Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Sandy Cane

We survived the hurricane, the post-tropical-cyclone, the tropical storm, the winds, the floods, and the rainbows. 
In truth, we were very, very lucky. We live in Evacuation Zone B, surrounded on two sides (at each end 
of our corner-shaped block) by Zone A (very close to the water's edge, as any good New Englander should.) 
I've been swooning, bleary, coughing, out-of-it sick for five days, and barely knew what was going on. George 
saw the light from the explosion at Con Ed, we watched the tacky aluminum awning rip off the vinyl siding 
on the house next door, we shook in our bed, the tree hit our windows and our chandelier swung. We watched 
zombies on the laptop until we lost tv and internet. We drank lemon hot toddies until we ran out of lemon. 
Then we drank orange hot toddies. Very good. That's it. Very Lucky.

Today we walked around and saw the sights. Angry, wet street cats, branches, leaves, weird street detritus,
high high water lines and lots of gawkers. The gawkers streaming onto the pier in ill-chosen wild-weather garb,
looking down at their phones and buffeted by the still-gusting wind reminded us of the zombies from last night.
Best of all, all of the boards protecting vacant lots have been knocked down. The revealed openings look like
portals into worlds of green we never realized were there. Beautiful, weed-y, lush lots. I can also see who has
a back deck, a pool, a backyard- it's total Brooklyn Voyeurism.

Very, Very Lucky.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

New Collages, Let's Get Tropical

These new collages are inspired by my trip to Miami and Key West in the winter of 2010. I started making them tentatively then, and have now come back to them in earnest. Instead of exclusively using images from recycled luxury magazines, I began to combine them with images from found National Geographics of undersea creatures like tropical sea slugs and octopuses. Octopi? Octopod? One of the old Polish men selling mysterious junk and treasure every day on Manhattan Avenue has become my Greenpoint magazine benefactor. He likes to be involved. He keeps secret vintage copies of Nat Geo for me under a tarp in his flatbed.

One of the older collages has been purchased by Solange Knowles (yesss), and three of them are brand spanking new as of this week. I don't know if it's the cool fall air, making a sale, having my studio table in the apartment, or having a new show to work towards, but I am pretty into it. I should also credit a great studio visit with Erno Enkenberg last month, just before he boarded his flight back to Finland, that was pretty inspiring. I loved his idea that I make various series of collages, culled from different types of magazines: nature, science, fashion, art, etc. Thanks man.

Shout out to G. Herms.