I didn't get into the Smack Melon residency program in New York this year, but I was named a hot pick. The website was updated a couple of weeks ago. Here is the link: http://www.smackmellon.org/hotpicks.html

http://www.thenationalspiritualallianceinc.org/

I went to a show here a couple of weeks ago. The show was a special Saturday edition of the Phantom Brain Exchange (which is normally the last Wednesday of the Month at the Rendezvous in Turners Falls).

I am just finishing a book called "Ghosts in the Valley" that I purchased from here for a dollar. The valley referred to in this book is the Delaware River valley not the Pioneer Valley where I and Montague live.


Here is a link to the Phantom Brain Exchange website. Do you like lectures and videos and noise? I do. If you happen to be in western mass at the end of a month, try and come it is a real nice time.

http://phantombrainexchange.suchfun.net/

ps. Neil Young (not that neil young) is the brain behind the exchange and we thank him for that!

My aunt is a maternity nurse.
I made her these heart wraps for still borns.

bereavment

She organizes... she makes their arrangements.

We have differing views on abortion.
I love my aunt.

A Boy and a Girl with a cat and an eel
Around 1635
Judith Leyster

"He who plays with cats gets scratched” or as the Parlor Players would say "don't trouble trouble and trouble won't trouble you"

I find this painting very funny.

The National Gallery in London suggests it was painted as a warning against mischievous behavior. Dutch painters at this time commonly used children in allegory for the foolish behaviors of adults.

http://www.freerice.com/ has added a famous painting section to their guessing games, this painting came up. The site, has a series of different guessing games, each correct answer they donate 10 grains of rice.

These images come from the site Laff in the Dark (http://www.laffinthedark.com/articles/mp/mountainpark.htm)




The artist who did these paintings was Dominic Spadola. He created the aesthetics of the fun houses at the former New England amusement parks Mountain Park (Mt. Tom, Holyoke, MA), Lincoln Park (North Dartmouth, MA), Rocky Point(Warwick, RI), and Whalom Park (Lunenburg, MA). I am trying to find out more about him. When I was a kid my favorite part of Whalom park was the fun house.

It is crazy looking at these web sites and reading about the parks' histories, looking at pictures, and reading how strongly people feel about theses places. It fills me with a deep sense of longing for some reason. I think it has something to do with how festive and bizarre these parks were. I went to Rocky Point and Whalom Park as a kid and believed they were places, even though they were a bit dated, would not close because they were amusement parks.

Mountain, and Whalom Park started as trolley Parks. This kind of a picnic/recreation park that was located along or at the end of the trolley line. These parks were the precursor to amusement parks.

the jingle from Whalom Park ads on tv

If fun and excitement are waiting for you,
Then Whalom Park is the place for you!
Lots of rides and loads of fun,
Whalom Park for ev-ery-one!
Fun and excitement,
A place to unwind,
Whalom Paaaark...for a whale of a time!
Whalom Park, you'll have a good time

here are some links to articles and pictures about these parks

Lincoln Park:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_Park_(Massachusetts)
http://www.artinruins.com/arch/?id=decay&pr=lincolnpark

Mountain Park on Mt. Tom:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Park,_Holyoke,_Massachusetts
http://www.defunctparks.com/parks/MA/mountain/mountainpark.htm
http://www.karenandjay.com/mtpark/mtpark.html

Rocky Point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Point_Amusement_Park
http://www.artinruins.com/arch/?id=rip&pr=rockypoint

Whalom Park:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whalom_Park
http://www.laffinthedark.com/articles/whalom/whalom1.htm

In the basement of Mass MoCA

Currently Mass MoCA gets 5% of its energy from solar panels on top of the museum's roof.

The Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective is open and will be up for the next 25 years. The gallery space for the work looks amazing. There also is a nice video showing the apprentices creating the work. There was over 60 people working on the drawings during the install, that should be an indicator of how much work is the space. It spans three floors specially renovated for the retrospective with earliest work on the first floor to later work on the top floor. Personally my least favorite work was in his mid career.



In the largest gallery Simon Starling: The Nanjing Particles

Here is what the museum has written about Starling.

