media blitz
hi. i decided to post something. where to begin?
i've made two paintings since last we spoke, dear cyberfriends...
South Street, 2010 (Mixed media: pencil, india ink, gouache and paper collage on board) 43" by 56"
What's Next, 2010 (Mixed media: pencil, gouache and paper collage on board) 48" by 60"
... that second image is awful. i think i need to re-shoot it. it's less yellow-y in person. the lighting in my studio is bad. anyway, both of these are very large and ate up a ton of time. i guess that's why i've been AWOL. spending a lot of time in the studio lately. and kinda trying to take the whole idea of "being an artist" more seriously.
that said, i have a bunch of stuff in my bookmarks that i've been meaning to share with y'allz...
* since i've been spending my days painting bricks for hours on end and cutting little pieces of paper, i've had lots of time to devote to lectures and podcasts and such. and eventually i got sick of searching i-tunes and youtube for people i want to listen to. so i started listening to entire college courses online. there's this great site called academic earth that offers some good ones. i'm happy to say i made it through all twentysomething sessions of john merriman's european civilization course. the whole thing is worthwhile, but i recommend this lecture in particular:
* i can't remember where i found this image, but it makes me very happy:
* I've always secretly wondered if Leslie ever felt "cool" when she was with the Manson gang and I finally got up the nerve to ask. She looked at me in confusion. "Cool? We had no concept by then of any such possible word!" she answered. And now the "celebrity" was even more unfathomable. "There's nothing sadder than to be asked for an autograph because of infamy," she once wrote to me, "I've had to explain I'm not proud of what I have done or why they [people] are aware of me. It's an awful feeling. The 'unwilling star'" And when her autograph or letters are sold on murder memorabilia sites it makes her feel worse because someone she has written to has betrayed her, and she's not sure who -- "So creepy. All disgusting and distasteful."
... this is john waters reflecting on his decades-long friendship with former-manson-girl leslie van houten. it was published in five parts on the huffington post (where it was excerpted from his new book role models), of all places. it's an ABSOLUTE MUST READ. the most surprisingly moving thing i've read in about a year. waters talks about his initial morbid fascination with van houten and the manson gang, and how the more he got to know her, the more it fell to the wayside. the friendship emerges as something really genuine and unsentimental - it casts both of them in a surprisingly gentle light, without demanding some revisionist take on either of their histories. waters is a remarkably lucid writer. seriously, this is one of the best articles i've read in months. it's worth a half-hour of your time.
* i've been enjoying a few tv shows and books (not as many movies as i once did though). i wholeheartedly recommend three shows in particular that i've never written about here: party down (thanks reuben!), men of a certain age (yes, the ray romano thing... seriously, it's better than you'd guess) and breaking bad:
... hopefully i'll muster the strength to write about each of these. i really like all of them. but breaking bad is the one with the most holy-shit-this-is-fucking-good-moments, and the one that's gone through the most interesting transformation. when i started watching it, i thought of it as a guilty pleasure. a well-paced, darker, kinkier update of that awful michael douglas movie falling down. meaning that a middle aged white guy decides he just can't take it anymore and cathartic white-dude hijinks ensue. for the majority of its first season, breaking bad was essentially a well-rendered version of that fantasy.
but in its second season, it delved a lot deeper into its own premise. and as it started to question its own agenda and ideologies, the gimmicky plot stunts that seemed so cathartic at its beginning grew into something callous and irresponsible. it matured into a show that's not of big ethical questions. something that's willing to alienate its audience. by the end of season two, i'd essentially been punished for all the vicarious thrills of season one. it became a lot less forgiving and a lot more engrossing.
i'm really fascinated by the status of the "vigilante" myth in contemporary culture. it seems to give expression to a lot of strange desires; it appeals to frustrated lefties and fascist authoritarians at the same time. it's a juvenile impulse, but one that needs indulging from time to time. and in the hangover of the bush years, vigilantism has emerged in a number of ways, culturally. it's in the neo-con hyperbole of 24 and in daniel craig's guilt-ridden reboot of james bond. the civil liberties it rejects aren't a high priority in a novel like the girl with the dragon tattoo or a blockbuster film like the dark knight. occasionally, the vigilante myth shows up in more meaningful ways. i thought cronenberg's a history of violence approached it with glee and honesty and vitality. and breaking bad is becoming an increasingly complex investigation into its mechanisms - as well as the mechanisms that make it so fun to experience vicariously.
* finally, i'm in a group show that opens soon at a gallery called bambi project. the opening is july 2nd, from 6-10pm. if you're in philly, drop by!
oh, and i finally (semi-reluctantly?) joined facebook (my real name is my username if you wanna be friends) and set up a real-deal website for my work, too.
i've made two paintings since last we spoke, dear cyberfriends...
