Joining the early morning shift

From time to time you hear about writers, mostly women, primarily mothers who wake up at the crack of dawn to write their masterpieces. Well, now that Grant no longer naps, but sometimes sleeps until 8:00 am or even 8:30 am, I have joined the early morning shift. It's too early to tell, in more ways than one, how it will effect my practice, but I hope to finish some pieces, if not masterpieces. Right now I'm thinking I need warmer pjs!

Late yesterday, in a quiet Pocket Utopia, and while Christine Catsifas worked in the back, I pulled out my sketchbook with my New York Times cover photos and drew on them with some of my wacked and hacked rulers.

The sun was setting a beautiful pink and now another New York Times with a cover photo of newly recruited Iraqi policemen greets a new morning. Maybe I should have some breakfast. I hear Grant waking up.

Notes on and in several freespaces

I've been combining tasks this week, by working at the Mid-Manhattan Branch Library while doing research on Lawrence Weiner and then reading "Deep Economy" for my book group at 60 Wall Street while making mandalas.

I've also been sharing my thoughts on a post-studio practice with others and they have been sharing their thoughts with me, see below.

some notes on a post-studio practice sent to me by Audra Wolowiec:

the world is your studio - including the sidewalk, the street, a
rooftop, your stairway, the subway, an entrance, (your pocket),
everywhere and anywhere - insert yourself

don't wait for someone else to create a space, claim one for yourself,
then move on

make do with what is at hand, use what others have discarded

make something out of nothing and nothing out of something

bonus thoughts:

"If you will cling to nature, to the simple in nature, to the little
things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so unexpectedly become
big and beyond measuring; if you have this love of inconsiderable
things and seek quite simply to win the confidence of what seems poor,
then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more
conciliatory for you..." Rainer Maria Rilke

From the bottom outward

Although I am focusing on ideas of inclusiveness tonight, the basement laundry room of my apartment building has been my exclusive freespace this week. I haven't been able to work down there until recently because it has been too hot. The basement is a seasonal workspace only comfortable (even though I think good art can come out of being uncomfortable) from October to May. There's a limit to being uncomfortable while artmaking.

I actually set out attempting to make the basement more hospitable. I intergrated art books into the communal bookshelf, by placing a Vito Acconci book within the out-of-date travel books and by placing an inspirational but useless book on flower arranging amongst old books on yoga (which will reappear in some of my drawings) and "The War on Choice" as well as a book about coming out of the closet. I also placed a big, thick 2-year old copy of ArtForum within the community magazine rack along with a new issue of ID magazine.

After setting the mood, I sat down to work and chatted with a couple of folks doing their laundry. I finished up before one of them finished folding but not before feeling that this freespace had become a pleasant social space.

The AT, The Free, and The Space (the pocket and utopia)

After a weekend out at Pocket Utopia, I feel that all my various practices (AT, Free, Space, etc.) are separate yet compressed. There's probably some psychological disorder related to separate compression. If so, I've got it, but I probably just need more air. So this week I'll try working out of the basement laundry room freespace where my evening work-time will be filled with the hot air of the dryers.

Calm in the storm

It hasn't really been stormy, but even though I don't work out of a studio, I still need a quiet place to go. Working at 60 Wall Street has been that quiet place.

Most of the places I work are public. The semi-private work areas have given way to public space. I no longer knock on the homes of friends and set-up shop at their dining room tables. It has proved more comfortable to be public, even calm.

The Met as a free and wide-open expanse

My freespace, post-studio mate, Audra Wolowiec and I, slipped off, after a day at Pocket Utopia, to the soul-enriching expanse of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to draw.

We viewed the recently installed Abstract Expressionism and Modern Works from the Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection (that's a mouthful), and then found a bench and went to work long enough to feel renewed. Stuart Davis paintings pictured in the background.

Not free

"Not free" sums up the week, although I am making reference to the above photo that shows Audra Wolowiec and I working at the Archive, an internet cafe in East Williamsburg. I even had difficulity sketching on the playground this week, for there was a lot of nasty nanny negotiating to be done and hand-holding of the artist that is opening today at Pocket Utopia.

I lost free space this week. So how do I get it back, by working and not holding anything but a pencil. After the opening tonight, it's back to work. So go figure it out for yourself!

After working on the floor...

After working on the floor, on a "fill-in" drawing while Grant was at school, I needed to look up, so I went out to look at a show curated by 2 friends, fellow artists/parents at the New York Center for Art and Media Studies or NYCAMS in Chelsea. The show is titled "Strand" and features the work of Ellie Murphy and Rico Gatson. The images above are of Rico's light piece and Ellie's yarn installation. A beautiful show!