tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61916390252121514552024-02-07T04:53:17.392-08:00NotebookI started this blog when I was living in Germany and following the breadcrumb trails of old. Now I am back in the States and these are my stories about creating art and living creatively. I keep an eye out for the fantastic and archetypical in the every-day.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-53628924506315313322014-03-28T11:07:00.000-07:002014-03-28T11:11:55.831-07:00Hanging in Space<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Pa4CrEd6kMzq0OzYE9oP8RKWKPghzWH3uajWfgvUFjVK83_QBIMVctLt_e-JmwnB-iml3Ifu8IeAcgD8ComqHn1w-0tI2FiJ6g0i4IWm8saErJ974QiDq75PQo_erfhXxq4sjV96-uqu/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-28+at+1.06.37+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8Pa4CrEd6kMzq0OzYE9oP8RKWKPghzWH3uajWfgvUFjVK83_QBIMVctLt_e-JmwnB-iml3Ifu8IeAcgD8ComqHn1w-0tI2FiJ6g0i4IWm8saErJ974QiDq75PQo_erfhXxq4sjV96-uqu/s1600/Screen+Shot+2014-03-28+at+1.06.37+PM.png" height="216" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">One of my paintings is hanging in Artsy! Artsy is an online platform of high res images of artworks from museums and galleries around the world that is accessible to anyone. I asked the founder at a tech talk in 2012, when it was first laun</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">ching, if it had space for emerging artists (who didn't have representation or showed in unusual places) or if it would be reinforcing the authority of the gatekeepers that be. He said, without remorse, that it would be the later. But kudos to Victori Contemporary for meeting their bar. And to Artsy for its democratic, wide reach.</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-10259688778698774552014-01-13T15:31:00.000-08:002014-01-13T15:33:29.035-08:00Sundance<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyfNUcHjMhgAZ2rRN9sQlAJ5FZ7RNM49vgNwBh195Py70lWLfUDlYE-nardbf47crcOLoH7jA9MTg95Nk7xVHLcmMgWjWPlhhsZpXbcYunERJqbT4IDgxd-o0eU_Xhv1g58RFHmAcMSlhh/s1600/Santigold-Wangechi-Mutu-The-End-Of-Eating-Everything.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyfNUcHjMhgAZ2rRN9sQlAJ5FZ7RNM49vgNwBh195Py70lWLfUDlYE-nardbf47crcOLoH7jA9MTg95Nk7xVHLcmMgWjWPlhhsZpXbcYunERJqbT4IDgxd-o0eU_Xhv1g58RFHmAcMSlhh/s400/Santigold-Wangechi-Mutu-The-End-Of-Eating-Everything.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Still from 'The End of Eating Everything,' A film by Wangechi Mutu</span></div>
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The night before the shoot, I swung by the cavernous Clinton
Hill studio to spritz and stretch the winkles out of the green screen, set up
the makeup station – complete with black latex body paint, and thread the room
with extension cords. </div>
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The next morning, <a href="http://www.okayplayer.com/news/santigold-awangechi-mutu-the-end-of-eating-everything-animated-short-film.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Wangechi and Santigold</span></a> discussed the
creature they were forming. Wangechi, pregnant in a skull t-shirt, and
Santigold, decked in shimmering bronze makeup, growled at each other until
Santigold took the form of the beast Wangechi had birthed. She snarled and
hissed, reared and snapped and became the face that Wangechi would build an
animation around.</div>
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I was the Production Manager for this video, ‘The End of
Eating Everything,’ which was just accepted to <a href="http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/14026/the_end_of_eating_everything" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Sundance in the Shorts category</span></a>.
Some of the crew are on their way to the launch. If you’re skiing in Utah, slide
in to see a screening in Salt Lake City January 17<sup>th</sup> through the 25<sup>th</sup>.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-6809055430593901902013-11-14T13:51:00.002-08:002013-11-14T14:05:45.426-08:00Valhalla <div class="MsoNormal">
This year’s Halloween tableau was like no other. The gilded hallways
of Buddakan fed into a cavernous room with a massive table set for feasting. Each
noble host perched beside or danced atop their table setting. We were their
court. </div>
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The banquette table could be seen from above, but once you
took the stairs you were heads lower than ghosts with bulbous, inflated skin,
monsters with horned appendages that branched until they brushed the ceiling
and reptilian creatures whose bodysuits were so seamless and consuming, it took
me hours to recognize a friend.</div>
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Two particularly dashing royals were my friends Dylan Monroe,
a zombie queen for the night, and Jessica Love, a lizard lady. They've both lent their looks to my paintings in the past and are part of the otherworldly, queer
performance troupe, the Zand Collective.</div>
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My roommate Bonnie Burke, a talented photographer and a dead
ringer as a dead rose, documented the evening. These are her photographs. More
treats (and tricks) on her <a href="http://www.bonniebethburke.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">website</span></a> and <a href="http://www.thekindredblog.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">blog</span></a>.</div>
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Getting ready. </div>
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White Witch and Dead Rose</div>
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Susanne Bartsch's Halloween at Auntie Mame's</div>
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Table topping</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOiDQdRsHtGvqaWce8FYymFyaWjj1AN9NezAVosffXzxsaLd3JvgjAlL_t-YxYsfLT93gK5FmcAZIRd3ncLnMsuY6Jel1D-ENobqEuE-Os-OXz9B9xtu1sZuFI74XA7HyOCyHhm1etQr-t/s1600/horns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOiDQdRsHtGvqaWce8FYymFyaWjj1AN9NezAVosffXzxsaLd3JvgjAlL_t-YxYsfLT93gK5FmcAZIRd3ncLnMsuY6Jel1D-ENobqEuE-Os-OXz9B9xtu1sZuFI74XA7HyOCyHhm1etQr-t/s640/horns.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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In line for the bathroom</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Jessica Love</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-90784968351842697542013-10-17T07:21:00.000-07:002013-10-17T07:21:22.494-07:00Picking Up The PiecesIt's been almost exactly a year since my last blog entry. But don't think it's just been sitting pretty. This wily word mass has been positioning itself to move into prime real-estate. It's currently unpacking boxes and hanging curtains in this new website, built by the talented illustrator <a href="http://brianfoo.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #3d85c6;">Brian Foo</span></a>, and can't wait to give tours and host friends at its new space.<br />
<br />
I will be using this blog to share what I'm working on, give a heads up about exhibitions, gush about art that's sparked my interest and, of course, post the occasional dauntingly long narrative about a trip down a rabbit hole.<br />
<br />
I started this blog when I first arrived in Berlin and had the traveler's fresh eye and insatiable appetite for exploring. However, since moving back to New York, I've been able to use some of what I learned. On my good days, I am able to see past a little of the fog of routine and assumption that works against openness, and approach this city with a healthy dose of wonder.<br />
<br />
The problem is, after a stellar evening of dancing at the McKitterick Hotel, post-performance, when they've converted it into a hospital with mad scientists carrying out sex change operations and nurses administering liters of liquid latex, I've mostly spent the next morning curled up with an episode of True Blood, eating an oversized breakfast sandwich and, well, not writing about it. But that's no good. Because this is worth sharing:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiM16KwqX2Pbg8XcuBUehhc_WAaQ6PqrH92ArdrpW3Yd_hagk7oAtS8VuKcBrMn7szN020BSE7DlcPe-IIK7L54XoPhVuMH7wz3m2cKVhqU5cHrqN2LmHshkOVSr2NnUTS-FwQD1DYVWpT/s1600/1175220_10152026862009505_592575753_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiM16KwqX2Pbg8XcuBUehhc_WAaQ6PqrH92ArdrpW3Yd_hagk7oAtS8VuKcBrMn7szN020BSE7DlcPe-IIK7L54XoPhVuMH7wz3m2cKVhqU5cHrqN2LmHshkOVSr2NnUTS-FwQD1DYVWpT/s400/1175220_10152026862009505_592575753_n.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Taken at Shhh!!! (a metamorphosis) hosted by <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.545454025268555px;">Susanne Bartsch & </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 14.545454025268555px;">The McKittrick Hotel</span></span></div>
<br />
Let's get to it, then! Today is the opening reception of <i>Sky is Falling</i> at PPOW Gallery. I'm thrilled, because it includes a collaborative sculpture by Julie Heffernan and myself.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYq0NUPH5VYwx9xOudUsfxm6tcEJcNq3jXHVcBSeaisQ_6pmZ4qGeZQmH6mw6uKO0GtCj9Y_b287A-Be833PUoDZfGBSmGb-ze2vqFZGAvwr3ijwAxixPj1v3DT5F-rMxVOIipyjHq5XY/s1600/IMG_2757.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwYq0NUPH5VYwx9xOudUsfxm6tcEJcNq3jXHVcBSeaisQ_6pmZ4qGeZQmH6mw6uKO0GtCj9Y_b287A-Be833PUoDZfGBSmGb-ze2vqFZGAvwr3ijwAxixPj1v3DT5F-rMxVOIipyjHq5XY/s400/IMG_2757.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Julie Heffernan and Virginia Wagner, <i>Picking Up The Pieces</i> (Detail), Mixed Media, 2013</span></div>
<br />
I started interning for Julie in 2007 after I wrote her a fan letter from Florence, where I was studying abroad. I would summarize what it said, but I don't have to because digital letters are forever:<br />
<br />
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<!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment--><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"><span style="font-size: x-small;">"This semester I’ve been
exploring the Medici Villas, Tivoli, Hadrian’s Villa, and the Palazzo Vecchio,
and I can’t help associating these ancient estates with your work. I either picture
your paintings on the walls or the walls as the settings of your elaborate portraits."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 12pt;">Since then, I've worked as her assistant and we've become good friends. She is a fiercely talented painter with an expansive imagination. Ten of her new paintings are up and not to be missed in </span><i>Sky is Falling.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVbj8otEo9DxJgScowTy3TtwCjsyiYW54gbEHSBsjgJSZ3xFBrKM2WKxZJZcX1EP-wZwP8lwwD7A83hWuyT_vhFkN5yUpnLkxnfQr0yZNLo5_k6k1gtNIVlS-wT-hzEK59stCK1YCOnZ8S/s1600/SP+on+the+Brink.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="325" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVbj8otEo9DxJgScowTy3TtwCjsyiYW54gbEHSBsjgJSZ3xFBrKM2WKxZJZcX1EP-wZwP8lwwD7A83hWuyT_vhFkN5yUpnLkxnfQr0yZNLo5_k6k1gtNIVlS-wT-hzEK59stCK1YCOnZ8S/s400/SP+on+the+Brink.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Futura W02 Book Oblique'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Julie Heffernan,<i> Self Portrait on the Brink</i></span><span style="font-family: 'Futura W02 Book'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">, oil on canvas, 54 x 66 inches, </span><span style="font-family: 'Futura W02 Book'; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">2013</span></div>
<i><br /></i>
<i>Sky Is Falling</i><br />
PPOW Gallery<br />
535 W22nd St, New York NY<br />
October 17 - November 16<br />
Opening Reception: Thursday October 17, 6-8pmAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-62486651927294137722012-10-21T09:43:00.000-07:002012-10-21T10:33:13.477-07:00Pond Water<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgqRCHNzsB3AzjO98wDHMz9qHWN5ZRBpJ_REyXaDLVA_zMqv4vNRjyIE4lFERfYZbt-moFpHF2oa4xWKtMWAtOdbsNZMvnMVSN_PReiIHUNEUML-3K5OOpsIr7OYrxndbUucBPZtvZQpH/s1600/index.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghgqRCHNzsB3AzjO98wDHMz9qHWN5ZRBpJ_REyXaDLVA_zMqv4vNRjyIE4lFERfYZbt-moFpHF2oa4xWKtMWAtOdbsNZMvnMVSN_PReiIHUNEUML-3K5OOpsIr7OYrxndbUucBPZtvZQpH/s320/index.jpeg" width="319" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My little brother texted me yesterday from deep within a
spell of studying. The second round of first year med school exams are scheduled for early
next week. He and I both balance fanatic work sessions with big time playtime.
But this med thing has his mischievous side on lockdown, with one night
on the town allotted every two weeks or so. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">He’d spent seven hours that morning studying in the Anatomy Lab,
which houses fifty cadavers and countless prosections (hearts, joints, limbs).
Seven being the max he’s figured out you can be down there with the dead before
your own brain starts throbbing with formaldehyde fumes, probably sensing its
own premature preservation and sounding the alarm.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">He texted me to see if my painting sketch, “Pond Water,” had
sold yet because, if it hadn’t, he really wanted it because it looks like a
cell and just like an intervertebral disk. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Like a what?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Like if you cut a vertebra in half and look at the cross
section from above.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“You sure you haven’t been overdoing it? Do you have some
friends that you can study with?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“No, I’m serious. It looks exactly like the Annulus Fibrosus
and the </span><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Nucleus Pulposus.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“You’re going to have to spell those for me.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“You didn’t know you were drawing that, did you?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsEB1g9kAdSgRnhOBNE8FpJ4XDzd2dzNoV_hJiBSUyx7J2-CXeMRoHe4UUOeCyphmGzeS7x-5V254uPhpnKcZDKbMQ4N-TjSp8mgOpJT4H0yeKZN7Kuh7chbpsxEoSZCj20F9yfaQvl-ad/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-10-21+at+12.38.51+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsEB1g9kAdSgRnhOBNE8FpJ4XDzd2dzNoV_hJiBSUyx7J2-CXeMRoHe4UUOeCyphmGzeS7x-5V254uPhpnKcZDKbMQ4N-TjSp8mgOpJT4H0yeKZN7Kuh7chbpsxEoSZCj20F9yfaQvl-ad/s320/Screen+Shot+2012-10-21+at+12.38.51+PM.png" width="307" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“I was painting an oil spill like the one in the Gulf. Did you see
the people playing in the water? I was thinking about Regina Spektor’s song
“<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCCVE87CD6o" target="_blank">The Genius Next Door</a>.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 12.0pt;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; text-indent: 0px;">"<i>Some said the local lake had been enchanted</i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; text-indent: 0px;"><i>Others said it must have been the weather</i></span></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;"></span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">The neighbors were trying to keep it quiet</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
But I swear that I could hear the laughter</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
So they jokingly nicknamed it the porridge</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Cause overnight that lake had turned as thick as butter</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
But the local kids would still go swimming, drinking</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Saying that to them it doesn't matter</div>
</span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;"></span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">If you just hold in your breath til you come back up in full</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Hold in your breath til you thought it through, you fool</div>
</span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;"></span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">The genius next door was busing tables</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Wiping clean the ketchup bottle labels</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Getting high and mumbling German fables</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Didn't care as long as he was able</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
To strip his clothes off by the dumpsters</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
At night while everyone was sleeping</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
And to wade midway into that porridge</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Just him and the secret he was keeping</div>
</span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;"></span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">If you just hold in your breath til you come back up in full</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Hold in your breath til you thought it through, you foolish child</div>
</span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;"></span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">In the morning the film crews start arriving</span></span></i></div>
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
With donuts, coffee and reporters</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
The kids were waking up hungover</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
The neighbors were starting up their cars</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
The garbageman were emptying the dumpsters</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Atheists were praying full of sarcasm</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
And the genius next door was sleeping</div>
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Dreaming that the antidote is orgasm</div>
</span></span></i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;"></span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><i>If you just hold in your breath til you come back up in full</i></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Hold in your breath til you thought it through, you foolish child!</i>"<br />
<br /></div>
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“Well I’ll send you some pictures of Pulposus and you’ll
see what I’m taking about.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg5MhwUBIzxX5F6lO5yuTeA6IqGg4R81oYn0Ffi-b4HLISrFEbUfcYLXHARh7hyphenhyphenXRVbtTsCB7S5Y2DrtKDihVOvELXxhkyrcp7g0wLbs1oWO1uWOfQ368PtUFl-MUOWW_4R1wCPqEgc2Mi/s1600/Screen+Shot+2012-10-21+at+12.35.46+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg5MhwUBIzxX5F6lO5yuTeA6IqGg4R81oYn0Ffi-b4HLISrFEbUfcYLXHARh7hyphenhyphenXRVbtTsCB7S5Y2DrtKDihVOvELXxhkyrcp7g0wLbs1oWO1uWOfQ368PtUFl-MUOWW_4R1wCPqEgc2Mi/s400/Screen+Shot+2012-10-21+at+12.35.46+PM.png" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It's no accident that this
conversation revolved around a painting of a circle. I know more than one
painter who only draws circles and circles within circles and finds infinite
subject matter there. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Plato’s ideal form of the circle comes
to mind. One way of fathoming the original circle, of which all others are
shadows. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">“<i>For everything that exists there are three instruments by
which <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="686"></a>the
knowledge of it is necessarily imparted; fourth, there is the knowledge <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="687"></a>itself, and, as fifth, we must
count the thing itself which is known and <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="688"></a>truly exists. The first is the name, the, second the
definition, the third. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="689"></a>the image, and the fourth the knowledge. If you wish to
learn what I mean, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="690"></a>take these in the case of one instance, and so understand
them in the case <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="691"></a>of all. A circle is a thing spoken of, and its name is that
very word which <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="692"></a>we have
just uttered. The second thing belonging to it is its definition, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="693"></a>made up names and verbal forms.
For that which has the name "round," "annular," <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="694"></a>or, "circle," might be
defined as that which has the distance from its <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="695"></a>circumference to its centre everywhere
equal. Third, comes that which is <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="696"></a>drawn and rubbed out again, or turned on a lathe and broken
up-none of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="697"></a>which
things can happen to the circle itself-to which the other things, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="698"></a>mentioned have reference; for it
is something of a different order from <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="699"></a>them. Fourth, comes knowledge, intelligence and right
opinion about these <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="700"></a>things. Under this one head we must group everything which
has its existence, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="701"></a>not in words nor in bodily shapes, but in souls-from which
it is dear that <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="702"></a>it is
something different from the nature of the circle itself and from <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="703"></a>the three things mentioned before.