"Starling investigates the social, cultural, and material implications of object-making, examining how his own artistic
processes overlap with industrial production. Engaging with MASS MoCA’s industrial past, Starling’s installation began
with an 1875 photograph of a group of Chinese immigrant workers brought to North Adams to break a strike at the
Sampson Shoe Company (once located on what is now MASS MoCA’s campus). Literally and figuratively mining this image,
Starling extracted silver grains from the photograph and presents these particles as stainless steel forms enlarged one
million times their original microscopic size. Forged and hand polished by workers in Nanjing, China, the sculptures
connect the museum’s past and present to global economic conditions. The shiny forms reflect the museum’s historic
architecture as well as the visitors who have replaced workers in the space."

Up on the second floor at the back of the large gallery there are tables set up with documentation of the process of making The Nanjing Particles. There were contact sheets for the enlarging of the images of the silver taken from the photo to create the silver objects in the installation. Also on the table were books documenting this project and other projects Starling has worked on.

After spending time in North Adams this summer and learning more about the history of the town and the Mass MoCA campus I really appreciated this work.

On a side note, the surfaces of the silver sculptures reflectected the ceiling and the windows of the building in a very exciting way.


Hello,

it is chilly.

I was rejected from Vox Populi in Philly this weekend, and rejected from Smack Mellon's (in New York) residency program but was named a "hot pick", so I will be on their web site.

The Amherst Community Art Center closed this month. It was a non-profit art space that offered classes in ceramics, painting, jewlery, comics, and a variety of other classes and a camp called Art for All. It wasn't able to keep afloat due to the current financial situation.

There is only a couple days left for the online art auction benefiting the Kinji Akagawa interdisciplinary scholarship fund at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. There are some great pieces by Molly Roth, Ursula Husted, Robin Cotton, Bethany Kalk, Erica Ritzel, Mitchell Dose, Adam Collignon, Jennifer Hibbard, Paul Shambroom, Sharon Koelblinger, Todd Norsten, and many more! I have a piece in it too.

follow this link
http://www.cmarket.com/auction/AuctionHome.action?vhost=paradigmshiftart

Since the early fall my household has been watching David Attenborough's nature documentaries. We have watched Life in the Undergrowth, Life in Cold Blood, Planet Earth (British version), and are currently watching The Life of Mammals. The series are filmed beautifully and the information is stimulating. There are so many creatures that I have not seen before or had any idea about how they live and look. Attenborough is a very enthusiastic host and it seems he cares deeply about the creatures he is talking about. On the Life in Cold Blood DVDs there are bonus interviews with the scientists who study the different reptiles in depth, here too Attenborough is engaged and asks interesting questions.

I saw the Life of Birds series several years ago but am ready to watch them again. We are also on the look out for The Private Life of Plants, and Life in the Freezer.

I am not in Minnesota anymore but I am still excited for the Art Shanty Project which opened today. Happening on Medicine Lake in Plymouth, MN (15 minutes out of Minneapolis) the temporary shanty town is a festive winter destination.
If you happen to be in the neighborhood it is a really good time. There are performances, Karaoke, augers, puppets, and Retroactive Minnesotan Lessons given by the charming and informative Andy Sturdavant.

It is happening until February 14th, forget going south for the winter, go to the upper mid west!

The mission of the project is "an artist driven temporary community exploring the ways in which the relatively unregulated public space of the frozen lake can be used as a new and challenging artistic environment to expand notions of what art can be."

check out the schedule of events at
http://www.artshantyprojects.org/
Here you will also find links to the different shanties' blogs and web pages.


Here is the link to the snapshot shanty blog: http://thesnapshotshanty.blogspot.com/ (my pals Molly Roth and Emily Darnell and friends)

Here is the link to the Imperial TransAntarctic Expedition blog: http://antarcticshanty.blogspot.com/ (pals from Elsewhere Artists Collaborative)

(pictured above is medicine lake in the "soft lake shanty" from 2007 by Adam Collignon, Molly Roth, and Angela Zammarelli)
(yes the lake looks like a giant ghost fetus with a claw hand)

My friend Isa Gagarin made me this "crazy eye" paper necklace back in September. I am finally putting a picture of it up now. It is amazing. It was a total surprise. She is amazing, a real explorer. To me she seems really unafraid of experiencing life and making art that is apart of it.

