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Laudromats

2010-12-16T12:32:00.000-08:00

In 1999, Professor Rene Davids seemed somewhat aghast that I would propose taking seriously my fascination with laundromats. Doing so, he stated, was akin to studying payphones or parking meters: things of the past, technologies (and moreso inconveniences) doomed to obsolescence. It was understood: 'progress is progress' and in an age with (for it was still 'with' then, not 'of') the Internet, who would argue the idea of coin-operated machines in a communal public setting as anything but, well, just old-fashioned?

Still, today, I find myself once again drawn to the topic as part of a growing interest in personal infrastructure. From the Coin Laundry Associate's Industry Overview:

National and regional demographics indicate renters, the primary users of coin laundries, are the fastest-growing segment in the nation.

Today’s coin laundry industry is a strong and vibrant one. Even more appealing is the fact that this dependable public service industry continues to grow and thrive. The demographic trends toward an even greater apartment dwelling segment of the population predict continued prosperity.

Hanging paper stars.

2010-08-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

Daughter held the button down on camera today and snapped 15 of these; paper stars that hang from the dining room light.

Tiny Houses

2010-07-22T19:26:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited to have been asked to complete a work for the Tuska Center of Contemporary Art. The exhibit, a group show titled Aftermath, examines New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As a starting point, I made my way to the wood shop (if only because working with my hands is the surest way to feel like progress is being made). These little guys are what came out, and the harbinger of what I think might be a fabulous idea.

StreetBond

2010-07-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

If You Knew Suzy

2010-07-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

This Spring I was the lucky recipient of one advanced copy of Katie Rosman's moving memoir, If You Knew Suzy. As has been written about extensively here and here and here, the book centers on two tales: of the time Katie and her sister spent helping their Mom fight cancer, and of the year she spent after Suzy’s death researching her late mother's life. Funny and heartbreaking at once, If You Knew Suzy is many stories (like this one and this one) woven into one, the essence and detail of which continues to resonate with me even months after putting it down. In fact, there’ve been more than a few times Suzy and Katie have popped into my mind, causing me to consider anew many of the themes addressed in the book.

You see in college, as those who have read the book will understand, Katie was for me much like Karen had been for her: a girl I purposely chose as my friend for her fun-loving nature and overall charismatic fire. I admired the way she could seamlessly merge seemingly disperate desires; she was the girl who could get people to rally to the bar on Sunday afternoon for cocktails, yet once there, crank out the New York Times crossword puzzle (easy for her even back then) or lose herself in the newest book she was devouring. And I still laugh every time I recall the day Katie burst through the door announcing she'd just been elected president of the University of Michigan's Golden Key Honor Society, saying, "It's so funny how people will vote for you if you're pretty, even if they don't know shit about who you are." She could say this, of course, because we all knew her credentials were impeccable: she was intelligent, quick-witted, and at the top of her class (which made the "dumb blonde" joke all the more hilarious). But mostly, I loved the irreverence and confidence of her observation that was, like it or not, very true. Perhaps this is why she now reports on pop culture for the Wall Street Journal, a job that allows her to state the facts and draw connections between the various worlds she inhabits.

So, it came as no surprise to learn more about her background growing up--that it was full of such dualities. She was the daughter of a woman who was simulteneiously hot and cool, a consumer and extremely spiritual, or, as Katie says in her book trailer, "a feisty and loving and crazy woman who happens to be my Mother." Reading the book, I was reminded of Katie's willingness to say what other's might be too polite or afraid to say, for fear of ruffling feathers.

But I was also reminded of something else: that mothers are more than "just Moms:" they are women with lives that were lived long before we arrived on the scene--a truth that many of us who are just now entering that roll finally realize so intimately. This is, for me, is the beauty of If You Knew Suzy.

Having been gifted the book early on, it was my plan to post a review of book soon after it’s debut. But alas, like Katie, I have small children which means sometimes good things must sometime wait. But now it seems the time is right, for after reading today's callous review in the New York Times, I can't help but feel that Suzy, Katie, and in many ways all women, have been misrepresented. Please find below the complete text of my letter to Thomas Feyer, the editor of the New York Times, an excerpt of which I shot off this morning to letters@nytimes.com. May they live to be a thousand!

