I am finally giving in and admitting it. All of my classes have officially started and it is back to business as usual. (Not that I’m complaining… I’m very pleased with my classes so far.)
I can’t believe the summer is over. It was truly a wonderful one. Which only makes it that much harder to go back to the usual grind. The major highlights were: Penland, printmaking, fresh delicious tomatoes from the dirt bird garden, a New England birthday weekend, painting, finishing an animation for Artscape, wild blueberries, and daily seafood in Maine: lobster rolls, whole lobsters, clams, mussels, scallops, haddock…
The only thing I say good riddance to: the heat. This was the worst summer of heat ever for Baltimore. Please don’t ever happen again! It is so beautiful today, though, I have already put all that behind me.
And I leave you with a few memories of summer fun.
Here is a very very tiny preview of my new animation that will be showing (along with a couple of older ones) at the Hexagon during Artscape. If you are heading to all the goings-ons this Thursday evening be sure to stop by! Here’s the info:
The Hexagon
1825 N. Charles St.
July 15 - August 14
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 15, 6pm - 9pm
I will also have a couple of paintings up in the show at Theatre Project. The opening is, as is everything else, also Thursday evening. Be sure to check it out:
Theatre Project
45 W. Preston St.
July 15 - August 29
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 15, 5:30pm - 7:30pm
I think this photo reveals how everyone was feeling in hot as hell Baltimore today. Ugh! I spent most of my day locked in my bedroom (only room with an AC) and trying to ignore my overall feeling of lethargy. Now that it’s 9:30pm and it has finally dipped below 90, I am venturing out and trying to do something more productive.
On a happier note, I did get to spend the weekend with Ben. And the heat gave us an excuse to not do much, sit around, eat a lot, drink a lot, and watch movies.
But, man! Am I behind on everything!!! This heat has got to stop!
No posts for the month of April? I couldn’t let that happen! It’s May already?! How did that happen. I find it rather disturbing that the semester is almost over but I’m also very much looking forward to the break. It looks to be a busy summer ahead with a lot of exciting things to look forward to. A performance with live stop motion. A trip to North Carolina for a printmaking class. A trip to Maine to spend some time with Ben, relax, and make some art. Perhaps a trip to Colorado to see the wild ones? I’m ready!
Not that anyone else out there has noticed besides me, but my site was down for almost a week. It was partly my fault for not dealing with my domain situation before it expired. But almost a week to get my domain transferred from the old jerks?! Come on people. At least that has been taken care of now. I have been meaning to transfer my domain to a new registrar for probably 3 years now but they always make the process so complicated and hard to figure out who to talk to that I keep putting it off every year. Done!
Welcome back! And welcome back to the sun today too!
Those are the first words that came to mind when I decided to post these paintings. Sure, why not? I promised myself I would not end the day without making something I was happy enough with to post to my blog. Here I am, doing that. Goodnight, then. Let’s go have a beer. And frolick with the polycorns. (Ben now has me quoting Baby Cakes. Thanks Ben.)
Wow. This movie is… well… I hate to say it… but… perfect? Maybe? Perhaps? I can think of nothing critical to say, anyway. How could you possibly not want to see the stealthy teenage fox sneaking around in such a lovely homemade bandit hat as pictured above? Just go see it. Now. As fast as your legs will get you to The Charles, or your local theatre wherever you may be.
I took a road trip with my friend Missy this weekend to Philadelphia. Thanks for asking me to join you and suggesting some great destinations, Missy! Every time I go to Philadelphia I have a great time and see super-duper (I used the thesaurus to get that word because I didn’t want to use great again and my brain wouldn’t come up with anything interesting - thanks thesaurus!) things and convince myself I want to move there. Are there any out Philadelphians out there? Is it as awesome as the awesomeness I am projecting onto it?
Part 1: Jason Hackenwerth Show
Missy introduced me to this artist (which I believe is what inspired her idea for this trip in the first place). We saw his large scale balloon sculptures at a gallery whose name I can’t remember but was an amazing restored warehouse style space and was in the same neighborhood as the restaurant we went to below. The fingery parts of the uninflated ends reminded me a lot of some of my more obsessive amoeba-like drawings.
Part 2: Lunch at Johnny Brenda’s
We met a friend of Missy’s for lunch here, thanks to her friend’s wonderful suggestion. At my insistence we began the foodfest with a whiskey donut. Delicious! And very whiskey-ish. I couldn’t help but be reminded of my grandmother’s super soaked rum balls that I love now but was disgusted by as a kid. Also at my insistence we sat at the dark table with pulsating lights (pictured above with the beloved donut). I proceeded to order ham and cheese grits which was covered in sunny side up eggs. Also very yummy! I finished it all off with some wonderful local beer - they had a lot of choices on tap. It looks like this place has it all: good food (both savory and sweet), good drink, interesting decor, and apparently live music as I see from their website.
Part 3: Eastern State Penitentiary
I have always wanted to go here but for one reason or another all my trips to Philadelphia have not allowed the time to squeeze it in. Until now. If you have not been there, it is worth checking it out! We happened to pick the perfect kind of day to go (dreary, overcast, and chilly) and the sun was setting toward the end which added to the creepy factor of the place. The detritus, textures, and gloomy atmosphere forced me to have to restrain myself from taking a photo every time I took a step. Artist installations appear here and there in some of the cells. I wouldn’t suggest going there if you are expecting something amazing installation wise. While some of the pieces were great (again that great, but too lazy for thesaurus this time), you aren’t going to run into one every time you turn a corner and a lot of the technologically dependent ones weren’t working. Oh, and if you decide to go, you have the pleasure of a walking recorded audio tour with Steve Buscemi to look forward to.
We had a few other interesting adventures but I think you’ve heard enough and those are some of my particularly favorite highlights.
I’m having one of those days (or weeks, or months) when I feel like being an artist is a curse. Every spare moment I have in which I am not making art I feel guilty that I am not making art and therefore even the time I set aside to do nothing but have fun is partially tainted by this underlying guilt.
And this guilt stems from making nothing that I have been terribly excited about lately. And the work that I force myself to do anyway I like to call art poop. Which is not necessarily bad art but is unexcited sad art. I give you art poop.
I saw the William Eggleston show at the Corcoran today. It was great and I caught it just in time before it comes down this weekend. I felt oddly nostalgic (oddly because I have a strange split feeling when it comes to feeling very southern and not southern at all) upon seeing some of the southern landscapes, particularly the Plains series which were taken right around the time I would have been moving to GA as a child.
I decided to sit down and have a cup of coffee before driving back to Baltimore. I saw red velvet cupcakes at the counter and couldn’t resist. Which is unfortunate. Because it was truly disgusting. I feel like you have to try really hard to make a cupcake that is that gross. I ate half the cake part which was at least somewhat edible, though still not enjoyable. After one taste of the frosting, though, I couldn’t even think about eating any more of it. At least the coffee was not bad.
I had a strange experience on the drive home as I was happily driving and listening to music on this beautiful sunny day when all of a sudden I became aware that the interstate was swarming with sports cars. But all a similar type of sports car - what I think of as maybe a Trans Am. That to me means low to the ground, American made, and (maybe?) not made any more. (I’m not a car person so don’t criticize and laugh at me too much on my lack of knowledge in this area.) There were about 20 of them and I felt like I suddenly had been transported into some weird race where I was definitely not supposed to be.
goodbye summer
