photo credit: Susan Tusa, Detroit Free Press

I am waiting for plaster to dry on some islands, so it’s as good a time to blog as any.  Lauren of Dear Golden tagged me with a “ten things” request.  Now my job is to post ten things about myself you don’t already know.  I think I will try to keep these art-related as that’s the nature of the blog.

1. I have attended four artists residencies: in Illinois, Newfoundland, Southern France and Budapest, Hungary

2. It must say something about me that I have twice been offered dead birds and have twice accepted.  In my freezer are a dead hummingbird and a dead cardinal.  They were that way when my friends found them, I assure you.  What will I do with them?  I’ll let you know when I find out.

3. I have been in academia since kindergarten with only summers off.  I went straight from high school to college, from college to grad school, from grad school to teaching adjunct and from teaching adjunct to assistant professor.  (Does kindergarten count as “academia”?)

4. I have taught three summers at Interlochen Arts Camp in northern Michigan near Traverse City (03-05)–painting and life drawing.

5. I have taught three classes that I never actually took when I was in school.  What are they?  Hmm… it’s a mystery.

6. My top three four favorite art shows I have ever seen are (in no particular order): William Kentridge retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2004), Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection in Venice (2009), Drawing Now: Eight Propositions at Museum of Modern Art (Queens) in New York (2002), damn, I remembered another one (thus the strikethrough): Peter Doig at the Tate Britain (2008).

7. I am working on a video, and a sculpture (of sorts) right now and am pretty inexperienced in the particular media I am using.  I am googling a lot and relying on my friends for help.  Thanks guys and gals!

8. Despite the above statement, I generally don’t work collaboratively.  I tend to prefer working alone in the studio, usually listening to audio books, NPR or music.  I am currently listening to The Plot Against America by Philip Roth and The Terror by Dan Simmons.

9. I am starting four large scale paintings, and am a bit scared of them at this early point.

10. I have a REALLY hard time balancing  a regular work-out routine and an art practice.  I tend to be sporadic with both and can rarely sustain the two simultaneously, though they’re both so important to me.

So that’s it- my ten things.  Okay, I am going to pass the tagging love around to:

Mark from Irreverent Vegan

Val and/or Ryan from i’m just doing this thing

…to borrow a phrase from my friends Ryan and Vals’ blog, who in turn, borrowed it from our friend Jen’s mischievous nephew who uses the phrase to evade getting in trouble.  So, I am just doing this thing.  I kinda know what it is.  I know it has to do with art and that it’s due at the end of the month (yikes!).  I also know that this thing brought me to Home Depot, Michael’s, and the same hobby shop three times today, where each time, I had lovely chats about the hows and whatfors of model train building with some of the considerate and attentive members of the Ann Arbor Model Railroad Club.  Art causes me to wind up in the swellest of unexpected situations…

So, here is an image of “this thing” so far.  (And yes, I am being purposefully enigmatic to hopefully build suspense.  Of course if “this thing” flops, then I will feel a bit like a sheep, but c’est la vie, right?)

I have been noticing a lot of crystals, skulls and mirrors in art and design in the last few years.  It appears to be a “thing.”  I readily embrace this “thing” and have even busted out a skull or three in my recent work.  There’s a very The Dark Crystal / The Never Ending Story aesthetic to a lot of this work which can probably be explained by the fact that many of the artists embracing it are of the generation that likely grew up with those movies and other like films, books, programs (media in general)  ingrained into our consciousness.

While some incidents of crystalskullmirror I’m seeing are mediocre (one can apparently make abominably cliché work with mirrors, for example) I find myself gravitating toward a lot of this work.  If this post makes it seem like I am lumping artists using these motifs into the same aesthetic category, then please take a look at some of my favorite folks in this realm and judge for yourself.

I am a huge fan of the work of Will Yackulic.  He shows with two galleries I really like: Jeff Bailey in New York and Gregory Lind in San Francisco.  He uses ink and gouache (two media I like to work with) and, somehow, a typewriter to make these stunning two-dimensional otherworlds.

