In a new world where everyone bump elbows, small talks might be all we have for a while.