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Pete_Ipp.jpg, originally uploaded by hypermodern.

Hanging out with Mom in San Francisco fog and roses…

Over the past five years, I’ve been working very hard to make Jackson Manor very livable and professional, and I’m happy to say that with all the support, it’s been a great learning process, and ultimately a resounding success. Nearly 20 dancers have gone on to San Francisco Ballet and scores more are professional dancers throughout the world. Check out the San Francisco Chronicle article on the day-to-day life of 26 pre-professional dancers under one roof.

I am so very thankful for the support and contributions of Patricia Swanson, Kirsten Gamb, Jason Blackwell, Andrew Harvill, and especially Jim Sohm for being such a great mentor, and helping me develop as a manager through his calm and fair example.

I have been moving forward with my show installation bit by bit, and have been working on being diligent with my time while still having time to decompress and relax. Thank you for respecting my need to focus on myself a bit during this potentially stressful period.

I have keeping an old Chinese saying in mind, as excerpted from the Gold Mountain Monastery newsletter based here in San Francisco.

“I make my own destiny and seek my own fortune; fortune and misfortune are not predetermined but acquired by my own actions.”

The newsletter continues…

If we want to stop being muddled and attain understanding, we must first do our best to get rid of our bad habits and faults, for only then can our wisdom shine forth…

This day is already done,
And our lives are that much less.
We’re like a fish in an ever-shrinking pond.
What joy is there in this?
Great assembly!
We should be diligent and vigorous,
As if our own lives were at stake.
Only be mindful of impermanence,
And be careful not to be lax.

Moving forward, I do feel as though my artistic life is at stake at the moment, and I’m investing all my resources to make sure when the opening comes, I’m ready. Procrastination is a fault that I’m growing out of as I have more experience.

I’ve been handing out cards, getting photos ready, and making plans. I also just got a fortune cookie: “You believe in the goodness of mankind”. I do, and I’m excited to share in the joy more each day.

I got a Space Pen today, it is amazing. I highly recommend the bullet model shown above. It’s small enough to fit in a pocket, and it’s great to use for reading and annotating books while inverted in space…Or if you are laying on the couch.listen

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When I was a child, I was very adventurous. I have many scars on my body that remind me of stories…

I was born near Chicago Illinois in a small town called Oak Park.
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I lived at the corner of East Avenue and Randolph Street in an apartment with eight other families. Many of the families had children my age.

I was the only child in my family, had curly blond hair, I was tall for my age, and usually wore very colorful clothing. My mother shopped at used clothing stores, and bought me one pair of new shoes a year because I wore everything out so fast.

My parents made a rule that I was only allowed to watch one hour of television per day. The two shows I watched religiously were Alf and Pee Wee’s Playhouse. But I always wanted to watch more cartoons, and my parents said no.

Because of this restriction, my favorite thing to do when I was a child was play outside with my two best friends Gary and Sam

Every day the three of us would meet to ride our bikes around the front and side yards of the apartment. We invented all sorts of games. And spent a lot of time hanging from trees, and combining sports. The best one was baseball on roller-skates, I got a concussion, but that’s another story.

One day Sam was sick and I wanted to ply outside. I walked over to Gary’s door, rang the bell, and asked his mother “Can Gary come out to play?”

“Of course,” she replied, “but I have to go to the store, so can he stay over at your house later?”

“My mom said he’s welcome any time.”

Gary came out and we started looking for something to do. Around the corner, near the alley, was a shopping cart. We decided that it would be a great idea to give rides to each other. Gary was a year younger and a little smaller than I was. We decided that he should get the first ride, and I should push.

I had used a similar cart at our local grocery store, named Jewel. The cart was tall, awkward and rusty. The wheels didn’t roll straight, and the basket was bent to one side. It looked like a car had hit it.

Gary climbed in, and moved up to the front of the basket. He wrapped his fingers between the metal bars and got a good grip. He was bracing himself with his knees pressed into the front corner, and his head poked out and looked like a gargoyle.

Immediately I lunged at the orange handle, and started to push with all my strength. I began to run very fast. Gary and I were laughing together when all of the sudden there was a crack in the sidewalk. The cart stopped instantly, and the ejection of Gary’s body began. His fingers were still between the metal of the cart, and because of this, his feet went over his head and it looked like he was standing on his hands or diving into a swimming pool.

