Post?

It really is difficult to commit to the conviction that life cannot be viewed as anything but an accumulation of isolated experiences, devoid of any sort of uniformity or reliable construction.

I need your skulls.

Here are some things.

Towards the end of this month, I'll be participating in a group show at Paradigm Gallery + Studio. The exhibit, entitled Confidence Is Not A Four Letter Word, will be comprised of works by UArts graduates. It looks like it's going to be an awesome show; I am experiencing mild consternation regarding the self-imposed denigration my cat-skull-thing might endure in the midst of such formidable talent. All participating artists have been encouraged to include a 5x7" addendum of preliminary materials/text/photos/etc. pertaining to their work. In a flagrant display of overcompensation, the skull will be accompanied by a linocut based on an old sketch (poorly photographed below), which will in turn keep the company of the following text:

This work is an emblem of personal

reinvention, begotten by the restoration of

an object's dignity.

... or something like that. I'm not sure if I approve of the somewhat bumptious nature of the text. The fact that I have used the word bumptious four times today only augments this concern.

Another concern: pinecones and fertility.

Next stop...coffee grounds on flypaper.

home

brine

birds and brains

My parents opened a gallery!

Their first exhibit is a synthesis of my deceased grandfather's beautiful wooden bird carvings and my dad's guitar sculptures (shown below, respectively).

I'm really proud of them.

The Life of the Termite

Well, I done got broken up with, the Sunday before this past Sunday. Rats. Things are not very good.

An article in question: the notion of whether or not anyone actually reads this thing. I just post stuff on here to release it from my head-cage, so to speak. On occasion, it allows me to view my thoughts in a more organized manner; they adopt a linear, or at least somewhat horizontal (for the lack of a more suitable term) sense, as opposed to the translucent, but not enough so to be conducive to clarity, vertically stacked and overwhelmingly chaotic bearing I imagine them to uphold when they are shacked up in my head. So I guess it serves its purpose. Haha.

It would be nice to go somewhere.

Nnngh. Yes. I finished my shadowbox, entitled Like Grass in a Good Green Soil (inspired by a passage in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front), in time for the H x W x D show at Paradigm Gallery. The exhibit was wonderful, and I got to converse with some really nice people.

Some illustrations of mine are hanging up at Guerilla Galleries in Newark, NJ, in accordance with their Illustrious show. Couldn't attend the opening because I wouldn't have been able to make it up to Newark in time to eat all that remained of the ubiquitous cheese and cracker crumbs, but it looks like it was a mighty fine o-ccasion.

I almost forgot about the Making It alumni show at UArts, which opened on October 20th and stayed up for about ten days. My crocheted fish swam brazenly through the exhibit, along with two prints. However, one of the prints did not fare well; it emerged from the event with a jacked-up frame and some sort of schmutz smeared on the glass. There were a lot of great pieces in the show, though, and I really don't care about the frame. No big deal.

Thinking about scrapping the Palindromic Quilt idea, for now. For a while, I was toying with the idea of building a very small chest of twenty-five tiny drawers, one for each letter, which would contain elements pertaining to the dichotomous significance of each square. "There's no point in forcing these innocent materials into rigid letterforms," I thought aloud, "When I could just be stuffing them into little drawers! Why was all of that manhandling necessary? Drawers!!" Then a bunch of things happened, and I decided that I really don't want to think about any of the subjects upon which that quilt, or chest of drawers, or interpretive dance (who knows?), would be reliant.

Right now, antlers are being crocheted, and three more shadowboxes are being considered. A cat skull might eventually be involved. There's basically an entire series outlined in my sketchbooks, complete with unstinting critical analyses as well as reasons in support of and vehemently opposing the construction of each piece, and so on and so forth.

Speaking of cat skulls, here's a picture of The Whistle Pig. She is a most valued colleague during these dark days.

une tentative

shadowbox interior (Like Grass in a Good Soil), Fall 2011