Bearings & Ballast, 2009, ink, gouache and typewriter on paper, 30" x 22.25"

Aspects & Allowances, 2008 ink, gouache, watercolor and typewriter on paper, 22 x 17.75 inches

Invocation 5th, 2008, gouache, watercolor and typewriter on paper, 10.625" x 8.5"

Then there’s the work of David Altmejd, whose work Mark and I first came across in the 2007 Venice Biennale, where he put together a fantastic, nay, phenomenal exhibition for the Canadian pavilion.  He uses mirrors A  LOT, but SO much better than anyone else out there using mirrors to do similar things.  They are just one aspect of the insane worlds he creates, which also include:  taxidermied birds,*  giants, genitals, both flora and fauna, fur, body parts, and YOU because there are so many mirrors in his work, that you inevitably become part of the work.  I could barely photograph it without getting myself in a shot.  Like this:

The Index, exhibition at the Canadian pavilion

Note please that I am not a professional photographer and that there are way sweeter images of his work online.  See? But I thought it would be neat to post some photos I took while experiencing the exhibition.

The Index, exhibition at the Canadian pavilion

a mirrored giant monster with Lee Press-On Nails (TM)

We like him so much, in fact, that we just ordered two monographs on him.  One is the catalog for this exhibition, and the other is this lovely book:

For example of this crystal mirror phenomenon in contemporary media, someone caught indie pop lady Mirah fiddling with these mirror pyramids and put the photo in the liner notes of her latest album.

Skulls.  Lots of skulls.  When in Europe, whenever I saw a skull in contemporary art, I photographed it.  Here are the results of my self-assigned scavenger hunt:

skull in a gallery window in Venice (as a bonus, it even has a skull tree growing from it)

butterfly skull in a gallery in Venice

glass skull on glass bones by Jan Fabre at the exhibition Glasstress in Venice

ceramic vessel by Miquel Barceló, representing the Spanish pavilion at the Biennale

skull in a drawing by Jef Geys, representing the Belgian pavilion

And now, my own contribution:

still life I composed out of a postcard and an eraser from the Pinault Collection gift shop

I am so enamored of people’s fascination with skulls (just go on The Selby and see how many skulls you can count in people’s homes alone), that I was making portraits of skulls in Budapest, remember? I’ll get back to those soon I think.

That reminds me, I need to get amakin’, as I am yet again a contributing artist to my friend Krista Peel‘s Calendar Project.  This time the theme is Art Museum, for which I have to create a mini model of a museum.  It can be ANYTHING I want it to be, can be made of any material, and, (blessedly) does not have to be in the least functional.  So, which will it be: Crystals, Skulls, or Mirrors?  I suppose we’ll see…

* Taxidermy is another “thing” in art right now altogether.  Perhaps I’ll tackle that stuffed, lifeless beast in a future post.

I was fortunate to guest blog about none other than… rings (of course!) on my friend Lauren’s blog Dear Golden.  She also has a top notch etsy shop by the same name through which she proffers vintage wares, and I am guilty of taking home a lot of the bounty.  I suppose I could have composed the same post for this blog, but I haven’t really written about fashion much here, and since her blog is geared toward it, specifically vintage fashion from all eras, we thought the guest blog would be a fun idea.

Lauren and I like a lot of the same kinds of vintage clothing, though her scope is much larger than mine.  Her tastes never fail to inspire me.

We have been thrifting buddies for awhile now.  I think the reason I like thifting so much is getting so much for so little.  Thifting allows one to find seemingly unique items, often in very good or excellent condition, for a low price.  I really like purchasing previously owned pieces that have a history, and in doing so, I am not encouraging the manufacture of new goods, or so I tell myself.  I know I am not alone in this practice (which, if you’re not careful can border on obsession).  And it’s not just clothing that I find in this way, but also house stuff.  We have a thoroughly thrifted house.  What isn’t thrifted is often from craigslist, garage sales, or antique stores.

