Venice: Warm and Cool Tones

Venice's contrasts are striking.  Light on water, darkness in alleyways, tunnels of stone. 

Public Knowledge

In this, my "forgotten blog" I have dropped to an annual post. Annual? Yeah, pretty sad. But maybe it is just that "how much can you share and in how many places" overwhelming feeling that sweeps over me. I like to keep myself busy and hope that that action inspires others to live their dreams, but sometimes I feel like it is becoming information overload. I mean really...you have to make time to read blogs and look up websites. As an artist, we do a lot of web based research now. I come home from social events clutching fist fulls of business cards from interesting people that I have met. Although I would rather be a paper pen pal, I end up learning a lot about them online.

We each have varying degrees of information that we share. I reveal a lot more than I want to sometimes, but I tend to stay in a reflective mode that is geared for the public. I recently built my website that had come crashing down in the fall of 2007. It rose like a Phoenix from the ashes of doom, and somehow it continues to take shape. I had to really prod myself to do it, even though it is made with a template it still was an endless amount of learning and just plain hard work. With websites, with every decision, there is another 3 to be made. What compounds the learning curve is that I feel that I am never quite able to hang it up here in New York city. I am always busy chasing after some illusive goal. Reflection comes when staring out of a Starbucks cafe window.

New York is not a restful place, even when you lock yourself in. It is a living breathing creature that is full of energy even in it's quietest hours. Compounded by the endless work that it takes to be a contemporary artist, I find myself typing away like now...at 1:30 in the morning. So on that note, that is all for now. I must sleep in this sleepless city.

Jamaica Bay

Could it be that I have just repeated my last August in New York once again? I have just taken a moment to look at the last, forgotten posts and it appears that I am doing the same things this August as last. Now that is not so earth shocking for most people who live by patterns, but for non-linear me, my world tends to be built in long, wide loops that can take in several thousands of miles and a couple years before I revisit something or someone familiar. No, I did not revisit the Flatbush ave scenario, but I did a two day journey into the last salt marshes of Jamaica Bay.

I studied the lesser shore birds in searing heat, first on my own, and then with a class. I once again tried to connect with the shoreline here and tried to make sense of my place in the city. Spending two scorching days crouched in mud looking at sleepy birds was actually inspiring. It was one of those great airport mysteries that I always pondered as I flew in and out of JFK airport. "What is that? What is there?" I would think to myself as the silver airliner lifted or set beside what looked like a magical marshland. This marsh looked better than the rest of the coastline combined, and I promised myself that one day I would find out first hand what this mysterious last holdout of nature really was. So this year I did it.

You see, as I found out, it is a migration route. Anytime you visit you may likely see something a bit different. Everything has its moment here. So the scorcher of a weekend that I chose was important, for it was in the midst of a shorebird migration. Its hard to get excited about anything in 98% humidity where your clothes are plastered to you no matter how ethically produced the fibers may be. It is uncomfortably hot and even the birds where suffering a bit, but it was worth it. The experience gave me the "gold star" in the minds of many a New Yorker. This is a question that all of them have asked themselves as well, but never took it any further.

What lies beside the very busy airport? Who would guess that it is a place for Snowy Owl, Glossy Ibis, Osprey and Yellow Legged Plover. I am so happy to have shared the days with them.

Forgotten Identity

Wow, now that was a delay in my posting. Would you believe that I was just another casualty in the forgotten password/user name drama. I have wanted to post more non-linear posts here on my sub-blog, but I could not remember how to get into my own blog. How can that be? Well try never writing down any of your password/user name combos and you are on the right track. It was just dead in the water (so to speak.) This was supposed to be my visual journal filled with images that fill my mind, but instead it became a dead link. So with out further excuse making to my one time loyal viewer (s) I will try to find an image or two to get back on track.

Not Valid for Travel

I have been immersing myself in contemporary art discourse as part of my cultural absorbtion. This week left me in the company of theorists (and those soon to be) explaining and examining the structures of all things in art and life. Titles lead my not so linear mind down entirely different paths.: Principles of Hope, The Practice of Everyday Life, Nameless Science, lead me places, but I am not yet sure where. It was a week of densely packed knowledge with Artists with their game faces on (yes a capital A is necessary.) Sipping into the brain of the other momentarily.

New York Minutes

Anna's summer adventure summary

Tubing the Delaware River
Hamlet and Hair in Central Park
Philharmonic performance in Central Park w/fireworks
Kayaking in the Hudson
Eating 16 lbs of cherries *not at once
Bronx Zoo Rain forest
Long Island Beach combing
Walking in the rain
Filming under the plants in Central Park Lagoon
My roller"trick skater" park debut
5 percussion concerts outdoors
falling asleep in the grass
learning where the Herons sleep
working my way through the Icy Fruit vendor menu
Saving a small dog from jaws of a big dog
Passing cyclists on my skates just to hear them cuss
Asia Society/MoMA/New Museum/Neues Museum
Bubble Sword
Seeing a friend on stage
tandem Chair Dancing in rolling chairs
Joey's Puppet show
Catfish sandwich and collards in Harlem
Drinking Iced coffee until I am sick
Having Chris Rock stomp on my foot in Gray's Papaya
Thunder in Greenwich
Watching Anthony dance a hurricane

Nest building

It was long over due, but I had to try to make some kind of inspired studio corner to work indoors. I had begun a makeshift library, suspended some art pieces, but never really had a place to work. I have been editing on laptop and working in the field, but everyone who knows me knows that I am a great builder/reconstruct-er/salvage-r. Today was my day. Now or never. I built an ever so tiny workspace by the window. My painted card table wedged into the tiny "Manhattan apartment" corner. Two separate neighbors had discarded their tropical plants. I quickly hauled the tree home stuck the six footer in the shower and allowed it to be the towering plant on the table. I laughed as I treated it like a rare tree specimine in the urban jungle, while two years ago I hacked at this same variety with a machette. Life is funny that way.
Another neighbor gave me perfect natural elements like a piece of fan coral that she found washed up in the Caribbean, two small carved frames from China, and the very same Indonesian travel guide that my Mom had wanted, so I had relinquished it to her years ago, though I loved it so. My neighbor down the street is uprooting, ready to travel again, while I settle a bit. I walked around in the beautiful breezy night both exhausted and relieved that I had created this mini studio, an in the process found 4, 7 foot long birch saplings, cut, cleaned and dried. Someones decorating project discarded. Beautiful.

What are the odds that all of Manhattan would decide to discard natural objects that work so perfectly with my art and my inspiration. The saplings will be a part of my sculpture "forest" that I recently transported from Switzerland. It is the piece that has five long strands of wooden thread spools that wind up towards the ceiling. I had to leave the critical piece behind for now, the curved piece of bamboo that is the critical central element. The saplings would make it a different, but still interesting work. For now they form a tee pee headboard for me. All the found pieces fit together so nicely creating an interior jungle of sorts. chucked full of art like some eco cabin. Miyoko-san gasped as she entered my city jungle. Plants and branches intermix with art and rainbows from my chandelier. If this doesn't get me working...I have no excuse. Will post some studio snaps soon.