While Gary was upside down, my body stayed in the same path, and I crashed into the card with much force. Both of our bodies and the cart tangled into one great heap of metal and flesh. Gary landed on his face with the cart on top of him, and me on top of the cart. His cheek looked like ground beef.

Both of us got up with fear in our eyes…(but not because we were bleeding)

“Oh no! I ripped my pants and got blood on my shirt!” Gary shouted. “My mother is going to KILL me!”

Both of my palms were skinned, and I replied, “Well, try not to bleed on it…”

We thought and thought, and finally came up with a story of how we got hurt. And decided that falling out of a tree seemed reasonable. After all, Sam had broken his arm falling out of a tree earlier that year.

The door to my family’s un air-conditioned apartment was open to let in the fresh summer breeze so we just walked right in. I shouted up the stairs, “MoooOOOOoom, Gary fell out of a tree, and skinned his face.”

She reacted quickly and covered the wound with aloe and vitamin E, and for the rest of the day we got to stay inside and sit on the couch…

The biggest surprise to us, was that she never yelled about the clothes, the best part, for the rest of the day we got to watch all the television we wanted…

“…if you take responsibility for what you do, that’s a person’s worth. Just because you have a debt doesn’t mean you’re not valuable…”

-Larry Ippel

I had been trying for many weeks with a men’s ball, and successfully dunked a smaller than regulation ball that I could palm (one of the pizza hut final four balls) at Shabbona middle school in 1992.

My “Street Ball” was so bald from outdoor use. It was a Christmas present from my father, my first new basketball ever from 4th grade, used for hundreds of games of horse, one/one, and thousands of shots.

It had the skyline of Chicago screen printed on it in white on the blue side, and the words “Street Ball” screened on the orange side in blue ink…I always wondered why the basketball was in Chicago Bears colors.

It was on July 21 1993, that I dunked cleanly (a right hand left footer) for the very first time on a black rimmed Huffy graphite slam-jam hoop in the Ravine Woods apartment complex in Morris, Illinois. It was a warm night and I had gone out with the specific intention to shoot around and try a few dunks…

After the successful execution, I ran in and told my mom and immediately autographed it with a blue Sharpie marker on the orange side and retired the ball. It made the move with me from Ravine woods to the house at 617 E. Washington, but never out of the dusty basement ball bucket it was in. I set that ball free yesterday.

I also found a Wheaties Michael Jordan poster from Dave Depasqua, probably from 1988-1989…he wrote on the back “Dear Pete, The day is coming when you slam and jam like the stars. Keep practicing Pistol Pete. Love, Dave”

It’s been a while, and I’ve had so much going on, but suffice it to say, I’ve been skating at 2 parks on Monday, the weekend was filled with moving and getting furniture (new to me) and photographing a party, meeting with a client, and this Thursday I have a performance and Friday I have another meeting. I’m excited that things are finally coming in, after two pretty dry months, where I was doing a lot of contacting, and not much response. It feels really good.

Still no permanent job, but I keep thinking I would love to have that Ti G4 Laptop with the DVD burner……so what do I do…try to work with in my means and fix up the dog. I went from a 300w to a 500w power supply thinking that it was the last problem I could troubleshoot hardware wise, because I’ve already done everything else I can think of. Anywho I get home, install the new power plant and open every program I can. It runs great, then poof…doggie hangs. So much for that idea, but I did think it was under powered, and this new one has another fan, and is considerably quieter than the 300w, go figure. I had another blunder today too, my v200 geek phone stopped working, this is my third unit now, as the speaker phone continues to stop working for me. It’s so frustrating to hear but not be heard. Anyway, while I was at Verizon, I had to hand write over 200 numbers because they don’t have the software to take care of transferring it. SO what I thought would be a 5 min exchange was a 1.5 hour dialog. I had fun and it was Friday so no worries. I don’t know what I’m going to do if it happens again. I got Tizz some shoes today, ’cause she needs em.

So I made my first wide angle skate video today, talked with TZ for hours, had a student community meeting, got to go to an opening, read Rolling Stone and Thrasher, and yet I’m still up. I have a huge week coming, calls are finally coming in from the networking I’ve been doing so that’s positive. I may have a freelance photo gig soon. Hope so.

This weekend was a memorable one, not only did I meet to help decide the future of SFAI, but I went to Sonoma county and learned how whine is made. I documented it with 35mm film, as well as my own memory. I really like the way the country looks up that way. Such a different feel than to here. I got to see some leaves change, and had a fire for the first time in a long time.

