Days 8 & 9

Too tired to post last night. Worked late cutting images to go under the cast glass bubbles and marking on the prints.Will finish up today. At least its stopped drizzling. It's now a little steamy hot and feels like Louisiana.








Remember OPEN CALL for Videos on Broadway.

Day 7 Pastels and Grey Skies

Drizzly rain and dreary work on labels and statements (for the vinyl wall letters).

Bright burst at the end of the day though, started working with the pastels to do the water markings on my large paper pieces. Unpacked the glass as well. And final burst of color having dinner with artist friend, Stephanie Patton. She has a show opening same night as me (March 13) in New Orleans at The Front. At least I'll get to see her work tonight before it heads west.

Remember OPEN CALL for Videos on Broadway.

The Recession..."What's that?"

According to the New York Times, "a major new survey of American artists and how they are weathering the economic downturn has found that slightly more than half experienced a drop in income from 2008 to 2009, a blow to an already struggling group, two thirds of whose members reported that they earned less than $40,000 last year."Even worse according to the survey, 18% of those who responded said their income had dropped 50 percent or more in the last year.

So what's the good news? Well...if we take the Pollyanna view of life, it's not bad news. Artists live in a recession all the time, so this is just business as usual. Heart warming, no?



From the Library of Congress FSA Collection of Depression Era photographs, hitching north for work by Jack Delano.

Robert Rich Marbury

Here's the first of the "cool" artists I met in the audition line, Robert Rich Marbury. He was sewing a scout sash of some kind with entertaining pictograph badges while we waited. He hails originally from Baltimore and was in a John Waters’ film. Not surprisingly he is an explorer of contemporary culture.

I realize that I saw one of his pieces through Chashama. Marbury is also co-founder of the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists, which is an international organization dedicated to the shared mandate to advocate the showmanship of oddities. He also runs the Urban Beast Project, the taxonomy of fake and feral city dwelling mammals. Made my day!

Not ready for my close-up...

Saturday morning I think I was in a fugue state, how else can I explain it? I applied to be on a reality TV show for artists that Bravo and Magical Elves were casting. I stood in line from 6 a.m. for hours and hours. I made the first cut. I didn't meet Sarah Jessica Parker. I didn't get a spot. Even worse I had a co-conspirator, the wonderful sculptor, Jon Berge. We actually had a lot of fun schmoozing in line. I enjoyed meeting the other artists trying out and made some new friends. Especially a few who are blog worthy themselves...so stay tuned.

Even if I didn't get chosen, I'm really glad they are doing a show about art and artists. It's really the only way that people will learn that artists are serious about their art and that art is a great investment for everyone on any level. How many other things do you buy that you enjoy now and might be a winning lottery ticket later.

I have a friend who worked for Interview magazine in the old days. When they were struggling and couldn't pay her, they gave her a painting, it's a Warhol—need I say more about the lottery ticket aspect?

The best thing about the experience was that Jon Berge came to New York. He's the artist I talk with the most, Skyping him often. He's a supporter, critic, investigator, strategist and more. I value his friendship as one of the diamonds in my life box. And there you have it— I didn't win, but optimist I, rich in artistic friends, am already winning.

Highline #2

The inaugural artwork on the High Line, The River Flows Both Ways, by Spencer Finch is one of the additional pleasures of the Highline. The title of this work comes from the original Native American word for the Hudson River, Muhheakantuck. This work is located on the High Line between 15th and 16th Streets, where the High Line passes through the Chelsea Market building.

Finch transformed the existing windows with 700 individually crafted panes of colored glass representing the water conditions on the Hudson River over a single day. Finch photographed the Hudson River 700 times from the deck of a boat and selected an individual pixelfrom each image and matched each pixel color to a pane of glass.

This installation is presented in partnership with Creative Time, and the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, and is made possible by a generous grant from The Rockefeller Foundation's New York City Cultural Innovation Fund. This project was made possible, in part, through the generous support of Chelsea Market and in-kind support from Jaroff Design and Mison Concepts.

Channeling Cole

The sky reminded me of the Hudson River School of American painters. These painters were devoted to an idealized portrayal of nature—a new garden of Eden. In this evening moment, tiny human beings and "nature" were coexisting peacefully. Even a digital camera to capture this pixelated manifestation of God. The Garden of Eden is on 14th Steet—really!

Jobs for Artists

The local pharmacy is doing it's bit. Obviously a representational painter — this is your brain on drugs.

You like who you like.

Another summer exhibition definitely worth seeing is "Trees" at DC Moore. Group shows are fun because it's like picking your favorite things from a menu. Studying the same subject repeated also gives one insight into the thought processes of making art. I find I am always drawn to the same artists, not surprisingly in this show what caught my eye were Whitfield Lovell, Fairfield Porter and Lois Dodd.

In my own practice, Cora Cohen has been after me to paint less and more abstractly. I don't think I've been able to internalize what she's been saying but I recognized it immediately in the Lois Dodd below. It's one of those paintings you wish you had painted yourself.

David Bates was the big surprise. His garish pop color landscape caught my eye because in spite of the limited colors and graphic rendering, it had a tremendous sense of place. I was sure I was looking at a swamp in or near Louisiana, not only from the cypress knees but the harshness of the light and the black of the water. Swamp water— tannin stained with the droppings from bald cypress and tupelo gum — calls me. When I inquired about the artist, the gallery said he loves to fish and hails from East Texas. I'm sure he's fished in the "Sportsman"s Paradise" of Louisiana.

And while we're on the subject...

The Library of Congress is getting very technorati, putting some of its images up on Flickr. These are more of my favorites both by Dorothea Lange. The "Migrant Mother" is probably the most famous photograph to come out of the WPA project. The WPA (Works Project Administration) provided jobs for photographers and artists, documenting the depression and doing public work projects.

I love the other Lange image here. To me, "Toward Los Angeles" is a perfect expression of depression era America.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Another confidential from school, the New York Academy of Art. An Exhibition in the downstairs gallery hung like the Louvre. Hmmmmm.....

Art School Confidential

Yeah, It's really fun to go to art school...

Mermaid Parade 2009

Admittedly it was pouring rain, the light was flat, rain drops kept blurring my lens, I was sick with a bad cough, and I couldn't decide how I was going to shoot the event. The die-hards and exhibitionistas kept me going (as well as a dry hat thanks to Brooklyn Lager and the promise of a dog at Nathans). The best comment I heard about the costume design was, "Well...you think of anything and then you mermize it." Here's a smattering of the 3000 plus, now weeded down to approx 140 photographs. The Coney Island Mermaid Parade lives on!

NYFA Spring Conference

If you didn't make it to NYFA's Spring Conference on sustainable practice in these hard times, you can catch some of it here. I'm glad NYFA is posting these Vimeos, we all have to make it through somehow.

NYFA is a great resource, and even if you don't live in New York City, check out their site. They've got a searchable database of opportunities, good professional articles on lots of topics and they now host a regular podcast for artists. And at the bottom of the post you'll see find "arty" snaps I took the day of the conference.

Assessing the Recession: a panel discussion with Sean Elwood, Creative Capital; Stephanie Howe, Artists Space; Kay Takeda, LMCC, and Edward Winkleman, Winkleman Gallery with Moderator: Christa Blatchford, NYFA

Assessing the Recession, a panel discussion from NYFA on Vimeo.

Sustainable Practice: Artists Defining a New Model: Panelists: Jeff Hnilicka, FEAST; Caroll Taveras; Carol Taveras Studio; Francisca Caporali, Artist and curator; Joshua Smith and Denise Kupferschmidt, co-founders of Apartment Show with moderator Suzan Sherman, NYFA

Sustainable Practice: Artists Defining a New Model, a panel discussion from NYFA on Vimeo.

A simple walk #...west side treasures