Here is a link to her MNartist page http://www.mnartists.org/work.do?action=list&rid=114446

Fixtures & Foibles
Line Bruntse has work at the Stone Soup Gallery. The show is up until March 8, 2009. If you happen to be in the Western Mass area I highly recommend checking it out.

Pictured above are Bruntse's "Orphans". In the gallery the Orphans are lined up against a wall on the floor. Across from them in the center of the room, raised on low cement pedestals are the Orphans separated shadows. The fleshy Orphans are made of pink leather and are adorned with embroidery. The nubby little ones command a fair amount of space when you see them in person.

Stone Soup Gallery
221 Pine St. (Arts and Industry Building)
Suite 165
Florence, MA 01062

Line's website:
http://www.linebruntse.com/index.html

Stone Soup Gallery website:
http://www.stonesoupconcrete.com/art.php

Jane Lund playing accordian.

Jane is a local artist who does incredible pastel paintings and also these really weird paintings/assemblages. When I say weird I mean that in the most loving way, I mean I relate to them.
I met Jane when I was working at a frame shop in Northampton. I framed some work for her and she invited myself and co-workers to be in some small work shows. She is really supportive of young artists and older artists.

I admire her.

Tumble Cat Poof Poofy Poof aka Joshua Vrysen has a really nice interview in the Valley Advocate (western mass).

Behind the Beat: The Cat's Pajamas
Tumble Cat Poof Poofy Poof's boom box ensemble extraordinaire.

here is the link:
http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=9011

"I feel like when you're playing the same show over and over again, you're fighting against what you've already done," says Vrysen. "Where you're constantly repeating this thing that has already happened—you can go back to that moment, and you can do it again, but why would you do the same thing over again when you can try something different, or grow upon it? And even if it's falling apart, or decaying, that's more interesting to me than being this stagnant thing."



Also my housemates George and Dan had an interview in the same column last week about

Behind the Beat: For the Sake of the Songs
DJ duo Purity Supreme shares the love.

http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=8966

Tales of Grizzled Warriors
by Michael Fallon
posted on Dec. 14, 2008 - 10:36pm at
http://www.secretsofthecity.com/magazine/blogs/thousandth-word/2008/12/tales-of-grizzled-warriors#comments

This piece is posted on Minneapolis's Secret's of the City online magazine. Michael Fallon is an artist, arts writer, and arts administrator based in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

It isn't one of my favorite pieces of writing from him but I do think it is very timely topic and was glad to come across it.

"Ensuring continuity—both for individual artists and among the arts community—is what concerns me the most when I think about how the art community treats its aging artists, forgetting them at the twilight of their career. I can only imagine what it might feel like to work creatively for an adult lifetime, to survive while holding down multiple jobs, perhaps a mortgage, and all the attendant worries involved with being a modern American—only to meet up with a immoveable brick wall just when you finally have time to take on all the creative projects (during retirement) that you someday wanted to get to. Is it possible that any of the golden-curled young artists emerging now, so stuck in their own internal battles to make it big on the scene, have any ability at all to learn the lessons from the grizzled artists who came before them? Is it possible they even care?"

infection in the face

Hello

Did I tell you I had my bottom wisdom teeth removed two weeks ago, well I did. They were big ones too. I stayed awake for it, which wasn't bad at all. Now I have holes in the back of my mouth that I have to clean out after I eat.

I am working at Reprodepot (http://reprodepot.com/index.html) and Valley Fabrics (http://www.valleyfabrics.com/). They are both fabric stores here in western Mass. Reprodepot is an online and Valley Fabrics is a little quilt shop.

I have started quilting, it is pretty nice. Joshua and I designed a quilt top together and sewed it all by hand and now we are going to hand quilt the batting and backing to it. The next quilt I am making for my niece I am going to sew the top with a machine and hand quilt.

over and out