Dear Editor,

To the point: In his recent review of If You Knew Suzy, Katie Rosman’s celebrated debut memoir, Dana Jennings gets it all wrong. In fact it’s hard to imagine an interpretation of the book that could be more wrong on so many levels.

Let’s start with what Mr. Jenning’s states as the problem: that Suzy comes across as “vain, materialistic, and manipulative.” In the book trailer for If You Knew Suzy, Ms. Rosman openly states vanity and materialism are two of the book’s many themes, so calling these out as some kind of journalistic misfire is ludicrous. What Mr. Jenning’s doesn’t pick up on is that Ms. Rosman places these firmly in the context of dualities: Suzy IS materialistic, but how? In the fact that she enjoys fashion, or that she collects expensive objects?

Saying a love for fashion is materialistic is like saying a kid shouldn’t dress up like a dinosaur or have an imagination. All creative people know that clothing is yet another extension of one’s expression. Why else do teenagers dress Goth or for that matter, executives in suits? For the individual and the community one chooses to be a part of, clothing serves as a mode of communication. As the great Coco Chanel once said, “Adornment is never anything except a reflection of the heart. ” Why else do mourning widows and mothers of slain children wear black for a year, but as a way of honoring their loss and love?

As for Suzy’s affinity for beautiful things, entire professions (industries!) revolve around the very human desire to see ourselves in the world around us. As an architect, I was struck by Suzy’s fascination with art glass, a material formed by fire, yet so fragile; her attachment to fine things just as her body began to break down. As Ms. Rosman wrote in the 2007 Wall Street Journal article that preceded her book, perhaps Suzy’s motivation in assembling sets of such frivolous pieces like antique sorbet dishes was in fact because it comforted her to think of her daughters one day—after her death—hosting ice cream parties for 12 of their best friends. Surely the NYTimes, a paper that covers fashion and design so expertly, understands significance of clothing and objects of art?

Next, that Suzy is vain. First of all, so what if she is? I don’t know a woman alive who doesn’t rue the varicose veins that appeared on her legs after childbirth or the inevitable cringe during bathing suit season as one tries to suck in the tummy. Could it be instead that Mr. Jenning’s simply feels some hostility toward this kind of woman? I can’t help but feel the sense that he is annoyed, as if he prefers his ‘cancer books’ have heroines who act a different way. To ensure it, he advises every author who approaches the topic to focus solely on the painful parts of the disease, to “look hard at cancer, to its treatment and aftereffects, to share with the reader the “hard sweet wisdom” that Didion writes of,” (a particularly strange bit advice for Ms. Rosman, who spends a vast portion of her book describing her mother’s experience with doctors and hospitals.)

I suppose he wants more blood-and-guts as he implies their absence reveals Katie’s denial of what cancer is. But sometimes the most heart-wrenching realizations can be found in seemingly insignificant things: the smell of a perfume, the softness of sheets, and the pattern of a dress. In her famous poem “Tulips,” Sylvia Plath fixates on the bob of that cheery flower’s head not because she’s superficial but precisely because in moments of intense pain ordinary things come into very tight focus. Who cares that she wore Missoni to her biopsy? Suzy did, because sometimes taking note of little familiar things can reinforce a sense of normalcy and make an overwhelming circumstance feel bearable. Sometimes, taking part in obviously playful activities in the midst of tragedy (like Katie and Lizzie’s shopping spree) can offer a necessary reprieve during an otherwise unbearable event. Just ask the residents of New Orleans who insisted on dressing up for Mardi Gras, floats and all, as their city drowned in the devastation of Katrina’s wake. Such things do more than lighten the mood—they remind us that life goes on, that everywhere people are living, in spite of our grief and disbelief that anything will ever be the same. Wasn’t this what Ms. Rosman meant when she wrote of her exchange with the nail technician? That Mr. Jenning’s misses the irony and revelation of that situation is more than a bit obtuse; that he implies true understanding (and dealing with loss) can come in only one form is absurd.