Of these things intelligence comes closest <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="704"></a>in kinship and likeness to the fifth, and the others are
farther <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="705"></a>distant</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"> -- Plato, ‘The Seventh
Letter,’ <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=6191639025212151455" name="2"></a>360
B.C.E. Translated by J. Harward</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-52918509055661850982012-08-13T07:51:00.000-07:002012-08-13T07:55:57.057-07:00Meeting the Magazine<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">This all started because I have a thing for fashion. I blame my grandmother and all those bedazzled jean jackets and tiny fur coats she used to outfit me in. My penchant for playing dress up is only fueled by my fashionable boss’ philosophy of exaggerating one aspect of her personality each time she goes out (i.e. the African Witch with bone jewelry and studded gloves or Raggedy Ann with her mini-Disney tee and overalls). So when my upstairs neighbor confessed that she had nothing to wear for an upcoming photoshoot, I gave her an armful of garments, including my grandmother’s pleather pants, and she gave the photographer my card. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I spent Thursday building shelves and organizing our studio’s cavernous new sculpture space in the Clinton Hill Navy Yards. By the end of the day, sawdust evenly coated my body, stuck fast to a thick layer of sweat. But one of the joys of this city is the opportunity it presents to dip quickly in and out of social spheres. Dimensions, tied together by community, culture or profession, lie right on top of each other. I’ve found that, as an artist, it’s important to develop your ability to move between them fluidly. Chameleons can learn from each, are forced to stay openminded and are constantly creatively adapting. </span><br />
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">All this to say that I pulled a telephone-booth-style makeover in the bathroom and booked it to Manhattan.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I was told to meet the photographer, <a href="http://hassankinley.wordpress.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Hassan</span></a>, for the art and culture magazine <a href="http://www.karinandraoul.com/"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Karin and Raoul </span></i></a>above a gallery in the Lower East Side. He had hosted a casting that afternoon and wanted to talk with me about my artwork. When I got to the appointed cross streets, I gave him a call. A head of cascading blonde hair and a naked torso appeared from a graffitied doorway. “You’re supposed to be up here,” he called.</span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Not one to argue with Viking oracles, I followed him up.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgUtqzcWQg29UVSVgn910RSTLezuSyNgeoik2Xh2r-AtdQL9HwvFkT9Y2LZTqbEwto-UTU2a4NSsOC2p5YSvfoN7npEsr2PLnSTINfyMFFBTXKhOQvbw4EV3pfNf_JzYoLVWVHez6a6FBi/s1600/Karin+disco.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgUtqzcWQg29UVSVgn910RSTLezuSyNgeoik2Xh2r-AtdQL9HwvFkT9Y2LZTqbEwto-UTU2a4NSsOC2p5YSvfoN7npEsr2PLnSTINfyMFFBTXKhOQvbw4EV3pfNf_JzYoLVWVHez6a6FBi/s400/Karin+disco.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
At the top of the stairs, a bright white space opened up around me. The walls were crawling with artwork that included mounted horse heads with bionic parts, or perhaps their harnesses had become part of their flesh. Dark surrealism was the prominent vibe; paintings hosted haunted figures and enigmatic lights. In one particularly striking piece, a mammal (we argued over its species) was caught in the headlights; its motion arrested mid-collision. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2aZ4PD-OF3NujA_NbNk7IQNPR3dQWxK0IAnaJoCNHjpuOaUeN5o6rWuhktVtKzC-Ept_aWayp2esPqQDe2SxNRyZcBTyPinrV7VP9Auga3MFrdODozuBgAyk600sJeIIgZeFPER1tFKW/s1600/Karin+deer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2aZ4PD-OF3NujA_NbNk7IQNPR3dQWxK0IAnaJoCNHjpuOaUeN5o6rWuhktVtKzC-Ept_aWayp2esPqQDe2SxNRyZcBTyPinrV7VP9Auga3MFrdODozuBgAyk600sJeIIgZeFPER1tFKW/s400/Karin+deer.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"><br /></span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Brett, my blonde guide, resumed his position against a spotlit central wall. Hassan directed him to hold a skateboard above his head and began snapping photos. There were two stations for painting and two antique iron beds with white linens lining the walls. At the near end of the room, a man handed out Whole Foods containers and a small group gathered around a dining room table to relish their quinoa, kale and brisket. In the bathroom, a model was dipping her hair into the sink. Another was pulling on 5-inch heeled sneakers with studs that would rival the most robust of porcupines.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I’ve changed this room around about 50 times,” said the Whole Foods emissary. His name was Justin and he was the director of the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.nystudiogallery.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">NY Studio Gallery</span></a> </span>one floor below. </span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Brett finished the shoot and dug into the brown-boxed feast. I learned that not only had he never modeled before, he had barely seen a skyscraper that wasn’t snow-topped and scalable. He and Justin had met while building houses in Peru. But he harkened from Northern Alaska where he worked construction for a family company. He’d arrived in New York for the first time two months ago with just a backpack and $100 to his name.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“You must be in culture shock,” I said.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">He nodded vigorously. “I’ve been living like a rockstar.” </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The evening unfolded as a series of beautiful vignettes, as Hassan photographed each of the models in waiting. The light was draining quickly from the sky as he finished up his last shoot on the roof with a woman so stunning it was hard to fathom her using her guitar as anything but a photo prop. But she was a singer/songwriter and former professional gymnast. Hassan had her hold a position where she raised her seated body up with her hands. She worried aloud that it was stretching her shiny new tattoo of a cameo-esque young girl. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Hassan had been photographing since two in the afternoon and powered on undaunted until the sky had nothing left to offer and his flash refused to light another step.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">When the last subject cleared out, Justin, Brett, Hassan and I gathered around the rooftop picnic table and hashed out methods of cleansing body and mind. Hassan reviewed the talented people he’d met that day, generously heralding us as a new generation of creative talent and professing his happiness at having a hand in making us visible. He revealed his strategy of pushing the boundaries of the people he photographs in order to bypass the facade of what they think he wants to see. When they start making excuses, although he tries not to show it, he’s happy because he knows they are gaining ground. For instance, when the musician was holding that strenuous gymnastic pose from her past, there was no excess energy to maintain a mask.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Back inside, Hassan turned on disco lights and some jams to start the photo editing process. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5mf9MGvK7jG15sUEY6oAYxZdFw6iguVEHzNLuYJpo_l1NJD8OsbPtJHLSOYO4bxfYbvYBxVYpo18Z0iEpHaWamieRD2RatdnVijL3y-pBoJdZZH-WtTNUQXI92Z_mQeB4y6SDopM5waO/s1600/karin+wonderland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR5mf9MGvK7jG15sUEY6oAYxZdFw6iguVEHzNLuYJpo_l1NJD8OsbPtJHLSOYO4bxfYbvYBxVYpo18Z0iEpHaWamieRD2RatdnVijL3y-pBoJdZZH-WtTNUQXI92Z_mQeB4y6SDopM5waO/s400/karin+wonderland.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;"></span></span></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The boys revealed their battle strategies for Burning Man. They took me to their Lady Bugz mobile (designed by Yarrow Mazzetti). It was a psychedelically pimped out transport, lit up like a mushroom from Alice’s wonderland and punctuated with plasma headlights. Their uniforms included bug-eyed goggles and an elaborate assortment of bandanas. These were contained within their many-pocketed, sparkly camo vests that they fastened over bare chests and ornamented with beads. </span><br />
<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Did you use glitter spray?” I asked.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“Pure stone pigments,” Justin responded, his voice muffled by the fabric. Then he ran upstairs to get Hassan to photograph their desert gear.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-76654033228803729152012-07-30T20:22:00.000-07:002012-07-31T16:45:12.977-07:00Your House is My House<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">“What House would you be in?” </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><a href="http://levgrossman.com/blog/" style="background-color: white;">Lev Grossman</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"> asked </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><a href="http://erinmorgenstern.com/">Erin Morgenstern</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">. We were sitting in the bottom floor of the McNally Jackson Bookstore on Prince Street. They on stools. (Thrones, if you will.) I on a folding chair with thirty-some-odd others. </span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“Well, if you boil each of the Houses down to their defining characteristic. You know -- Hufflepuff is kind, Gryffindor is brave, Ravenclaw is smart and Slytherine is cunning -- then I would have to say I’m Slytherine.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“No!” Lev was flabbergasted.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“Yes,” said Erin. I wasn’t surprised, maybe just that she admitted to it. “And yourself?”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">“Well I took a Jo-sanctioned (Lev’s on a first-name bases with J.K. Rowling because he’s interviewed her for <i>Time</i>) Sorting Hat test and it turns out that I’m Hufflepuff.” A collective groan erupted from the spectators. “I know. I’m still coming to terms with it myself.”</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Images from <i>Sleep No More</i> which, Erin is the first to tell you, greatly influenced <i>The Night Circus</i>.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Erin has been to see Punchdrunk's version of Macbeth at least 10 times in various locations and leaked that she may be working on a collaborative project with the director.</td></tr>
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These two authors of some of my favorite genre fiction did actually go on to talk shop in a way that dug into their craft and addressed the tedium of writing, the demons of self-doubt and their respective strengths and weaknesses (which were opposite). But I did find it remarkable that their launching off point was Harry Potter and both possessed unabashed enthusiasm for the moppy-headed wizard, especially as their own work tends to be for an older readership, has more roots in the “real,” contemporary world and explores the darker underbelly of what magic they conjure.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A piece of fan art by <a href="http://studioronin.com/Public/main.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue;">Christopher Shy</span></a> (<-- enter at your own risk) of a scene from <i>The Magicians</i>. Lev revels in and stokes the fires of online fan culture. </td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Anyway. These are some interesting things they said:</span></div>
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<li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">They both felt lucky to have grown up in New England, believing that it is a rich land to draw from for fiction. The Salem witch trials factored in. (I was surprised by this since, for me, growing up in Connecticut always seemed so bland and regular when I compared it in my head to all the other places where I might have been a kid. But, then again, everything is “normal” when it’s all you know and it takes a special kind of sight, and often the perspective that comes with distance, to be able to see what’s been in front of you all along with fresh, inquisitive eyes.)</span></li>
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<li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It’s really hard to have faith that an educated, alternative, adult audience (their ideal audience) will follow you down into magic fountains and up through jungle gyms made out of clouds. Especially before you’ve established yourself as a writer. But you have to take a blind leap. Lev’s first two novels were realistic fiction and the first time he wrote about casting a spell, he nearly gave himself a hernia. </span></li>
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<li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Erin began her book during National Novel Writing Month (really!?!) where you are challenged to produce 50000 words.</span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So then the talk was over and the authors were ushered behind a large oak table. A line had snaked itself around the stacks of books before they could even assume the position. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I wanted to say, ‘Hey, so should we ditch this lineup and grab a beer?’ As if we went way back. Because in a way, we do. Their characters walk around with me and make snide comments about passersby or chill in the tent villages in my paintings on a regular basis. And I actually have written with Lev and he’s into my paintings. Especially this one.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">When I Was A Boy</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So it figures that these authors, who write in the genre that I work in and whose characters can read minds, should be able to sense that I am part of the same House. That we should shoot the shit in the common room. But, of course, there's no spark of recognition and I’m just the girl who awkwardly holds eye contact for a beat too long and cuts through the line to get to the door.</span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-38163716049960794642012-07-11T22:52:00.000-07:002012-07-11T22:52:20.476-07:00Junebug<br />
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June was one of those months you saw coming from a ways off. A dark swarm of notation descending like cicadas on your field of calendar days. The buzz was ominous and getting louder. All you could do as it rose up in a roar was take a deep breath and dive in. </div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I’ve been putting in my time this month in someone else’s shoes. I’ve gained a lot of ground and seen quite a few sights but all of my travels were in service of someone else’s internal compass, following their trajectory. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">At night, when I’d get back to my room, I’d throw my spent self on the bed and look over at my own neglected Toms. Still in the box. I’ll open them tomorrow, I’d think. But my legs ached with growing pains - teenage-style - and I knew I’d been stretched. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">It’s hard to quantify what you take with you when you work for an artist. The real lessons are hard to look at straight on, squirmy muse-like creatures. Perhaps metaphor is as good a method as any to describe it. When you walk in their shoes, you know their stride, what they stop for and consider, their pace, the height and brand and style of their heel, their posture and weight. You learn these things when you are busy trying to be an effective shepherd of the work that you respect and admire (which better be the case because it isn’t worth it - all the time and acrobatics involved in facilitating someone else’s journey - if you don’t believe that the byproducts of that journey are good seed for the earth).</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">One downside to assisting is that often my head is so full of someone else’s logistical matters, that my own get crumpled under the bed in a rat’s nest of receipts. (That one’s not a metaphor.)</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I was at a garden party with Julie Heffernan, a painter I used to work for, in Woodstock last week as June conceded to July and I ran for the hills (of upstate New York). The attendees were art folk from the City and one painter was raving about a translation of Proust’s <i>Swann’s Way</i> by short story writer Lydia Davis. How expansive it must be, the painter exclaimed, to work so closely with such a master work of literature. To bring it down from its canonic pedestal on high and get your hands dirty with it. But wouldn’t she be tempted, another artist chimed in, to change the meaning here and there, just a little, in the service of making it more contemporary or flow better in English? A formalist painter asserted -- form is meaning. She changes the whole thing every time she translates a word. But wouldn’t it be daunting too? I asked. Probably, was the consensus. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I asked because I’</span><span style="font: 11.3px 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">v</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">e chosen to learn by surrounding myself with artwork and artists that inspire me the most. I imagine Lydia fully exploring every nook and cranny of this great work and then turning to her own short story. How do you make your own work on your desk beside something that’s carved its place in the pantheon of immortal works? Is it in hopes that your humble, awkward attempts will one day yield great shape or content, fed from the nutrients of their predecessor? Or are you really content to grow in the literary forest as a lesser tree, providing some shelter while you stand, some organic matter while you decay, and be neighbor to the greats?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Being asked to join Julie at the garden party (I was dog-sitting for her that weekend in her cozy Woodstock cabin) and talk shop with the artists there is another boon of assistantship. Strong artists have hungry minds and gather good company to feed them. Julie is very generous and quick to include me in her group.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzAlZwIJMSSbyv9Xftcl2vpYbuqY-TNy1dTWLslBnsX5XpwISh4kAHhQVbinIOJa_Jj2i78FxbGiB2fkjX4ShTn5fIsr65THTtHwpXnoP5yGjPuFQ2Ia759Wy2q1ZV0g5AISYmLxHTgM62/s1600/2011-06-29+11.18.34.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzAlZwIJMSSbyv9Xftcl2vpYbuqY-TNy1dTWLslBnsX5XpwISh4kAHhQVbinIOJa_Jj2i78FxbGiB2fkjX4ShTn5fIsr65THTtHwpXnoP5yGjPuFQ2Ia759Wy2q1ZV0g5AISYmLxHTgM62/s400/2011-06-29+11.18.34.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bags of shoes and clothes sent to the Studio.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The end of June was punctuated by a photoshoot for Elle magazine’s Women in the Arts issue. They are featuring the artist I assist. (It comes out in December!) She decided to have the five women who work for her included in the photo. She believes that having a strong team around her is invaluable and she wanted to showcase that. We used spider imagery for the set -- creating a web or a network.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I would like to say that I fell right into the roll of professional model. But the fact of the matter is, the Studio got into the body bags of shoes and tried on half of them before the wardrobe people arrived and we guiltily zipped them back up. I ran around with two different cameras snapping pictures of all of the stylists until they banished me to the far end of the room. The Studio greedily devoured the catered lunch that the chef had delivered herself, staying just long enough to explain each dish and the local origins of the ingredients, well before noon. When the shoot was over, I started posing various members of the Studio for my own photographs until the head of wardrobe commanded me to take off my shiny black fairy dress (not her exact words) and stay out of the camera crew’s way. It was awesome.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOtcU8mYACVDjEev-mQHQH-DKjsrkAieT1FE_V2BZaBdvC0lwMkV9BwA4UWg9-ESJIOJDEYc4QsGELTLIOyAQx2JH1XwJAbJRt6Gjc3CBxH5HoTIsKjMttDhbrO1Y8jt5mukypdtjE6y4I/s1600/2012-06-29+15.14.15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOtcU8mYACVDjEev-mQHQH-DKjsrkAieT1FE_V2BZaBdvC0lwMkV9BwA4UWg9-ESJIOJDEYc4QsGELTLIOyAQx2JH1XwJAbJRt6Gjc3CBxH5HoTIsKjMttDhbrO1Y8jt5mukypdtjE6y4I/s400/2012-06-29+15.14.15.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Light check for Elle shoot. Testing out the center of the spider.</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So now it’s a few days on the other side of June. The rushing sound isn’t impending appointments but rather wind roughing up the river and rustling the oak trees. I’m in my family’s cabin on the St. Lawrence River. It’s the last day of vacation for me in the North Country, where time returns like a monarch each year, perching on the Point for the same view as always and getting ready for the next go-around with a cold river bath.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">4th of July flairs at dusk in Oak Point, New York.<br />(Photo by Billy Freeman)</td></tr>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-72341911813403169382012-06-03T22:42:00.000-07:002012-06-03T22:58:15.062-07:00The Other Wagners<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969); color: #666666; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; text-align: -webkit-auto;">"It is my favorite picture of my dad and mom. Maybe as happy and carefree as I ever saw him. He was a pretty serious man." -- my dad</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I have a lot to say about work ethic. But I'm not going to go into it right now. I'd like to tell you that's because I'm exhausted from a marathon day in the studio. But I was actually celebrating my birthday at Spa Castle with some of my dearest friends. Instead, I'd like to share an email my dad recently sent me and my little bro.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Hey,</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>This quote makes me think of my dad and his dad…and you two.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." </i></span><i style="font-family: inherit;">-- <span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Thomas Edison</span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> </span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Love, Dad</i></span><br />
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My brother recently got into a favorite med school and my dad brags when he's slept more than five hours. Sure, the whole thing gets a bit questionable when you realize that the grails we sacrifice our sun and sleep and social lives for are noctuid larvae, rat surgeries and sketches of tiny men with animal ears. But, then again, what's cooler than these guys:</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-75216232291349854722012-05-02T20:41:00.000-07:002012-05-02T21:04:40.733-07:00“It is easier to raise strong children then to repair broken men,”read a simple orange sign that bobbed up and down in front
of us in the crowd. The festival energy of a protest is supercharged with
goodwill and bright banners. We spent the first few hours milling around the
booths and listening to the stylings of heated speakers and metal bands that
blasted through a crude stereo system. The thrill of a demonstration is more
satisfying than the kicks one gets at fairgrounds and carnival spectacles because,
instead of indulging, you are aggravating – stirring up dialogue dust.
