On the road, and the last 2 weeks in review

I'm currently in Denver, working on some decorative projects, and making plans for an exchange exhibit in June between artists working in Beacon NY, and the artists of Edge Gallery here in Denver.

The past two weeks had me running. I was involved with an installation of an exhibition at the International Center of Photography, that felt like a marathon. We finally finished at 4 am last Thursday morning. Just in time to give me a little rest and prepare for the open studio at Spire on Saturday. I managed to take a few photos, and i will try to post them tonight.

On March 3, we held a reception hosted by CPA, Deborah Bailey Browne at her office. This is an ongoing partnership I'm calling the "Curated Office" that presents contemporary artwork in a setting, and before an audience that allows an opportunity to access, and relate to the work in a way that the rarified environment of the gallery doesn't necessarily allow.
The response to the work was very receptive. Each time I organize these mini exhibits allows me to change up the way that people interact in the space given the influence of the artwork present. I want to gently push the envelope with the type of work that can function, and seemlessly exsist with such a particular setting.
This current installation features a few of my pieces along with the work of Simon Draper, Marnie Hillsley, Matt Kinney and Alexis Elton.Most of the work represented a personal relationship with material. Simon and Marnie both create wall hung constructions of wood. Matt's pieces represent his working with acrylic paint on paper in a way that ceases to be acrylic paint and could easily be something else. Alexis' work with bubble wrap, and oil stained cardboard represents the the greatest leap of material in the show, but I think I was able to show the beauty, and grace of her choices. This is an editorial view on my part, but I think it helps add a potential new context to her work. Alexis did say that it took some getting used to seeing her own work in this environment, and it was freaking her out a little --but I think it was in a good way. The work I put in was the most traditional in a sense that it was straight oil or acrylic on canvas, and although it might be abstract, it was the most conventionally made work.

I think this a great opportunity for members of the artistic and business communities to mix and find commonalities, and I'm grateful to DBB for supporting this effort with as much of her own effort as she does.

Curling in the morning

Curling has injected itself into my morning routine. For most of this week, as I'm eating breakfast, and getting ready for work, I have become entranced by the olympic curling matches broadcast on the USA netowork. Would that this could continue after the winter games are gone. I find it a much need source of calm, and a good way to start the day.

Jan, Feb

On my trip to MOMA in January, we also went to the Met to see the Fra Angelico show, and Rauschenburg's Combines.

Raushenburg's ealry pieces from '55 to '57 really had the most impact. There was so much to enjoy and discover in this show. Of the 6-8 rooms of the exhibit, I found the first half to be the more adventurous and ingenious. I feel the paintings from the sixties lost their edge, and tended to be boring without the inclusion of other combined materials. Some of the better of these pieces felt like rehashing of Schwitter's work, but the large scale of the work at that point felt unnecessary beyond the chest beating they provided.

I enjoyed the Fra Angelico show, but he doesn't do it for me like Fra Filippo Lippi does. It is a little apples and oranges, but there you have it.

In Early February, I caught the Richard Tuttle show before it closed. I had not been familiar with his work. As I was reading various blog conversations at the beginning of the year stating that Tuttle was one of the two most influential artist on the present generation, I had to gauge whether I should be embarrased or not that I had not remembered seeing his work. I didn't reach a conclusion as to my level of embarrasment.
I am grateful that I did see the show. Not knowing what to expect entirely, I was surprised to see truly exquisite pieces that in there "lowliness" of materiality were quite elegant. My favorite pieces were a series of styrofoam fragments, each with a piece of red paper coming out of them.

This work feels like a virile heir to Rauschenberg's combines.

There were a series of works consisting of cardboard, and plastic that to me seem a very lyrical response to.... combines. And once again these pieces transended their lowly materials and to provide a transcendant art viewing experience.

Artma auction - Denver Feb 25

The Artma auction to benefit the Morgan Adams Memorial Neuro-Oncology Fund will be happening on Saturday, Feb 25 from 6-10p. Tickets are $50. Above is an image of the piece that I am donating, Strange and Early Autumn IV.