Third, that Suzy is manipulative. Again, perhaps she was in ways. As Katie states early on, her mother didn’t always play fair and growing up, her house “was often a dark place.” Later, she even goes on to write a passage about her own life that shows how all that time with Mom may have actually come in handy: in describing her arrival to New York, Rosman recalls how she “cajoled, maneuvered, charmed, manipulated and begged” her way into the media milieu. Yet I wonder: would Mr. Jennings have the same criticism of a man who used his powers to get what he wanted? Or would it then be deemed “ambition?” After all, one can frame ‘manipulative’ in any number of ways: as calculated, conniving, or hilariously brilliant strategy, as was the case of Suzy’s yoga-advice for a young woman trying to live with a grumpy husband. Whatever the case, such a trait—in Suzy, Katie, or anyone—doesn’t prohibit the experience of pain, of suffering loss, and the right to grieve in one’s own way.

But it’s the example that Mr. Jenning’s uses to make his argument that I take issue with, as it reveals just how much he’s missing the point with regard to Suzy's motivation. “It’d be very healing for me if you had a baby,’ my dying mother said not once but several times (Can you believe she went there? Nor could I),” wrote Katie, in essence admitting just how far her mother could go. But in my mind, it’s in these moments that we also see just how panicked Suzy must have felt—whether she was able to articulate it clearly or not. Because Suzy, at that point, was doing exactly as Mr. Jenning’s instructs in his review: she was tapping into even the most irrational hope that somehow, if she could just see the birth of a grandchild, she would somehow continue to live; in sheer desperation, she was telling the ‘white-boned truth'and trying to stay alive.

But apparently Mr. Jenning’s is only concerned with what HE needs. “When it comes to cancer books (a label, but the way, that I find insultingly simplistic), we need the thing itself, not the window dressing.” What he doesn’t seem to realize that while it is about cancer, If You Knew Suzy is also a book about mothers and daughters, the loyalty of sisters, the struggle of being a woman and a child, a woman with a child, or a child who realizes your Mother is just a woman, like you. It is the story of becoming Motherless, recounting the story of watching a loved one die, and coming to grips with the life that the two of you shared—without sugarcoating the flaws.

That Mr. Jenning’s “craves” to “peer into” a certain kind of narrative that “brings back rumors” from the other side says more about him than it does about Suzy, Katie, or any of the readers who so strongly identify with the intricacies of the many stories within Ms. Rosman’s book. One needn’t have such voyeuristic tendencies to relate to If You Knew Suzy, which for me read like the kind of story you might hear while on a long roadtrip with an old friend. Ms. Rosman’s plain language and parenthetical asides create a kind of conversation with the reader, while her wry sense of humor (what Mr. Jenning’s characterizes as ‘chirpiness’) cuts an obvious undercurrent of anguish. As a narrative, Rosman is able to layer decades of time and space into a rounded picture of the lives of three women, that yes, (as memoirs tend to do), center on the experience of the author.

Yet it is precisely Ms. Rosman’s expert ability as a journalist that gives her book an added twist, for how else would she have the know-how to ignite such a journey, a road many of us wish we could take in order to get to know our own parents better. For while we all might be a little bit Suzy, I think we all wish we could be a little more Katie: willing to find the time to address our pain directly; able to find the value in the ordinary trace of what’s left-behind; and fearless enough to share it with the world.

For many of us (not characters in books), the “potentially important stories” are those that shed light on the complexity within our lives, and ourselves. This is the core of If You Knew Suzy, and the reason why so many people have already lauded its achievement. That the New York Times has missed the mark on this one so fully will no doubt be read as sexist to some; but for me, I think Mr. Jenning’s review is more aptly described as sex-less. For how can one not respond to the desire to ritualize one’s relationship with their mother by having their hands carressed; to clothe oneself in all the things she would send to make us feel pretty (like dresses in boxes) or cozy or hugged, like plea: if only we were in the same place! What Mr. Jenning’s misses are that these things are not about spending money. They are about the body: the ritual of feeling it, fighting for it, dressing and wrapping it, controlling and ultimately surrendering to it.