Social boundaries dissolve way faster in this political cause cloud. Suddenly,
instead of turning away, you accept a pamphlet with a smile from the boy with
the piercings and the hoodie cut up like a macabre snowflake and strike up a
conversation with the grizzled man in the wheelchair who knocks into you in the
crowd.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif;">Photo by Ali Giniger (</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; text-align: left;">instagram: @alinicoleg)</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWBBCOChQyqG0-v1yGqHEQQWopVPbi7Act0e0kt-nDLP7VQ6J9_JanQ41SjmGq1_9DZQzs6hp_KQH7P06U5OTwhIziElcVZuwUOs6JC2swD-eZFgezMicpADja_eUXq-vNQ3WM62GLUdC_/s1600/DSC_1111.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWBBCOChQyqG0-v1yGqHEQQWopVPbi7Act0e0kt-nDLP7VQ6J9_JanQ41SjmGq1_9DZQzs6hp_KQH7P06U5OTwhIziElcVZuwUOs6JC2swD-eZFgezMicpADja_eUXq-vNQ3WM62GLUdC_/s400/DSC_1111.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The art studio that I work for showed up armored with aprons
that read “Artists for Immigration Reform.” I realized after the fact that
maybe only artists know that artists wear aprons. But they made good blank
canvases for slogans anyway. We thought we’d highlight the fact that we were
artists because it is much harder to get a visa to live in the US if you work
in a creative field. The elusive artist visa for this country requires the
blood signatures of the entire top echelon of the art world pyramid inscribed
on the skin of one of Damien Hirst’s sharks. (This is an exaggeration. But only
kind of.)</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The paper-mache barrier fence was a nice touch when fist-pumped into the air.</td></tr>
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My apron had a strike through “HB56,” Alabama’s aggressive
anti-immigration law that requires police to determine someone’s legal status
if there is any suspicion that that person might be here illegally. It has
turned all official interactions into checkpoints and encouraged racial
profiling. The goal is “self-deportation,” a concept championed by its
originator and Mitt Romney’s unofficial advisor Kris Kobach. And it is
effective. People reach a threshold of harassment, exclusion, and fear for
their families and they leave. A similar, though not quite as militant, law is
in place in Arizona. Check out the podcasts for more:</div>
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<span style="color: windowtext;"> <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/456/reap-what-you-sow">This American Life on Alabama</a> </span><br />
<span style="color: windowtext;"> <a href="http://www.npr.org/2012/04/24/151281321/does-arizonas-immigration-law-have-a-chance">NPR on Arizona</a>
</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yFSES38p-3b26oCMl4H3muG-a6dhmohH-UZ9kzUxKycFjd8gJ66C-gLNZeL46iy0vf78ut-QNpP1V-omW36TUqPiHKz8_axt_r__50vdYTbeHSuH3pYqTxCvmwlWj4iLt9lUIsFqq-sf/s1600/boy+in+mask.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_yFSES38p-3b26oCMl4H3muG-a6dhmohH-UZ9kzUxKycFjd8gJ66C-gLNZeL46iy0vf78ut-QNpP1V-omW36TUqPiHKz8_axt_r__50vdYTbeHSuH3pYqTxCvmwlWj4iLt9lUIsFqq-sf/s400/boy+in+mask.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJkBJG1MlkuAVqSxAWQKRBwaBH9GGsYSWbPan0X1ZRmcWXz7i7Jn2PAGn8BvxJAz9YtPiLTbV1uhIA1e0hRAeDPxSKMRJa7BXjlseKF_15L8mh9zQ5I8u8oM3TpfukV4MMSq2PaYhIR6vu/s1600/Ali+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJkBJG1MlkuAVqSxAWQKRBwaBH9GGsYSWbPan0X1ZRmcWXz7i7Jn2PAGn8BvxJAz9YtPiLTbV1uhIA1e0hRAeDPxSKMRJa7BXjlseKF_15L8mh9zQ5I8u8oM3TpfukV4MMSq2PaYhIR6vu/s320/Ali+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Ali Giniger</td></tr>
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I had expected immigration reform to be the issue of the
day, but it was International Workers Day and the Occupy movement was out in
full force. Any group concerned with race and economic inequality came out to
play. And then there was the guy in the Captain America costume and the boy in
a loincloth dragging a cross around who gave you the impression that this was status quo. It just so happened that today they woke up and
got dressed and instead of being ostracized and run off by the police again
they were embraced by the pit stained arms of thousands.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj06uKAR_RlESPwxTMfL8UZQ-wAQAHD527DGqAWimQnklZ3cfBRm8GyhcjBFfHcQzJwEplg1LiOfQOom_UN5Lq0ZMRdKIFcmfABHXqhMM05PvPcy8XNaZxcTX4rUCNfNnq57vbPLLVoA0vF/s1600/capt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj06uKAR_RlESPwxTMfL8UZQ-wAQAHD527DGqAWimQnklZ3cfBRm8GyhcjBFfHcQzJwEplg1LiOfQOom_UN5Lq0ZMRdKIFcmfABHXqhMM05PvPcy8XNaZxcTX4rUCNfNnq57vbPLLVoA0vF/s400/capt.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<o:p></o:p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPk7peSsikTfISgs__UefiMoIb30Y9n3Wu76rOip3QS0AlxOcTrnOqsLTg_Uei4dT3XqwmlzVf4fKr5igkJz4bFfT54ZkI87JetDR4tVX439IEhvX3LiCzGyzfGvceftwxSHe8JXr0UGfL/s1600/DSC_1114.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPk7peSsikTfISgs__UefiMoIb30Y9n3Wu76rOip3QS0AlxOcTrnOqsLTg_Uei4dT3XqwmlzVf4fKr5igkJz4bFfT54ZkI87JetDR4tVX439IEhvX3LiCzGyzfGvceftwxSHe8JXr0UGfL/s400/DSC_1114.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>
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One group of activists took me by surprise. It was the first
time I’d seen artists marching for… artists! Demanding more support from the
State and raising awareness that being creative is productive. Signs read “ART
IS WORK,” “PAY YOUR INTERNS,” “ART STRIKE,” “ANOTHER ART WORLD IS POSSIBLE.”
This shocked me at first. Don’t these people know that they signed up for
something inherently useless? Didn’t they get the memo that our country’s
puritan roots would never support such frivolous antics? But of course, art has
always taken progressive stands and demanded change. It just usually speaks
(for good reason) through the medium itself. Either way, we agreed with their
sentiments and joined forces with this group, marching alongside them from
Union Square deep into the bowels of the Financial District.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiebJBQLufJ3U11rKlGkvGr2gAHwGv-1yZL5lzJ_jIkNBGC3qEYnWC1NAHQmqpE9oiCdQhwTS8idkPP7Mi6WJvUqjWcpd329_iICORQwQddKBjMlqOgo1Lr0PEzkhNLbe-ACfvtrdg4AaX8/s1600/DSC_1065.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiebJBQLufJ3U11rKlGkvGr2gAHwGv-1yZL5lzJ_jIkNBGC3qEYnWC1NAHQmqpE9oiCdQhwTS8idkPP7Mi6WJvUqjWcpd329_iICORQwQddKBjMlqOgo1Lr0PEzkhNLbe-ACfvtrdg4AaX8/s400/DSC_1065.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfhESdkCg0czBFVo3gavFXeydEIvRsSbzqslTS1RZdPC2UW317M8y7zoPGDLz04ikRCrTiGxqn6Eq7pAyi8-FuRpPBHR69p8QMOfXkIMa596nbwigLlEB50ksdvnL4PeIm6E1nIrTfJGuN/s1600/coin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfhESdkCg0czBFVo3gavFXeydEIvRsSbzqslTS1RZdPC2UW317M8y7zoPGDLz04ikRCrTiGxqn6Eq7pAyi8-FuRpPBHR69p8QMOfXkIMa596nbwigLlEB50ksdvnL4PeIm6E1nIrTfJGuN/s400/coin.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Highlights of the day included sighting a monk with a sign
that read “Occupy Time” hanging from his back and “Occupy Space” hanging from
his front. I also loved watching a women’s group – protesting the
neo-conservative, repressive dialogue about women’s health and sexual freedom
that has recently been spouting from Republican presidential candidates – melt
into a chorus of oohs and aahs at the appearance of a baby in a stroller.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLryYbecoJwrAz6FMAkK5cwTkrGm9mkJhJHVHY-pQd5Jzv-DmukMNGMoeL6TMIRCYmzcAbENq_1Bdw7nAV4xyW0b4zbK3eiM-XspvYljoSBq80k8UBesdbr-hrC9EbiG_bp7GQQmayR2pk/s1600/DSC_1145.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLryYbecoJwrAz6FMAkK5cwTkrGm9mkJhJHVHY-pQd5Jzv-DmukMNGMoeL6TMIRCYmzcAbENq_1Bdw7nAV4xyW0b4zbK3eiM-XspvYljoSBq80k8UBesdbr-hrC9EbiG_bp7GQQmayR2pk/s400/DSC_1145.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>
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<o:p></o:p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijcSCkrxiBf0K_SmWpB3GtbO-RJ0OAip6A0Qgu42p5_MRWjRBTuOC48u-R5wP6g1eCcx_mfDdwwyOUgPCM3kd4ru5r4JDNnxQN3a52A7gHkn5jvcZWyboWreye8ifBhyOTsSSgPhfQ9QeA/s1600/DSC_1108.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijcSCkrxiBf0K_SmWpB3GtbO-RJ0OAip6A0Qgu42p5_MRWjRBTuOC48u-R5wP6g1eCcx_mfDdwwyOUgPCM3kd4ru5r4JDNnxQN3a52A7gHkn5jvcZWyboWreye8ifBhyOTsSSgPhfQ9QeA/s400/DSC_1108.JPG" width="265" /></a></div>
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Back before the parade began, my street artist friend Felix
drew a chalk circle by the Gandhi statue. He tagged it with “good luck” in one
section and “bad luck” in another. The “good luck” side was immediately
occupied by the most flowery of the ribbon-wearing, barefoot hippies. Signs of
“PEACEFUL PROTEST” and “LOVE” sprung up in this place as if it was a goodwill
garden. Soon the arbitrary circle was ringed with people and a shrine of
peaceful objects began accumulating in its center. People began to meditate and
soon the circle was too thick with bodies to see the “bad luck” anymore. These
harbingers of peace might have been reluctant to plop themselves down on just
any plot of dirty, crowded pavement. But inside the chalk circle they were
safe, sanctioned, choreographed -- not by society’s red tape -- but by an
outsider, by old magic and old pagan ties. It was a reminder that the central
mountain is everywhere. And an illustration of how a few simple lines can start
to mean something. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4j2zpYLrqW5Rs9BIJ3P3pOfymWUfvKVn1NTE2DfHDPWRk5sPDj5nB-KyRAWCw5_e2V0JfeO1I0xW__OqWUiQqrD3ETssXaxXM7kwDF_cSaIG-cJ1cDFkq133iCG4LI6pcFRCeofnQQpj9/s1600/DSC_1074.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4j2zpYLrqW5Rs9BIJ3P3pOfymWUfvKVn1NTE2DfHDPWRk5sPDj5nB-KyRAWCw5_e2V0JfeO1I0xW__OqWUiQqrD3ETssXaxXM7kwDF_cSaIG-cJ1cDFkq133iCG4LI6pcFRCeofnQQpj9/s400/DSC_1074.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZoTOc6-hOPrK9vHG-E3n6dghDqGxSj6qlBUmDtcBQzgPJ10yQLBC15JkE-Obl6Wv5U_0Gz9SdUwDYFW1rN-zC_PB34u1W2tAyofDWDGNXPZBg2ACYnlFtJwlfxD2POpySZfPrZNTYBrW/s1600/DSC_1089.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGZoTOc6-hOPrK9vHG-E3n6dghDqGxSj6qlBUmDtcBQzgPJ10yQLBC15JkE-Obl6Wv5U_0Gz9SdUwDYFW1rN-zC_PB34u1W2tAyofDWDGNXPZBg2ACYnlFtJwlfxD2POpySZfPrZNTYBrW/s400/DSC_1089.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-87928266136533026162012-04-28T10:39:00.000-07:002012-04-28T11:43:18.740-07:00Ekphrasis<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i style="text-align: left;">He made the earth upon it, and
the sky, and the sea's water,</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>and the tireless sun, and the
moon waxing into her fullness,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>and on it all the constellations
that festoon the heavens,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>the Pleiades and the Hyades and
the strength of Orion<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>and the Bear, whom men give also
the name of the Wagon,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>who turns about in a fixed place
and looks at Orion<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>and she alone is never plunged
in the wash of the Ocean. </i><br />
<i>(</i>Description of Achilles' shield from <i>The Iliad</i>, 483-489)<i><o:p></o:p></i><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR0Z4Be2WQAgtDLOa-mLue-nJe3-pJfE150ZyQMoQvtgiT1a5fDTpjF14jYxd1osM9M5hpKeSHIisAPdhbWxn1Bvim1txe_xy0TCxfEVA9W50Va_Ezfh7wYf7Hab767WJ6tLy9-uGaLtAU/s1600/shield.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR0Z4Be2WQAgtDLOa-mLue-nJe3-pJfE150ZyQMoQvtgiT1a5fDTpjF14jYxd1osM9M5hpKeSHIisAPdhbWxn1Bvim1txe_xy0TCxfEVA9W50Va_Ezfh7wYf7Hab767WJ6tLy9-uGaLtAU/s400/shield.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I saw this on my way home from writing this blog post at a cafe! Chillin on a street corner. Certainly a sign...</td></tr>
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Ekphrasis. Sounds sinister. Like in the medical, hesitate to
Google it kind of way. “But really it’s creative alchemy,” Caleb, the Classics
PhD student, assured us. “It’s a dramatic description of art in a piece of
literature.” We were circled around him story-hour-style. The MIMA space had
been emptied of furniture, musical equipment, my paintings and the surprising
number of lambskins that usually adorn its surfaces to make way for an incoming
Pratt show. Only a handful of essential instruments and a lone painting, too
big to shove into my car, were left standing.</div>
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When a work of art is described through another medium, it
morphs and becomes a new piece of art in this form. Ekphrasis isn’t about
exhaustively cataloguing the parts. It’s about translating the impact. One
early, powerful example of this is the description of Achilles’ shield in the <i>Iliad</i>. The shield is hewn by the god Hephaestus after
Achilles’ original armor is stolen by the Trojans and the death of his friend
throws him into a state of mad bloodlust. The description of the shield’s
concentric rings of imagery is epic, encompassing all of the senses. Within the
bold, detailed metalwork, lutes and lyres provide a dynamic soundtrack; reeds
sway in windy marshes; characters argue and marry, dance and chop each other to
bits on the battlefield. </div>
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<i>These stood their ground and fought
a battle by the banks of the river,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<i>and they were making casts at
each other with their spears bronze-headed;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>and Hate was there with
Confusion among them, and Death the destructive;<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>she was holding a live man with
a new wound, and another<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>one unhurt, and dragged a dead
man by the feet through the carnage.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>The clothing upon her shoulders
showed strong red with the men's blood. </i>(433-438)</div>
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These pictures are navigated much like a god from on high
might effortlessly zoom in and out of the worlds below, moving close in to see
a maiden collecting flowers for a festival and then zooming out for a panoramic
view of the cosmos. Scholars and artists have tried to map out the shield of
Achilles and, although there have been many interpretations, the scenes depicted
within resist being frozen in a 2-D plane by mortal hands. Words are necessary
to communicate the magic of an object made by the blacksmith of the gods. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg20WIeAQfu3jSvvn1yLB5wrRTJ4ciS_sUVSRKO9NhPiQ9LCFtRQcAMAoYcgrSjHdseCT44CtMhL42Whw-cCDrMpSSNhhSgbTm5Np3LYHozTYXPhz-KH74E2dBnNI_pxszHmGYs6f24hZly/s1600/url.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg20WIeAQfu3jSvvn1yLB5wrRTJ4ciS_sUVSRKO9NhPiQ9LCFtRQcAMAoYcgrSjHdseCT44CtMhL42Whw-cCDrMpSSNhhSgbTm5Np3LYHozTYXPhz-KH74E2dBnNI_pxszHmGYs6f24hZly/s320/url.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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Then Caleb announced that this week our song-writing
workshop would stem from my painting. (The one left standing. Which was fitting
because the painting is from my <i>Outpost</i>
series and is about the last remaining thing in an environment hell-bent on
tearing it down.) It would be our own “visual to musical” version of ekphrasis. We started by asking questions about the painting. Just
questions, no answers. “Is it being built or falling apart?” “Is there any way
out or in?” “What’s making the light?” “Who lives there?” “Are they happy?”</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLhiph1dQXv79StVqLVX1CzrAzDz-Kx9SumJSsSKDWWdiZua1_HWBKIugqgFmYR8A6riXdfsKB2doiJ5M-kltPNsNAs60PNCZuFe5NCFAcAzCWN-ge9LefTVxNv-CUBODv8bVXDwpGBuwN/s1600/Honey+I'm+home,+she+said.+The+wind+turned+its+mouth+up+at+the+corners_Oil+on+canvas_+45inx48in_2011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLhiph1dQXv79StVqLVX1CzrAzDz-Kx9SumJSsSKDWWdiZua1_HWBKIugqgFmYR8A6riXdfsKB2doiJ5M-kltPNsNAs60PNCZuFe5NCFAcAzCWN-ge9LefTVxNv-CUBODv8bVXDwpGBuwN/s400/Honey+I'm+home,+she+said.+The+wind+turned+its+mouth+up+at+the+corners_Oil+on+canvas_+45inx48in_2011.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">'Honey I'm home,' she said. The wind turned its mouth up at the corners.</td></tr>
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This won’t surprise any recent MFA graduates, but these are
not the questions that artists get asked in an academic or critical setting.
