Dispatch from Norton Island

This is where I spent a good part of my afternoon today.

Putzing around on the beach in this little cove on Norton Island.

I'm fascinated by these stones on the beach that sit in the sand - in tact, but which have been fully split in half.

Doing these things, I felt like a slightly hairier Ana Mendieta.

This here is where I'm living and working for the rest of the week.

On the move

The Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge in Boston, MA.

I'm a pretty poor packer.  I tend to agonize about what to take when preparing for a trip.  I usually over estimate how much reading I'll accomplish when away.  I also tend to pack way too much clothing, which is funny since I'm well aware that I can be pretty content wearing the same garb for several days in a row ( this will just be our secret - although I do tend to change the more intimate of garments more frequently.  This type of conundrum feeds right into the sweet spot of my tendency toward anxiety....The thought that I might well neglect packing that one little something that could be the linchpin behind a successful journey/vacation/whatever can simply keep poke poke poking at me.

This scenario afflicted me again this week as I was deciding what supplies to bring with me for this 10 day residency I'll be starting tomorrow morning at the Eastern Frontier Educational Foundation on Norton Island in Maine.  Ultimately I think I honed my packing list to a manageable, yet abundant selection of supplies that should afford me any amount of ambition I may have for the next 10 days without seeming too ridiculous.  Ten days' time will tell if my calculated expectations were correct.  

So I'm in a Days Inn in Portland ME tonight.  By noon tomorrow, I should be on the island.

A glimpse of me within Josiah McElheny's Island Universe.

I took the opportunity of this NE drive to stop in on the Charline von Heyl and Josiah McElheny exhibits at the ICA in Boston today.  (I also stopped by Utrecht in Boston to pick up a handful of supplies.)

The entrance to the Cheryl von Heyl show

So it's late and I'm way ready for bed.  I may have some thoughts on the two exhibits that I may see fit to post shortly.  In the mean time, here's a sample of the visual treats in my hotel room.

These prints seem to bear the signature of Kelly Hallam

PS.  As for my reading list....I've scaled it back to one book.  It seems that David Rothenberg's Survival of the Beautiful might be the perfect read while tinkering art-wise on a pristine island off the coast of Maine.

All American Day, All Day Long

On this most American of holidays, this American and his American girlfriend are spending the entire day indulging in an all day marathon of that most All American of American girls, Gidget.

Geneve Journal: Discoveries

Afropat 3, 2008.  oil on canvas (one of my more molecular-looking paintings.)

In a typical left-is-right, right-is-left directional mix up some twenty years ago, I took the wrong bus leaving Geneva, to see a concert being performed by some friends in a village further up along the Southern shore of the lake.  The bus I on which I was riding seemed to be getting closer and closer to the French border than I would have expected.  I decided to get off at what I gather was one of the last stops in Switzerland.  The terrain of the area where I disembarked was decidedly one in which one would expect to hear a classical music concert in a ancient church.  I wandered around a short while to ascertain where I was while hoping I would, by chance, come upon said sought after church (as if the church would materialize in just the location I happened to get off a bus.  

The location where I was seemed like a somewhat restricted area, with gatehouses at the entrances of what was a complex of light industrial type buildings.  I don't think I saw other being anywhere, and I definitely felt out of place - and conspicuous to the attention of beings unseen by me.  

I made my way back to the bus stop and eventually caught another bus back into Geneva and considered the whole endeavor a wash out.  

It turns out that complex I found myself in was CERN.  

View My CERN Excursion, 1992 in a larger map  

That was back in the pre-Large Hadron Collider days, and although I certainly didn't find what I was looking for, the folks at CERN announced today that they may well have found what they've been looking for.

My curiosity led me to discover that there is an artist residency program at CERN.   


I'll be returning to Geneva later this year, and I'll look to make a more intentional trip to CERN, perhaps to capture some audio related to the arts program for Dead Hare Radio.

Museum Didactics run amok

Count me as one of those who feels that sometimes there's just too much textual support material in museum exhibits.  It's clear that there is not dearth of explanatory in the museum world - and indeed, the glut of words seeking a context to explain seems to have spread to the back of the house, as it were, as is evidenced by this label that turned up in the kitchen at Bard CCS last month. 
In fairness, though this signage was intended to combat what was believed to be well meaning faux pas of someone using regular dish soap in the dishwasher, giving flight to a cloud of soapy bubbles eminating from the machine and covering the floor.

Speaking of text, there's a lot of it at the current offering at the Hessel Museum at Bard, and it ain't just on the wall labels.  A retrospective installation of several of Liam Gillick's works from the 90's is on view in the Hessel Galleries in the exhibit From 199A to 199B: Liam Gillick.  Over in the CCS galleries - by contrast - is a glowing, colorful affair featuring a selection of artists in the Johanna Burton curated exhibit Anti-Establishment.