Performa @ FAV

2010-07-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

Last month Mike McKay and I were invited to Montpellier, France to participate in the Festival of Architectures Vives, an international design competition founded by (the very adorable) Elodie Nourrigat and Jacques Brion of N+B Architects. For four days, the following project animated this beautiful courtyard--until it was finally shipped off (did I mention the entire piece packs into 4 small boxes?) to the Nous Gallery in London where it currently resides.

The installation was designed as part of Performa, a seminar Mike teaches at the University of Kentucky College of Design. Referred to by visitors as "the American dragon," the smoke monster from Lost, and my personal favorite, a flock of bats, Performa is a more than anything a system: simple units that aggregate to allow for flexibility and variation. For more information on other projects completed by Performa, check out Mike McKay's amazing website: www.mikemckay.org.

The Festival of Lively Architecture invites ten young designers to create work within the courtyards of Montpellier's many mansions. The festival aims to combine the work of this new generation with the forgotten eras and places of Montpellier, to create unexpected urban territories.

Performa is multi-performative material system utilizing optimization, aggregation and efficiency. The system is comprised of identical foldable units that create a high degree of unit and system pliability which allows for adaptation to changing conditions. These conditions range from highly spatial once deployed to laying completely flat for easy transport.

Additionally, the work explores the sensory affect of its field condition: variable aperatures of opacity and openness, light and shadow, and their impact on adjacent surfaces. The work is the result of rigorous digital and physical techniques that tested potential performative characteristics, limits, and strategies of fabrication.

I like pink

2010-06-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

City Lovers

2010-06-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

@keiranlong tweeted today an article he wrote for the London Evening Standard about Renzo Piano’s latest building (which I must say has an absolutely dreadful name), The Shard.* In it he makes several points with memorable zingers, including his characterization of Piano as a sort of promiscuous 'cities man' who lauds every place he’s ever been to as some variation of the most beautiful, ending with “Renzo, I bet you say this to all the girls.”

While I am no doubt, admittedly, one of those who's fallen for Piano’s work—I remember wanting to lick the basswood model of the modern wing in Chicago it was so gorgeous; and I must say that from the rendering, the street at St. Giles looks to be (at least envisioned as) excitingly habitable (I did, after all, grow up in Mies' beloved Chicago)—I can’t help but love the way Long makes his argument that Piano's latest London addition does little to advance his longtime stated love for the street:

St Giles Circus is a project that shows there is stuff at street level that star architects can no longer see but that for most of us constitutes our experience and memory of the city. … We long for the things that give character to London streets because they tell us stories about ourselves and our place in the city.

Swoon! I mean, is there anything more attractive than one who envisions their work (or the work of others) in terms of stories and experience and memory? Places that one might inhabit for…living? Because there is difference between theoretical relationships and human ones: the first is of the mind (and perhaps the eye); the other is of the body. It is physical. It becomes physical—and primarily because the architecture allows it to.

There so is much that excites me about The Shard (although certainly, it will never be the name), but I share Mr. Long’s concern for buildings that don’t allow others any kind of say—and by this I’m not talking about “community engagement” or anything that affects the design process or thinking. I’m talking about what happens after the sweet-talk's been had: does the space become a place (for stories, experience, memories), or has the architect simply has his way?

I’m not sure if this makes me old-fashioned or not, and I suppose it depends on who you ask. But my interest in architecture--like dear Renzo, and I suspect Mr. Long as well--lies in a conversation about dwelling, which is ultimately a conversation about a very particular kind of [space, form, material sensibility]: one that stems from an interest in people, at a very particular scale. For as Ike Ijeh observes (in an article that incidentally pronounces Central St. Giles a resounding success): severence from social consciousness can very quickly create the equivalent of a city's Twilight Zone.

