My friend and art colleague Ryan, recently texted me the somewhat cryptic message:  “Check out the paintings of Jordan Kantor.”  Where had he come across these paintings?  Why was I supposed to see them?  An email cleared it up: Ryan has seen them at the exhibition Untitled (History Painting): Painting and Public Life in the 21st Century at the newly opened University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) in Ann Arbor.  I still need to get over there to see them.  In the meantime, we can take a look at why Ryan thought I should check them out:

Jordan Kantor Untitled (Challenger), 2007 Oil on canvas 70 x 60 inches

Jordan Kantor Untitled (Basel lens flare 6761), 2009 Oil on canvas 21 x 28 inches

Jordan Kantor Untitled (Basel lens flare 5727), 2009 Oil on canvas 21 x 28 inches

Jordan Kantor Installation view, 2009 Art Statements Art | 40 | Basel

Ryan and I discussed his text message to me.  He thinks something in my new work resonates with Kantor’s work.  What do you think?

I was recently told: when walking around in Budapest, instead of looking down, be sure to look up for all of the beauty that can be found above you. I am paraphrasing, but that was the general gist.  The architecture, statuary, and ornamentation here is amazing and thankfully survived a lot of the wars and bombing that befell other European cities.

Széchenyi Baths

just inside the entrance of Széchenyi Baths

just inside the entrance of Széchenyi Baths

The Opera

the building in which my and Mark's hostel was situated- these courtyards are very typical in Hungarian buildings

ornamentation on an old building now used as artist studios

I like the use of color on these shops in Buda

the entrance to the building that houses David's studio (part of it was on loan to Michael and me while here)

the falling ivy in the courtyard of the studio building

I feel like a mad scientist…perhaps an anthropologist spelunker.

I am really into the work of the artist Mike Peter Smith lately.  Can you guess why?

Dear Carl Adamshick,

I love your poetry.  Specifically Pacific.  I am writing you this letter on my blog for everyone to see because in searching for you on Google, I can’t find out how to contact you, so here it is.  Perhaps you, when Googling your own name, or when a friend Googles you, will discover this letter and the compliments it contains.

For all of the non- Carl Adamshicks out there, which would be most of you, sadly, you can read only an excerpt of this fine poem here.  Why write a letter to a poet on a blog about (predominately) visual art?  This particular poem, addresses Amelia Earhart and her place in history, specifically in the year 1935.

The poem opens thus with a quote:

“After midnight the moon set and I was alone with the stars.
I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty.”

Amelia Earhart

So,  Mr. Adamshick and I are caught up in the roughly the same subject.  If anyone is interested in reading the whole thing, get a copy of The Missouri Review Volume 31, Number 3, Fall 2008.  Thanks Joe, for calling my attention to this poem.  Mr. Adamshick, I apologize for turning this letter into a blog post addressed not only to you, but everyone else out there, but it is, after all, a blog post.

Speaking of Amelia Earhart, I have finished the fourth little panel in a set of four with Howland Island and Gardner Island as their subjects.  These little panels are artifacts.  They are wooden photographs.

Here is #4:

and here they are together:

So, please feel free to peruse the rest of this blog, as images of AE-influenced work abound.  Thank you for your time and patience with my cyberpermient.

Sincerly,

Amy Sacksteder

I have been making these strange map-like drawings.

Michael and I have been talking about the nature of this seeming pseudo scientific “study” I am undertaking.  It’s somehow anthropological and, of course, contrived.  I really am sort of finding out what I am doing as I go and am enjoying the process of exploration.  They remind me a bit of a Russian artist who was very well-represented at the Venice Biennale this year, Pavel Pepperstein:

an image I took of one of his pieces in the Russian Pavilion

and also the drawings of  Nedko Solakov, to whom Mark and I were introduced (his work, not him unfortunately) at documenta 11 in 2007:

I admire the work of both artists very much, and though I am not consciously trying to emulate their invented documentary-like drawings, I do see the connection.  This is my favorite one so far though my little point-and-shoot camera doesn’t capture it very well: