U. City Musicians Will Go Home Again In 2014

Hello again everyone. Before I shot the first frame of video for this project back in March of 2011, I thought long and hard about a couple of things.

First, I really thought a lot about how I wanted to distribute all of the different potential outputs that I'd be able to get out of all of the interviews I hoped to conduct and events I hoped to set up. (i.e. websites, social media, CDs, DVDs, gallery shows, concerts, etc.) Second, I knew that I wanted to try my best to involve as many different people from the University City diaspora as possible in the production and presentations for the project as possible. By having long time former U. City music teacher Diane Davenport and native U. Citian Cara Reedy on board helping with general project support early on in the process, I'd alredy kicked off fulfilling the latter of these two items.

Now I am very happy to announce a brand new output for the documentary project that will help fulfill both of the big objectives that I've set out so far. I, along with two fellow members of the University City class of 1988 (Traci Moore Clay and Tom Seltzer), will be creating the official University City calendar for the year of 2014 which will be based around the musicians, artists, and teachers captured on camera throuoghout this documentary project process.

Producers of the calendar (from L to R): Traci Moore Clay, Tom Seltzer, Rod Milam, all from the U. City High School Class of 1988

After getting her degree in Magazine Journalism at the University of Kansas, Traci moved back to U. City and has stayed. She is the owner of her own design company, Traci Moore Graphics, on the corner of North & South and Delmar (for us old heads...above where Petrosky's used to be), and is a graphic design instructor at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University. Traci has been involved with many St. Louis and national projects over her years in the business, proud to teach her craft to others, and very proud to still call U. City her home.

After getting his degree in History at Columbia University in New York City, Tom has called Brooklyn, New York home, but will always be a U. City kid. He is an illustrator, graphic designer, and marketing specialist as the owner of his own company, Seltzer Studio Graphics. Tom has been involved with many national and international design projects, his own original art exhibits, and is working on his first graphic novel "Part-Time Dog" which uses fellow UCHS c/o 1988 member Rob Brown as the physical model for the story's protagonist. Tom also designed the Sounding The Chord logo that you can see all over this website.

With thanks to the University City Municipal Commission of Arts and Letters for trusting this project to a trio of daughters and sons of the River Des Peres, we will be able to actually put all of the the artists that I capture on camera during this first Sounding The Chord phase of the project back in the homes that they spent at least some time growing up in AND put this collaborative piece of artwork into each and every home in University City. This calendar will truly be About U. City, By U. City, and For U. City through and through...and I can't think of anything more appropriate than that.

If you want to stay up to date on what pictures are likely to show up in this calendar, then make sure you check in regularly on this site at http://milamnyc.com/ucmusicdocstills since I try to post official versions of pictures that I take as soon as I'm done with interviews. You should also make sure to "Like" the Facebook page and join the main Pinterest page for the project and share the info with all of your friends.

Again, I'm very, very happy to have the opportunity to put some of this story and artwork into the homes of all of the people of my hometown so that U. Citians can see some of the history of what we have done in the past and see some of the promise that the future holds for the culture of the arts that embodies all of us. I can't wait to get going on this project as next summer's deadline approaches.

Thanks!!

Rod Milam