First Friday Window Installation Launch Party!!!

We are so excited to announce, that in a occasion of pure serendipity, we will be featuring empoweredME as a month long window installation at the Phoenix Village Arts Center,207 Bridge St, Phoenixville!

There is no better excuse to have a party than this, right?!! So we are going to lump in First Friday as part of our shindig! The event will run from 6-9pm on March 2nd at the studio of Brian Mengini, 209 Bridge St Phoenixville.

The reception will include music, light refreshments, you can view the window installation ANNNNNDDDD…. wait for it… you can have your own FREE empoweredME portrait taken. You do not need to be a dancer for this, you just need to want to take a stand against cancer and show it you are empowered!

As we were planning this event, which kinda fell in our lap yesterday, we thought… Hmmm, well we will be offering refreshments, why not sell some lemonade and raise some monies for Alexs Lemonade Stand? Makes sense, right? I mean people drink at receptions, lemonade is tasty. So that is what we will do! We will use this as an opportunity to do even more good!

What an amazing night this will be!!! Please make sure you go and bring ALL of your friends!!

Empowered Me Update 10/28/11

Wow! What a wonderful response we continue to get on this series! So amazing to be able to create art and affect people deeply and emotionally with it. I mean, that is what we strive to do as artists, create meaningful work. For me, I love to create beautiful, elegant art but also love to create content that stirs the emotions, moves you, leaves you feeling something. Empowered ME did that. Lucky is he who can achieve this! It is in this spirit that I have an announcement to make…

I am excited to inform you that we are moving into the next phase with this project! We will be transitioning out of shooting new work and delving into exhibits of what we have created! The end of November will mark the end of new shoots for Empowered ME. When I took this project on, I knew I wanted to do it for a definitive period of time, so I could get these ideas out of my head and onto dancers. I did not want to take on a new long term project which happens easily to me because of how excited and passionate I am about what I do. Artistically speaking, I want to ensure I am putting out content that I am proud and excited about and to make sure the work is original. I fear that if we continue, this will falter. So, to make sure we leave a lasting impression, we are going to stop “while on top.” We do have a few more shoots lined up for November and tons of unreleased images to present, so you will continue to see new images for a few months yet, I think!

As I said, its a new phase. We are now working to exhibit these prints. Our first showing will be in January of 2012 as part of Koresh’s Artistic Showcase in Center City Philadelphia. In addition, we are looking at other venues to exhibit the work, including cancer treatment centers. This is an exciting part of the process for me! This will bring a reality or tangibility of these images to people, which is just wonderful! Digital images can certainly move you, but seeing a print in front of your face offers you a connection, a realness, that you don’t get online. Hopefully, these brave families will see these images and feel a sense of hope or strength. Hopefully it will give them some sort of positive feeling.

I hope you all will stay with us on this journey and continue to support our efforts and images. We will still have updates and events, so fear not!

Thanks!!

Empowered ME Update ~ 10/21/11

So, we have had a couple more shoots for this project since my last blog entry and we have a few more signed on. This project is taking on a whole new life – moreso than what I thought it would or even planned. However, being an artist and liking things to happen organically, I am not standing in the way of this momentum.

Over the new few weeks and months, we will be sharing more exciting news as things firm up including some big names in dance who will be participating as well as info on showings! Ah, but we must wait for that news.

BUT… I do have SOME exciting news to share with you NOW! Just in time for Christmas, we are releasing images in print form!! These special prints are 8×8 Square Metallic prints. These prints will sell for only $15, plus shipping/handling! We have listed some samples below so you can see what they will look like. Each will have a small border and will bear the Empowered ME text on them. EVERY image you see listed on our galleries can be ordered in print. Larger sizes are available (10×10, etc). You can even get them as gallery wrapped canvas!!!

We also have a brand new behind the scenes video featuring, Kira, who is depicted in that last photo and who also is a dancer with cancer! This video gives you some insight as to how and why she got involved with this project and some footage of us in action… well, here in action!

Here is the video:

Lastly, but certainly not least, we have our very first sponsor for this project! Tutu.Com will be sponsoring us through some leos and tutus for the project! We get our first one today for a childhood cancer shoot this weekend!!!

Please check out their Facebook page below!!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/TutuCom/54783047781

Our Facebook album:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150312905957293.341592.256421562292&type=3

Ballet Fleming’s Jane Koorts

I met Jane when I first started to work with Ballet Fleming. She is one of their dancers and is involved with their affiliate school, Philadelphia Ballet School.

As is the case with most co-workers, you become closer and get to know each more over time. Jane and I really hit it off. I would hang around the office while she was doing admin stuff and we’d just shoot the bull. Jane was very helpful in my planning my trip to London as she lived there for years. This was just another topic that we’d get excited to chat about.

In June, we had our dance for dreams gala. With the gala, there was a silent auction table. Jane was the winner of the custom made Black Swan tutu from Tutu.com. With this, she also got a free photo shoot. I had shot Jane in class, rehearsal and on stage but never any studio work, so I was really excited to work with her. She was also the second Ballet Fleming dancer to win a shoot with me which was nice.

We finally set a date to shoot and both were very excited. It had been a long time since she had done a shoot so she was excited for that as well. As we were leading up to the shoot, I approached her about participating in my Empowered ME project, which she was excited about. I was excited to get her in the studio to help me get out of a funk. I needed to get in the studio and be me. I needed to create amazing content. I needed to be inspired.

The shoot was amazing as I expected it would be. We chatted, we danced. Ok, well she danced. I LOVE the connection I have with my dancers. I love just chatting as we work. During the course of the shoot, we did about 4 wardrobes or so plus the cancer series. We also took a mini break and I filled her in on my London trip.

I had so much fun with Jane. We created some amazing images. We talked. We laughed. We even did some cool new self portraits of me. What I did not anticipate was how impactful and powerful the Empowered ME images we created would be. They really set the tone for the project.

Here are some teasers from our shoot. Enjoy!