Fly Away Home

No longer stranded, and home with five new pieces to be shown at Jane Gray this Friday, I am happy to say that neither weather (snow and driving rain), traffic (solid from Ft. Worth to Houston), nor my own {ahem} foibles (leaving my purse in Amarillo) kept me from returning home...of course, the ground control/pit crew/support staff that is my fiancee had alot to do with it...

From The Road

I am pleased to report that the trip to Santa Fe has been productive on many levels...however, the trip has taken a turn for the Texan...as in, I am stranded-ish in Childress, with a storm moving in...thank goodness *literally* for the kindness of strangers. In this case, the late-night, front desk manager at the Super 8.

Hopefully, our hero (that's me) gets better news tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

Tell Your Friends!

And please come too! I've been working on a series based around the form of the horse, and am currently in Santa Fe working on the frames. My brother and I are hand milling and building the frames out of alder.

Jane Gray Gallery @ Daryl Bunn Studio is located at 643 Edison Avenue (one block from Riverside Avenue).

Goodbyes

Currently, I am on the road, however, when the information that Cummer Museum Director Maarten van de Guchte passed my desk, I thought I'd post it.

From the Cummer: Dr. Maarten van de Guchte has announced his departure after nearly 10 years at the helm of the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens. “It has been an exciting and successful decade,” said van de Guchte. “The museum has grown in size and visitation has increased dramatically. The Cummer is now by size firmly in the top five art museums in the State of Florida. And it is the second most visited art museum in Florida.”

During van de Guchte’s tenure, the museum increased in size from 68,000 square feet to 102,000 square feet. Through new construction and renovation, the museum added the Thomas H. Jacobsen Gallery of American Art and the Raymond K. and Minerva Mason Gallery. The museum also acquired the adjacent Woman’s Club of Jacksonville as an expansion of its campus and has raised $25 million in capital funds.

Attendance has increased from 90,000 people in 1999 to a peak of 145,000 visitors in 2007. The art collection has enriched with significant artworks such as Gilbert Stuart’s Portrait of George Washington and paintings by Severin Roesen, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Norman Rockwell, Romare Bearden, and Camille Pissarro in addition to Asian works of art. “The Board and the staff have been very active and donors have been very generous. The museum is a better place for it,” said van de Guchte.

Chairman of the Board Edward W. Lane, III praised Maarten van de Guchte’s many contributions to the institution. “He brought an European style to the job. It was a pleasure to work with him. He will be missed,” said Lane.

The End of the Affair?

A while back, during a Guardian-influenced posting frenzy, a friend accused me of having the hots for Jonathan Jones, and it was kind of true, I still think he's super smart. So he gets lots of cross-Atlantic love from me.

However, when a friend of mine sent a me link to Jones' recent column, "How art killed our culture: All the shallowness of modern mass culture began in avant-garde art 40 years ago," I had to read it, then disagree. While I certainly agree that the art world, and art, have been instrumental in transforming the past 100 years, so has technology, the changing social order, and, (I dunno) two World Wars.

To say that because artists tapped into the consumer/pop culture they saw around them, and that in so doing, on so commenting, that they created the reality that followed reeks of the kind of anti-progressive, "things were better in the old days," mentality that serves no end. Plus it's just lazy thinking.

Dune House, For Sale

The Dune House by Architect William Morgan - Tansy Moon - The best video clips are here

1.85 million.

Too bad the place will probably be bulldozed for a high-rise. Ideally it would be a wonderful place to endow as a part of a grant-making process for artists: buy it, set up a trust to maintain it, and let an oversight group administer it as a place of retreat, on say, a one month basis as a live/work (within reason) space.

I've been inside, the space is really smartly used and the overall effect is one of openness, ease, grace, and clarity.

Bill Morgan, the architect of the Dune House is described by writer Robert McCarter as: A modernist trained by the great modern masers, Morgan is paradoxically inspired by the most archaic works of architecture and it is in this way that he has been able to "to become modern and to return to sources."

Stumbled Upon

On painting:

“think of a picture not as a finished product exposed for the admiration of virtuosi, but as the visible record, lying about the house, of an attempt to solve a definite problem in painting.”

A Mighty Oak for a Steel Magnolia?

Tillie Fowler, formerly President of Jacksonville’s City Council from 1982-85, and then, (1992-2000) she served four terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, died in 2005. As one of Jacksonville’s most beloved politicians (there were about 500 people at her memorial service), it does not surprise me that she is being honored with a monument. What is surprising however, is the more progressive nature, not of the imagery, but of the process.

From the artist, Brower Hatcher’s proposal {it is, ahem a bit purple}: “I have designed a work that embodies the strength, beauty and grace of Tillie Fowler. Tillie's spirit will be captured in the image of a magnificent oak tree – strong, protective of her community, concerned for all and always reaching out.”

After looking over Hatcher’s work, it seems safe to say that there’s definitely a preoccupation with the mathematically generated, in keeping with his engineering background. According to the Cultural Council, Hatcher attended Vanderbilt University School of Engineering in Nashville, TN and received his degree in Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in New York. He studied sculpture at St. Martins School of Art in London, U.K. and served on the faculty at St. Martins and Bennington College. In his career as an artist, Hatcher has built over 40 public art projects throughout the U.S. He has received three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship and an honorary Ph.D. from the State University of New York.

Though the above drawings have a kind of geeky coolness to them, they also remind me of fractals, so I am withholding judgement until the piece is installed. Installation begins on the Northbank Riverwalk beginning March 30, and is projected to last about five days.

While in Jacksonville, Hatcher will present a lecture for the public on April 1, at 7:00 p.m. at MOCA.