More often you will hear, “How are the derivative, impressionistic marks in the
bottom left corner detracting from the formalistic unity?” But these were
refreshing inquiries and way more representative of the way I talk to myself about the things that I make. Then, each
of the musicians came up with a phrase associated with the piece, set it to
music and played it for the group. With all these melodic fragments floating
around in our heads, we began to play, improvise together, build something in
the spirit of the thing.</div>
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<br /></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-52464796225960807242012-04-08T07:22:00.008-07:002012-04-10T21:06:55.451-07:00Playing the Building<div style="text-align: left;">MIMA and I met for the first time at Princeton. It was Indian summer and that Kingdom of Learning was green-drained and autumn brilliant. Universities are in their element in the fall – the pace is right. Unlike the stillness of winter or the silliness of the warmer months, the fall casts campuses with a dignified, wizened air. Princeton students bustled up and down the grounds, kicking up leaves like bio-bright plankton, wrapped in wool sweaters, clutching mugs of warm tonics.</div> <p class="MsoNormal">MIMA is a creative collective that provides music workshops for kids with limited resources around the world. This was their 10 Year Anniversary and they were celebrating by bringing their music and methods back to their place of origin. I’d been recruited by friends to assist in transforming Terrace, the most hippie Eating Club (not saying much when you’re used to Oberlin’s Co-ops, the most hippie of which is constantly pushing the boundaries of the word), into a Living Instrument. Each room was to embody a different character of music: dissonance, consonance, rhythm and silence to name a few.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdUMjfy8sLC80GXYy4_mlnlQrKALx0uu3_QRI-ertC7PcFOpFKlDwxGp3O6UVS6jRm-017b-jzfVo5QjlAXxaaCPdyRtUqlRizPc70nBc6OB0wopSjDsb_nbrYmZpk-HppZq2-ZhPgs0qd/s400/DSC_0125.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729036189618534306" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Laini and I getting dressed in the study.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">I was cast as a dryad (<span style="font-family:Wingdings;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings;"><span style="mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Wingdings;">ß</span></span> favorite phrase ever) and was put in charge of the Bacchanal-themed entrance hall along with fellow woodland spirits Laini and Kate-Lynn (painter and poet respectively). Our job was to usher in the collegiate recruits, strip them of as many clothing layers as they would part with and cover them with body paint (!). It was the anti-chamber, the portal between the codes and protocols of university life and something more playful.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8zArq6uRHtYsbzKPoWJDVoAMKi8vafsz9ojEyhXeg-RJfOotUBDGsGnQeK2-Vs3RXY_WSrmwKGSCbB_hhM7SCvqPbfd1RGUtai-GLiPbgO29p_Cd5QKqqeIfKCmoTi553hvmOpG9Z4hfp/s400/p.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729036192747227330" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The gears of the Living Instrument were set to start up at dark, so we spent the afternoon taking stock of our room and the beautiful fall grounds and then combined them. We dragged in bags of leaves and branches and ornamented the windows and tables with drapes and garlands. Then we went upstairs to a stately study (leather couches and Viking-sturdy tables), threw the remainder of our scarves and clothes into a giant colorful pile, and went about wrapping each other up nymph-style. It was clearly a room that would raise a disapproving eyebrow to such a flurry of ladies’ garments. Other MIMA members were donning bright onesie bodysuits, sumo second skins and Mexican wrestling masks. There were definitely clothing items that never made it out of that costuming cyclone alive. I swear a grumpy armchair swallowed some of the more flamboyant items out of spite.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4sY6QoWENQiNxmXvjRiMOPe4asfv08DHW_kOlLwfG8rqJlzcOga6RovQwpEpnoNeoVNGSMfEY2ssWOLAgEcFB1RYt5L9D3W_e13RZjirXJgre5vPk67HvT1OpZPWG1zblSJ_YZ2aDgfiM/s400/DSC_0118.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729036180135169298" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">The line to enter the Living Instrument ran long around the side of the building as night settled in. When each person entered, they were handed a small glass of ritual punch before being lead into the belly of the beast. Inside, they were guided throughout the house and directed in different exercises by MIMA musicians. I would hardly recognize these team leaders when I saw them later without their war paint. I had to re-meet them when we started hanging out as civilians in Brooklyn. And still, their alter egos sometimes flicker across their plainclothes, Clark Kent-stylings.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In the afternoon at Terrace, there had been a bright, open sunroom where students breakfasted. But no light came though the glass that night and the space was filled with a giant plastic bubble that the recruits filtered into at the close of their tour. Inside, the ears met nothing but the soft whirring of fans that kept the ceiling afloat. It was the silence room. Signs were held up to take us through different breathing exercises, to quiet and focus the mind.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So then the masses cleared out, most likely funneling into the nearest frat party. The MIMA managers, dressed as all manner of mythical beasts, circled up around a blue-suited Martian who bounded around the inside of our ring, leading us in a chant that grew and swelled and exploded into a primal scream and then melted into dance. Wild lose yourself dance at the hands of DJs you could trust your rhythms to. Who would build the beat slowly and wait until you were just dying for the music to peak and then take you to an epic height and cradle your descent. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">We dragged ourselves into the hotel lobby just before the sun came up, a molting mess of melting mutant parts and raw human skin exposed. Blinking fiercely and working to get our spines steady, we looked like we had just hatched out of some psychedelic cesspool. Dripping colors onto the beige linoleum. The man at the desk didn’t look up as he handed us our keys.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The next morning found us sprawled on Princeton’s Elysian Fields, drawing energy up from the plush grass underneath. Gentle bouts of guitar and yoga and conversation would start up and then fade into the sunshine as we worked ourselves back up to consciousness. And of course there was Terrace’s house-made breakfast buffet complete with everything. (Yeah, they had that. And those.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPBQVv8GvQGmF7x9Z64Y0YXqQLsYH44ghnYO_gNnHhgzT8ijr8_NMfA2YZDK7kCQvcaMW4rHfyh6vTOrzlZzSjZ_xI507LE9EVNzBjH2gJOHOkLG8U0ylfGTAoCsOHwMtrNcUDB4HQNm_e/s400/mima+5.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729036203759854306" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:x-small;">A communal painting at MIMA's new space in Brooklyn.</span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhQVKzqwHwQx2oRvRbj1jlame2bAoeTJragoqZOdMKbaQy9RyH5vvB3ZFoPUNxecLoJy6wJQ_X4qi_JWfvm2pC6gmgZn_mdyPXjazxMd9umrr-HyRg0c0aYlC-0mgsdnAImekdK37a1yF/s1600/mima+4.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhQVKzqwHwQx2oRvRbj1jlame2bAoeTJragoqZOdMKbaQy9RyH5vvB3ZFoPUNxecLoJy6wJQ_X4qi_JWfvm2pC6gmgZn_mdyPXjazxMd9umrr-HyRg0c0aYlC-0mgsdnAImekdK37a1yF/s400/mima+4.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729036208864132802" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></a></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">MIMA music party and reception for my painting show.</span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPBQVv8GvQGmF7x9Z64Y0YXqQLsYH44ghnYO_gNnHhgzT8ijr8_NMfA2YZDK7kCQvcaMW4rHfyh6vTOrzlZzSjZ_xI507LE9EVNzBjH2gJOHOkLG8U0ylfGTAoCsOHwMtrNcUDB4HQNm_e/s1600/mima+5.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPBQVv8GvQGmF7x9Z64Y0YXqQLsYH44ghnYO_gNnHhgzT8ijr8_NMfA2YZDK7kCQvcaMW4rHfyh6vTOrzlZzSjZ_xI507LE9EVNzBjH2gJOHOkLG8U0ylfGTAoCsOHwMtrNcUDB4HQNm_e/s1600/mima+5.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPBQVv8GvQGmF7x9Z64Y0YXqQLsYH44ghnYO_gNnHhgzT8ijr8_NMfA2YZDK7kCQvcaMW4rHfyh6vTOrzlZzSjZ_xI507LE9EVNzBjH2gJOHOkLG8U0ylfGTAoCsOHwMtrNcUDB4HQNm_e/s1600/mima+5.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So why the flashback to this musical evening a year ago? Well, as it happens, MIMA set up headquarters in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn this January (relocating from Brazil). And so did I. Their space -- exposed beams, white walls, high ceilings – plays host to all manner of jam sessions, teacher trainings, workshops for kids, dance parties, yoga classes and communal painting parties (that was me). It’s becoming my second living room and the hive brain that’s based there is a powerful, creative organism.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRB3ZWUOpq9LLXN2FcnswS8fU34xm3DZqsx-9w-TTcuRZtpd1Wd95g4cSfAKB5JEYQ2opyzT5PHNG79t_zIpAmZgHbGuoT0GLVeSRTkmZmpjsnhsEJogq8rHZgHu7FOK1-sxPSMRnhuMQz/s400/mima+3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729037359608270850" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgp4JFb_LW-JCTJAkq3NjLwxEIXtxc6kAeeW6yFYcdC5Ty7rby-GLwCHj5lvqiuqc_vthYmnKtb8hGBK7y04w5GzqCZ1ncODqimuIXpQ89tT2gFbMf4GhR0gHhmg8IfA057EGhdfrTFn1gq/s400/mima+1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5729037372909129682" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">If you want to join in on future events, shoot me an email and I’ll keep you posted. I have paintings up now and we’re planning an epic Folk Fe(a)st for May 12th. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><a href="http://www.mimabrooklyn.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">MIMA Brooklyn</span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><a href="http://www.mimamusic.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">MIMA Music</span></a></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-50265823845411285462012-03-21T08:32:00.008-07:002012-03-21T09:15:44.384-07:00With whom would you weather the last storm?<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQMdvcjc1Xha459nasXugba3ePJfufRvxT-K2SeYLYhYK_K-cFDwanoaJS1xhH6b9D9WsJ0tU6-rQIJ_bbHTS-Tt2qzIAsJh6U1GXS_p1lxOxiEqs8mvWDgcZIbCnt-1nYk0qxJy71dP5o/s1600/overview.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQMdvcjc1Xha459nasXugba3ePJfufRvxT-K2SeYLYhYK_K-cFDwanoaJS1xhH6b9D9WsJ0tU6-rQIJ_bbHTS-Tt2qzIAsJh6U1GXS_p1lxOxiEqs8mvWDgcZIbCnt-1nYk0qxJy71dP5o/s400/overview.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722376580276608546" /></a><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">One of my roommates, who already thinks I’m nuts (as I have recently taken to staging and filming elaborate rituals around the apartment), wanders down to the first floor one Monday evening. He gets half way down the staircase and looks out, but can’t see the floor. Instead, a canopy of colored fabric has risen to mid-stair level. A blanket sea spreads out beneath his feet and flows to the far corners of the finished basement. Swaying slowly in it’s own imagined currents. Shadows dart beneath the folds and fabric ripples on the surface. The underworld of the tent fort is occupied.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfvkRAXtZ6mbn3pinCVbMYaqczdheYu8j5LG_QAVr5v1EwJMknyY2Ni8nwHT2vI5y3lwrdnbVWjog010Dx05SYKvhuxxop0l9_VBeVhzJjRiCZiPeGJsfxdatAsAP_CGq3Osr7zf3pFO_m/s400/Don+and+Siobhan.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722377230689001170" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Come on in!” We call. He wades in like a sport as we hoist up the remaining mast and string the last sheets to sail. The tent fort is finished when all of the collectively gathered sheets and blankets, chairs, poles, nets, hammocks, light fixtures, scarves, canvas swatches and tarps are connected to each other with some sort of pin or swath of duct tape.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCvcyXsMy2tVoUaGn-NGdWVtSFHdwQ6Qs2QruaSxw_QPZW6bYEcbVuilqR8BRIHDWjeKMlvQTM1SKZVtho3xw7oTBlYy-ivXW-wlXh39u7n_f4bMp0cvsTMV3FzuWsNQDzFLkM2NAOex79/s400/George.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722376605970002274" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 269px; " /></span></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">There was no plan. The only blueprint I had for the evening was a well laid out veggie tray flanked by vodka tonics and friends who were game.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJShw5wSyIVSyqAeAPvrSpjRRbjwOpY9VqIITrjxK5GGkaKWk8GO7qQ-hiWuTM6gHdRgr_9tEBr9-nGHX_wKSjVLQWLoRf2hbaTG76C_RN2XqiRK_F7Q0WFh8fbGfiErhQMXdUQbexkd6j/s400/Siobhan+in+box.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722377236735182034" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Once we had the structure in place, I took pictures of people in various poses for paintings – some staged and some candid. I’m making paintings with tents in them because they can suggest military outposts, refugee shelters, shantytowns, campgrounds, children’s forts, circus setups, post apocalyptic societies, native villages and romantic alcoves. What a medley! Sorting through all the associations and composing different combinations should keep me busy for a while.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0af7D0sUPDVYpDWyvlOzxR-2GdaPVQQr9KD-xuQ9Tc93MDDLSHQWTeSMqTla6rLhoVvf-27qagNAdkF2vjm-872yhB4GvFKGIqeoTj7PTyo7qKnYupjhVaSOt1SvTH1IlMzSM43JOrSXu/s400/Don.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722376614823830898" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">When you look at a simple, low-tech shelter, you can read a lot about its maker and environment. Often its pieces are pulled from the immediate surroundings. Its production is transparent, as opposite to black box architecture and design (systems with fancy façades that render their complex, inner worlds unknowable) that dominate our infrastructure today.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrDin-GOgtuaDJGyxdoVojg91vEw58IyGZBeSa4Hbl42NJ-8yohA3heLQUGAdNuIbSsa52tnvCks_jMp3RuFkKW8uxm-e1NxtvLM4yls7fe7PIP7ZuJQVnEGzfYthRM0mS_CZeN7VMTv7V/s400/Itzy+and+Felix.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722376596136620514" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFv5FGNdKuilxMQ1bhvgnQmDqZhyKmC_MG57TXrfMBv5rJMfUcAFw9wJVUffOo8dccJttJmziB53MMdPEFGyFVvBtE1aBVnRD2BFH7Z6Iz139ZQQqmikCo_p6i_g91OA83OMTqvFZ8e00/s400/Siohban+blankets.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722376619730124786" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Why go to all this trouble to stage elaborate life-sized references when the end product is a 2D image? (Did I mention drinks, friends and a good playlist?) The photographs that I took from the setup are very helpful to work from. But even more importantly, I find that once I’ve built something, I have a more comprehensive understanding of its form when I go to paint it. I’m able to turn it around in my head better, see it from all sides, so that I can play with and warp it instead of having to accept it as it comes in a still photo.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge0FLHtrxnAeYVdKVaXOLBo179rmCIjM-h8akyHv5tUa7wr-q0KBTV1iwxfNZEqKa5AUXOpkbf1W8AOm-HZpNRoSG8twq07Fn-MUjs-c6VexnGqM7CK9c-K15dSZLgIGvZNZLas-z1qrJV/s400/Marie.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722377761338599218" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The other reason I gathered people to my basement was because my paintings are about young people gathering --- the patterns they make and how they group together. It made sense to set up a situation in which this stuff happens naturally. That way I could document the kinds of interactions that I’m interested in exploring “in the wild.” In the narratives that I paint (and write), the characters are often faced with extreme circumstances (environmental catastrophes, crumbling buildings, broken bodies). These were the people that gathered from nearby in Brooklyn when the stakes were low. But what if the waters really were rising and this was the group that got together to weather the storm? Would the structures that we built to stay afloat and the silhouettes of our huddled bodies look at all like this?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8fZ7YRyErlvc_FTxH8rz71eJ2jtn9uHzUZh077WfGmafHHvrZ2qPwI6O5lKTjREqqqp6u7AvRLfEThpkVP5MeoiLWaoPDSaFSITvEgVMs6JV_qQS4GbLtnMZcx6ChrQ4R_K8-b9sYlk9s/s400/Fireside.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5722377221711423314" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Thanks to the models! Check out the multi-talented bunch: <a href="http://www.donaldgrahamhershey.com/donaldgrahamhershey/index.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Don</span></a> (video art and mixed media), <a href="http://phaseshifting.tumblr.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Siobhan</span></a> (dance and dance writing), <a href="https://plus.google.com/photos/117707673085782931883/albums/5199872093857424465?authkey=CPKi5ve4gKuQ0gE&banner=pwa&gpsrc=pwrd1#photos/117707673085782931883/albums/5199872093857424465"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Marie</span></a> (drawing and bookmaking), <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8kcwW_Xdz8"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Felix</span></a> (drawing and street art), <a href="http://itzydesign.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Itzy</span></a> (design and mixed media), <a href="http://topics.wsj.com/person/T/anton-troianovski/5588"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Anton</span></a> (journalism), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2923264/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">George</span></a> (film)</p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-85904427302856396892012-03-05T06:39:00.002-08:002012-03-05T06:45:42.516-08:00Ritual Still<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Nys9aTrELPvxkJxc5Zmtd27P0aJj9YsDbFBynajsPJw5OIUugYioK4HayEfl0gyu9-E_a0ZvJTb3BEb_AspS21lr9d0tmHWgYjBjbFVOZzhO3gmooCyPXe_vdgDDU3erB8X2hyphenhyphenqIPeDd/s1600/Ritual+still.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Nys9aTrELPvxkJxc5Zmtd27P0aJj9YsDbFBynajsPJw5OIUugYioK4HayEfl0gyu9-E_a0ZvJTb3BEb_AspS21lr9d0tmHWgYjBjbFVOZzhO3gmooCyPXe_vdgDDU3erB8X2hyphenhyphenqIPeDd/s400/Ritual+still.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5716422792354514834" /></a>A still from a video <a href="http://donaldgrahamhershey.com/donaldgrahamhershey/index.