Wheee! Thanks HPAC and Natalie Jacobson.
Monday, July 20, 2015
Thursday, July 09, 2015
Budapest-- szechenyi baths
The Széchenyi Medicinal Bath in Budapest is the largest medicinal bath in Europe. Its water is supplied by two thermal springs, their temperature is 74 °C and 77 °C. There are outdoor and indoor pools and you can stay there all day. Great people watching. You'll be glad you went.
Budapest
Budapest is a one of the cheapest cities to fly to in Europe. It's worth checking out for a few days. Then you can fly somewhere else (say Rome) for much less than if you flew there directly from the US.
Budapest has a Blue Line (just like Chicago).
Budapest is an old and beautiful city. There are plenty of churches and castles...
but also weird Soviet left-overs...
...I don't even know what is going on here.
This is just the cafe inside a book store.
Of course I had goulash...
...and potato chips served on a stick (with a side order of sass).
And one of the best things I saw, a painting of Leonardo DiCaprio sandwiched between two portraits of rabbis in a fancy tourist restaurant.
Billie Holiday after a 1956 drug bust
This photo is usually only shown cropped, but the whole, un-cropped image includes her adorable chihuahua. Changes the tenor of the whole thing.
Marie's Pizza and Liquors
I have lived in Chicago my whole life and only now have I learned about the wonderful Marie's Pizza and Liquors-- a bar/package store/Chicago-only time travel restaurant.
I met Jerry Saltz at the airport
No one else seemed to care that Jerry Saltz was just standing there! Guys, it's Jerry Saltz!
Riverside Arts Center show-- May 8th to June 13th 2015
I just had a show at the Riverside Arts Center. I showed 11 of my gift paintings along with the actual wrapped gifts, satin, velvet, and fabrics I used in the paintings. At the show, I had a sign-up list where attendees added their names and email. After the close of the exhibition, I randomly chose people from the list to receive paintings as gifts. The sign-up sheet looked like this:
NAME _____________________________
EMAIL _____________________________
If you are selected to receive a painting you must agree to the following conditions:
1)This painting cannot be bought, sold, or bartered in the future. It can be re-gifted.
2) We (you and the artist) will be linked in a fiduciary relationship. You (the recipient) will be bound in an ethical relationship of trust and friendship with me (the artist), taking care of this painting indefinitely. Examples of our friendship may include: invitations to sibling weddings, texts, dinner parties, Christmas card exchanges, etc to be carried out in perpetuity.
Below is the statement I wrote about the work.
It is a rare and exciting opportunity to see a painting next to its subject, to witness the choices, edits, and improvisations that were made by the artist. The time that went into each painting is visible and the steps of its creation can be pieced together by the viewer.
Each present painting is a gift, so why not treat them as such by giving them away? Lewis Hyde wrote in The Gift, “When a part of the self is given away, community appears.” My hope is that this act will allow us, the artist and the viewer, to bypass the transactional, commercial nature of art and instead connect in a more personal way.
A present is brought to a party as a gesture of goodwill. It represents the inexpressible and invisible value of relationships between people-- “the parts of the self” we offer to those we love. At the core of all my work is the fear that plagues many Millennials: the fear of missing out (on potential friends, on experiences). A party is an antidote to that fear. It is a celebration between friends of what we do have, of our time together.
Friday, July 03, 2015
I don't usually post poems but...
In A Room With Many Windows
In a room with many windows
some thoughts slide past uncatchable, ghostly.
Three silent bicyclists. Slowly, a woman on crutches.
It is like the night you slept out on the sandy edge of a creek bank,
feeling the step of some light, clawed thing on your palm,
crossing to drink. You were nothing to it.
Hummock. Earth clump. Root knob wild in the dark.
Like that thirsty creature.
You could guess it, but you can’t name it.
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