final glass table top ----by gardega

Here is my etched table top laying a-happily on her jade base. Mission complete.

table top layout---by gardega

Here is a photo of the glass table top in my studio after it is etched but before I remove the rubber "resist" material I use for sandblasting. This is the ugly "behind the scenes" side of glass art.

table top--by gardega

I carved a table top for a lady in Brooklyn today. It weighed two hundred pounds and I had no assistant so I had to carry it. The scary part was trying to put it down gently on an expensive Jade base. I survived (as did the table) and and she was very happy. Will post photos in an hour as I left my camera in my vehicle. The table top design was based off the jade urn base and I thought it worked pretty nicely. It is nice to make art for nice people and not miserable people. She was a sweet lady and proof that age/ life/ time doesn't have to make you dour. (unless, of course, you make art for a living.) Photo come up in one hour. I am planning nyc Dali party in mid-May. so I expect all to attend ...

brooklyn lady

Here is a photo I took from my truck of a lady in Brooklyn---She is a distinctly NewYork/ Brooklyn character.

progress photo

glass piece (covered in rubber resist)

agony

Here is the piece that made me a day late on my deadline. (It is on its side for working purposes.) It is a piece of glass 3 feet by five foot. Missing deadlines is a rare and horrible feeling for me. It happens. On the bright side, the final finished piece is something worth looking at, methinks...exhausted

done and done

I have finished my glass pieces for the club and I am exhausted and worn out. I had to get an extra day on my large piece because I couldn't rush it or hack it and they were not happy but it is better than hanging a bad piece of art. I always make my deadlines but I dropped the ball on this large piece--- photos soon...

words of the day---rupert brookes

III. The Dead

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!

There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,

But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.

These laid the world away; poured out the red

Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be

Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,

That men call age; and those who would have been,

Their sons, they gave, their immortality.

Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,

Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.

Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,

And paid his subjects with a royal wage;

And Nobleness walks in our ways again;

And we have come into our heritage.

tibet

I am not a cosmonger nor am I of the tree hugging ilk but occasionally I get heated about politics and I am really upset with china and the way they have attempted to ruin the sacred gem that was/ is tibet. I hate to see monks getting clubbed and I wished it wasnt part of the world in which I live. I Cant support china on any level until they start let Tibet be Tibet. I am not going to watch the olympics as I cannot support something that makes me feel like I am chewing on a lead filled cookie.

hope and monday morning

All I can do is look to monday and I should be out of the small deadline hell I am in. I often run through my head the jimmy buffet lyrics "come monday, it will be alright..." when things get rough. On my next post I am going to include the lyrics to all my favorite instrumentals.

contour pillows, cheese and fox news

I bought a contour pillow for my neck yesterday and was excited to use it to sleep with last night---It was not unlike sleeping on a contoured wedge of hard cheese. If you are going to sleep on cheese I suggest a soft Camembert (which incidentally was the inspiration behind Dali's melting clocks) I am sure I will put it in my closet and keep it filed under things you dont use but dont want to throw away. What this has to do with art is beyond me but I have occasional sculpted cheese and I was once on Fox News for sculptures I made out of cheese (true story)

finished piece

Here is a small part of the overall finished piece. (Sorry for the horrid snapshot.) I will take better photos when they are installed. Yes it is backwards, it will be viewed from other side. You have nice view into the warm and fuzzy industrial studio I make my glass in.

layout

Here is what the logo looks like. What you are seeing is rubber material on glass and the letters have been removed (waiting to be sandblasted.) Luckily both of these pieces are done--- I am digging through past a bit to show process. The Logo is surrounded by a bunch of art nouveau "organics" that I designed. The original Logo design was made by brian christi.

update

I am still mired in deadlines but I am closing in (like a fly to a windshield.) Pictured above is one of two pieces of glass eight foot by three foot--- half inch thick pieces of glass I am carving to go on the side of a stair as you enter the location. These pieces are very heavy and hard to work with but I have finished them and will deliver today. I must then return to carving my woman. I have a meeting with a magazine today at four I must attend so the pressure is really on as the place opens tomorrow. It doesnt look like glass because it is covered in rubber..FYI.

glass update

here is a layout for a glass carving I making. this piece is 36 inches by 48 inches. I will carve this one today and start a second one as well.

quote of the day---bible

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."