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"> Don</span></a> and I made last night as part of our new project, Ouroborix. There were many takes which meant many glasses of wine which means many glasses of vitamin water this morning.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-11942300641210825032012-03-01T22:10:00.004-08:002012-03-02T08:08:30.024-08:00“They Scorched the Snake But Have Not Killed It,”<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUg7z0xuGeMw0_cqQFPTOgyp8NObg104l9Vx2lgyNsK9Wh4cqUGFIPPvBBn6cLmDOwszGgZnMBtXtB2KIgm57Ei9tovfxH0IhF4WRJuiEMFf0xxhjkq9_OByad9sUj5McavTjx9VFY9nYP/s1600/mask+sleep+no+more.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUg7z0xuGeMw0_cqQFPTOgyp8NObg104l9Vx2lgyNsK9Wh4cqUGFIPPvBBn6cLmDOwszGgZnMBtXtB2KIgm57Ei9tovfxH0IhF4WRJuiEMFf0xxhjkq9_OByad9sUj5McavTjx9VFY9nYP/s400/mask+sleep+no+more.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715179024220517282" /></a><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">was Banquo’s whispered plea. I wish I could remember what else he said to me with such intensity when he locked me in that room with the simple wooden furniture. The servant’s quarters. A bare alter and a bed. I was a woman he used to know. It was so good to see me again. He anointed me with oil and assured me that I was chosen for some great purpose. I was silent, as I had been instructed from the beginning. But he lifted my mask off and I guess my eyes were big as saucers. Wide open because nothing feels as good and as terrifying as surrendering your reality.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I knew what I was getting into, or I thought I did, when I lined up outside the McKittrick Hotel in Chelsea to see ‘Sleep No More.’ I had brushed up on my Macbeth the night before. But the vibrant, violent world than greeted me inside was far more realized than I could have hoped for. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The anti-chamber helps. A winding, light-less hallway spills into the holding pen where revelers start and end their nights. This space is a functioning jazz bar where guests mingle with each other, throw off their old-worldly cares and get a taste of the new reality (absinth-flavored) before being subsumed. It is an effective transition to the surreal, because although the year is suddenly 1930, the jazz singer is a jazz singer and the champagne is champagne. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Inside, the first thing that hits you is that people can move differently in this world; there has been some shift in the physical laws. We’ve all seen dance performances before, but these people can climb walls, they can fall in and out of possessed states, they can fairly fly around the room. They have obviously been swept up in a super-human storm led by forces that are out of their control. The witches can read but not change them. It is this volatile combination of elements that makes the Macbeth story just as potent four hundred years after its birth. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The occupants of the McKittrick Hotel are tormented by guilt and wracked with lust. They hurl their bodies at walls and each other with wild abandon. The brutal percussion of all the falling, slamming, punching, shoving, growling, panting, clawing and lunging starts to keep beat in your ribcage like the baseline at a rock concert.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The question is not “Do I believe?” but rather, “How deep down this rabbit hole can I fall?” </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The voyeurs are ghosts -- observing silently from beneath identical, white masks. But at least we are on the same side of the looking glass as the action and can haunt the performers at will. It is refreshing to be able to bodily respond to a physical performance, to empathize with and echo an inspiring movement, to chase down something that catches your fancy.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Once I climbed through the window of a mental hospital ward and landed in a forest. The fog that snaked through the labyrinth of braided trees was glowing ultramarine. The space was big enough so that the corners of the room could disappear in blue clouds. I wandered alone for a while until I stumbled onto a cabin where a nurse was reading quietly at the window, her hut scaled on the inside with thousands of hospital records butchered like clumsy snowflakes. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Because I’m hopelessly insatiable when it comes to dream worlds and alternate realities, I had a hard time dragging myself away from that glitzy jazz bar at the end of the night. A sultry singer with a septum piercing and a sequined gown like a second-skin was crooning. A guy was asking me to explain Macbeth to him one more time. The performers were emerging to unwind for the night.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I asked the male witch, “Have you read the night circus?” He was beautiful and willowy, with distinctive dark eyeliner. His character was the provocateur, the button pusher, the tempter, the hedonist, the spark that set stuff ablaze. I had just seen him naked with a giant bull’s head on, dancing feverishly, leaping onto tables with blood running from his belly down his stomach to the curve of his thigh. I had just watched Macbeth kneel beneath him and lick it off as a strobe light and a screaming techno beat tore threw any last remaining inhibitions or distance we had between ourselves and the soiled fabric of everything else. “Of course!” he said enthusiastically. “The author saw the show in Boston a while back. I think it gave her a lot of ideas.” </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Then I thanked Banquo for the anointment. “Oh you!” He was pleased to see his silent ghost in the jazz bar of the half-alive. In purgatory. In ‘The Restaurant at the End of the Universe’ (in which the Big Bang starts over from scratch again each night). He was trying to catch the last train, so we ended up walking to the subway together, climbing down different staircases and standing across from each other on the platform. As I am physically incapable of turning away from magical potential, I watched him until he got onto his train. He walked to the window, put his hand on the glass and held my gaze until he was swallowed by the tunnel.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I swore the scented oil on my palms was bleeding into the stale subway air. Or some of the witch’s calcite clung to my hair because, the whole way home, people kept coming up to me, asking me about this or that, directions, where I was from. They could tell I’d been elsewhere. If we had all been dining at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, they would have told their waiter, “I’ll have what she’s having.”</p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-7673564194127169272012-02-10T20:58:00.001-08:002012-02-10T21:36:19.101-08:00Goldfish Grow to Their Corners<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBq6TKIlkxMN8MxvW5QycX8BaIeS34LEISc1grGIJuqpdLdF9eE_udHZsTYXt6ZpF0Iqg9LURIvdGWn2v9LbGE2voC0DPPkZHo71kaauEsRhz_muT2AaLdLV74vkJTdIH3MwfQ3Jd7KZtT/s1600/mimi+1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHRlEWTb-OzAnqlA_2LuqnHyOz0QdZToauO1YGgTPTKiMYKaYwiSyn7h06QPxWZpPWdWyKskaq53mSESnI86ZtrP5t3MYjBuD_bBtwHPIyfQkyLUaYhraZegfA7mT8WOPS9d5dqeWjpXH3/s1600/mimi+2.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHRlEWTb-OzAnqlA_2LuqnHyOz0QdZToauO1YGgTPTKiMYKaYwiSyn7h06QPxWZpPWdWyKskaq53mSESnI86ZtrP5t3MYjBuD_bBtwHPIyfQkyLUaYhraZegfA7mT8WOPS9d5dqeWjpXH3/s400/mimi+2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707739675514288786" /></a><div><div style="text-align: center; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Geoff oggling Mimi's guest bedroom.</span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTR1CZnG5ELoQfgHBir0AawhsE73Aaokthla-drWdf6G3YGo9fU1TwJPIzZ-Hd-gM7hsdkNWkI923LDMZzSmXnDV2d7fiTyKyPnP5PsaR08Ib2bGgpZneWxkD8XY4aWEffUKjC4EoZnmM4/s1600/laura+1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I recently visited the studios of two artists. Feisty, redheaded ladies with insatiable appetites for silliness and adventure and a lust for the brightest colors they can get their hands on. They are the kind of effortlessly generous women that can hardly find enough lucky targets to pour their affection onto. Both are figurative painters whose work walks right off the canvas and into the social sphere with life-sized portraits of friends and art scenes and the ways we gather. Sometimes their canvases even warp, grow a third dimension and morph into walls and installations. Neither artist finds reason to separate life from work so, as a friend of theirs, you’re never quite sure when you’re being framed.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyQZG5lGF8kLRyFtXAZxWPBFEyx9Y-2aTv-g6QuXJGPkn_oRx3m_KUiFXTgbS85XNwhZrpUL-XTkVsWH4CyVZebFt_UZZw0yFmz2wpJKB-e1Hm7S9XOfoQJULJE0zhX-N2QXtLdsy_1B3Q/s400/mimi+7.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707738571916949218" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Why bother to differentiate art vs a dinner party? (Painters from left: Mimi, </span><a href="http://www.laininemett.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Laini Nemett</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span></span><a href="http://www.ellenuschneiderman.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Ellen Schneiderman</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span></span><a href="http://geoffreyowenmiller.com/l"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Geoffrey Miller</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They are also at opposite ends of their careers -- Laura looking up from her just-sprouted practice and Mimi looking down over her tall, lush one that bears strong, intricate branches and encases many concentric rings.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF2bc-Vid0-X2tHN-b8d3oN1bLRtxnG6dm_U6GZ0ZMN8CbhM-N5w-pYSdX5unHPK0ZgfcgKFYe5etRZotPmzpPBwwdfd7jAy1HRSvZ86TJemvtE7w_XiUmpTOSqPRY9FkEMzVwKkwhEx8l/s400/mimi+8.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707738561433010626" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Mimi's.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Oh. And both Laura and Mimi have big live/work spaces (as pictured in all of these photos), which is the reason I thought to write about them together in the first place. Huge. The word “cavernous” comes to mind and can’t be shaken.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-SaNPX0PRmJ5_ZJcsNF03jzRgcQJmjQrZcFt4uKKcN2LIvozTLfZiO0d43Unv5atoSZhZR4ZypxP1BUMO5Zz7pszmKFLkWMcZH9Y-XZ5QC1PGwEil5RwS-7X23UlESn_J8iSWSk7QLgDw/s400/mimi+5.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707738603741964050" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Mimi's studio space.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7mikQTHlrqwY2kojwYm6d0EpIEXB0mrDv8ZqUkeZrXmDMiw7P2TzHXyXEZrbVE3OuZp93gZlVOhPPzrP0iinOvRn1rIp_ueoBOra_vaJmeyx09AWjD6IjuRz7LLmG8R4yH3o-7FK86Ae9/s400/mimi+6.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707738582612619554" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><a href="http://mimigrossart.blogspot.com/2009/04/mimi-gross-introduction-and-links.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Mimi Gross</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">spent a chunk of her twenties traveling around Italy in a horse-drawn carriage, supporting herself hand to mouth with puppet shows performed out of the back. She’s shot the shit with just about everyone you’ve read about in your 20</span></span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><sup><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">th</span></span></sup></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> century art textbook. Her stories of travel and art world exploits are endless and spellbinding. It’s hard to fathom all that she’s seen and shaped and loved and left behind.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIb4W3Z8-nL1cCJhfUUNr5rgRBjFrkE-j20FmqtVTdpbCxrtuQ7ccCwjl8pOEq4jbS5xUUm3bGWY_2jSL7tFtTO3-NA56Fena_BdYcLOK3pb9e2H5i0Sl1wWCEpEfqqyDS1WiPRfYv7v1p/s400/mimi+3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707739670035387282" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 342px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Early portrait of Mimi.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBq6TKIlkxMN8MxvW5QycX8BaIeS34LEISc1grGIJuqpdLdF9eE_udHZsTYXt6ZpF0Iqg9LURIvdGWn2v9LbGE2voC0DPPkZHo71kaauEsRhz_muT2AaLdLV74vkJTdIH3MwfQ3Jd7KZtT/s400/mimi+1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707739693500327074" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The one piece Mimi did about her travels in Berlin. A light box diorama. Simple and a bit slapstick -- I was immediately brought back there and felt the weight of the city in the paper construction that must have weighed next to nothing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She has lived and worked in this giant flat in Manhattan for (I believe) over 30 years. The walls are stacked salon style to high ceilings with bright, bold art that documents and fictionalizes so many pasts it’s dizying. And the other half of the space is all new work – her studio. I think what leaves me most in awe of Mimi, and it’s quite a list to top, is the freshness of her palette. Her studio is like an enormous, overgrown garden. The new work climbing up the walls, ceiling and floor, is obviously on some sort of super fertilizer.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:16px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTR1CZnG5ELoQfgHBir0AawhsE73Aaokthla-drWdf6G3YGo9fU1TwJPIzZ-Hd-gM7hsdkNWkI923LDMZzSmXnDV2d7fiTyKyPnP5PsaR08Ib2bGgpZneWxkD8XY4aWEffUKjC4EoZnmM4/s1600/laura+1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTR1CZnG5ELoQfgHBir0AawhsE73Aaokthla-drWdf6G3YGo9fU1TwJPIzZ-Hd-gM7hsdkNWkI923LDMZzSmXnDV2d7fiTyKyPnP5PsaR08Ib2bGgpZneWxkD8XY4aWEffUKjC4EoZnmM4/s400/laura+1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707736628575069778" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;"></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The bedroom portion of Laura's room.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://laurahudson.net/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Laura Hudson</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, who graduated from MICA’s MFA program with me last May, is discovering and staking out for the first time the territory that will be hers to mine and build on. Like me, she has little more than instinct and the voices in her head (painting teachers, the elder art gods, buddies, favorite musicians, Tom Bombadil (that could just be me)) to guide her to strange new lands. At this point the path seems arbitrary and disjointed, but I have a feeling that when she looks back over her travels, the path will show itself to be patterned with purpose and direction. Laura is someone who is sensitive enough to feel the pull of her “true North” and bold enough to follow it blindly.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size:16px;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgopDqjG6ek5-YhUFG2sWxxIWscs9P2_ZkuqWcobSYnYGNe9kjeprYFLN9z2kKmCCV-UrbZ1kd6_pJa1neayQ6wqiZhWUn5m66W6HzxSu1Pji93yr4Y1EaXgQVwb7yY7y25zx57Sfddv1YW/s400/laura+2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707736630266669762" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:-webkit-xxx-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size:16px;"></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The studio part.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">She chose to stay in Baltimore after she graduated in large part because of the space she lives in, one of the rooms in the H&H Building – a vital organ of Bmore’s grassroots art and music scene, housing 3 galleries and 2 music venues (the count changes weekly). The show that is up now at Gallery Four, Laura’s floor, “Cowboys and Engines” by Dustin Carlson, stakes out the vast, industrial space brilliantly. The director of the Baltimore Museum of Art told me that she thought it was one of the strongest shows she’s seen, anywhere, in years.</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; font-size:16px;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjst40OlAR2AKiXRYO-PlhBZWr6DmYcDSFlsmIquU0wkoDfW2RFWAdbqbVNBRksjQlMBRgrps8rYZXlO_mhZsPDUXb5xIzeyebC_x61WeXHhDwpun5Un5aZvV7GWDTtJkCnO_1LAUvM_8bX/s400/laura+3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707736644304205970" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Laura's door opens onto this.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Laura has a solo show coming up at the </span><a href="https://www.arlingtonartscenter.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Arlington Arts Center</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in Virginia in the fall and, to prep, they let her throw a sleepover party in the space. She filmed it and is plotting life-sized paintings of the revelers that she will hang for the opening as a similar crowd fills the room.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:-webkit-xxx-large;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjisdKYHXmU8Py7fbN-A3znTRw8_yZHR66_NZgPstx2xULJRlA2nvKP9aLf9GLN0lbkWr66l0e-4MLxQCGNgSbbx66jTCTe6xzQIZcW7lJF5a-qY22txThn3AIUI94orwhcVNj01-dly_S8/s400/laura+5.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707736655512857474" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And then this.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-size:medium;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNfoV-2nSr0Jhaw2zBe6jjscmeJyrnoKCGRYVQK30E6mwg3rSQWJ-2XTuVmq5qhm2BmE1JGGeyWfUdTSVz66dkBr_wTsItKwrnuQ2JM0Nm1QdL1gTfHlykloutfdEUS87l2i1RiVPC09P9/s400/laura+4.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707736649850125426" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And finally this.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 16pt; "></p></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-13522426418391404402012-02-05T11:11:00.000-08:002012-02-05T11:28:36.392-08:00Fight for Me<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><br /></span></span></span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjpduu6EwAOSXNWRD8bbqkjwJxHTNs2lSLZe95YNJSInUNRx1gK__VjJTrNDLpJ-DOoD6wqPcPTXdqpvprNP6HzBLtDdzxC8tAitv6dWFDJI87JOH1ORMjZpuVsExBK1D3rQo6VYOnPmJ/s1600/539px-Edward_Burne-Jones_-_Perseus.jpeg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 359px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEjpduu6EwAOSXNWRD8bbqkjwJxHTNs2lSLZe95YNJSInUNRx1gK__VjJTrNDLpJ-DOoD6wqPcPTXdqpvprNP6HzBLtDdzxC8tAitv6dWFDJI87JOH1ORMjZpuVsExBK1D3rQo6VYOnPmJ/s400/539px-Edward_Burne-Jones_-_Perseus.jpeg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705731889819871346" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Perseus slaying the dragon and freeing the maiden by <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; white-space: pre; ">Edward Burne-Jones.