I was able to escape to the San Juan mountains where I was the Artist in Residence for this year’s Ouray International Film Festival. It’s been a really dark, deathly year for me, and I kept telling people “oh, I’ll back around in a couple of weeks” or “I’ll come up for air in a couple of months” and suddenly I found myself holed up in the dark, away from my loved ones for months.
.
OIFF 2024 was a reunion of artist friends I made last year and a chance to make new artist friends as well. I didn’t take as many pics this time because I’d spent so much time working on my new presentation of ATTACK, DECAY, RELEASE - inserting new footage surrounding Pride, Ukraine, and Pride in Ukraine. I spent a lot of time away from folks to rehearse the music and projection maps. Also…I was slowly coming out of that death hole. And when I finally screened the movie while performing the music live, I was worried I’d bore the shit out of the audience but by the end of the show everyone was bouncing all around the dance floor, screaming my lyrics back at me. A lot of these amazing artists and filmmakers told me I’d moved them to tears but what they don’t know is that they pulled me out of that dark hole I’d been festering in for quite some time. Maybe we all pulled each other out of darkness this week.
.
During our eventual all-night session (in which I managed to stay up for forty hours straight) I said to Ben Wiessner, “there’s something magical about believing in a group of people who all believe in each other…and they all believe in me the way I believe in them. That’s healing.”
.
Thank you @ourayfilmfest for taking me as your Artist-in-Residence for the year. As expected, the experience was magical, empowering, sobering and galvanizing, with no cynicism; just humanity. And to everyone that touched me this time around, you’ve given me gifts that I’ll be carrying into the future. I hope I’ve given you the same. I think I’ll go promote a movie now.
xoxohp
PS. IG only allows 20 tags, sorry if I didn’t get to you! I’m doing this while boarding a flight…✈️