Cha Ching

The other night (at Jim Draper's CCPV opening) I ran into Gray Solomon (one of the gentlemen involved with the Hayden Burns Library Project) and he mentioned that the space had gotten a cash machine (all the easier to make purchases with).

Then today, I got an update from Gray, he said:
"The addition of the cash machine seemed to help motivate sales as a lot of sales occurred. Hopefully our effort to promote the collecting of local Jacksonville artists is starting to gain momentum."

Perhaps that's what all galleries should do, that way artists can reel in prospective buyers while they're tipsy, and full of the romantic good cheer art typically seems to generate...

Friday, Friday, Friday: 13, 13, 13

If you like tattoos and horror movies, Black Hive Tattoo is celebrating Friday the Thirteenth, this March 13th.

The entire staff, Nick, Chance and Jason, have all cleared their schedules and have drawn a custom sheet of thirteen Friday the 13th(the old movie) designs featuring Jason masks, machetes, and other gory-as-hell movie material.

They'll be doing these designs for fifty dollars a piece: the size AND designs are set (no substitutions please) to give more people an opportunity to get tattooed and enjoy the day.

The tattoos will be FIRST COME FIRST SERVE.

They at 1 pm and go until 2 am!

That's 13 hours, starting on the 13th hour of Friday the 13th.

If you have any questions about the event, feel free to call Chance (525-6031) or Nick (403-9813)

In Praise of Wise Film Directors

Recently, I found myself sucked into an epic marathon of movie-watching: The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. This was not the first time I’d seen the movies, but it was the first time I’d seen them since watching them in the theatre. And I thought they were just as good (though I found myself shamefully wishing for a larger screen up which to view it…and better acoustics).

However, I have never read the books. Laced as they are with hobbit/dwarf/elf-song I tend to find them tedious and a bit exhausting. But after seeing the movies again, I thought: “This time I will do it! I will read the trilogy, back-to-back, then I too will know the entire backstory.

As of today, the band of hobbits is leaving Barrow Downs, and I have once again put down my copy of the book. It is still too long and tedious.

Perhaps when I am older.

The Generational: Younger Than Jesus

From left, Laura Hoptman, Massimiliano Gioni and Lauren Cornell, curators at the New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Posts have been a bit thin this month as I was finishing up my tenure at Arbus magazine (I am now freelance again) and begin work on a couple of new projects, both of the written word and the drawn image.

I am also preparing for a road trip, which I hope to blog about...more details on that will be forthcoming.

Until then, here's a piece about The Generational: Younger Than Jesus, at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in NYC. What I find truly interesting isn't just the ages of the artists (all under 33), but the method in which the curators chose to glean entrants.

From the article, "Reflecting the tough economic climate it is a low-budget endeavor. The show was only a year in the making. Rather than trotting the globe visiting artists, the curators relied on their Internet savvy, reaching out to 150 writers, teachers, artists, critics, curators and bloggers worldwide, for recommendations. From around 600 suggested names, the curators whittled the group down to the final 50."

International in scope, I also found it interesting that many of artists consider themselves, "post-medium." It's something I also see happening with many of my artist-friends...an evolution away from one-form as their "correct" form, and towards the right solution for the {self-imposed} problem at hand.

Said Ms. Hoptman, one of the curators: “None of these artists are constrained by what they make their work out of, or how they make it. And that’s very new.”

I hope so too!

reposted from postsecret

the numbers two, three, and five

I love linguistics. In college, I took an etymology course and it was fascinating and satisfying...a course through history, through the filter of language. I loved it.

Today, I stumbled across this little gem of an article, and liked the idear of ancient words still in use today.

Here.

It's a little brain-tickler.

Reinhardt: Part I

This weekend, I re-read Running With Scissors. A vaguely salacious and gossipy book by Augustine Burroughs, it is, nonetheless filled with razor-like observations and humor. It takes the horrifying and renders it into hilarity.

In the book, one of the coping mechanisms the Hope character uses to deal with her family’s nutty home life are Bible Dips. Basically, ask a question, and then open the Bible, point to a word, and “interpret” it.

In that same absurdist spirit, I decided to let (my recently relocated) copy of Art-as-Art, The selected writings of Ad Reinhardt flop open to a random page.

It opened to:

AN ARTIST,
A FINE-ARTIST OR
FREE-ARTIST

An artist, a fine-artists or free artists,
An artist-as-artist
Has always nothing to say,
And he must say this over and over again.
Especially in his work
What else is there to say?
In work or words

What in hell, on earth, or in heaven, is an artist up to when he says he has something to say?

All artists-as-artists say the same thing

The post-historic artist is the timeless artist-as-artist.
The artist-as-artist is the post-historic artist.
The post-historic artist is the artist aware of himself as artist, aware of art-as-art, aware of everything that is not art, inside or outside art.
The only way to say what an artist-as-artist is is to say what an an artist-as-artist is not.
A fine artist by definition is not a commercial or industrial or fashion or applied or useful artist.
A fine, free or liberal or abstract artist is by definition not a servile or professional or meaningful artist.
A fine artist has no use to use, no meaning for meaning, no need for any need.
A fine artist has nothing to use, has no need for any meaning, and would not use himself or his work for anything.
A fine artist by definition does not use or need any ideas or images, does not use or need any help, cannot use or help anyone or anything.
Only a bad artist thinks he has a good idea.
A good artist does not need anything.

*italics are according to the book, which was edited by Barbara Rose.
** though I do not agree with many of his tenants, I find Reinhardt endless fascinating for his output, and his humor.