</span></span></div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">If you want to marry my daughter, you’re going to have to find the ring I’ve dropped into the middle of the Red Sea. If she is your heart’s desire, you will have to find the secret place where she goes to dance each night. You must beat her in a race, even though she plays dirty. You must eat 300 oxen -- skin, bones and all -- and then drink 100 casks of wine in one night. If you fail in this, I will cut off your head. But if you succeed, the kingdom and the most beautiful bride will be yours.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">The Grimm brothers recorded more than a few of these deadly trials. The common fairytale trope works to prove the strength and dedication (love never seems to factor in) of the competitor to the one in possession of his object of desire. It also impresses upon our protagonist the weight of what he’s getting himself into. And it’s not all boys slaying dragons (although it’s a lot of boys slaying dragons). If you happen to be a girl, you can line up outside the castle to present yourself as the most beautiful maiden in the land. If you win, the kingdom is yours. But if you are outshined, you will be drowned in the lake. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Brutal, right? Trial by fire with the highest of stakes. But isn’t it preferable to sitting at home and mailing letters into the void, checking the horizon for a horse-backed messenger every morning for months, not even sure if your courier was waylaid by bandits or delayed in a tavern of ill repute? Isn’t it better than biting your nails down to and past the quick and venting to anyone that will listen that if you could just see the princess, just for a moment, if you could entertain her with stories about your travels to the East and play her that new song on the lute and if she could just see the way this season’s harvest has made your body strong and tan then she would choose you above all the others? Instead of cursing the advantage of men whose fathers are close with the King and can bypass all that red tape, wouldn’t it be better to have the chance to win or lose her on your own merit? </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I thought about this a lot when I returned from the Vermont Studio Center to my parents’ house in Connecticut this November. I spent a few days converting the basement into a studio space and then dove headlong into a stream of job applications. (A one-way stream, which carries time and effort and carefully crafted sentences away from you at a very fast pace and returns nothing but new waters.) There has been a lot written lately about how hard it is for us young folk to find jobs, especially in creative fields. The market, especially in New York, is saturated with academically decorated, creative minds and there’s just not that much money in the arts to go around.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">After a week of sending out email after email into the web abyss, I spent a day in North Hampton with an artist friend. I was walking his dog, which looked like a tiny, toy luckdragon, down a bustling street and I was afraid someone was going to step on it. Its bones as delicate as a bird’s. “I wish I could just fight a dragon,” I said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Huh?” Don said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Sometimes I wish I could just fight a dragon or find some really far away herb or walk through a burning forest in some epic, bloody trial to get a job. And if I didn’t make it, fine. But at least I would have a chance to fight for what I want instead of sending out all of these faceless emails.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“I think you’d be good at fighting a dragon,” he said.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">“Thanks. Can I use you as a reference?” </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, “Be careful what you wish for,” etc. etc. I got a call soon after from an artist’s studio. I’ve been a huge fan of this woman’s work and philosophy for years. They asked me to come in and work with a team of assistants to fabricate a large-scale installation. It was pitched as a trial period for a permanent position. I made it sound like I was already in NY, so when they asked if I could start the next morning, I said “Sure!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGkkhycufmJIdFcxvVJnP6hoNncQXT0mLp1smhJJ2CvnupHWbh0UzTZpMd48tQSMdv4cEAqQ2BjPHCrqO6B5ySrvyyhkNcuyJFpAb94IdT1507bAEnhXYkqTPfj-sDMhQ_fEiWLeMibqrB/s400/tinsel+pic+2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705731897424263890" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">In progress installation.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"></span>It was already dinnertime, but I called a true friend in Brooklyn (“Can I move in with you tonight and stay with you for an unknown length of time?”), packed in an hour and a half, and worked a seven-day week. It turned out when I got there that the permanent positions were already full. But, long story short, there have been many challenges, obstacles, puzzles and riddles to work through as an assistant. I am still at the studio and, although I don’t know how long it will last, it’s good to know that I’ve had the chance to prove my mettle.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_foHjOOY1xVDKTcx_zU1j6CJBiSiiGIWfYIuKqqohncF3cn7vpWDsWjNmpb7Et2uebvi0N-EyzeKIhVWImO3iYHLM0DwEdYt30PALuRIex0RLb7-L_4VsoLhRKkpCD7upPAXPqACbo5-U/s400/tinsel+pic+1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5705731906067359042" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Weaving gold tinsel.</span></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-53821395355310946592011-12-25T13:27:00.000-08:002011-12-25T14:33:33.373-08:00The Longest Nights<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4udS2R89nJY8Z0q6DVP-AYOY6VtwebkW-Mc9dYG3oWV3PJP5cRC5bwsDspKAcZ1Gb0f9Ga6RfQ14DVykMfMIAYmtFsN3ajmhWKS2SFHdetLU7Qkv6uLmv96Vmv4aQ_7Xdv5XKov6qRxV1/s1600/dinning+room.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4udS2R89nJY8Z0q6DVP-AYOY6VtwebkW-Mc9dYG3oWV3PJP5cRC5bwsDspKAcZ1Gb0f9Ga6RfQ14DVykMfMIAYmtFsN3ajmhWKS2SFHdetLU7Qkv6uLmv96Vmv4aQ_7Xdv5XKov6qRxV1/s400/dinning+room.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690181463389920242" /></a>Winter Solstice at my grandmother's house in Houston.<div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6vfyBl5vV8C87YJAdlEWOeXR3nfdJS5y90y7MfldlbU7jwBt8C6ORxJRwI54_tPd2CvtZY3t2kmGaxanuTt0LFhdwtYyZstdU0w2Z2UjB5auyHUlVRFV4oX6f8mIUZNIPTKzFsjyVGhws/s1600/mira+fluff.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6vfyBl5vV8C87YJAdlEWOeXR3nfdJS5y90y7MfldlbU7jwBt8C6ORxJRwI54_tPd2CvtZY3t2kmGaxanuTt0LFhdwtYyZstdU0w2Z2UjB5auyHUlVRFV4oX6f8mIUZNIPTKzFsjyVGhws/s400/mira+fluff.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690181460506094114" /></a>My cousin <a href="http://mirabaidesign.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">Mira</span></a> -- belly dancer, painter, costume designer and body painter. She has a new project called Sirens where she transforms women with fabric, feathers and paint into their particular type of goddess. I drove to visit her on Friday southwest of Austin in a small town called Driftwood. I passed Enchanting Oaks Drive and Crystal Hills Drive. After a wooden sign proclaiming "Wizard Academy," I took a right turn onto her dirt driveway. Her studio sprawled across the ranch-style house with headdresses and Indian garb adorning every surface. A cushioned construction in the living room was shaping up into a hookah lounge. Three feline sentinels took turns keeping watch and bossing around her large dog.</div><div><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjE9e1_mzg6pW1rk4bJc9Tj154CKpHpT3rVTdaxugVO8O0bKM2S_dyXxH1sLp06JX3S8qEP3aitetCNy1gUSolWECOIncoDU7gT3o5_IvhJjWiHQbuV1pR3J5w84zSawfK-ifacobQgyG0e/s400/mira.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5690181725744238930" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></div></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-51372942607174182492011-12-06T10:50:00.000-08:002011-12-06T12:41:03.785-08:00Let’s Talk About Sets, Baby<div style="text-align: left;">It’s a funny thing to build pretend worlds for the eye to trust and explore. Literally. There have been many funny moments -- stringing naked girls from impromptu crucifixes in my studio, burning model houses on private property, convincing your local YMCA lifeguard to let you into the pool with your clothes on and perform multiple costume changes. I would like to begin this post with a shout out to all my friends who have made my painting references possible. Procuring naked photos of oneself covered in broken glass isn’t something that a girl can get through all on her own. Here’s to you guys!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGc93uaPb6OxNQMQ9SaD0eM8zGAqBjflR3pZ7kLUUJAeJY71DkQVvM3IDwlyUK_tHXLTOalbCqLyOx0jQg9BsOuK6D5VMnnCjZAjmEXBp2QSeHVhfndituMOjJBqu0g_p4ixreH7mO3ii3/s400/Red+tilted+bubbles+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683106359752403490" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px; " /></span></p></div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">My flooded Baltimore bathroom.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">So when I start a painting, the mental image almost always comes first. And if that happens to be something that I can handle translating from mind to matter without assistance, great, I’m off and running. But that is almost never the case. So I set up models or puppets in my studio to look at or people in a setting to photograph. Then I often suture these images together Frankenstein-style in my head. Every painting calls for a different method. (Necessity is the mother of invention, etc.) Nothing is “cheating” in my book. I’ve used tracing paper, printouts and projection. (However, during a critique with Julie Heffernan on a painting that drew from only one photo reference, her response was “Love the image. But wouldn’t it be horrible to make paintings like this all your life?” True story, Julie. Because although the process involved a much-reduced risk of an anxiety attack, it lacked the generative thrill that comes from birthing something new. And then, of course, if a photo adequately communicates an image, why make a painting?</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh9lb3eSqtj9NEJYAhrhDft1Cn_8_rBTEt5SOsZV5WgapgYC6lE-et41wTt3DBrLXlxuoWZsCzSI9LmnVwFXnuSq5Ki1IbpRy_-dPTif8_kz4NkdicST3iuCaTbdHbyHrnzq8vDE5nf9Tm/s400/DSC02669.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683110474906950946" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Me in a skirt.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">I end up using my own body a lot because I’m always around and am very supportive of my cause. I wish I could show you all of the bizarre imagery I have floating around in the ‘References’ folder on my computer – the pics are usually even more surreal than the paintings because the subject is often acting out something that clashes absurdly with its setting. But, unfortunately, many of the photos are un-postable because there are naked(!) people in them and we’ve all learned the hard way that once an image is out there, it’s almost impossible to reign back in. (For instance, the first image of me that pops up when you Google my name is a chubby-cheeked, Ms. Frizzle-esque catastrophe from my sophomore year in college. Dear Oberlin, I really appreciate the publicity. All press is good press, etc. etc. But, for the love of God, take that photo down.)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Each painting ends up gathering together a digital mood board of sorts, filled with images from all kinds of sources. I use this collection of internet detritus, mixed with video clips and primary sources, to figure out the composition, palette and desired feel of the piece.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAEzVsMJsSbvN2sXKX_TdPZwVegPd11OLDqt6od_qKJ_VJAQWRnneJSEl0-DV0nYE7tzWnkx1YFqluBVfrAW8Q1rrPIBq4cFY7Vyk1kImnEOzR_TcdeZlP0d7LqwkJeujSywxx58pADhne/s400/delta+add+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683105170990173026" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 326px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Delta advertisement that informed "Honey I'm Home."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Especially since so much of my recent work stems from a specific place, my travel photos feed into my work directly. In Iceland, I kept a folder of images that I had collected as a color journal.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixWUAss2_GXHX5yE7uAASkZxlGqhi7SkLqMKOPWFF6S2PRNI54pkGitkujf8hIWAD0-ZT5E0VqfwsaMgVvY6qCfcWvBdUQL9cDnwZ_zTswaYaqF00lUfvQxUGEiRqvi188Dnih28f6Npp-/s400/iceland+rocks+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683106324942311730" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000FF;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc3Vfn-ODgAFag-Z4HSJjBjIYIN0C5O-dYlIyGVDLsj-0JfMOTmA6zmVS_aCNpYzy_LMBpkZ3jzTugKqlwQTyJSs5PDqRs3McXnBtHQmEzlPcM1vLuSGYGMjGEAOJ29jhfg9pEI7onLmel/s400/fish+head+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683105791884289826" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOpPyNrbWnvGI3ojRikM41wPghSjBlZJHtXW02DRSK5QHqpRoizeKH8_fXyHSBZHKgYWFb_AO89uX27fTM-xOFsqg6hJzv8XuxbTRtx_uP-92FT_uGXkIIRCAPsUZNf3WEaQQyo-oMbzvj/s400/eggs.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683105787586511106" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes all of the images are too much to combine in my head, so I physically cut them up and paste them together or do the equivalent on Photoshop.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I owe much of my thesis work, “Outpost,” to a plexi-glass house. May it rest in peace. I had its components cut at a plastic company in Baltimore. I decorated the inside as one might a Robinson Crusoe style dollhouse, using model materials, furniture from my childhood dollhouse and random debris. It had a different role to play in each of my paintings. I had hoped one of those rolls would be a working aquarium. So I followed every Youtube step for making it water-tight. But it flooded my studio almost immediately. Since you can pass notes down to the floor below you in the Balitmore warehouse where my grad program was posted, I quickly scrapped that idea.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW6wI3wRam6qHwIP6GdXB90v1bqZAv7GC7YbQjHppDMcPbWVoNx-c4UWMMfCtI6-x0ob38eiNFdudvX-tp2v_mSAXDhisiwyYwpVFN8NclJ8bNh4GQHGkXNjn7yPuli00yTZxRRSsG7Loi/s400/Best+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683105143750911330" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The house’s final act was a daring night stunt. Accompanied by three lovely female assistants, it was put afloat on a winter-cold river and set on fire. Apart from the toxic odor, it was a beautiful send-off. Afterwards, I tried to throw away its remains, but they were rescued by some of my more materially-experimental MFA peers and reincarnated as yet more art.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdYNDIMK4-5yR_FAYWpqP2SUiR4SA1WGQICfqzPLbqJqKCMmXBc6jWDaNdurLQ0WY4zh5M5MQxwqR97T-S_4fbP0AFi18_1xMs6oZmT6v-ldr_Hjn1vhPJo7O5Gl3C5nXnpnw3dRMltTXw/s400/house+burning+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683105809554739426" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The best actress award goes to poet and neuroscience guru Ryann. The woman in my “Fielding Terns” painting was born from a combination of her body strung up in my studio and a puppet I constructed from material scraps. The forms ended up having a surprising amount in common.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiHJmAiexn4hxAaH0B-nBzLUlZB5Sln9wwQc5o9VIXkRNwJ8AZGVHdmzJAWhN_VId6sgdBKPHETtTxinyrSgndrbLri8dWV7KUKK8XKF0_A-BIe6ZF_4paGtQ3bXaBOjRGdoTgEV9_PC3e/s400/arm.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683108242809011266" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg07yDQcZsXn_V_cgjIo3Ymp17LU8YHyruLd2t6vD2VU-TyOE8dE6SqHFHWp2kWhcZDeN_JMnrjlH-503pv_fP_d7VAI3NQ9EXqlLOW4aQ9UUDGYBvQJ23uX0Xfw_8-pzgpeusz6ImLvQ24/s1600/tied+small.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg07yDQcZsXn_V_cgjIo3Ymp17LU8YHyruLd2t6vD2VU-TyOE8dE6SqHFHWp2kWhcZDeN_JMnrjlH-503pv_fP_d7VAI3NQ9EXqlLOW4aQ9UUDGYBvQJ23uX0Xfw_8-pzgpeusz6ImLvQ24/s400/tied+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683107362781927906" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px; " /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2717_YE19X9w6mihdt08Y6NWFVKYF-ajal_fvmmgKuDVROBSn3E0qHQfadtYq3RPjgsyXDxHax3DH-Ufo_5Vv0488PQEBCG86o8gDAlUojl52rYQqXREngxFY1kFBvG7w8BQdet3CIM-e/s1600/Use+me+puppet+small.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2717_YE19X9w6mihdt08Y6NWFVKYF-ajal_fvmmgKuDVROBSn3E0qHQfadtYq3RPjgsyXDxHax3DH-Ufo_5Vv0488PQEBCG86o8gDAlUojl52rYQqXREngxFY1kFBvG7w8BQdet3CIM-e/s1600/Use+me+puppet+small.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2717_YE19X9w6mihdt08Y6NWFVKYF-ajal_fvmmgKuDVROBSn3E0qHQfadtYq3RPjgsyXDxHax3DH-Ufo_5Vv0488PQEBCG86o8gDAlUojl52rYQqXREngxFY1kFBvG7w8BQdet3CIM-e/s400/Use+me+puppet+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683107358551764642" style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 309px; height: 400px; " /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000FF;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib29aYL8U4W2bOe0immppUIGd8ul16ageg6Q07t7tGkWm_yCxsjCxzmCazI5RmHOJoed9gOPXfOBX-JrZaz1uh75CmXjJZtK45vBIBrVMDinkmEpQbzyixfdp17Ts3Mjtu2WM8rO9Bs63C/s400/hendrickterbrugghen_stsebastiantendedbyireneandhermaid.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683105795963801746" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 316px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">These are images that came together to become “Everything That Rises:”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8RNOVyQQRMPu187B9nI9cvUqBMCHoGOBarhXKsFdlVKjI7FNxoqqr0wTcksq-lVNWwRI4pFZtbkdLDB5LMqt3WSBcULAgqmvUs6InfiA6XfjyC3pbQPWlm0BGF1SYoVa720FUvZnJKRNe/s400/Love+it+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683106345225793378" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000FF;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0izqOapTUN0sQRj3UqNhSiet-eojpFHOIQ9lcBTxwPzXjuc34Z-YJtCqpsT0cYXhRwFb0wsRkA6kdZRJQnSawH_T2E8flpGPNZathXxqZH08Dkw5PlyHU3GtqurCCt2_uhLwGQHHP_-oI/s400/rt+hand+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683107345948001874" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000FF;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQoH1_hyphenhyphen_r1r4KpTNfSPU0Kn0sqf6iprGN_9Vmuet8_325Usiz-HFEdodoVoSumowBW8jCCB5bzqtSkj6ubr0aQQYRfgCxAXrq337rod0KaW0i06uVaPAMOo4JAD7GYMHnFOOiSTaI9EjE/s400/couch+car+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683105160003169122" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmLjugGhC2YJmGxcWUQx8CHW2hONdu7E6ZzbkQb9z40TEUbbZ4I90TjufSuNF-IfOBoRvbPCyFfAepjjXeddy98hhZ2ZEqxrjE3OtsCnGI9pmAb6pn1O3qm2dGPosZX6dVm4ze8H-PaWnG/s400/inside+car.