Rachel Blumberg, Archeology, pencil, watercolor and gouache, 6" x 8"

American, b. 1969, playing from Providence, RI, USA

Rachel Blumberg is a visual artist, musician/composer, film maker and educator. As a visual artist she makes paintings, drawings found object pieces and other work inspired by a dream land, folklore, history, nature and people’s stories. She show regularly as well as creating many commissioned works. As a musician she has collaborated with many widely acclaimed artists including the Decembrists, M. Ward, Bright Eyes, She and Him, Tara Jane O’Neill, Jolie Holland and many more. She has composed music for the Portland Cello Project and her own music project, Arch Cape. As a film maker she creates stop motion animated shorts and music videos, including a recent music video for the New York based band Nada Surf (Barsuk Records). As an educator she teaches drumming, music and mixed media arts to kids and adults privately, in workshops, camps, and she has also worked for many public and private schools and not-profits. She recently located form her native home of Portland, Oregon to Providence, Rhode Island.

Thoughts on the Telephone process

I love this whole idea. I loved translating. I love the poem sink/hole. But it took a long time. I tried a lot of different things. I kept going down different roads. I kept starting new projects with it in mind. It informed many new works, but wasn’t the piece for Telephone. I kept thinking I was almost there. But I wasn’t. The poem was many layered and I couldn’t quite find it. But I guess that is the best thing. Because it keeps needing to be discovered and then hidden and then rediscovered. I finally made this last thing, and while it still doesn’t feel exactly right, it feels pretty right. I had to finish. I’d like to do it again and hope it won’t take me so long. I feel bad that it did and that I held up the line.