*(Hey Shard, why so violent with the name? 'Cause there's certainly nothing warm and cozy about it, although I suppose not everyone values coziness like I do).

2010-05-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

teatrical.

2010-05-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Balloons

2010-05-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

I've always had a fondness for balloons, particularly yellow ones. For years I've carried with me the vision of driving my uncle's truck cross-country dispersing yellow balloons along the way--thousands of balloons set free like they used to do at my elementary school on Balloon Day. Onto a notecard we would write our names and the address of our school, and for the coming weeks, even months, balloons would arrive back to the office to be pinned with the envelopes they arrived in onto a great big map in the office. There we would see whose balloon had returned, and from where it had come. I would yearn to one time have the balloon that traveled the farthest and would sit on pins and needles for the entire season to follow. But alas, my name was never called.

In this picture I'd say I was about 7*. I remember that feeling so vividly and associate it with all kinds of things--anticipation, the hoping, the longing to see my balloon return. It was like Christmas, but with the very real fear that it might simply be gone forever. I suppose it's not much different than what we go through as designers, or at least those of us who enter competitions. We make our projects, sign our names to them with such care, and send them off...to wait. Some come back as 'recognized' by some far off person, but others simply land off to the side--which is the story of Watertower Bulletin, my submission for the 2005 Chicago Prize.

In 2005, the Chicago Architectural Club sponsored its annual Chicago Prize competition, an international call for ideas that respond to a specific problem facing the city. The question put to designers that year focused on the preservation of the beautiful, iconic watertanks that dot the Chicago's skyline. Because many of the tanks are privately owned and now defunct, their survival has a direct cost/benefit relationship: their utility to the property owner versus their financial and liability risk. Yet for the public, their value as a symbol of the city's industrial history has "long contributed to the urban flavor of Chicago and their disappearance is a civic injury suffered by all. (CAC 2005)”

My submission was a small brochure folded to 9x12," in which was advertised 14 different suggestions (like a kit of parts) for transforming the life of a watertank. The Bulletin was meant as an catalogue, a catalyst for asking "What would you do?" In hindsight, I think I was heavily inspired by two things, also tied to Chicago. I'd grown up listening to my mom tell stories about the days she'd worked for Sears as a catalogue copywriter for their juniors department; and my attraction to these old-time advertisements I had in my possession at the time, also an homage to the company who for over a century had in large part helped define the city's role as an industrial superpowe r. Having worked at one time on the renovation of a Sears-Roebuck house, I liked the mail-order vibe.

I was also admittedly disinterested in practical solutions driven by worries of litigation. Instead, I chose to focus on my memories growing up outside the city: fieldtrips and family visits downtown, and the image I have of Chicago as a wildly imaginative yet grounded place. Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat, City of Big Shoulders, yes. Social and cultural identity has always been more my thing.

I wasn't interested in solving the problem logistically (although this would have helped); nor did I develop any of the ideas in great detail (which also would have helped). But I had great fun exploring the relationship between the proposals and the city of my childhood, as well as the role of the graphite line. I could have drawn 50 more, it was so great to simply to draw. The project was, by nature, schematic.

Of course none of this heartfelt babble mattered as when my family and I arrived to the exhibit at the Art Institute, I found my entry shuffled in a corner, partially overlapped by other projects. Uhhhh! It was disappointing, but the evening as a whole was a realization on two fronts: the love you have for your work can't depend on others' acknowledgement (although who's kidding, it's nice to win); and whatever the case, you just have to get on with it. In this instance, my momentary rush of dejection was soon eclipsed by my family's much bigger concern: it was the last game of the Sox World Series and where were we going to watch the game?

