The old dime bag collection

Is really coming together.

Verdigris

Verdigris Triptych, 2012

Verdigris oozing in The Prague Metro.

I am getting excited for my show in Denver at the Rocky Mountain School of Art and Design. I will be showing a collection of tassel-based sculptures in solid colors, and collages that echo them. The biggest will be the green group, with a collage called the Vertigris Triptych. It is finished now, and is 86" long.

http://www.rmcad.edu/event/temporary-institute-emancipated-objects

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.

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.

Collector List

Last Night

Last night I saw Grizzly Bear at Radio City Music Hall. We arrived early. We were seated, close to the stage.  We drank clandestine tequila from a flask and ate some kind of candy-nerds-encrusted-gummi-rope that was nothing short of miraculous. The show began.

It was soaring and angelic. Parts of it were dreams of Beach Boys and Supremes and Zappas. It was something new. The gold-fanned clamshell that masquerades as a ceiling pulsed the sound around. The sonic boom shook my ribs just like it should. I closed my eyes. I opened my eyes.

Blogroll Part Two

http://advancedstyle.blogspot.com/

http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/

http://holdthisphoto.tumblr.com/
A special mention to holdthisphoto.com for bringing me Gertie Millar:

Fabio

Because of the fervor at my new job and my desire to fit in, I have become re-acquainted with Project Runway. This season, I am particularly enamoured with this real deal freegan designer named Fabio. I hope he wins. Keep the downtown dream alive, man.

RAZZLE DAZZLE DAZE

When was the last time you found out about something, and thought "Oh my god I have to know everything I can about this as fast as I can I want to eat and drink this oh how can it be possible!" Maybe you are so excited that you are thinking in typos. You wish you could afford the book about it, but even used copies on Amazon are expensive. 

On Friday night I went to a really good party. Parties like those seem few and far between lately. So thanks, Antonio. While I was there, having a blast, Laurel told me about Razzle Dazzle ships from World War One (I guess she thought of this because I was wearing so many patterns at once).  Apparently, during WWI, war ships were painted with these OUTRAGEOUS patterns in order to confuse the enemy. "How big is that ship?" "What direction is it moving in?" These are the questions the enemy might presumably ask. This bonkers and beautiful theory was invented by one Norman Wilkinson of the UK. By the time it reached the US, female art students at RISD were asked to paint the boats. So, I am having a pattern-based Providence-located major kinship moment. 

I feel like everyone knows about this already. Did you?

 

Add caption

I love this Paste Magazine Contest Pcture

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2012/07/infographic-the-color-wheel-of-album-covers.html

George got 20. I got 37. Seemed like we were doing pretty well until we counted it all up. How 'bout you?

They Do What I Do, Part Two

Judith and Richard Lang

Street times

"what is he, like dentally retarded or something?"
-pre-teen girl to her mother, in all earnestness and outrage.

Arm of an Archer

 Any self-respecting Sagittarian would love an archer's arm like this.

Her Royal Majesty

I was excited to se that my interview with Her Royal Majesty magazine was online this week. As I was doing an intense juice fast (my very first and possibly last), I couldn't celebrate. Still though, it was a pleasure, and I didn't even mention to those ex-pats that run the magazine that I am a dual citizen. Maybe if I get big in Paris I will finally have to make use of that second passport burning a hole in my drawer. Hah.


http://www.heroyalmajesty.ca/unnamed-colors-in-the-gloaming/

Apply Yourself, Windham

In my application to be in an upcoming exhibition, under the field "Detailed technical specifications, budget, and plans for installation" I found myself typing "Access to Power." So true.

Welcome To July

It's 97 Degrees in North Brooklyn and
there are chicken feathers on the sidewalk,
but that's nothing new.
There is no shade this time of day,
and I wander to the studio, to the bank, to the grocer.
Almost in a fever, I buy bags and bags of fruit for the blender.
I don't want to talk to anyone.

I can hear the neighbor kids playing in their little above-ground pool through the back window,
down the lane of gardens,
and from their glee you'd think it was olympic-sized.
I blend watermelon, sugar, ice and lime and pour it into a cold jar.
I spill some on my shirt.
I sit on the couch and think of you.

For Allison

Unicorns

Don't show me no more unicorns,
I seen too much in my life.
That's why I'm thinkin' of goin' back to drivin' the bus.

So said the man in the red shirt
whom everyone thought was crazy.
But he had golden eyes,
and he was just talking slow.


For Allison

10:45

When you ride the train a little bit later in the morning,
Things open up.

There's the girl with the yellow-lined boots,
The man with a hole in his house.
The boy with the skateboard, and
The girl with the bow shooting a scatterburst of arrows all across her back.

There's the man in the suit with the bike,
The man in the suit with a radio, a hat and a bucket packed tight with wooden flowers.

There's a grey parrot riding underground with me,
and we both miss the sky.

swooning in the heat

I love that there are fireflies on my block. Fireflies seem like an imaginary creature from childhood;
it's surprising to see them now. I caught one on my hand tonight, strolling, on my way for an
emergency italian ice.

On my way across Calyer Street with the firefly in my hand, I thought about the difference between
a stroll and a ramble. Strolling is safe, easy, relaxed. Rambling can be dangerous, darker with every
step. Rambling is persuasive, will try to convince you to walk forever, to walk into the river,
to walk into the cars.

Rambling can make you weave and stumble, to lose the lightfootedness so common to the stroll.
New York is good at turning a stroll into a ramble.

Rip Tide

This video is the best contender for unapologetic romantic beauty I have seen for a while. There is
no one steering the boat. There is no preamble, no explanation, no narrative. All the places my mind
wandered while I watched it provided the best untethered, stream of consciousness narrative possible.
I have always liked Beirut, but was worried that their sound might be stuck in 2007 for me: It is,
but that's not neccessarily a bad thing.