little messes

i’ve been spending a few days this month with the lexie mountain boys and the live pyramid at the baltimore museum of art. we’ve been creating live pyramid sculptures every day throughout the month of ocotober to celebrate one year of free admission into the bma. so once a day for one hour there is a live pyramid sculpture in the incredible sculpture garden.

who knew that pyramidin’ for an hour in absolute silence could be so incredible. it’s almost like meditating, only in a group and surrounded by incredibly beautiful art. i sort of wish i could do it every day, you know, before work, just walk out in my pajamas and sculpture my way to 6:45 then come in and have my coffee and get to the train. there’s something about the focus and attention one must spend to be so quiet and still. it’s an exquisite way to experience one’s space.

today was supposed to be my last shift on the pyramid scheme, but something tells me i might try to crash another shift.

there are some seriously crazy/amazing folks here in baltimore. and the most inventive of the bunch were out in full force on saturday for the kinetic sculpture race

the event is sponsored by the american visionary art museum here in baltimore. it’s an amazing museum filled with art by untrained artists. if you’ve never been… go now!

we spent the day riding through the city following all these insane people-powered floats as they made their way through the course. it all started at the museum, then through the inner harbor and onto the canton waterfront, where each sculpture must prove it’s floating ability and run down the boat ramp into the harbor, around a dock and back up the ramp. being a windy day, many a sculpture floated far from the dock as their drivers pedaled their hearts out to get back control. next it was on to patterson park where the teams tried their luck at the obstacle courses sand and mud traps. hilarious.

here’s a few of my favs:

everyone loves a dog named fifi, and her water control was quite impressive:

will gandhi lead this elephant safely through the waters… sadly the wind blew this sculpture clear across the harbor:

ye olde wallace and grommit:

and my personal favorite, the 8 rider (at least) double-tandem platypus!

it was such an inspiring and energizing day. and riding my bike for 15 odd miles only added to my rapture. this city sure makes me smile. and i always like a challenge… so look out, maybe next year i’ll be riding the streets in style atop a gigantic bicycle float!

i’ve been off the map lately. been crazy at work, more on that tomorrow…
and i’ve been working on the house again. i spent the weekend filling holes in the plaster of the stairwell, taping the corner seams and readying myself for the next round of painting.

i made my way to the local “retro flea market” a few weeks back. no insanely good finds, but some worth mentioning:

1. boyscout hanky
2. old doorknob beauty (this was a steal at $5)
3. great old bear print (which too me looks more like an anteater but i’m in love either way)
4. old military walkie talkie
5. some lace
6 and an old set of chageable knitting needles in a really ugly case… note to self, get to sewing a new one for these babies

in other news i’ve entered my very first organized swap over at BT3 i’m really excited about this swap and have all my fabrics and am ready to experiment my way to greatness! yeehaw!

i also wanted to share a close-up of the gorgeous amy ruppel painting that i mentioned in my last post, thanks amy for this great photo:

as well as her incredible wrapping job:

i think i would order a painting from her just for the wrapping, it’s like two gifts in one. lovely lovely stuff.

also, last week i made these screens for the front windows:

we’ve had standard window blinds in these windows since we bought the house and i couldn’t wait to get rid of them, only i didn’t want to lose any light. this screen material from ikea was perfect. i installed thin wire hangers and sewed up some quick hems to slip over the top. so now we’ve got our privacy and all this incredible light. love it.

yesterday was my colleague and friend joyce’s last day at the office. we shared an office and had such good times together. she really made my start there last november so much easier. at the time i had so many changes taking place in my life. a new job, a new city to call home, jeff and i got hitched just before my start date and having the opportunity to share an office with someone as exhuberent and inspiring as joyce (who also happened to just moved from nyc the year before) made all the difference.

she will be greatly missed.

to celebrate and thank joyce a group of colleagues and i were looking for the perfect gift to send her off with. what we got was so far beyond our expectations, and all due to the kindness of one talented lady. amy ruppel. so here’s to amy and to joyce who both are constantly blowing my mind with their unbelievable talents.

joyce and i trying to show off the painting:

you didn’t think i’d let joyce go without some sewn love?? so here it is. my first all applique quilt. “growth”.

sadly by the time i finished it, it was quite dark and i couldn’t really get a good shot of the detail

but joyce seemed to like it:

wednesday afternoon i left work a bit early to wander through the smithsonian gardens across the street and through the mall. such lovely blooming nature along the way….

i met jeff in the park and we headed to the national gallery of art to the DADA exhibit.