January at MOMA

I had not laid down the thoughts I had from a visit I made to MOMA several weeks ago as soon as I was planning- so I'm doing that now.
There is something about seeing Cy Twombly's work that always fills me with a sense of abundant joy for painting, and mark making - and makes me want to get busy doing so immediately. Twombly's Four Seasons are on display in MOMA's atrium in place of Monet's Waterlilies to much better effect. The Monet has been moved upstairs into a more contained room of its own that somewhat harkens back to its home in the pre-renovated museum. The thing that distracted me with the current hanging is that the two end panels are hanging at an angle slightly away from the wall (imagine a three fold card or a shallow bay window) This positioning casts two triangular shadows that are queer, and add an undesireable element.
The current installation of the contemporary galleries felt like a rabbit warren of rooms with are scattered among them. I found it a little disorienting, and difficult to maneuver with a lot of visitors.
My main objective was to see Janet Cardiff's 40 Part Motet. Arrayed in an elipse, are 40 speakers on stands facing the center of the room. I entered the space just before the piece ended and was able to experience the intense surround sound effect. After it ended, I stayed and waited to hear it in its entirety. The magic of the piece for me was created in the moments before the music began. For several moments, the room was silent, but here and there, one could hear individuals talking, perhaps a cough or such. I attributed these sounds to other visitors in the gallery initially, but I realized that they were, in fact, part of the piece. Once the music began, the space was entirely engaged as an organ of sound. As I sat with my eyes closed, vocals would rush out from one area or another. In elementary school we had this activity where all the kids in the class would each take hold of an enormous round parachute. We would raise or lower our portion creating waves in the material. A ball would be placed on the material, and jump around guided by the movement of the waves generated. This is the vision I was sitting with in my head as my eyes were closed - giant layers of sound fabric undulating, waving independantly, but in relation to the others. This was an experience I enjoyed. It could be categorized as an enhanced entertainment, and not art, but I guess it depends on where you draw the line.

Speaking of lines being crossed. I wandered into a portion of the contemporary galleries and saw this amusing, ingenious sort of stroboscope using Pixar figurines. The figurines were arranged on a wedding cake tiered turntable, and when spun in coordination with a strobe light, the effect was a three dimensional animation. It was inventive, entertaining, and a great appropriation of cultural paraphenalia.......Then I realized I had walked into a portion of the auxiliary exhibits supporting the Pixar series of films at MOMA. For an instant I felt scammed. The demonstration was no less inventive, but as it was essentially an advertising expo for a film studio, it should be treated as such, and presented in a manner that asserts the border between this activity, and that of the work that was exhibited in the adjacent galleries. There was wall text that described the details about the presentation, but the placement of this demonstration seems like a calculated aggrandizement of Pixar as a cultural treasure and an encroachment upon the terrain of contemporary art. There has been much written about this particular nod to Pixar by MOMA, but I had not really paid attention to it. Now, I can't quite shake off the taint of the pay to play implication of this particular endeavor

Also on view at MOMA that day:
The various states of Picasso's etchings of a bull, which have always stood as an important lesson for me on the topic of the search of the essential. Picasso starts at a finished product, and labors his way to the beginning.

Odilon Redon exhibit -Wonderfully weird imagery at times. Alway have loved his drawings. Lush blacks. There were many lithographs, and book illustrations which are great, but I find them flat and static in comparison to the drawings. It had been over ten years since I had seen several grouped together.

Elizabeth Murray - I'd only ever seen one or two examples of her work before. Not terribly interested in the content and color of the work, but I think they play a role to counterpoint the elements that are more interesting for me; the shape and compositions of multilple canvases. Certain of the shaped canvases, and grouping of others really cut through space, and created "real" presence.

Paintings at O II Restaurant.

These are images of a few of the paintings that I currently have on view at O II in Beacon. A reception will be scheduled in the near future. There are a total of five paintings in the restaurant, and all but one are at least 5 ft in dimension. The two pieces above are almost 6 ft high, and 8 ft long. I think the scale of the paintings in relation to the space works well, and as I stated before, I'm really pleased with how they look in this place.

Admissions and Resolutions

Ok, the only admission that I have is the my web site is sorely in need of an update. I have plenty of new work that can, and should be put on the site in the near future. I'm trying to coach myself into the position of being able to manage the site on my own....that will be a longer term project.

On the side of resolutions, I have resolved to simply be more organized in how I deal with all of the stuff that is apart from picking up a paintbrush. That means documenting work more consistently, and any number of things. I think I'm off to a good start. I'm currently shooting slides of a group of drawings that I had been doing at the end of 2004. I think I posted a couple images here on the blog....I'll try to find them.
Another resolution is to make this blog still more fluid, and immediate with items and new work as it comes up.

We made a trip down to NYC last week, and there are some thoughts on that I'll post this week. Also, the bau 12 exhibit is over and I removed by pieces, and returned my key to the space yesterday. I'll be posting some thoughts on the forming, and leaving bau, perhaps in the week's end.