update

I took a few photos of my glass deadline....as alice cooper once said "welcome to my nightmare"--- will post tonight

a thing well framed...

alex is very happy when collectors of my work get my paintings framed and framed well. Framing is a nebulous art like reading foreheads or tarot or palms. I often agonize over framing (and not just over the cost of framing.) Here is a painting on glass I made--- I believe it was titled "On a Pale Horse." Google will help you find out the meaning of this piece. This piece is hanging happily in a home in colorado. I came home so stressed from deadline torture and this email made me see light again. Viva Something! It has become clear to me that the average person is not adept at photography but that is fine as kmart will fix you up with some fine photos for $4.99.

quote of the day----jimmy buffet

"indecision may or may not be my problem"

gardega's medusa

This is "my medusa" I made her when I was twenty or so---It is painted and carved glass. I left this in a gallery and never picked it up as I was an erratic lad in my twenties.

Bocklin's medusa

As much as I like bocklin I must say that this medusa is an utter mess and a failure of a painting and when I saw it when I was twenty I decided I could do better and tried to make a better medusa (see above entry) it is up to you if I succeeded . This painting looks like she ate bad chicken and the snakes dont seem to be a part of her. (They should have fired the plumber and brought in gardega plumbing.)


a

artist of the day---arnold bocklin

Bocklin is one of my favorite artists as he is technically very skilled but he still manages to keep a great air of mystery about his works without feeling "forced" there are those who would call home kitsch but I promise you they are either non-artists or slop-artists who think jasper johns is a genius.

Arnold Böcklin was born on October 19, 1827 in Basel, Switzerland and died on January 16, 1901 in S. Domenico in Fiesole. After completing his studies between 1845 and 1847 under the tutelage of Johann Wilhelm Schirmer in Dusseldorf, Böcklin travelled to Rome in 1850 where he made the acquaintance of Oswald Achenbach and Anselm Feuerbach. In 1855 he returned to Basel as a portrait and landscape painter. In Munich during 1856-57, the painter caught the attention of King Ludwig I as well as that of Adolf Friedrich Graf von Schack, who purchased 14 of his paintings. He was appointed Professor of Landscape at the Weimar School of Arts in 1860, a position he held for two years before travelling again to Rome, and then back to Basel in 1866. After these stays in Weimar, Rome and Basel, Böcklin returned again to Munich in 1871. In 1874 he relocated to Florence where he became associated with a group of artists linked with Adolf von Hildebrand and Hans von Marées, and then in 1876 he settled in Munich. From 1885 to 1892 he lived near Zurich.

Böcklin's work was quite popular during his time, and he was able to support a large family and lifelong career; a contract with the Berlin art dealer Fritz Gurlitt in 1880 helped to secured this existence. Originally devoting himself to landscape painting, as early as 1860 mythological references and symbolism began to permeate Böcklin's work, and gave us the pieces with which we are most familiar today.

good morning and happy monday

I will be taking some photos of the progress of my glass pieces today and post on this tonight. Today I have an artist/assistant helping me whom I used to assist ten years ago. It is funny how things turn.

infinity (as I see it)

I would like to comment tonight on infinity. Infinity is a concept that is not to be understood from the conceptual mind, it is beyond grasping. It is like a child in a field chasing a kite that broke from its string and soars far and far away. Infinity is timelessness and thought occurs within the construct of time so we cannot taste the fruit, it is forever beyond our grasp. It is possible to meditate and go beyond thought and achieve pure being which is a state beyond thought and beyond the cold grasp of time. (I used to meditate when I was seventeen.) People cannot seem to grasp that it is possible to think of nothing. It is possible to clear the mud from the puddle and let the waters turn clear again. Infinity is beyond the normal state of mind and the universe does not really exist in time as time is ( I believe) a solely human concept. It is possible that everything that has ever been and will be exist all at the same time...but we will chase that kite another day.

Leonardo on perspective

What qualities does Leonardo claim for his own art in contrast to that of others? Why does he feel that perspective is important?

Introduction

Because I can find no useful or pleasant subject to discourse on, since the men who came before me have taken all the useful and pleasant subjects and discoursed on them at length, I find I must behave like a pauper who comes to the fair last, and can provide for himself in no other way than to take those things of trivial value that have been rejected by other buyers. I, then, will fill my shopping bag with all these despised and rejected wares, trash passed over by previous buyers, and take them and distribute them, not in the great cities, but in the poorest villages, taking whatever money might be offered.