Speaking of Anti-Establishment, just tonight I made the best batch of onion rings using onions I collected - which were cast offs from YES! Association's performance on the opening day of the exhibit on June 23.  The performance entailed both a healthy pile of soil and equally healthy pile of onions, some of which were cut open or gnawed by the artists....
Who says it's only the soul that is nourished by art.   

Over at Form in the Fire, Peter Acheson offers up a personal reflection of Gillick's show.

Both shows are on view through Dec, 2012. 

Riding the waves

acrylic on canvas, 14"x11"

I enjoyed a splendid milestone-eve yesterday.  I was working, but was surprised by a lunch visit by A. bearing a 3 flava pint o' soft serve from Ron's Ice Cream here in Beacon.  A pleasant lunch hour stroll during which, from Blithewood Mansion, we took in a wonderful of the Hudson....and a Bard coed sunbathing topless.  Later a savory dinner at Salinas Tequilas in Wappingers Falls.  Finally, at home, I was presented with a thoroughly dense and rich Oreo cheesecake from Adams.

The symmetry of this day has me thinking back 20 yrs ago when I spent it in Veigy, France at the home of the famille Aubert, with whom I was staying.  I remember the homemade  cake (I believe a tart) we enjoyed that evenning, and looking back at my journal entry I see mention of a block of watercolor paper I received from the family.

Two quiet observances of this anniversary.  Both equally fulfilling and memorable, and doled out in equal intervals.

In the studio today

Stranger at the Door (stack) 2012, paint, chalk on drywall.

Yeah, I know what you are....

No Name (Decor for Duchamp's urinal), 2012 oil, marker on whiteboard

Who Do You say that I am? opening tomorrow in Beacon

Opening on June 9th at the First Presbyterian Church of  Beacon, NY, in the newly created Faith in Art Gallery is the exhibit Who do you say that I am?
The exhibit includes work by a group of artists which responds to readings of the Gospel of Luke.  I mentioned a little bit about my response, earlier, which folded in thoughts on the trickster (it's constantly a  and interpretation and translation.  My ruminations on the text more recently included the thoughts of Richard Kearney, whose book Anatheism was discussed in part one of a six part series entitled After Atheism on the CBC's Ideas podcast.

Anyway, the show is opening on Saturday from 4 to 6pm at the church, which is at 50 Liberty St.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what my fellow artists have come up with.  The show will runs through June 29 and the gallery will be open on the weekends.

White picket cuneiform

Some natural force or little critter has been drawing on our fence out back.  The patterns look like they could be created by some weird, rain-induced erosion of the mossy, moldy growth sitting on the fence surface.

It's some great drawing via erasure.  Upon close examination, these erasures are actually made up of miniature triangular forms, which it seems must have been made by some strange meandering mechanic process.  I don't know if it's insect feets scrambling up the surface or some characteristic of the fencing material that making the marks.

In the studio today

Grilled Blackened Bananas

Angelika did some grilling yesterday.  Earlier in the day, it was suggested to her - from a woman she was skyping with in Germany that she try grilling bananas with chocolat.  She did.  And this was the result.  She deposited dark chocolate in a slit in the bananas.   Good good, good it was, although I think I'd prefer milk chocolate.
I don't use Instagram, but for those folks unaccustomed to looking at online photos of food that aren't affectedly fucked up in some psuedo-fartsy way, I've posted an Instagram facsimile below.

In the studio today

Geneve Journal: 20 yrs--> Outbound

On this day, twenty years ago, I was on a plane to Geneva, CH.  It was the long awaited release valve that was sure to be the cure for my ales.  My lack of attentive journaling at that moment is annoyingly scant.  This current me would like to know more of what that previous me was thinking about.  However, as I reflect on the spare clues left in this journal, I'm starting to recall memories to fill in some gaps, and these memories of a middle aged fellow feel as if they can adequately approximate the impressions of that guy back then....I'll continue thinking that until I have evidence to the contrary.

I had completely forgotten the haircut my mom had given me, taking off around  a foot of hair, leaving me with a shoulder-length bob.  Man that was long.  I still have a hank of that hair somewhere.

My air journey originated in Omaha.  My mom waited with me at the gate before boarding - United 480 for a 10:50 AM departure.  I remember being pretty amped up and just wanting to get the trip underway.  I was impatient.  It was one of those moments (and I've had many) when I was most certainly forsaking the present for the promise of an beckoning future.  As pleasant as it can be to have a loved one waiting there at the gate with you, your my head is already on that plane - in travel mode - and has been since you arrived at the airport.  I think that the one good thing about the post 9/11 air travel reality is that the point of separation of you from your loved ones happens at an earlier and more logical point.  The realm of the airport is that other space.  Being there, inside the airport, you've already departed from the city you are leaving and it feels natural that goodbyes should be said on the threshold of this limbo rather than at some point in a terminal food court, or other such place therin.  It's awkward at best and heartbreaking at worst, when one is leaving and one is staying, and both  are leaving the building - through separate exits.