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683106326973016498" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Most of my photos of <a href="http://www.laurahudson.net/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Laura Hudson</span></a> are not for the public eye! But luckily for you, her paintings are. (Be patient. They rotate through.)</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHD5d1aew2SEifZgrTDneEXAHGis10Gsb5yQUX_g_bB2ver9E0yBzVDb15ivNs2Q9p57qDPE-mcoN7X3iyky3DcN2174KcIVc-pr0YbJWp-3TVFPCm78fL5qSEbeaaSNrd4mQZN0LM3Nqb/s400/laura+head+small+for+realz.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683106343627142018" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In which <a href="http://chaneytrotter.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Chaney</span></a> (an awesome painter and fellow adventure seeker) and I braved a tangled Baltimore underpass adjacent a sprawling homeless person’s shelter, shattered a sunroof that I had procured from a car graveyard and filled her hands with broken glass:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCUXCSP_71nU769lRFJIZbDu5oYafXlQo7TcUxrSxADXC0ZHIPqFBG5Cwrjj5tz2wiNqOxd-aR0CmelWF0ZQGPiciKudLHfI625NDvbuAYOR3HC8vTI-OZNwqCCw9VWRyYFnXuz6LeJL4A/s400/chaney+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683105153545231138" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000FF;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2JFfevuFAFhwHpWGh0A_kcuTENhbpsnFLpd-XhBWq_MfZPQSLvJ9edHLF0Bnls7oWacMh4q_wz1Y_sda8NkJ-q33OLuSeoU6aLFo-yTqu8sNzJFmR_8TcJKxHGyBjtIG0hx2s0oymURxE/s400/shelter+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683107349189382226" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is something that I am working from now. Kind of love this messy Photoshop collage so hopefully my painting will be at least as cool.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXm_Xie6ZIERhjt08T85yPdeQPM8eoBhVSC_kSATzhLc1YpVlhmgpS1QzAPmfKwIGYgDbntqHRxJXSnw11BcCRGhZjo0xu8Yy0M-vs-mrzw3W89euuIX7G32gV0sz0MlnsTlPvZmu9DuQF/s400/alien+blue+small.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5683105142868966594" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-88745622431185922902011-11-28T15:41:00.000-08:002011-11-28T16:39:10.878-08:00O, that I were a glove upon that hand<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG6aPVF8D5n5GUjOn8xJ-4Av3FDBg7X6Nyo1mcz6hrP0wAdOIoE7IgpGyADkiXafm3ui3MtrrbtZo7xGhxEbaD2nuTFirWJK8wGgJCzgOmqhhqE5ZnUnVo7tasGTlJzUqr2tYGBMCH9yj_/s1600/ritual.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8l8JM3bO5wVPjz9OSJ8Wa-nngFp-B0IpfMZ6VQ0Uy2Rg50xrJp5h6iucOcRZYlhWgmzkpNGZ5bq74YJ_276MxWAHc5vvq8pPLoiiVcQn4EYmHWDjle14Oy3cicEXKMBDCVWIGaamnu6BX/s1600/group+for+web.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8l8JM3bO5wVPjz9OSJ8Wa-nngFp-B0IpfMZ6VQ0Uy2Rg50xrJp5h6iucOcRZYlhWgmzkpNGZ5bq74YJ_276MxWAHc5vvq8pPLoiiVcQn4EYmHWDjle14Oy3cicEXKMBDCVWIGaamnu6BX/s400/group+for+web.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680203889154685474" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Looking in on a gallery opening at the Vermont Studio Center on a cold winter's night.</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiRKagsdj9IYZTqee46FVv9anZZJ3daXOB2cH-H6WuwMbcbgSSlyX-G3mfCfKJjYIQjTs69v-ueB4k-CFd-iAuuos_agAtSyGWB1lgKw4aEeDxMGeYTzuB9sCXq-Bt_y8kGGuhnZJjD6er/s1600/apples.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">When I am feeling daunted by the uncertain road ahead to “artistdom,” I often look to artists I admire and am reassured by the stories of how they were able to make it work. Clare would question my logic in this. Clare, who is quoted in her sister Noreen Malone's <i>Atlantic</i><span style="font-style:normal"> article, <a href="http://nymag.com/news/features/my-generation-2011-10/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">‘The Kids Are Actually Sort of Alright,’</span></a> has some IM insight that begs a closer look:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-left: 0.5in; ">CLARE: ok, you know what i always think about when i think of our generation? i read the david brooks book, “the social animal” and while it was only mediocre, he had this one really great bit that really stuck with me—the Greek ideal of “thumos”, which is the lust not for money or success (in the conventional sense) but the lust for glory </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-left: 0.5in; ">we want glory through our ideas-we want to know we matter </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-left: 0.5in; "><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-left: 0.5in; ">(10:33) the cold truth is that not all of us are brilliant <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-left: 0.5in; ">we are not all big thinkers. Not everyone’s TED talks will change the world <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-left: 0.5in; ">some of us will just dissipate into the ether </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;margin-left: 0.5in; ">(10:34) but it is the digital connectivity, that proximity to these people, that makes us think that perhaps we will succeed as well</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We might not be able to get our hands on everything we dream up, but we can get our eyes on it (Romeo-style). Our idols and their creations are more accessible than ever. So what I want to know is, with our all-access passes to stellar minds and their accomplishments, are we any closer to achieving personal greatness in our own fields or do the examples just serve to taunt and tease?</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I do think that the insights that we are privy to via social media can be useful in giving us a leg up in terms of technical know-how and career advice. Its advantages are clear if you think about the opposite extreme. Imagine trying to become a painter in the renaissance if you weren’t accepted into a guild. You wouldn’t have access to training, travel, mentorship or materials. Apprentices of master painters would have all the resources and you would be out of luck. Whereas, in this day and age, you can teach yourself just about anything you can type into YouTube.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In this way, the playing field is somewhat leveled. But are more people going to do something inventive with the surplus of resources? Or is the internet chatter just going to cancel itself out -- a bunch of white noise -- with the usual small percentage of unique voices standing out above the rest? </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sometimes it’s painful to read firsthand accounts of startups and starlets and artists who have hit the big time. We don’t just know them from their rare public appearances anymore. We get to read their daily thoughts, become familiar with their shorthand and receive messages from them on our personal phones. The illusion is that this brings us closer. But the major-league baseball player that my friend follows on twitter is not invested in her. (Sorry girl! He’s just not that into you.) There’s no reciprocation.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Tantalus wanted in with the gods. His father was Zeus, so he was above your average mortal stock and got a dinner invitation to Mt. Olympus one day. In order to impress them, Tantalus sacrificed his son and served pieces of him as the main course. When the Gods found out what he’d done, they were repulsed and banished him to the special part of Hades reserved for really bad guys. He was forced to stand in a pool of water underneath a fruit tree and for all eternity be tantalized by their proximity. Whenever he reached for a fruit it would move just out of his grasp and when he bent down to drink, the water would drain.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I realize this is a downer metaphor for reaching for the stars, but I found it useful in fleshing out Clare’s observation. Personally, I am optimistic that our proximity to great things will wet our palates (and palettes), spark some healthy competition and connect us with other people thinking similarly. For instance, I have developed the (hopefully not too annoying) habit of writing people whose work inspires me and thanking them for making awesome things. It is pretty easy to find email addresses and many of them write me back and are supportive of my work. This doesn’t mean that they impart any special success potion, but I do find it affirming and energizing.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiRKagsdj9IYZTqee46FVv9anZZJ3daXOB2cH-H6WuwMbcbgSSlyX-G3mfCfKJjYIQjTs69v-ueB4k-CFd-iAuuos_agAtSyGWB1lgKw4aEeDxMGeYTzuB9sCXq-Bt_y8kGGuhnZJjD6er/s400/apples.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680203883636044978" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"> A failed video project in which an apple did not spectacularly explode. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">(</span><a href="http://www.donaldgrahamhershey.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Don Hershey</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"> and Erin Fitzpatrick at VSC)</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Most of the people that I hang out with are involved in some form of art, music or writing. Even though they are from all over and have very different backgrounds, they do have a certain type of ambition in common. As Clare writes, they’re not after nice things or being famous for the sake of being famous. But I think it’s safe to say that they’d all like to make something kickass and have people know it and benefit from it. They want time to spend producing and time to spend enjoying the things that their friends produce.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">My friend Erin Fitzpatrick from the Vermont Studio Center has been doing an interview project that might shed more light on the subject. It’s still in the beginning stages, but stay tuned on <a href="http://fitzbomb.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Fitzbomb.com</span></a> to hear about how creative people have responded to her polarizing question, “Do you want to be famous?"<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG6aPVF8D5n5GUjOn8xJ-4Av3FDBg7X6Nyo1mcz6hrP0wAdOIoE7IgpGyADkiXafm3ui3MtrrbtZo7xGhxEbaD2nuTFirWJK8wGgJCzgOmqhhqE5ZnUnVo7tasGTlJzUqr2tYGBMCH9yj_/s400/ritual.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680203903033315682" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Teaser image of an upcoming video project about rituals.</span></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-25741657413570604922011-11-27T13:07:00.000-08:002011-11-27T13:15:32.057-08:00Topping Out<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9cX3moviQKEXm4JAKTCEaUObHuAdKcM1Qgf_O0GPUk3iPaul55OpF_Ap4jBI9pJyVXCtZsqHxH72JreXhy1qzi7ZLRdftv9DrTDOaM3CcG50JG5uPJNWL40rd1lxY4rVTHlYmU7d0lNJp/s1600/tented.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9cX3moviQKEXm4JAKTCEaUObHuAdKcM1Qgf_O0GPUk3iPaul55OpF_Ap4jBI9pJyVXCtZsqHxH72JreXhy1qzi7ZLRdftv9DrTDOaM3CcG50JG5uPJNWL40rd1lxY4rVTHlYmU7d0lNJp/s400/tented.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5679785780194090594" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Twice-bundled, pre-cut trees.</span></div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Ours is not a culture ruled by ritual, but it’s fun to play out the few tattered traditions that remain, those that have hung on despite our penchant for utility and speed. In my experience, they are usually ghosts from a childhood of church-going, nostalgic reconstructions of the past or simply old habits dying hard. My family embarked on one this morning -- hunting for this year’s Christmas tree.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">When I was very little, this was a whole day affair involving tractor rides up and down hills of differently spiked firs and pines. In later years, it was a heated argument between my brother and me over the pre-cut trees down by the lodge. We were supposed to alternate each year as to who made the final decision. But, without fail, we could never quite recall the outcome of the previous year. The debate would involve bribes, blackmail, hand-to-hand combat and the parent pity card. It would usually end in tears and one or both of us running off into the endless rows of trees. Today, we made a pact before we left to agree on something as fast as possible, regardless of quality. (What? We're busy!) So we chose a rather ungainly looking mammoth of a tree, fed it through one of those shrink-wrappers, bungee-chorded it to the car and had erected an eleven foot fraser fir in the middle of our living room in less than an hour.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I’m happy to carry on a tradition with pagan, Germanic roots. But it has evolved so far from its pre-Christian beginnings, when the purpose was to show tribute to the tree spirits, that the communing with nature aspect has all but disappeared. When people first started decorating trees, they were not cut down, but ornamented where they stood, so as to preserve their divine inhabitants. Many Scandinavian and Germanic rituals involved trees because the forest was the dominant element in their landscape and they relied heavily upon it for shelter and heat.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Unrelated to the solstice, Saturnalia or any other winter festival, the ancients also had the tradition of mounting an evergreen tree on top of a completed wooden structure. As the last beam was put into place, a tree would be hoisted up so that the spirits of all the timber involved would still have a place to occupy. This ceremony, called “topping out,” is cause for celebration for the workers and has also migrated to the States. I like to think of the tree towering over our couches as topping out the year. </p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-87551505385819890612011-11-20T20:56:00.000-08:002011-11-20T21:17:35.159-08:00Pixies Prefer Pixels<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUBzI58g0JFvgE2BX8Ra8aNxPncChWiyFKBNgvyRTYSTOsiC1eGaM7iWudFsUZhGWrKFgiu7M4yYDVgzi9v0ZIKXK41bCzzTqvhgR45gB8tzuPsKt81Q1lIsUH-AQ1GnSJbqqMePOWGKs9/s1600/Your+Place+or+Mine_Oil+on+mylar_12inx15in_2011+smaller.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivk9isQXjDMv3Vg5nLmK8v_lLeYiKhBAZRoisVOlY-ngEDd187iJFwF_kJCGP8n445-9L_SOF5mmoypuUWskYL3lBFimyMlT3vweu4ho0-6KsL3fAey_k8XF00QNPhuK9zrp1aiT8uXO70/s1600/1318925860.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivk9isQXjDMv3Vg5nLmK8v_lLeYiKhBAZRoisVOlY-ngEDd187iJFwF_kJCGP8n445-9L_SOF5mmoypuUWskYL3lBFimyMlT3vweu4ho0-6KsL3fAey_k8XF00QNPhuK9zrp1aiT8uXO70/s400/1318925860.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677309414157207906" /></a><p class="MsoNormal">As I was looking to <a href="http://enormousface.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Kalan</span></a> for an image to represent Occupy, New York Magazine was busy casting him for a much bigger role – the poster child of a generation. The article -- “<a href="http://nymag.com/news/features/my-generation-2011-10/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">The Kids are Actually Sort of Alright</span></a>” -- came out this month in NYMag with him on the cover and laid out the lot of American twenty-somethings. The forecast by Noreen Malone, herself of the Millennial generation she was analyzing, was cloudy with only the thinnest of silver linings. The pessimism was amplified by its proximity to the article “P.S. The world is ending this Friday.” More than the many statistics about joblessness (which fail to shock me every time) I was interested in the psychological diagnosis that was offered of us big kids.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">We are: idealist, self-confident, floundering, hopeful. Despite the overwhelming circumstantial evidence that says we will fall short in all of the ways that our society usually measures people, we believe that we will succeed in accomplishing our aspirations – abstract and sweeping as they may be. We are alienated from the things we use. We live in a country that doesn’t make many things anymore, so we channel our impulse to create into crafting useless objects like art, crocheted reindeer and blog posts. We may be unemployed but we are culturally wealthy. We have more free, communal resources for communication, entertainment, news and production than we can use. We need less physical paraphernalia because of this. Our valuables are as small and portable as 1s and 0s. They are as transient as we are and as intangible as our goals. Sure it sounds a little like a hokey astrological reading. “You are passionate and headstrong. An unexpected visitor leads to financial gain on the second of the month.” But some of it rings true.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Let’s give our collective character form for a minute. Let’s call him/her Peter Pan. Now perhaps it is easy to see why Kalan fits the bill. A street performance artist, a transient traveler with his band of (lost) puppets, often outfitted in a costume of tights and secondhand ornaments. More oriented toward adventure and stories than a “grown-up” career.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Our generation is playful with gender. Our ideals of masculine and feminine beauty are conflating and more of us are curating our own gender from a combination of traditionally male and female traits. We have all of the sexual freedoms in the world but we are not necessarily using them, perhaps out of narcissism or because we value documentation and analysis over the experiential, or because the old ways of fitting together don’t feel right anymore and it will take time to craft new choreography.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">There is a refusal to grow up and settle down with one city, one job or one partner. The Occupy movement has also brought out our drive to fight the pirates. (Those that take more than their share.) Not because we want to take their places but because we want to see the end of pirates altogether. Our fashion has embraced an aesthetic of the cast-off and castaway. To top it off, we can traverse our world in seconds – carrying messages, surfing currents of information and gaining great perspectives from our height. It’s just that, instead of fairy dust, our pixies prefer pixels.