Also yesterday, thanks to Todd Spire, I installed some pieces over at OII restaurant, and they look pretty damn good there. They seem as if they really belong there.

Finally, Tyler Green at MAN gave a plug, yesterday, for my maykr blog, and that gave me a thrill.

Chris Whitley 1960-2005

Last week, I learned of the death of the musician Chris Whitley. It was one of those moments shocked me out of my tasks. Whitley died on Nov 20 of Lung Cancer at the age of 45. He was a favorite of mine. Many people have that one band or musician that they champion and generally swear by vocally, and continuously to the annoyance of anyone in earshot.
"Dude, this guy is like, SO AMAZING," Whitley is pretty much such a one for me, although I don't think I geeked out to such a level that folks would avoid me (at least not for that reason.)
In his work, I found a quality of expression that resonated with certain intents that I had with own artwork. The turn of his lyrics and his gritty low down manner of playing the National Guitar, banjo, or acoustic created produced the sense of this one guy working through his vision in an earnest, vulnerable, and occassionally kitschy way.
His first album was his most polished, and well known, and I liked it, but it soon seemed a bit refined and flat in relation to his later albums. His second album, at first, seemed a drastic departure from the first album, with a lot of reverb and louder rock sensibility. But just under the surface you could easily hear the strain of his signature that would run through all of the albums regardless of their variations. This second album turned off many fans of the first, and this has served to be another point of appreciation, for me, as he would continue to make work that seemed most true to him, willing to experiment and play regardless of the sound that originally gained him attention.
I saw him perform live 3 or 4 times. Each time, he smoked incessantly on stage, and he was always so lean he looked nearly skeletal. But a really ripped skeleton. He had a very personable presence on stage, occasionally he would screw up, laugh at himself, and say that he needed to start that one over again. In the couple of time I saw him in Boulder, CO, his sets would focus on new work, and unreleased work. There would be constant shouts for songs from the first album, and he would oblige with a tweak version of the request. Once he performed "Phone call from Leavenworth" with such a feverish tempo which seemed at once a fuck you, and an exhilirating rush to perform.
It's just another one of those damn shames.

Recent work

These are a couple of images taken during our auction and open studio held on Dec 12.

I am currently working on a variety of small paintings that refer to the sculpture I have been doing over the past several months, as well as the multitude of objects and castoff pieces that I have collected in the studio.

Spire Art Auction

The auction we hosted at Spire was great fun. Alot of folks turned out, there were a few bidding wars that came down to the wire, and I think a nice sum was raised for Grace Smith House. I posted just a few images on maykr.com. I'll have more to say as the dust settles.

The image above is my auction purchase: Trans by Ron Johnson of Virginia.

bau 12

Opening tomorrow (Dec 10) is bau 12: transition. This is a group show of all the current bau members which stands at 12 until the end of the month. This piece, Vantage, is my contribution to the show. It's a horizontal piece, but I'm not averse to hanging it vertically, which is how it is installed in the show. Looking at it now in the two configurations, I feel the horizontal is indeed stronger, and allows for many of the more subtle aspects to be revealed in an even way. I have not yet seen the show, but I'm interested in seeing this vertical installation looks.

Art Auction/ Open Studio at Spire, Dec 10.

Our upcoming Open Studio at Spire Studios will also be an art auction that will benefit Grace Smith House in Poughkeepsie. Grace Smith House assists victims of domestic violence.
There is a broad offering of small pieces for the auction. I've seen some of the work and it looks good. I plan on doing some bidding myself. Bidding on all pieces starts at $50 so there will be a great opportunity to snag some great work from some excellent artists from around the Hudson Valley.
More info on the studio event and auction can be found at the Spire Studios site.

One of these two images will be my donation to the auction. They are 12" square, oil on panel. They also signal a bit of a shift I am looking to make in my paintings. There are a couple of different avenues I will be playing with, and this is one of those potential directions.