Of course, buying from Dear Golden means that I am buying thrifted items, but it’s even better because I am getting hand-selected, often carefully mended clothing, about which Lauren knows the historical context.  And I’m supporting a friend too.  I model for her from time-to-time and am happy when she sends me home with “payment” in an especially cool skirt I modeled that day, or a pair of shoes.

I’m skipping Florence because we were only there for an afternoon and the museums wouldn’t allow photos, so I don’t have many.  But Venice is another story because we were there for the opening weekend of the Pinault Collection and the 53rd Venice Biennale.  Ok, art first, my photos next.

Here are three experiences with amazing art (it was hard to choose only three!) Mark and I especially enjoyed.  These choices are probably a little bit mediated, by the extent to which they were photographable.  Behold:

Lydia Pape at the Arsenale

Lydia Pape uses gold thread and light in a darkened space to create these ethereal prism-like shafts of majesty.

Grazia Toderi at Arsenale

Grazia Toderi has made a video project like no other.  Combining imagery of stadia, space, lights at night and god knows what else, she gives the viewer a reverse-symmetrical kaleidoscopic experience of another world.  For an idea of the way these videos move and shift, visit my flickr page, starting here and flip through the next few images.

Denmark and Nordic Countries (Finland, Norway, Sweden) The Collectors

The Nordic countries outdid themselves with their two pavilions invaded and transformed by the group The Collectors.  Creating a David Lynch meets mid-century homoerotic swingers’ loft, it is up to the participant to put the pieces together to form a sort of ramshackle pseudo-narrative.

And for my “artful” photos, which are, incidentally, of art:

Russian Pavilion- Anatoly Shuravlev

Korean Pavilion- Haegue Yang

Russian Pavilion- Andrei Molodkin

There’s so much more to include, but these are the images I settled on.  Here are more photos from our stay in Venice.

Next stop: Vienna!

This excellent fellow Mike Ambs condensed the entire 12-hours of Shadow Art Fair into a four minute video (for fun!) which really captures the day quite well.  Here’s the link to view it.

Sunday we hosted a vegan brunch at our house.  Our friends Ryan and Val brought tons of good eats too.  Mark has already posted about it over at Irreverent Vegan.  Ryan and Val did a great write-up on it (from which I nabbed this photo) on their blog i’m just doing this thing.  Their about page is pretty funny, so check that out too!

brunching it up! for photos of food- visit those other two blogs pronto!

Summer is giving Mark and I time to enjoy cooking together and though we both love it, he especially excels.  He just started a vegan blog as the Irreverent Vegan.  He composes the pithy recipes and I help out with the cooking, ideas, photography and…man, is it hard but someone has to do it…the eating!  We’re hosting a vegan brunch at our house this Sunday morning following the wonderful Ypsilanti-based Shadow Art Fair at the Corner Brewery.

I am fortunate that a typical meal at our house looks like this:

chick(pea) patties and smashed potatoes with mushroom gravy

The lettuce on the burgers and the green beans on the potatoes come from our garden.  Deck and lanterns compliments of our friend Blue at Blue Sky Carpentry.

Friday was a blast and I am just now getting around to posting about it.  Nannette and I went to the Chinese market where I bought many pairs of crazy tights and enjoyed the empty spaces.  We enjoyed a coffee and lemonade at a really compelling cafe, Csendes (meaning silent), and shopped at Retrock.  We worked on the video and made spaghetti in the evening and then went off to the fashion show at Gödör.  It was one of those wild magical days full of serendipity.

Nannette and I have been collaborating on a video piece the last couple of days…

I’m not exactly sure how it will turn out, but it’s been a lot of fun to work on so far.  Props involve a bathtub, oil paint, a rock, the stuffing from a plush pig’s belly, a sharp knife (to procure the pig guts), a gold threaded cloud puppet, one broken video camera, one working video camera, ink- black and shimmery blue.  Here’s a still image from shoot #1.

The clouds have been floating over my bed.  I think they like it near the map drawings…