There's a construction site on East 53rd St in Midtown Manhattan that has a covered pedestrian walkway plastered with vertigo inducing banners representing renderings of the finished structure.
I passed by there a couple of weeks back on my way to Rich's for dinner. From the corner of my eye I was instantly and viscerally stunned by a caught glimpse, recognizable by way of the hard wired memory of a vision that is still so disturbing, so powerful. The thought of those conditions that precipitated the unimaginable choice made by so many is still terrifying.
The power of an image: an illusion set forth for the mind to complete, and the mind completes it unsparingly, and convincingly that for that second I believed that what I saw in two dimensions was real and it was happening at that very moment.
Above: Dar Williams performing at her CD Release party on Sept 9 at Spire Studios for her new album Promised Land. There are more images of the evening at maykr, and on the maykr flickr page. Below is the the cd liner notes page featuring the reproduction of Vantage.
VantageMy oil on canvas triptych 'Vantage', from 1998, is among the artwork that is included in the liner notes of Dar Williams' forthcoming CD 'Promised Land.Dar, who as her own writing shed located at Spire Studios as part of the Habitat for Artists project will be having a CD Release Party at Spire Studios on Tuesday, Sept 9 from 6-9pm Beside myself, the other artists, many of whom are also involved with HFA, whose work included in the cd booklet are Maureen Beck, Richard Bruce, Sharon L. Butler, Val Clark, Aidan Draper, Kathy Feighery, Marnie Hillsley, Matthew Kinney, Grey Zeien and Simon Draper.The party at Spire will include an exhibit of the artists' work, and most certainly, a sampling from the new album performed by Dar.