Returning home

I'm nearing the end of my two week stint here in Denver...though it feels like it's been a month at this point. I've been doing a few jobs on the decorative side of things.
As usual, my schedule has been very full with work. I have, this week, been staying with Chad and Summer and Zaiven. It's been good catching up with them, and planning with Chad the details of the next Monkey Angel production. Last weekend, several of us gathered at the Plastic Chapel, and screened the last Monkey Angel film, "the Disposal". Afterwards, we all headed to the Skylark where Gino Velardi sought to bring us all down to his level of profuse partying by refusing to let us pay for any drinks....repeatedly, round after round.
I'm certainly ready to get back home in a couple of days, and gear up for the final events of 2005.
We'll be having a benefit art auction at Spire Studios to coincide with our December open studio. Also in December, we'll be having a group show at bau of member's works. In Mid December bau will also be hosting a holiday tree decorating party organized by Angelika, and Jennifer Mackewiecz. Artists, and anyone else, are being asked to create ornaments for the christmas tree that will be donated to Vassar Hospital for display in the children's section.

On Halloween, and Heading out.

Curry Mendes as Pumpkin Head

We held our Halloween party at Spire on Saturday night. I intended to go as the invisible man, so I could say, as Beacon artist, Curry Mendes offered "Expect not to see me there." I'm heading back to Denver this coming Sunday, and I was looking forward to getting a little more studio time in under the cover of dance party USA happening on the other side of the wall. After almost three weeks of carving pumpkins, I had my fill of Halloween.
(I forgot to mention that I was asked to carve a pumpkin, and do an interview for a Westchester TV News program. It was a little nerve racking. Fortunately the carving was not done live, but as part of a time elapsed montage.)

I did not get anything done on during the party which was fine...I had fun. It started slow and late, so folks were congregated in my space talking, then for the rest of the night, it folks were in there taking a break from the music and dancing.


Chad Smith sent me a tape of various images that I was projecting down the hall, onto shredded plastic tarps. The tape did not contain the random images. It contained the full film of Hannah House, which was a pleasant surprise for me. The projection looked very cool down the hall, and on the other side of the plastic was the dance floor, so it provided the majority of ambient lighting and very striking visuals. Many people asked me what it was. We'll have to schedule a screening of the film at the space shortly.


So it was fun, and now I have to prepare to be gone for two weeks doing some work in Denver. It'll be good to get out of town for a while.
I feel that I really just need a nap though.

In the bau funnel

We have a small back room at bau that starts out narrow, and grows more so the further you move to the back of the building. We call this the funnel, and each month, every member of bau hangs one piece in the funnel.

This month, fellow bau artist Peter Iannarelli has been working with balloons, magnets and gravity in his current work. This piece he placed at bau is more static than his other experiments right now, but I find it rather charming.




And this is my piece for the month. Called Affection, it was one of the early incarnations of the work I created for the bau 6: amalgam show in June. It was not in the exhibit.

On blogs

Of the art blogs that I have bookmarked, the one I am really being turned onto more and more is Edward Winkleman's blog. I have to say reading this blog has been one of the more gratifying and edifying internet experiences I have had.
Winkleman frames discussion, and topics in a full and meaningful way, and one that, as an artist, gives me a spike of energy that has been rare lately.
The real value of the blog is completed by the roll of comments made by Winkleman's readers and he himself. The exchange that takes place there is direct without becoming cynical or nasty.

If you're into such stuff, I highly recomend it.
c

Spelunking the Gourd

For a week and a half, I've been carving pumkins for "The Great Pumpkin Blaze" being held in Croton-on-Hudson at the Van Cortlandt Manor. The event consists of an arrangement of 3,000 jack o' lanterns installed around the Manor grounds. Along with approximately 15 other carvers, four of whom are fellow Beacon area artists, and many volunteer scoopers, we have been mowing through the pumpkins for a week and a half. In the first two days, we jammed through almost a thousand simple jack o' lanterns. Unfortunately, after the deluge of rain a week ago, most of the work from the early days quickly became moldy and rotten.
The rain returned at the end of the week, and we carved in torrential conditions for almost 3 full days. Not easy, or very comfortable. The Blaze was open to the public this past weekend, and the coming weekend. We will still have a fair amount of work in the next week replacing pumpkins in preparations for next weekend. I hope to have a few photos of the installation at night. I caught a glimpse of it Friday before complete darkness, it looked cool. The kids coming through the site were very excited.
Matt Kinney experimenting with a new look

With all the rain we received this week, there has been alot of flooding. This summer has been very dry, and we have almost made up for it in one week. I shot some images of the falls here in Beacon today. There were many leafpeekers in town this weekend, but with the foliage color behind schedule, it seems the falls became a second draw for spectators. As of last week, there was very little water between the rocks in the falls, and the spillway wall was clearly visible as water barley spilled over. This week, however, all that is visible is the violent rushing of a huge amount of water. It's impressive, almost mesmerizing, to stand on the bridge or on the railroad tracks and getting lost in the site.