This was one of the greatest exhibits i’ve seen. Such incredible work on display. As always I was completely obsessed with Kurt Schwitters and also Hannah Hoch and Sophie Tabeur. Amazing!! Also the sound installations were hilariously inventive and strange. i always love strange.

The show originated at the Pompidou Centre in Paris and apparently included over 4,000 pieces, that seems so insane, the show at the national gallery includes only 1,400 of the original works and is overwhelming still. and many of these works have never been viewed outside of Europe. It was very exciting and we were super lucky to see the live all-robotic orchestra performing George Antheil’s Ballet Mechanique!! it was insane and exhilirating. The exhibit will travel to the MOMA in nyc after this so look for it.

i also wanted to add that i loved mav’s art show and tell all week. so nice to see what everyone has up on their walls.

i apparently never actually published this post… it was marked as private and i forgot to publish woops. however delayed………

there are many things i miss about living in brooklyn. the friends, the food, the instant access to so so many places, people and things.. but this time of year i feel doubly sad to be away. it’s art season folks, and there are so many things i’m dying to go up and see. thank goodness for the www. i can get my fix until my foot can hit the gas:

a great group show steps from the armory from Capla Kesting Fine Art, Front Room Gallery, and McCaig-Welles Gallery… they’ve got some great folks showing, i’m especially taken with these lads, mr. fairey, mr. green and mr. shoultz (whose work is just incredibly inspiring… i got lost in this site for far too long this afternoon.)
and there’s always something insane going on at the deitch (i make sure to make a trip there with each and every visit.)

also you’ve got the armory and the biennial to wet your whistle. sigh.

in local news, there’s a dada show at the national gallery in dc that just opened… and starting sunday there will be a orchestra of robots jamming on george antheil’s ballet mechanique!! so exciting, i can’t wait. the installation was designed but some more fabulous brooklynites, the lemurbots oh good lord.

in other craftiness, i was belly laughing with joy on the train today with the newest issue of giant robot, when i got to the article profiling the amazing food-inspired scarves of twinkie chan. love her creativity and hilarity. get yer own here

now i am truly inspired to hit the studio and finish the projects i’ve had in my head all day. cheerio

i was so lucky to get some friendly birds in the mail this week from lisa!! i can’t tell you how happy these little ones make me.

they’ll have to wait for there new perch for a bit however, as far too many of our walls are all the way down to the plaster, and the painting bug is a bit far off for now.

in other news i’ve spent the last week and all of today in the basement reorganizing my studio space. photos to come. i felt so inspired after i was done i hid downstairs all night working on a new quilt for another one of my dear friends whose about to become a momma. here’s a sneak peek:

so jeff and i decided that instead of spending on gifts or weekend trips for our anniversary each year, we’d much rather be surrounded… by art! so every year we will buy a piece of art to remind us of the time and to fill our home with great treasures. we’re a little late this year, but we finally found the perfect piece (all because of the lovely world of blogs and one miss angry chicken, thanks amy!)

so this little man should be here any day now:

he’s a little painting by jen corace from an older show she did at motel. it’s called ‘hopeful’ and that’s right where we’re at right now. hopeful and happy and excited for his arrival.

it was so wonderful to spend this last week back in nyc with all our lovely friends and crazy delicious eats. we spent the majority of our time kicking our heels up in our beloved brooklyn. we also gave manhattan it’s fair share and got to see some incredible art along the way. the first was a barry mcgee show at the deitch projects space on wooster. his stuff is so insane, this show complete with mannequin graffiti kids tagging up the joint.

here’s what you see when you first enter the space:

there’s so much more…

these paintings take up two huge walls and fill me with a weird sunny kind of q-bert envy:

and of course, some bottle paintings:

we also made our way through the packed opening for Swoon at the other deitch space on grand in soho. Swoon is another grafitti artist who works in paper. her detail is so beautiful. she cuts up these incredibly intricate designs into thin sheets of paper and also had some large block prints that looked into subway window scenes. go here to check out this link for some images of her street art, and here for information about both of these shows.

there are so many more things to see up in chelsea where we were able to spend a bit of time. jeff saw a Karin Weiner show at ZieherSmith gallery. Her show, Frontiera, included all these wild west references but with a hand-made bent. There was a large pile of antlers made to mimic the piles that now decorate the front yards of modern cowboys, although these antlers were all hand-stitched and stuffed like pillows.

She also had a campfire circle complete with pillow logs and a tv-projected fire. you can see more here although i think jeff’s pictures are better.

i just got home yesterday and am already pining away for my ol’ kings county.