Untitled

A satire that pokes fun of the nuanced world of the New York contemporary art scene through a pair of competitive brothers, eclectic and self-important music composer Adrian and commercially successful painter Josh. When Chelsea art gallerina and Joshs love interest Madeline attends Adrians concert featuring the sounds of paper-crumpling, glass-breaking and bucket-kicking she commissions him for a gallery performance and a love affair ensues.Further complicating the situation is that Joshs highly commercial art work the financial backbone of the gallery is sold to corporate clients discreetly out of the gallerys back room.

The New York contemporary art scene needs a parody? Really? you could have fooled me...This is like shooting fish in a barrel, but I might go see it anyway...

music in my eyes and ears

When I turned on my computer this morning and started browsing through some posts on Tumblr, I found one where someone had posted this video of a Led Zeppelin concert from 1972. 'Immigrant Song' is one of my favorite Zeppelin songs and this was just what I needed to hear. Sometimes, a quiet Sunday morning isn't necessarily what one needs.

Speaking of finding music...one of the things I love about the 'net is the sheer amount of stuff I can find, especially music. I have a profile over on MySpace that I don't use much, but every so often, there's a 'friend request' from random bands, musicians, and other people trying to get their sounds heard. Almost two weeks ago, I checked in and there were a couple of requests, one of which was from '7b Mixes'.

I usually delete most music requests, but I decided to give a listen to the tracks he had on his profile and was hooked! I'm a big fan of good deep house and listen to a lot of it in the studio. The 7b Mixes are excellent. Here's three of them below. Most are over an hour long, so if you're into house or are just curious, you might like to download them or visit the 7b Mixes podcast page.

Isolation

The 7b Mixes

The Deep Abyss

The 7b Mixes

Electrodynamic

The 7b Mixes

New photography

The Watch

Roundabout

Skyline Gray

Some new images taken this past week around Philly.

Long Portraits

Long Portrait #1 from Simon James French on Vimeo.

I just found this video this morning and remembered how much I like the long portrait format. I especially like this one from Simon James French because of the lighting, textures and music. I first encountered the long portrait format this summer while browsing online and have been hooked ever since. There are a few long portraits here by photographer Clayton Cubitt, who is responsible for the popularity of the long portrait format. I'd like to experiment with this idea to see what can happen. I'll probably post others that I find interesting as I find them.

"Long Portrait: The long portrait is a video made popular on Vimeo by photographer Clayton Cubitt . A long portrait is exactly like it sounds, a portrait that is long. It’s like a photo of someone, but stretched out in video form to show the person’s small expressions, mannerisms and gestures.”

Condensed Fields

Works from the 'Condensed Fields' series on the studio wall. These are some of the works on paper I did this summer. Each piece is acrylic on paper and 30 x 22 inches.

hand-made storage

Before my open studio event earlier this month, I went through a bunch of my works on paper, sorted some out and displayed a lot of them that I haven't exhibited previously. That part was great. The not-so-great part was having to wrangle with the poor storage options I had for these works. There are good archival storage box options out there, but most of them are more expensive than I'm ready to deal with for studio storage.

I was in one of the art supply stores I frequent a couple of months ago looking for archival boxes good for long-term storage. They didn't have any in stock at the time, but the clerk I spoke with suggested using acid-free foam board and archival linen tape to make my own boxes. I thought about it and finally got around to making one this week. My first box (see photos above) measures 24" x 32" x 3" to accommodate the 22" x 30" sized works, like 'Blue Pool' in the second shot. I spent about $32-$34 in materials (acid-free foam board, archival linen tape and white velcro for fasteners) and spent almost three and-a-half hours to assemble it. I expect to improve on that time as I do more of these. The cost of good archival storage boxes in a similar size hovers around the $90-$100+ range. Of course, mine aren't made to last 100 years, but they will still go a long way towards protecting my drawings and other works on paper while in the studio for a long time.

I still need to make about one or two more in the same size as well as a couple of smaller boxes for immediate use. The one above is filled already with works I did this past spring and summer. Making these boxes is a little time-consuming but worth it for me. Now that I have the first one done, I have a better idea of what to expect and hopefully, the next few will be easier to construct.

The Tate Channel

Video artist, Bill Viola, talking about his piece, Ocean Without A Shore that was installed at the 2007 Venice Biennale. I found this on the Tate's video channel (thanks to Vincent Romaniello for posting the link to the site).

Video description from the website:

Bill Viola's latest video installation, Ocean Without a Shore, is presented in the atmospheric setting of the church of San Gallo, Venice. Monitors positioned on three stone altars in the church show a succession of individuals slowly approaching out of darkness and moving into the light, as if encountered at the intersection between death and life. Viola talks about his artistic intentions and the technical challenges of the piece.

There are quite a few other videos on the Tate Channel featuring interviews and artist talks from a range of artists.

'Concurrent' at West Virginia University

Poster announcing my lecture at West Virginia University. Last Thursday and Friday (Oct. 15-16), I had the honor of being the visiting artist for the latest installation of Concurrent, the traveling exhibition featuring works by Natalie Alper, myself, Diane Simpson, and Larry Webb.

I arrived Thursday afternoon and gave a lecture that evening, right before the opening reception. The crowd was composed mainly of very attentive art students and faculty. My talk went on for just over an hour, which surprised me because I remember thinking months ago that I'd have a hard time filling up that time. Once I started talking, the time flew by.There was time for a short question and answer session at the end, after which everyone went upstairs for the opening reception and out to dinner afterwards.

Friday morning, I met with three out of four graduate art students who had signed up for crits. The fourth was sick and couldn't meet with me. I was a bit surprised that more students hadn't taken advantage of me being there and available to talk with them about their work, but it left me with more time for the ones with whom I did meet.

I left WVU later that afternoon for a plane out of Pittsburgh that was scheduled for a 5:40pm departure. That turned into a 6:50pm delay, which turned into a cancelled flight, leading to a mad dash for the 'special services' desk for US Airways. There were no more direct flights back to Philly, but they put me on one that went to Washington, D.C. with a connection to Philadelphia. A flight that should have only taken just over an hour took 6 hours, instead. At least I was able to get home. I felt bad for those who had more complicated situations to deal with.

Overall, the two days were great, and were made much easier thanks to Chris Barr, Bob Bridges, Michael Sherwin, and everyone else in the College of Creative Arts involved with the exhibition.

Undercurrent next to exhibition signage.

Sculpture by Diane Simpson.

Stratum I next to drawings by Natalie Alper

Paintings by Natalie Alper (left) and Larry Webb (right)

Cape by Diane Simpson.



More paintings by Natalie Alper and Larry Webb.



Plume, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 72" (left) and All that could be, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 84" (right)

Drawings from my Random Expansion series, water media on paper, 20" x 20" each.