 I had spent a couple of days with my grandmother and mom in Iowa prior to boarding that flight in Omaha. I remember sitting on my grandmother's back patio, fixated (and drawing) the view of the cemetery that was just behind her place.  My haircut happened then on that patio, too.

Prior to spending a couple of days with my Mom and other family in IA/NE, I was in Bentonville Arkansas visiting other family.  In fact, just today as I was sorting through various sketchbooks, I found this pastel drawing of Buttons, my grandparents' dog.

Buttons, Bentonville AR, May 16, 1992.

Speaking of Bentonville Arkansas, just last week I went to Brooklyn to record a conversation with Carolina Miranda for a forthcoming Dead Hare Radio episode.  The topic of our conversation was the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art - located in Bentonville Arkansas, a short drive from my grandparents' house.

An utterly undecipherable view of the roof line of Crystal Bridges.

Carolina and I had both made trips to the museum which opened last November.  By chance, I've been able to make three quick visits to the museum since it opened and soon will post some images and reflections on the museum soon.  Carolina followed up our conversation with an extended write up of her impressions of Crystal Bridges on her blog C-Monster.net.  

Speaking of Carolina Miranda, her hubby, El Celso is conducting a Kickstarter campaign (La Luz) to fund an art installation at an ancient Incan site in Cusco, Peru.  The medium of choice for the installation?  Inca Kola.  The sample images of what Celso plans look pretty beautiful with the effect of light playing off the yellow soda.  I'm anxious to see this in its planned Peruvian context.
I've pledged a wee amount to help support the project - and you can too.  Behold the Gold!

Speaking of Kickstarter, I am preparing to hold my own campaign in June to raise funds for an art making journey to Geneva that will mine this experience of a place and a moment, twenty years later.  I'm shooting to run that campaign for the month of June.

In the studio today

The Unexpected opening of Krotch?

Peter Iannarelli marking his territory.....with aluminum letters.

When I ended kork at the end of last year, I was considering instigating a new exhibition project space closer to home.  At home, in fact. The concept behind Krotch was to invite artists to create works that would rest in the crotch of the tree standing in our yard.  I haven't pursued it yet out of a restraint on my own tendencies as such a project inevitably turns into a fulfilling, but diversionary endeavor - one which places yet another task on my agenda.

Peter Iannarelli inadvertently initiated Krotch when he showed up for our book club meeting this week with a box of aluminum letters, looking for a place to stick 'em.  He and Angelika unloaded the box and loaded up the tree.

An instance like this drives me to want to jump in and call this thing a running venture.  But I'm going to refrain.  These things tend to have a mind of their own, anyway, so we'll see what happens - naturally.

That tree is so seductive...and the aluminum letters stand in great contrast to the dark, moist, moss laden bark.

As it turns out this little endeavor of Peter's spawned the idea for a piece for Collabortive Concepts's Saunder's Farm exhibit in Garrison, NY this year.
 

Images from Zoom In

Here are some images from the May 1 opening of the Zoom In exhibit at the Imogen Holloway Gallery.  There was quite a crowd gathered in front of the gallery and the little downtown area of Saugerties was really hopping with people when we arrived.  The crowd had thinned considerably when I actually started taking photos.

It's funny to think that after almost 10 years in the Hudson Valley, this was my first time in Saugerties.  It wasn't Angelika's first time in town.  Last year she made several trips to Saugerties to do a series of intimately scaled performances with Saugerties native, Linda Mary Montano (Montano in conversation with Charles Duncan in the Brooklyn Rail, Feb 2012).  As it turns out, the gallery is in the same space where Mary Linda's grandfather's first opened his shoe store so many years ago.

daatista, 2007 in the fore(wall), with two works by Joy Taylor, Aspen (BareBones and Bare Tree) on the right.

Zoom In will remain on view through Memorial Day.
An artist conversation with Vincent Pomilio and Barb Smith will be held at Imogen Holloway Gallery on Saturday, May 19th at 5pm.

Matthew Magee's Thistle on the left, my Untitled (9Green), 2011 on the right.

A cluster of Brian Lynch's small paintings.

April Berger's Striation #6 on lef with two paintings by Bernie Reitemeyer on the right.

Barb Smith's window installation, Parcel.

Norm Magnusson's window installation.

Joy Taylor's Yellow Building on the left and Vincent Pomilio's Big-Little #42 & #43 on the right.

Kari Gorden's Gravity on the left and Power I on the right.

The last of the gallery goers nearing the end of the evening.

Another Saugerties window installation, this one at the Ace Hardware around the corner.