the last weekend of the season at Holland Lake Lodge

We are always coming and going and living a busy life, but this year especially has been full of busy travels.  We are fortunate to travel, but the trips aren't always true vacations and it's become clear that we need to make room for breaks.  

Living in Missoula, luckily we don't have far to go for a retreat in the woods.  Even so, we compete with the tourists and everyone else living here for reservations.  We have friends who are Masters of tracking availability of the best Forest Service cabins, getting in the rotation for reservations a year in advance and watching for cancelations.  We, however, are not such dedicated retreat planners.  We schedule trips for work or family visits, and vacations for ourselves are sandwiched into the calendar.  And for a trip to the woods, I've grown more and more into a Princess about amenities.  It doesn't have to be deluxe, but simply put: I prefer having hot showers and a bed.  Plus, if we venture into bear territory, (Hello! We live in Montana and bears live here, too), I won't sleep a wink if I'm laying in a tent.  The older I get, the further my camping days are behind me if I get to choose.  

So what's the easiest getaway solution for people like me?  

1) Cabins & 2) OFF SEASON.       

Holland Lake  © Toni Matlock. 2012

In the middle of October, we slipped away to Holland Lake Lodge for a low-key weekend of rest and relaxation.  Even with rain and fog, perhaps even more so because of the weather, it was a beautiful and romantic, getaway weekend.

We stayed in the cozy Griz Den cabin.  (Cabins are limited and coveted, so it's best to reserve them far in advance.  We got lucky calling only a week in advance for the last weekend of the season.)

Bruce at the Grizz Den cabin, Holland Lake Lodge, 2012

Our misty view  from our cabin.

If we had wanted a camp fire, there's a fire pit in front of the cabin on the Lake's edge.

I do enjoy cooking and even welcome the sparsity and challenges of camp-cooking, but I also appreciate after a hike and a shower to simply stroll up to a Lodge with a good restaurant for drinks and dinner. At Holland Lake Lodge I can expect to enjoy a simple menu of well-prepared food and a decent glass of wine.  The Lodge is an intimate structure originally built in 1924 with additions and remodeling from the 30s.  It's not overdone like the  casino- or resort-style 'western' lodges scattered around the Rockies. For this Goldilocks, it's 'just right' comfort in the woods. You get the luxury of a well prepared meal while nestled into a gorgeous setting with a fire crackling nearby.   (You can also get a room in the Lodge.) 

Holland Lake Lodge on a rainy day, October 2012

If you go, be sure to say hello to our new friend, Gary, a toad we met on our first night along the path by the Lodge gift shop. 

Gary, the Toad, Holland Lake, 2012

Walking around the Lake, look for birds of prey waiting around in the top of a snag, like this eagle.

 
You can hike an easy couple of miles up to the Falls, which looks something like this.  

Holland Lake Falls, Toni Maltock © 2012

See Bruce?  He's the tiny figure wearing a blue jacket in the lower left portion of the frame.  He went ALL the way up to within a few feet of the falls.

You can sit on big rocks and look at the falls or turn around and have a view of the Lake.

Nothing to sneeze at, eh?  As the clouds shift the sunlight in and out, we took a few snaps to commemorate the rejuvenating weekend.

Then we scrambled back down this path to the Lodge for drinks and a delicious dinner.

Studio Note: Holland Lake is one of the primary locations for the art video that I made titled 'you don't hear me'.  A sample of that video is on my art website, ToniMatlock.com, (click) here.

Full disclosure: We are friends with the owner of Holland Lake Lodge, Christian, so we we can't help but have a behind-the-scenes appreciation of the Lodge's history and its operations.

For more photos of the Lodge, go to their Facebook fanpage, or follow their blog. Visit the HollandLakeLodge.com website for reservation information for next Spring or Summer. 

capturing velocity shooting days

My sculptural video installation, titled capturing velocity, was included in the Montana Triennial this year.  In the last week of the exhibition, my friend Doug Ness documented it for me.  
  
The final installation in the Missoula Art Museum looked like this.

capturing velocity, Toni Matlock, © 2012, photo Doug Ness

capturing velocity, detail, Toni Matlock, © 2012, photo Doug Ness

The projection of the video into the granules of salt made a slightly reflective and rough texture that looked something like this.

capturing velocity, detail of projection into salt grains, Toni Matlock, © 2012, photo Doug Ness

***

I shot the video footage over the course of 30 Spring days in Missoula, Montana.  

When it didn't snow or rain, shooting days usually looked something like this:

pointing west, Missoula, ©2012 toni matlock

watching wind, Missoula, ©2012 toni matlo

To follow posts of my artwork, see ToniMatlock.com. 

 
See my earlier post on the making of capturing velocity by clicking here, it's titled knocking myself out. 











See Doug Ness' photography website, too.

the making of a fairytale part 1

At salty snack studios we make movies and iPhone apps.  Last spring, Cassi James, a local Media Arts student at the University of Montana, came to us as an intern.  It's been outstanding working with her. 

Cassi put together a script for a short movie with one of our apps (Love's Book of Answers™) at the center of the story.  This summer we helped her make that movie. In an earlier post, I showed some video clips when we were scouting locations. 

We had clear sunny days, a Rock Star cast and crew, plus great luck on the timing of trains.  

The movie is in the final stages of post-production and will release this winter. Here are some behind-the-scenes photos.

Zach Smith, Bruce, Cassi, Jessica Mostad

The joys of a jib.

I find shooting a video camera can be a very sculptural process, even more so when the camera is moving - not sitting static on a tripod.  Bringing together a wide range of possible angles with movement is putting the camera on a jib arm on wheels.  Basically, sticking the camera on the end of a long arm, moving levers to tilt the camera, swinging the arm from the tripod support and then rolling the whole bit on a set of wheels collectively, gives a bigger range of motion than on a tripod or handheld.  It's elaborate but worth it.
   

camera at the end of a jib arm

After we release the movie, I'll explain (or you'll see) why for this shot we pulled the tripod and wheels off of the tracks that normally help smooth out a shot.  (The nut of it: we needed bumpy instead of smooth when rolling.)     

It's a combined effort, like an awkward dance, shooting this way.  I love it.

Bruce and I playing back clips in the camera and watching them through the tiny viewfinder.

The same week as the shoot, Clementine came from Jersey to be the first and only member of our unofficial salty snack studios' Boot Camp.  Clementine pitched in as a key member of the crew.  She's funny, smart and has a keen eye which was a big asset.  She also took many of the photos documenting the production.      

Clementine tightening bolts on the jib arm

Cassi's script required a few tricky scenes that were fun to problem solve.  Like, how do we show the Prince sword-fighting with a Dragon?

Without explaining the shot, since you don't know the script yet and haven't seen the movie yet either, simply observe how odd it can look when you are making a movie.  Notice Bruce has the camera on the bottom rung of the ladder.  I'm bracing the ladder-to-nowhere and Zach, as the Prince, is about to jump onto it.  Cassi is directing the scene.
 

Ready?  Action!

Zach Smith, Bruce, Toni, Cassi James

This was just day one of the shoot.  I'll post more photos from other days soon!

Photos © Clementine "Devo" and Toni Matlock