Archive for the ‘Week 23’ Category
“Cheshire Cat Emoticon / Button”
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IPA
it was the end of a long weekend of selling my art down in Keene, NH. As fun as it was, I am beat and this is how I am relaxing on this fine labor day. Enjoy an ice cold Peak Organic IPA!
Cheers!
Happy Birthday nanna
Yesterday, Doug and I traveled to the seacoast and saw the “Street A.K.A. Museum” Exhibit at and around the Portsmouth Museum of Art. The exhibit featured workz by street artistz from all over the globe both in the gallery and outside on the structures around Portsmouth.
This, of course, raises questions about the very nature of the art form itself: if the “street art” is sanctioned by a museum and by the owners of the structures on which the work is painted, does it cease to be “street” art? Is this the artist “selling out”?
To add to the conundrum, a few of the pieces that are part of the “street” part of the exhibit have been “vandalized” (or had additions made) by local artists. As the curator at the museum told me of this and then, later, when I witnessed the additions, I smiled to myself and thought, “Isn’t that the point?” I hope the artistz would also agree.
Anyway, in the end, the work was exciting and fresh and sparks debate about the very nature of graffiti and street art and of art itself and isn’t that one of the best things artistz can hope for? For people to have debates based on our workz?
The “Street A.K.A. Museum” exhibition will be up until September 11th – if you have a chance, go check it out. Let me know what you think.
Anyway, after viewing the art, Doug and I settled at a table in Prescott Park and did some quick sketches. They are not really representative of the style of the workz we experienced; however, on some subconscious level, I am sure they were inspired by it.
Here are my sketches:
Grief Pools around Her Ankles
Eventually Everything Trickles Down
Whallop
Strike the Set
Going through Deck Park Tunnel Interstate 10 West. 
Tie-Dye Using Food-Based Natural Dye
When I was a kid, I had a bit of a hippie streak. Before I embraced the 70s as my decade of inspiration, the 60s were “where it was at”. I got into tie-dyeing in the summer of 1989, as the 20th anniversary of Woodstock was approaching. For a couple of years I wore my own designs, but it proved to be a passing phase. The last item I tie-dyed (before today) was a pair of boxer shorts in 8th grade Art class (Spring 1991).
As I said, that was before today. 🙂
Last weekend, I stopped by my dad’s house for a visit, and he gave me several bags of fresh vegetables from his garden: broccoli, yellow squash, carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, and beets.
When I returned home to cook the beets for a nice onion, cucumber and beet salad, I decided to save the cooking liquid for this week’s project. I remember reading somewhere that beet juice makes a good natural dye – I decided to try it out.
(Now that I see this finished photo collage, I see that I swapped the order of 2 photos – it’s been a long day. Sorry. )
From the top left, I went to Walmart today and purchased a new white t-shirt. The reserved beet juice from last weekend is in the old Diet Coke bottle. The only other materials I needed were rubber bands, and table salt and white vinegar to set the dye.
I folded the t-shirt in a zig-zag accordion fold pattern and wrapped the rubber bands around tightly every 1 1/2″
or so Then I put the shirt into my big pasta pot and put it on the stove in the beet juice. I let it simmer on low heat for about 30 minutes, then turned it up to high and boiled it for the last 15 minutes.
I then drained the pot into the sink, and filled it half way with very cold water. I added a cup of vinegar and cup of salt, and began to rinse out the shirt until the water ran clear of color. (This took 3 water changes and 3 sets of vinegar and salt.)
Then, I wrung out the shirt and cut off all the rubber bands. Lastly, I put the shirt in the dryer on the highest setting possible for another 45 minutes to complete the process of setting the color.
The first couple of times I wash the shirt, I will wash it by hand and machine dry. After that, it will go in with the regular wash…
I’m interested to see what other combinations of food I can use to naturally dye clothing. This project was a lot of fun.
So this weeks post is a little free hand drawing in paint accompanied by some writing …its kind of meant to be a comedic post about when you find the will to walk away from that midnight snack of fourthmeal bowl of cereal … now all I can think about is eating cereal and chocolate……. Mazlta Lovies
“Look Up”
Here you are, finding yourself
Floating over this bowl of cereal
Unable to raise the spoon to your lips
Incapable of grazing the soy milk with your tongue
Lapping up the wet and silky presence
Instead you linger – you hover
unsure
ready to dive into the crisp soggy circles
The life savers that long to raft down your throat
And into your stomach to soothe you with their
Nutritional concentration
Burning fuel to stimulate your imagination
You make a proclamation
Because once they pass your lips there is no turning back
You drop the spoon – pour the cereal into the garbage disposal
Your sorry you wasted – you poor a glass of water
You drink it
You decide to have the honey nut goodness for breakfast
Instead of fourth meal
This decision is golden and it signals restriction and will
You toss your floating locks into a theoretical pony tail
And you feel the cotton off your pajamas pressed up against
Your rounded buttocks as you slither into your sheets
Chilled to a perfect degree by the night air
Nothing surrounds you but the dark, but the trace of stars and cars
the nothingness folds into everything
and suddenly you are there a planet rider weightless
up and down up and down
what beauty – what expanse – what magnitude – what abundance
what bliss
Look up
To this
Flying Lesson 23
A week of heavy, amazing, brain training.
In the middle of this intensive excavation of my brain I don’t have time nor focus to spend on the complexity of flying lessons. Nor any energy to spare in order to summarize them.
No. 23 is in this respect, a perfect lesson and also a first test of my autopilot system.
The walk for the day is a slow stroll in the sun with Stig at my side. We seam to be walking around in some small town in central Germany, southern England, or possibly in northern Holland. Anyway the sun is shining bright, I’ve just had some delicious sushi (offered without getting caught up in fear), I’m wherever I want to be and life is slow ….. almost as on vacation.
The night before, I only just managed to walk all the way to a bed. Today I feel exactly like an apple run over. Squashed and totally mushy but miraculously still in one piece. It’s probably the tough skin that keeps it all together and, to my great surprise, my arms and legs are moving in an unusually effective way with great ease.
Now and then I observe them from an outside perspective.
They don’t seem to care that I move out, leaving the entire co-ordination and all muscle functions to my autopilot.
Everything works much better than it did in the past weeks as I frantically practiced walking-transient-to-flying.
I definitely like my autopilot!
It seams as if it has been in use before but above all, it’s efficient and absolutely trustworthy.
It also makes it possible for me to keep up a more even pace with my desire to walk faster and at the same time relax and enjoy both socializing and the sun.
on vacation…
TwinGeekz Artz Project 