Monthly Archives: February 2009

Pratt Fall Into Love

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Spring sprung for a brief February moment and I decided to run through the Pratt campus. It made me nostalgic for university life and slightly jealous of all the art students who were climbing in trees and building geodesic domes, etc. They have a lot of great public sculpture there and I was surprised by how much of it I’d never seen before. In the studio, I worked on a long parade drawing and the next day the winds came in to town and tried to blow down Brooklyn like an angry wolf. Music is Al Green preaching about love. So happy V. day and you’d better be good to me.

Flutter of Spring

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It was impossibly warm yesterday and I ran to the studio and all of Brooklyn was alive and thrumming and I finally spotted the pigeon coop that houses the birds I’ve been noticing for a couple of years spiraling over Williamsburg. Up on the roof there was the exact guy you would want tending the pigeons, which is to say he looked like a retired boxer. His big mug peered over the roof looking at the traffic and the guys drinking beer at the bodega and I gave a him a wave way up there and he waved back.

A Parade of Signs

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Sineparade rehearsed last night and Aakash came by Frost Street to collaborate a bit on some stuff for the next event (Sunday Feb. 22 afternoon video screening wine and talk sort of thing). I watched the raw video while listening to bob and waiting for the L and this guy started ranting and I decided to shoot him without knowing what he was saying (I had my I pod up loud). I don’t know what his deal was… some sort of stand up preacher. Some how the video and the music and the mad man all felt meaningful.

Aakash Nihalani: Available Space

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I went Aakash Nihalani’s opening on Atlantic Ave. Saturday. He got hired by the real estate company to install some work in an otherwise empty piece of new retail space. This month I am beginning to see the economy and it looks like an ugly paper Space Available sign taped to an empty store window. Of course when you have nothing, you’ve go nothing to loose and so it is important for artists to see this as an opportunity not just a precipitous drop in the art market (which was all but ignoring me anyways). A depressed city/country/world might make an excellently vast museum. The void should be filled with creativity. I like the little baby in the cube as it speaks to my Kubrick Space Odyssey obsession and what is a child, but a sort of empty vessel ready to be filled with life and knowledge and culture, etc.

Spilled Dog

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The other day I made this substitute dog to keep me company in the studio. It’s made out of a saw horse and a sand bag and wine soaked crate from out in front of the Lorimer Street liquor store and a stuffed squirrel dog toy tail. Bailey would have been 15 yesterday, if she was still with us. I made a quick drawing of her licking her paws on her last day and I’ve been working over it off and on ever since…. It’s wine soaked as well. Something about death is like a broken bottle spilling out all the good stuff and you are left with nothing buy shattered glass, or ashes.

Islam Fashion

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Tom And Javier wanted a record of their performance at my 17 Frost Space opening. This is a live recording of their set mixed with some timelapses of opening etc…. more or less the stuff of my Nikon memory card and Saturday’s opening of Aakash Nihalani’s “Space Available” show on Atlantic Street, BK.

The Phonos project a psychedelic caleidoscope program while they perform, so I thought I’d give their performance the same treatment… and Aakash’s windows too and me doing a new long large crowd on craft paper…

The Red Lanterns

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Wondered around Manhattan wandering on my way to see Sharon at Washington Irving’s Library to grab what was left of the box of decommissioned Little Prince books (they were heading out to the dumpster before we came up with the idea of using them in art – both the students and me!). It was fun to tour the art studios on the seventh floor where there is a wonderful winter light pouring in. these kids don’t know how good they have it it. I haven’t painted to good natural light since SoHo and even ITIN space was spotty lightwise (not high enough). So in Chinatown I saw this string of red lanterns hanging off an International Style modern bank building and it looks to me now like the binding of a book that attaches the Old World to the new – The East to the West, etc.

Lolitapuss Rex

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Back at work at 17 Frost trying to get back at neglected projects like HUB and the Lolita movie poster for the upcoming Supertrash show and just to paint and draw and make something instead of installing stuff. I feel much more relaxed in the space now having got over the first hurdle of the opening. Now I want to change things around and make something truly fantastic! I also want to explore the “stage” quality of the room and the little sound stage/ face installation, but the show is UP and open for a visit by appointment (and when we do some upcoming events). So if you find yourself in New York (or Bburg) give me a holler at: 718-755- 9317 and I’ll show you around.

Snowhere To Go

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Went back to the studio and started drawing in The Little Prince again. Spent Monday packing up all the pages from Orson Whales and shipped them off to Canada. That’s right, the Great White Whale goes to The Great White North. They’re going to show the drawings and the animation in an exhibit on the altered novel at Oakville Galleries in Ontario. As if to bring it all home, it snowed today and I saw a white dog in a Williamsburg window wanting to go out for a walk.

Open Mouth

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Didn’t shoot much at the opening, but here’s a small bit from the beginning and the end of the night. Royal Wylds and Phonometricians playing, etc. I’ll try to document some of the other things better, but Friday was just a fun party and I didn’t feel like being much of a photographer. It’s hard to tell from this, but a lot of people came to the opening and I’d like to thank all of them and invite the rest of you to the next event.