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Some new works on mylar that may or may not have anything to do with the above:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDarLlnkrbxFXx7Teh2ZmAiLSudLHOgNHW-BeuuMO_H-1MueaqQ9kzpZUNPnR-3Rvknn04WPkz__-MbgMng9nplOURKlQlPDoyPJ1iEh9NTcyfsKSvxf2SHFJVwb4aZk3nzSXfFMQCDSVj/s400/Study+for+Sleeping+Beauties+smaller.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677310620044426002" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 318px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Study for Sleeping Beauties, 12"x15"</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdFwwqommV7l-DrWTbqpSpMv-FVFKrop5Qp5QI3ph3qHjTKZwGSqEEXKtPDwuZMab9AvjudOd7tS1SaksGHaXTaVKbseQGPvepqUOM7Uz4eFNXNyvrB4eYUh8F-F8STyaaPi4j3PSh_4eW/s400/the+dj+smaller.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677310632640006146" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 358px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">The DJ, 12"x10"</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinh7am-WGIsbZQmndvi9jVFdGAsZA6WrlIqiMV-wXYBKDhWF17Fqz4wKrDcwEELJ6ZO0EOTak09sSZmbZ9w6BICs83KuktlEWXtHQXas3WUY6s7a77kuGlodtHcLMDXOoeMPApMuqw-llC/s400/Thunderstorm+smaller.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677310620475502386" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 239px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdFwwqommV7l-DrWTbqpSpMv-FVFKrop5Qp5QI3ph3qHjTKZwGSqEEXKtPDwuZMab9AvjudOd7tS1SaksGHaXTaVKbseQGPvepqUOM7Uz4eFNXNyvrB4eYUh8F-F8STyaaPi4j3PSh_4eW/s1600/the+dj+smaller.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Performance, 10"x15"</span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDarLlnkrbxFXx7Teh2ZmAiLSudLHOgNHW-BeuuMO_H-1MueaqQ9kzpZUNPnR-3Rvknn04WPkz__-MbgMng9nplOURKlQlPDoyPJ1iEh9NTcyfsKSvxf2SHFJVwb4aZk3nzSXfFMQCDSVj/s1600/Study+for+Sleeping+Beauties+smaller.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><br /></a></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_qxmtpr7DiDXBVjKpeUNGTs2QRmtUz5xfIMaKdtXyT4iH5QV53CIq6TItuKIMZ8-0SYw15Wc7AWumAk9nb4RFTbz1PpvZ0K3DZTqPMAwapqB6Fvb8hrGsa64EMlQ5dUW633dOoK8Zfg7/s1600/Spilt_Oil+on+mylar_10inx12in_2011+smaller.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_qxmtpr7DiDXBVjKpeUNGTs2QRmtUz5xfIMaKdtXyT4iH5QV53CIq6TItuKIMZ8-0SYw15Wc7AWumAk9nb4RFTbz1PpvZ0K3DZTqPMAwapqB6Fvb8hrGsa64EMlQ5dUW633dOoK8Zfg7/s400/Spilt_Oil+on+mylar_10inx12in_2011+smaller.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677310615684501058" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 336px; " /></a><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Spilt, 10"x12"</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUBzI58g0JFvgE2BX8Ra8aNxPncChWiyFKBNgvyRTYSTOsiC1eGaM7iWudFsUZhGWrKFgiu7M4yYDVgzi9v0ZIKXK41bCzzTqvhgR45gB8tzuPsKt81Q1lIsUH-AQ1GnSJbqqMePOWGKs9/s400/Your+Place+or+Mine_Oil+on+mylar_12inx15in_2011+smaller.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5677310646053576226" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 310px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Your Place or Mine, 12"x15"</span></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-58615868308399955602011-11-18T07:41:00.001-08:002011-11-18T07:45:37.816-08:00Melon Morning<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBVTkfIgUvQCqZkOkxhREp3hi66YDqcMl9g0TcwksQOqBwylSXn8mYhDitxR4f5aW-SEYJAPA9Y6Ky3WRLlZJrs-Dlyf53NONrWzEoUt2QD_SWyVulQJaIxywNNEa9S9DobssJ1FHRKAc8/s1600/melon+copy.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBVTkfIgUvQCqZkOkxhREp3hi66YDqcMl9g0TcwksQOqBwylSXn8mYhDitxR4f5aW-SEYJAPA9Y6Ky3WRLlZJrs-Dlyf53NONrWzEoUt2QD_SWyVulQJaIxywNNEa9S9DobssJ1FHRKAc8/s400/melon+copy.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676362243655622402" /></a><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I just finished up a month long residency at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson Vermont. The light coming through my window this morning lit the curtain up like a ruby and splashed the walls with melon green and yellow. Sometimes, like writers record snippets of overheard conversation, I collect colors.</p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-49589329231301085372011-11-12T13:56:00.001-08:002011-11-12T15:57:40.697-08:00Sleeping Beauties<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJeZhJTFCYuNG6k7-1vZTQqUhkXWf-r7Nd0169BCe02TuPd4hWV_Wme2iDRCyp7BGPcJW3QFqu8ehdMUhZX-921BmBW24A8ZJQqrLayvD4FMx5ZTqUjRFqSUHs2_BmQBtysEfDunLAwZRj/s1600/green.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 266px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJeZhJTFCYuNG6k7-1vZTQqUhkXWf-r7Nd0169BCe02TuPd4hWV_Wme2iDRCyp7BGPcJW3QFqu8ehdMUhZX-921BmBW24A8ZJQqrLayvD4FMx5ZTqUjRFqSUHs2_BmQBtysEfDunLAwZRj/s400/green.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674241427481509650" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHnKlxesaJXnjacpHvTfgAOVE0nsCvo9S69KQHdn41RYTPjX5cjcGku2MMPnZtQ3Eiy6KusVn3i4_qwWTAgS0tu9vSKHHO3sEMZmRssxvha9DjWQejG34oGSO8-Gu_bZmAMVvrP24xpbh/s1600/big.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.laininemett.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Laini</span></a> and I emerged from the Fulton Street subway and turned in slow circles, not sure which way was south with the sun directly overhead. A mailman stopped his cart to ask us where we were headed. “Occupy,” we admitted. He gave us directions to the park and we were off. “If you get a chance,” he called after us, “tell my daughter to come home.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1dF8I7LJnC1Rzejzl780wWDoJARtDBdIUHiLuxt5p4_0F1t-tp5G6_tUgBArqyEF4FrhILb_H9oCNAvVu3RFpipwQ-ni8ppEwWKM9X5lFI5wEdekJZlnr8DC-gbHS5eAWwOVayC-MUroK/s400/DSC_0327.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674241420304084594" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was smaller than I’d pictured. I’ve heard others say the same. It’s expanded in our minds through its replication in the media, the kaleidoscopic documentation of each event and the seeds it’s scattered across the globe.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBerjTmDkPuW4LJyrERs2Np6kzyNEnSomWmop-jwi-OGDuSkUBYnNmh_C5TAR9EWXi4LtjKFDCy0JPlPQEnTS9ZwkVK5ixFZUh_1Yn00nnnPUyu7wLKfoI1NvoMRz3HJ9wTLpUjBFw9I74/s400/cuddle.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674241406454170210" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:189.3pt">The core group – the sleepers – was an even smaller bunch. You could easily see how much space each one occupied. Their footprints of concave bedding, nested with a small pile of belongings were clumped around the park. They set the example that people could live with little. This was mid-October and the sun was out boosting moral. Although, temperatures have certainly dropped since then and the nights must be brutal.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:189.3pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHnKlxesaJXnjacpHvTfgAOVE0nsCvo9S69KQHdn41RYTPjX5cjcGku2MMPnZtQ3Eiy6KusVn3i4_qwWTAgS0tu9vSKHHO3sEMZmRssxvha9DjWQejG34oGSO8-Gu_bZmAMVvrP24xpbh/s400/big.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674241392864858066" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Tents are outlawed in Zuccotti Park, so I wandered through a blue-tarped terrain that was composed of any shelter or support that couldn’t be labeled as such. I was reminded of the time I spent volunteering in the Ninth Ward after Hurricane Katrina. Ours was a tent village in a parking lot with its own self-sufficient infrastructure including facilities in a gutted school building. Outside of these one-block worlds, the environment is entirely different – wasteland or bustling financial center. Inside Zuccotti, the mood was festive, like a music festival campground. Each of the protesters seemed to adopt a role to keep the community organism sustained. A women collected trash. Bins of books were up for borrow. Ben and Jerry themselves set up an ice-cream stand and dished out highly-photographed offerings. The occupiers spent their days working, but in a non-Capitalist sense. They would organize events, participate in protests around the city, repeat and amplify speeches, and even perform puppet shows on the subway. Just being present<span style="color:#339966;"> </span>was productive.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiagY75LSR4RdXkvn7_xjbs5Av1uyxSWBg1IzzoUcd-xOtKUdxBAm2BrvIrYBLwsQDgZ_ADSGs5hY_AhYmp4HRPm5gPOTPujnJvTVJhnmdBPkPjM8SVV_jzftvKRKbTnVm71AvlzMWENCrC/s400/Jerry.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674244977721626514" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 266px; height: 400px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Jerry.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9zsoQbkG1bJtkLfWLy8raVdsK80lwyLSb1hCptNl3shrpY2rkogTUBXoZiw8dv9DkGqxVi53hRGl7vivanznWTYflkO8Y3sZjCqc7Cfj-g2E9ChizXbApdZ7rCrghmi0dLDbYQnBA2yue/s400/masks.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674244996317548498" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">The puppeteer was <a href="http://www.enormousface.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Kalan</span></a>, a friend from Oberlin who had often ruffled the feathers of our school, which considered itself unable to be phased by liberal antics, with his performance art. He told me he had been sleeping at Occupy with a few breaks since September 10<sup>th</sup>. When I asked him how he was doing, he lifted his head slowly and looked at me with big, glassy eyes. “I’m very tired,” he said.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-EGKF71y6Ta-Y_ibDlrvwbpZo87o4eDTWp_vGwAJgt9KySYrpRsTete_JVPIEdi1jpzhfXM9sNoH2HOGMMvnBJq60ZagpW2kLSvsF1ZvjO8O5ZeKaF_iqhiMEeLeclKFHxwNAZfJwW51C/s400/kalan+and+friend.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674244980952030818" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Chilling with Kalan.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">As I weaved in and out of bodies and boxes and bold-lettered signs, I was struck by the intimacy of the space. Without being able to cover themselves fully, the protesters were in a vulnerable position -- belly up in the middle of a city known for chewing up its pilgrims and spitting them out. There was no private space and the site was a magnet for public viewing. Nights they had to fight off cold and city noise for sleep, so many caught mid-day naps when they could. Curled up in the sun, they were the ultimate peaceful protesters. Powerful in the satyagraha (Ghandi’s philosophy of non-violent resistance) sense.</p><p class="MsoNormal"></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqJEbtV6DtbJ3nzbYEWNmNM23wIs3MUJ8NgR73naThJzouDzK2avr2HcbracSVa8-fu96QE5OGtpG_H7UBgUKMCK0Zh-YNZEYDk0PIRKXfCg8mCX_zYphF0TuAjd92A2r4bsvEfrk1vQOI/s400/boyz+close.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674241397318545138" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOZTsTf1MgSbRseDLvYLVMQelj1wMca3MhAIfclLMf_82NtYYfqlBWgyxDjfI-qI7YZConXBwMrgwLsTGsYu8evN1fTcd82Q1kFbFT0gl183OM7oNiAZkv8qw6J93QOiuyFAe8Baz7TzEf/s400/Occupy.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674245018535307922" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Walking around to read the slogans and pick up the pamphlets meant that you were also stepping gingerly over the arm of a sleeping teenage girl or brushing up against two boys curled up in each other’s arms. The sleeping beauties imbued the space with a seductive charm. Some slept underneath their posters, asking to be documented. Unfortunately, the intriguing layout lured media leeches as well as supporters. Kalan and his friend told me that they had recently been photographed by a British tabloid that claimed the closeness of their bodies was evidence of public sex and drug use on Wall Street. I managed to find the article and the photograph online. But reading the slanderous accusations didn’t sully the beauty of the image. Despite themselves, they had circulated a photo that radiated the pleasure of togetherness and the peace of simple living.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYsfynpIKGwkOiU2zQDTFQYQT-u_9ppzkWvC-v20iUPZ7tSzezspv2vyb6pf2QG6Ksn7rkDHj1ZHNNfv03fb7xqchROiPz4zW8OFH_9wrgU1af70ASXWl3WoudgLv9CrI60NeceF7fRT7H/s400/sex.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5674245026831786578" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 219px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:9px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#333333;">Headline reads: "Sex and drugs on tap, who says it's not a political partaaay?"</span></span></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6191639025212151455.post-23669110464998395282011-11-05T08:44:00.001-07:002011-11-05T10:06:18.959-07:00Persephone Down Under<div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#0000EE;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span></span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhROF3QfuagyhYxKmTtkpzubE3OmELifCWKXD9sYygX0vL7VN8MWafGTvWIGCrF6lpNnmkJGtYCTI3PHCYe1UqspzyKfbMAqochYmps8Gzs6pQldUyFWIGWMI0tlchLrRNm-oZ2N0V_94yN/s1600/leave.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhROF3QfuagyhYxKmTtkpzubE3OmELifCWKXD9sYygX0vL7VN8MWafGTvWIGCrF6lpNnmkJGtYCTI3PHCYe1UqspzyKfbMAqochYmps8Gzs6pQldUyFWIGWMI0tlchLrRNm-oZ2N0V_94yN/s400/leave.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671538871885761266" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">My apartment in Berlin on one of my last afternoons.</span></div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">The trees are shedding leaves -- cutting their losses -- as the temperature falls and winter storms roll in. These skeletal trunks have a better chance of standing ground against the pileup of heavy snows. With fewer attachments, the burden of the world is easier to bear. Animals, too, pare down their lifestyles. They take to a simpler, stationary mode, conserving resources. It’s hibernation time and what better place to burrow than a small town in northern Vermont, where the local food shop is well supplied with this season’s maple sugar haul, the woodpile is high and the whiskey is stocked.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I am sitting in my studio in Johnson, looking out over the red mill-turned art space and the river. The morning sun is bright as spring water is cold and bathes the town in cool silver, rather than golden, light.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">In thinking about the turning of the seasons, the main changeling that comes to mind is Persephone. An over-sheltered child, her mother Demeter, goddess of the harvest, kept her separate from the riffraff of Mt. Olympus. She spent much of her childhood alone, using earth’s topography as her playground. One day, while picking flowers on a hillside, the ground opened up in front of her and she was pulled down to Hell by the king of the underworld. Hades forced her to stay by his side and rule the dominion of the dead. Much to her surprise, the role suited her and she grew into a strong and confident queen. Old friends that visited her there were taken aback by her severity and serenity. But her mother was hysterical with grief and caused a devastating draught. This forced the hand of Zeus, Persephone’s father. He brought Persephone back up to the light. But before she left, Hades fed her a handful of pomegranate seeds. The fates had long ago decreed that anyone who ate or drank in the underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Therefore, although the lands flourished when Persephone rose to greet them, they retracted again in the winter months (one for each seed) when she returned to claim her thrown in Hell.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Many of our life patterns are cyclical. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how the process of making art works in the round. For me, the yin-yang of experiencing and recording keeps my gears turning. First, there is a period of living fully -- gathering new experiences and perspectives and sensations. Then, there is a period of digestion, reflection and, hopefully, birth. (Or the other way around because this is a chicken/egg type of thing.) This Vermont season is a time for patience and production. A lot of looking for reflections in blank surfaces – the iced-over river, notebook paper, white canvas.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLqqN0OHw9CXVdjuEWuv1H19GbqlaoDubT5Ee21Iz7tsGo5WvDwC6a50lNPGlV02ldWukVrJdFrWVLrw_BY5Bxld6__Kb2uaCsvLXPRRtiJ3TvSKzuZvpHycAYI-31aO0aWJbbov__kQvV/s400/Masks.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671538879503166514" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">My studio at the <a href="http://www.vermontstudiocenter.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Vermont Studio Center</span></a> where <a href="http://jeffreykenney.com/index.php"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Jeff</span></a> and <a href="http://www.dghershey.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Don</span></a> are gearing up for the Halloween festivities.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR48sTVecpiZ_crSPSI-hdahyc2Vg3E8tVFz11RZxJpd-yyW9mYnIRxU1JA-wqcnnDgkWWTiuSJ9E2Eis7J6ofMZsbgy2ZVRLotebGKk1huHm1aHb1i7okB4tpgqawRpZWMBEH2GjrAaZS/s400/bear+mask.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671538891377473186" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbd0YRvgcLTO_1-GsbplxYaeuUAlxvliA7zlSi70IXLsDsl-_iufpi4snh1dCXgyTTcTsTXAtO6oUVJqXJ5PTwf5RWrHH2HfsG3kkBZcEFnxgAhobUtdIPSxozsrxTpD7HwdfyucjKsfAZ/s1600/IMG_0327.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbd0YRvgcLTO_1-GsbplxYaeuUAlxvliA7zlSi70IXLsDsl-_iufpi4snh1dCXgyTTcTsTXAtO6oUVJqXJ5PTwf5RWrHH2HfsG3kkBZcEFnxgAhobUtdIPSxozsrxTpD7HwdfyucjKsfAZ/s1600/IMG_0327.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbd0YRvgcLTO_1-GsbplxYaeuUAlxvliA7zlSi70IXLsDsl-_iufpi4snh1dCXgyTTcTsTXAtO6oUVJqXJ5PTwf5RWrHH2HfsG3kkBZcEFnxgAhobUtdIPSxozsrxTpD7HwdfyucjKsfAZ/s400/IMG_0327.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5671538898587231282" style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px; " /></a></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">They're ready now. (Photo by <a href="http://fitzbomb.blogspot.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Erin Fitzpatrick</span></a>)</span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLqqN0OHw9CXVdjuEWuv1H19GbqlaoDubT5Ee21Iz7tsGo5WvDwC6a50lNPGlV02ldWukVrJdFrWVLrw_BY5Bxld6__Kb2uaCsvLXPRRtiJ3TvSKzuZvpHycAYI-31aO0aWJbbov__kQvV/s1600/Masks.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLqqN0OHw9CXVdjuEWuv1H19GbqlaoDubT5Ee21Iz7tsGo5WvDwC6a50lNPGlV02ldWukVrJdFrWVLrw_BY5Bxld6__Kb2uaCsvLXPRRtiJ3TvSKzuZvpHycAYI-31aO0aWJbbov__kQvV/s1600/Masks.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLqqN0OHw9CXVdjuEWuv1H19GbqlaoDubT5Ee21Iz7tsGo5WvDwC6a50lNPGlV02ldWukVrJdFrWVLrw_BY5Bxld6__Kb2uaCsvLXPRRtiJ3TvSKzuZvpHycAYI-31aO0aWJbbov__kQvV/s1600/Masks.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04676299976171949364noreply@blogger.com2