Still, I like to think that when all the entries were exhibited again later that summer, someone looked at my little book (which in fact had to be displayed as a board), and enjoyed it. Here's the brochure, along with details of each vignette:

unfolded poster

balloon launching pad

luxury boutique hotel-each tower its own private room

aviary (my parents are avid birdwaters)

platform for debate

blackbox theater

observatory

conservatory

wind chime

rain water collection + irrigation for rooftop garden

light installation

art object (perhaps in outer rural landscape) + prairie restoration (paths leading to relocated industrial relic)

pools : spas, saunas, places of restoration

All this came to mind this evening after learning of this year's recently announced Chicago Prize winners, courtesy of Lynn Becker's great blog on all things architectural in Chicago. I don't know where Lynn got these images, but I think you'll agree that this year's winning project is Pretty. Darn. Fabulous. The Second Sun is Alexander Lehnerer and team's solution for Mine the Gap, this year's competition that focuses on the big hole left along Chicago's waterfront after the recent collapse of financing for the famed Chicago Spire, now indefinitely on-hold (in this, the great depression at the turn of the 21st century).

Oh, what I wouldn't do to see this thing built! Can you imagine? Chicago: the city of great big wonderful things. I have no doubt this giant yellow balloon would garner as much attention for the city (and revenue) as another loopty-loop, one very amazing giant silver bean. It is simply a wonderful project, idea and drawings both.

And so today I toast to balloons. To those that transform the cylindrical bones of an object worked 'til obsolescence and those that celebrate inversions: the cylindrical void of something never built. I will also toast to the hundreds of balloons that seem lost forever--may they be found by someone, somewhere along the way.

*You can say it: my fashion was terrible and I looked like a boy. But check out my cool Mom with the great glasses and cute pixie cut--beside me, off to my left. I love the sweater and sweet collar-out. Her style simply didn't transfer to her kids.

I like those little Ts

2010-05-20T09:53:00.000-07:00

LS. Quite awesome

2010-05-20T09:15:00.000-07:00

Clean White Walls

2010-05-20T08:17:00.000-07:00

Lexington has always had a relatively healthy art scene, yet in recent years there's been an exciting emergence of venues that feature more contemporary work from around the world. My favorite, of course, is the Land of Tomorrow, a gallery run by two friends from the College of Design, Drura Parrish and Rives Rash. Billed as a space for "exhibitions, performances, public presentations, interventions, academic symposia, and other ruckus events," LOT's primary attraction is the free spirit and anything's-possible approach of its owners. From the hanging of hundreds of black balloons to more formal gatherings like UK's recent 3&1 panel discussion (uggg! Jeff Kipnis!), the boys at LOT are up for anything--and will more than likely throw in a snowcone or taco stand just for fun.

Image Courtesy of UK|COD

Another new favorite is a place I recently discovered when asked by my friend Sarah if I'd like to join her for a little Bluegrass at Institute193. Located downtown between AlaLucie's and Le Deauville, Institute193 is in many ways like LOT: an art space open for just about any creative venture--which on Monday night included music by New York-based musicians Phillip Roebuck and Morgan O'Kane. Talk about amazing. Not only was the music great, but the energy brought by this crew was simply raw and full. I'm not sure what it was--the drum on his back rigged to the shoes, the tape on the suitcase used as a drum, or the look on these guys' faces as they played--but there was something very honest in that room, the same way a sadness at times can feel like relief. On the break, Roebuck mentioned that this was his first visit to Kentucky--which I imagine must be a kind of homecoming for a banjo player. "Clean white walls and pine slat floors," Roebuck began. "This is what I've been searching for my entire life."

Tonight you'll find me there again, this time for the opening an installation that's right up my alley: Jessie Dunahoo's Sheltered Environment, a series of 3-dimensional mappings constructed using ordinary fabrics found on the artist's farm--flour sacks, plastic bags, old clothes, and twine--all this by a man who is both deaf and blind. From the sneak peek I stole yesterday, the show promises another great day.

