Packed up

I'm watching Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless, a strangely appropriate film for packing and planning my weekend away working.

Free bird

The weeks and free spaces have been flying by and now I am getting ready to go away to a weekend artist-residency. I've been planning this work-escape for 6 months and now it's here. Before I go I promised the Center for Books Arts a cake design and now I want to mention their upcoming fundraising event. It's time to pack my bags.

brownies and merlot, text and helvetica

I think little G's preschool reads the blog because Mike was grilled by the head teacher about little G's whereabouts on Friday! Busted!

Pictured above is a group of art enthusiasts watching the Chuck Close movie. The best thing about the picture is Fred's face peeking out of the lower left corner. We learned that night that brownies, egg creams and popcorn goes well with merlot. Also pictured above is a collage of a possbile new form.

It's Monday and I'm continuing my new form, new week experiment. Tomorrow, Tuesday, brings my attention to my text pieces and I've decided to draw them in helvetica. I watched a convinicing film on the font and I'm sold. As the filmmakers describe the font and it makes sense to me using it as a drawing tool, helvetica has a "neutralism." "It doesn't have a meaning in itself. The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface."

New forms, old theme

I just spent about an hour trying to buy gel pens online. I'm working on new forms. I think I need to try out the pens in a store. I cancelled my orders. I watched a great movie last night at Fred's about Chuck Close.

Grant and I skipped preschool today and went to look at art in Chelsea. CRG gallery had an exhibition of Jim Hodges and due to the delicacy of the work there were 2 guards. Grant asked one of the attendants for a flashlight, which was a totally appropriate question. The work looks so much better online then it does in person. I think right now all work in Chelsea galleries looks better online (which is the opposite of gel pens).

A headbutt to the nose...

Monday morning mandala:
new rulers:
new work area created from one of my old perches:
Me, Libby and Brece working:
New York Times cover drawings:


A headbutt to the nose can really ruin your whole day, but before that, I was facing a Monday morning of mandala making and contemplating that way of thinking-mental mandaling.

C. G. Jung wrote that the mandala, with its mid-point, represented the self-it's expressions, reflections, dreams and memories. With Jung in mind, I have probably made over hundreds of mandala collages.

Before mental mandaling and collaging, I joined the other artists working on Sunday at Pocket Utopia for an afternoon of art-making and that way of thinking-creating as central and working communally. Freespacing, with it's Pocket Utopia counterpart, has become the way I work. It's the mental re-appropriating of managing mothering, art-making, and salon supervising that's tough. Where's my center? And what form does all that take?

More often then not it seems like it's all responsibility as opposed to reflections and dreams. I think Jung had full-time help and never changed diapers. Mandalas don't cut it (of course, I had to make hundreds of them before having this realization). A new form is required. I need a form that encompasses the cover of the Times, rulers and responsibility. Next up, experiments in and with new and different, reformed, informed and all encompassing forms of selfhood (folded, presented, performed, baked, butted, and drawn crooked).

Filling up

The above drawing is sketchy and blurry and sums up my week, but I saw some good art this week and listened to an awesome lecture by Robert Storr on being an artist. The lecture can be found on ItunesU and it's free! ItunesU is an amazing resource, MOMA has some great lectures on there too!!

I saw some great shows this week and now have a new route of walking and looking in the far West Village and then I head into Soho. I first went to Gavin Brown's enterprise then Michele Maccaronee, on over to Harris Lieberman, into Soho to Peter Blum, and ended up at the Drawing Center. All shows were exceptional, I even stopped for a coffee, and actually sat down to drink it. I arrived back at Grant's preschool with time to make more blurry sketches.

I also posted a new drawing on the Fine Art Adoption Network. Blurry sketch looking for a stable home.

For some reason the Harris Liberman link isn't linking?

Transitions

Taking my cue from Thoreau and his inclination to have three chairs in his cabin; one for privacy, two for company and three for society, I've made three little work areas for me and the artists in residence. Pictured here are Brece Honeycutt and Libby Hartle. The space is a lot more functional for visiting artists and guests. We were all very productive.