South Street, 2010 (Mixed media: pencil, india ink, gouache and paper collage on board) 43" by 56"
What's Next, 2010 (Mixed media: pencil, gouache and paper collage on board) 48" by 60"
... that second image is awful. i think i need to re-shoot it. it's less yellow-y in person. the lighting in my studio is bad. anyway, both of these are very large and ate up a ton of time. i guess that's why i've been AWOL. spending a lot of time in the studio lately. and kinda trying to take the whole idea of "being an artist" more seriously.
that said, i have a bunch of stuff in my bookmarks that i've been meaning to share with y'allz...
* since i've been spending my days painting bricks for hours on end and cutting little pieces of paper, i've had lots of time to devote to lectures and podcasts and such. and eventually i got sick of searching i-tunes and youtube for people i want to listen to. so i started listening to entire college courses online. there's this great site called academic earth that offers some good ones. i'm happy to say i made it through all twentysomething sessions of john merriman's european civilization course. the whole thing is worthwhile, but i recommend this lecture in particular:
Click to view* i can't remember where i found this image, but it makes me very happy:
* I've always secretly wondered if Leslie ever felt "cool" when she was with the Manson gang and I finally got up the nerve to ask. She looked at me in confusion. "Cool? We had no concept by then of any such possible word!" she answered. And now the "celebrity" was even more unfathomable. "There's nothing sadder than to be asked for an autograph because of infamy," she once wrote to me, "I've had to explain I'm not proud of what I have done or why they [people] are aware of me. It's an awful feeling. The 'unwilling star'" And when her autograph or letters are sold on murder memorabilia sites it makes her feel worse because someone she has written to has betrayed her, and she's not sure who -- "So creepy. All disgusting and distasteful."
... this is john waters reflecting on his decades-long friendship with former-manson-girl leslie van houten. it was published in five parts on the huffington post (where it was excerpted from his new book role models), of all places. it's an ABSOLUTE MUST READ. the most surprisingly moving thing i've read in about a year. waters talks about his initial morbid fascination with van houten and the manson gang, and how the more he got to know her, the more it fell to the wayside. the friendship emerges as something really genuine and unsentimental - it casts both of them in a surprisingly gentle light, without demanding some revisionist take on either of their histories. waters is a remarkably lucid writer. seriously, this is one of the best articles i've read in months. it's worth a half-hour of your time.
* i've been enjoying a few tv shows and books (not as many movies as i once did though). i wholeheartedly recommend three shows in particular that i've never written about here: party down (thanks reuben!), men of a certain age (yes, the ray romano thing... seriously, it's better than you'd guess) and breaking bad:
... hopefully i'll muster the strength to write about each of these. i really like all of them. but breaking bad is the one with the most holy-shit-this-is-fucking-good-moments, and the one that's gone through the most interesting transformation. when i started watching it, i thought of it as a guilty pleasure. a well-paced, darker, kinkier update of that awful michael douglas movie falling down. meaning that a middle aged white guy decides he just can't take it anymore and cathartic white-dude hijinks ensue. for the majority of its first season, breaking bad was essentially a well-rendered version of that fantasy.
but in its second season, it delved a lot deeper into its own premise. and as it started to question its own agenda and ideologies, the gimmicky plot stunts that seemed so cathartic at its beginning grew into something callous and irresponsible. it matured into a show that's not of big ethical questions. something that's willing to alienate its audience. by the end of season two, i'd essentially been punished for all the vicarious thrills of season one. it became a lot less forgiving and a lot more engrossing.
i'm really fascinated by the status of the "vigilante" myth in contemporary culture. it seems to give expression to a lot of strange desires; it appeals to frustrated lefties and fascist authoritarians at the same time. it's a juvenile impulse, but one that needs indulging from time to time. and in the hangover of the bush years, vigilantism has emerged in a number of ways, culturally. it's in the neo-con hyperbole of 24 and in daniel craig's guilt-ridden reboot of james bond. the civil liberties it rejects aren't a high priority in a novel like the girl with the dragon tattoo or a blockbuster film like the dark knight. occasionally, the vigilante myth shows up in more meaningful ways. i thought cronenberg's a history of violence approached it with glee and honesty and vitality. and breaking bad is becoming an increasingly complex investigation into its mechanisms - as well as the mechanisms that make it so fun to experience vicariously.
* finally, i'm in a group show that opens soon at a gallery called bambi project. the opening is july 2nd, from 6-10pm. if you're in philly, drop by!
oh, and i finally (semi-reluctantly?) joined facebook (my real name is my username if you wanna be friends) and set up a real-deal website for my work, too.