Thanks to Eric, Page, Paul and Kevin for a wonderful trip.

So I went with the “surfer dude” costume, and the carnival atmosphere was awesome. The only problem is that I didn’t have a flash on my camera, but the scavenger hunt was excellent, and the costumes were fun, and well, I have a lot to do tomorrow, but I”m stoked that I went out and forgot about things for a few hours. It was really refreshing.

Happy Halloween everyone…I’m headed to Castro, but I still need a costume.

Lots happened today, I had the grad council meeting and I don’t have to re-take art history, they changed the requirements and I’m getting “grandfathered” in. I should I had 20 credits of art hist. and they thought I was not qualified.

I am going to be applying to the Jacob J. Javits fellowship again this year, I want to winnnnnnnnnnnnn! I may be going to Santa Rosa this weekend to shoot a winery. That should be fun. So much is going on, but I still need a job.

Headed off to battle financial aid…

Geez.

Scared about getting rent in this month, good news is though that I may be able to get a loan for work study money. Also I’m trying to get a design job working with Focus International. I hope that works out. I’ve been spending so much time job hunting, I’m sure it will pay off soon. It’s been over a month that I’ve been looking. I am finally getting in a cycle. I feel more comfortable every week here in SF.

I went skating today and actually got a two truck grind and landed it. Thank goodness for the little ledge on McArthur St.

Free Memory II was a success, and went a lot faster this time, only 23 minutes. I am still looking for a job, and it’s getting really scary, because I don’t know if I’m going to make rent this month. I have to do a lot of searching for funds before Friday. Open studios was well attended I think, however, since I’m not a painter, I felt a bit out of place. Perhaps if I get my film developed and make some more big prints I’ll be ok. My work is strong, but I am not sure how many people actually looked at it at the open studios. I gave away some stickers, so maybe they looked at home.

Feels like network art is the wave of the future, but I need funds now.

mmmmm

Psyched about open studios tomorrow, I will be showing this new work. Talked to the rentals for a long time tonight, and they’re finally getting plugged in. IM, email, and internet at the same time! Wheeeeeeee! Anywho, I went out to eat tonight for the first time since Tizz left, and I can say for $4.88 you get the best meal in the hood from Cancun Burrito Mojado.

Got plans for Turkey Day. LA baby, just got to figure out when and how to get there. I’m stoked, and need to figure out rent first. Maybe I can trick or treat to 802 houses for a dollar each, if I start now, perhaps I can finish by Nov. 1.

Look for part two of Free Memory tomorrow at 12:00 noon UN plaza (don’t forget to set your clocks…)

Well, another Friday lecture down the tubes, I wonder if it’s a prerequisite to be an awful speaker if you’re being a visiting lecture. Tonight she was yawning to her own slides, AND THEY’RE HER SLIDES! It’s a damn good thing I’m becoming an artist, because I want to create change when I come back to SFAI, people will have fun, and the lecture is going to be SHORT, because I don’t want to waste grad student’s time.

In other news open studios is tomorrow, and I’m stoked.

In other, other news, I want to high jump so bad I can taste it, and I finally have a goal, I want to compete in the State Games of America in CT this summer. I’ve got a long way to go, as I’m a bit soft right now.

Gotta tone down the skating too, my left hip is getting funky from skating 6 miles a day to and from the studios…skate to stay young.

So I”m still awake, I am sooooooooo tired, but tonight I just couldn’t get off the phone with Tizz. We talked about a lot of things, and one of them was how it’s unfair to live on the West Coast. I get more time. But I just get different time. Critique went well, although I ran out of time, but I said my piece, and got a bit of positive support. I just have a lot of work head of me. Obay.

I went to the world series game last night, got a ticket stub from a guy that bailed in the 4th inning, it was a 175 dollar skybox seat. I couldn’t believe he was leaving. I tried to get in, but the bar code on my stub wouldn’t let me, and then I just watched the game from the foot bridge. Some other REAL fans and I cheered and sneered at the people leaving. We were hopeful for the 6 run rally in the 9th. Also a mentally challenged guy named John gave me an MLB pin, anonymous gifts are wonderful, and a drug dealer offered me to buy the I-Ride skateboard I built for 200 dollars. Of course I declined. Overall, a good night.