bau:9 blind offline

This bau exhibit is a two person show with Gary Jacketti. For a variety of reasons that would ease the development of the show, we decided to communicate solely via email. As we discussed this format, it became clear that the communication in email would be a central concept in the show. Over three months, we layed out specs on what we would be doing for the show, and not discussing it in person. An aspect to this process was meant to look at the use of email as contemporary form of communication, that has a pontentially problematic quality as it often blends the casualness of spoken communications with the necessity of clearly putting intentions into written form. We basically knew how many works, and what mediums, and general themes of the artwork for the show, but neither of us knew what the other was doing. In order to extend the loss of control that either of us had over the exhibit as a package, we invited artist Matt Kinney to curate, and install the show. Matt had no idea what he was to be working with until he arrived at the space on the day of installation.



The result is a truly collaborative show that is very dependant on the three parts. Matt's installation, added a fresh spirit an interpretation to the works. He suspended two of my sculptures from the cieling, which is the last thing I would have expected. This move absolutely enhanced the experience of viewing these pieces.


The original concept in the development of the show has a lot of potential for exploration, and we only just scratched the surface on that potential. And though the show looks good, it really is just the interesting residue of a series of interactions. It is these types of engagements that intrigue me immensely, and this experience has help put a focus, for me,on aspects to similar projects that I have done in the past and a few that are currently in the works.





More images of the entire installation can be viewed at the bau website

Turning a corner

These past couple of weeks have signaled the end of the Summer for me. The majority of my most recent projects have been coming to a close, and I'm looking forward to barracading myself in the studio somewhat more, in a more tranquil manner than the events of Summer have allowed me to do.

A view of my installation at "Augies Good to Go" for the Windows on Main St. project.

August brought on the inaugural installment of "Windows on Main St." A project organized by Karlos Carcamo and myself that facilitated artists creating site specific installations in storefronts along Beacon's Main St. Todd Spire was also instrumental in facilitating the final push in working with artists, and business owners. We had some 25 artists work with 26 windows. The possibility of this event is great. It has the component of engaging with the community and bringing together artists, which will help us get some grant money, hopefullly, next year. The aspect that I'm really interested in, though, is the potential of finding niches where art can be practiced and created in Beacon. Many of us have spoken about using Beacon as a lab for what we do, and there is simply not a lot of refined spaces in which to do that.
As Beacon has gotten press over the past few years as an artist's haven, the rents, and property values have risen, and choked off alot of possibility for art spaces happening. In a way this is fine, but there is not much else that is occupying these spaces.....Without going into the variety of things that are lacking Beacon, I'll just say that several of us are interested in finding areas to carve out space for us to explore our work.
So, anyway, the Windows project is one small step in this direction. There is a Windows blog with some images of the pieces. I have yet to finish uploading all of the info, and photos.

An arrangement of dried paint film from various containers, plaster remnants from buckets and the like during our open studio on Sept. 10.

September brought another Open Studio for us, and in the same night, an opening for me at bau (I'll get into the bau show in the next post. In addition to these two events happening on the Second Saturday in Sept, Angelika had an opening at the photography center in Woodstock, which I unfortunately could go to. It so happens recently, that we have had several events like this on the same evening. She has another opening on the 24th of Sept back in Woodstock, in another gallery so I should be able to hit both shows at once.

The Disposal premieres, August 15

There will be a premiere screening of The Disposal, a short film by Chad Smith of MonkeyAngel Studios, at the Bluebird theater in Denver, next Monday, August 15 at 7 pm. Also on the bill that night is a premiere of another short film by Guinivere Stevenson, Bowl of Lives, and musical performance by Stars are Scars.

I'm anxious to finally see the Disposal. I have been considering this as a cautionary tale of misogeny, but I think Chad has another take on it. It's been almost two years since we did the bulk of the filming. I helped create a couple of the monstors, and I did a lot of the puppeteering as well. In fact, pictured above is one of the creations I'm most proud of. I find there is a touching sincerity in her desire for acceptance and a certain vulnerability within her grotesqueness. Unfortunately, I won't be back in Denver for this event, but if anyone is around, and available, I suggest heading out for fun night.


August 15th, at the Bluebird Theatre, 7pm, All Ages
$8 advance tixs/$10 at the door
Tickets are available at Independent Records, Twist & Shout, or any NIPP venue
(Gothic, Bluebird or Ogden theatres) as well as at www.nipp.com.