Architecture Bra

2010-05-16T19:34:00.000-07:00

Today my old friend @slackmistress tweeted 'I always feel guilty when I wear a crappy bra. It's like I'm underachieving.' I understand this completely, although I'd say for me it's less a feeling of guilt than general depression. Nothing can make me feel like I'm living less than the life I'd imagined than slipping into undergarments I wore during pregnancy. Sometimes it's just time for new gear.
To hear the Slackmistress discuss such things comes as no surprise. As a child, one of the first times I was over to her house she showed me her Dad's Playboy collection. We didn't get very far in our viewing, but I knew instantly that this was nothing my parents had in their bedside table. In fact, my catholic guilt (see? I can still relate) told me that this was most certainly nothing I was supposed to see--although I still enjoyed the transgression of it all and especially admired Nina's bravura.
Lately, instead of watching T.V. or reading, I'll surf the internet in search of inspiration. So tonight, in honor of the convergence of these two things both involving Nina, yet separated by some 30 years, I typed "architecture bra" into my Google search and hit the first image listed.

Dan Wollmering's The Architecture of the Convenient Brainwave has little to do with bras. I'm guessing the file extension _BRA refers to Brainwave, but still, I like the suggestion it gives to the topic of bodies. After some examination, I also began to see some similarities with a most inconvenient little project of ours, Big Pink: hundreds of hand-cut sheets of pink insulation (thanks, CNC machine) stacked to create an undulating surface. Looking at Wollmering's work I wonder if he too had a "what in the hell did I get myself into?" moment, but of course, in the end, we love what we've made, much the same way one might love a child whose simply caused a bit of trouble.

"The Breath of Mastering Convergence" is another Wollmering piece exhibited at the same gallery which in many ways reminds me, oddly enough, of a figure that's appeared in several of my recent paintings. Ever since Celie was born, (or perhaps because of it?) I've been drawn to and drawing much more figural imagery. While my previous work focused primarily on the making of transparencies, I lately enjoy the push and scale that figures give to the thing. I fight against it, have conversations with it...

This I painted for my friend Jill and her husband on the occasion of their wedding. They live in San Francisco. And below, for my son Fionn, two of the paintings I made in the months prior to his arrival. As is the case with so many things for the second child, both remain unfinished.

Moonphase Magic

2010-05-15T19:43:00.000-07:00

Today we found ourselves at the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival only moments after I received an email from Kirsha Kaechele of KKProjects with an invitation to contribute an installation to The Eiffel Society. "Every element, from object to energy, will be art," the invitation reads, along with a simple set of constraints. Curators request that all materials for the work range from dark grey to white, including all metals and perhaps purple/indigo; that artists think 3-dimensionally, as there are few walls on site; and that artwork include no plastic whatsoever. So imagine my delight...

5Gs

2010-05-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

Letters

2010-05-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

Like the red chair, my website is also on the clock. I've given myself until the date of our departure for Montpellier to finish it, an activity I've resisted but think finally ripe for the plucking--if only because I'm in need of a creative, if somewhat mindless, anchor in the search for new things.

While it gives some satisfaction, the selection of fonts is particularly painful. It's as if one has to sum themself up in the simple sway or stop of a capital G. Good morning (Arial). Good morning (Some delicate script). Which would you rather wake up to?

And then there's everything else. Like the rather 70s 7-11 vibe one finds in Braggadocio. In some ways it's silly.

None of these are me.

In the meantime, I offer a link to the website of one of my oldest friends, whose font selection is beyond reproach. I'll keep you posted as I choose my letter.

http://www.trs80.com/posters/index.html

The Red Chair

2010-05-13T09:55:00.000-07:00

Mike says I am no longer allowed to bring home chairs unless I do something more than pile them up in the garage. So, I have until May 31st to transform this chair into something that will justify (in Mike's mind) any future chair-dragging. As is often the case however, the process has distracted me--specifically, the raw pattern and volume of the debris--so that now I envision taking the chair to the shop, chopping its legs off, and exhibiting the disemboweled chair like a canvas on the wall. I'm not sure how Mike would feel about this.

I love how the chair has become a home, a little nest and repository for whatever the wind or wild animals bring to its body. I like the chair's beads and tucks; the way it appears human, despite it's obvious handicap of general nastiness. On the other hand, I could continue with the original plan: strip the chair, rebuild the seat, and somehow tranform the life of this thing whose public identity is now rather bland and colonial. What to do?