I realize many will call my little work useless; these people, as far as I'm concerned, are like those whom Demetrius was talking about when he said that he cared no more for the wind that issued from their mouths than the wind that issued from their lower extremities. These men desire only material wealth and are utterly lacking in wisdom, which is the only true food and wealth for the mind. The soul is so much greater than the body, its possessions so much nobler than those of the body. So, whenever a person of this sort picks up any of my works to read, I half expect him to put it to his nose the way a monkey does, or ask me if it's good to eat.

I also realize that I am not a literary man, and that certain people who know too much that is good for them will blame me, saying that I'm not a man of letters. Fools! Dolts! I may refute them the way Marius did to the Roman patricians when he said that some who adorn themselves with other people's labor won't allow me to do my own labor. These folks will say that since I have no skill at literature, I will not be able to decorously express what I'm talking about. What they don't know is that the subjects I am dealing with are to be dealt with by experience (1) rather than by words, and experience is the muse of all who write well. And so, as my muse, I will cite her in every case.

Although, unlike my critics, I am not able to facilely quote other writers, I will rely on an authority much greater and much more noble: on Experience, the Mistress of their Masters. These fellows waddle about puffed up and pretentious, all dressed up in the fruits, not of their own labors, but of other people's labors; these fellows will not allow me my own labors. They will scorn me as an inventor and a discoverer, but they should be blamed more, since they have invented and discovered nothing but rather go about holding forth and declaiming the ideas and works of others.

There are men who are discoverers and intermediaries and interpreters between Nature and Man, rather than boasters and declaimers of other people's work, and these must be admired and esteemed as the object in front of a mirror in comparison to the image seen in the mirror. The first is a real object in and of itself, the second is nothing. These people owe nothing to Nature; it is only good fortune that they wear a human form and, if it weren't for this good fortune, I'd classify them with the cattle and the animals.

There are many who would, with reason, blame me by pointing out that my proofs are contrary to established authority, which is, after all, held in great reverence by their inexperienced minds. They do not realize that my works arise from unadulterated and simple experience, which is the one true mistress, the one true muse. The rules of experience are all that is needed to discern the true from the false; experience is what helps all men to look temperately for the possible, rather than cloaking oneself in ignorance, which can result in no good thing, so that, in the end, one abandons oneself to despair and melancholy.

Among all the studies of natural causes, Light more than anything else delights the beholder, and among the greatest features of Mathematics is the certainty of all its demonstrations which more than anything else elevates the mind of the thinker. Therefore, perspective is to be preferred to all other discourses and systems of knowledge, for in this science the ray of light is explained using methods of demonstration which glorify both Mathematics and Physics and grace the flowers of both these magnificent sciences. But since the axioms of Perspective have been treated extensively, I will abridge them, arranging them in their natural order and the order of their mathematical demonstration. Sometimes I will deduce the effects from their causes, and sometimes I will induce the causes from the effects, while adding my own conclusions that might be inferred from these.

strange eggs of genius--happy easter

Today and all holidays are fine days for searching through the green fields of your spirit (mowed and unmowed) and finding the brightly colored eggs of genius that we all have but are afraid to pick up much less tuck away in the basket of hope. Quiet days are rare and are best for reflection and thinking and family. Memories are the fabric of our lives and they weave strange and wondrous patterns that make us human. No two humans are alike as even identical twins have different memories and their tapestries differ as much as a Raphael and Michelangelo. I am aware I have shown a picture of an iris and not a lily (an iris is a significantly superior flower) I hope jesus understands.

breadlines and deadlines

I am sorry for my udder (cowlike) lack of art posting lately but I promise I will photograph these large glass pieces I am making (deadline looming like a bruised and sullen stormcloud) and post those ASAP. The deadline is the 28th so I will work through easter around clock. If all goes well I may be making a large glass carving for a famous fashion designers new digs but that will be up to the gods of art. I do not like kinkos and look forward to having my own internet up soon! back soon...

BACK IN NYC

"I see faces and traces of home, back in NYC" ----peter gabriel

I am no longer of the flu-tribe and my move has been concluded. Moving is the spiritual equilvalent to a root canal on the heart and frontal lobe. I have been endured much and grown little! My ex-friend always made fun of my grammar but I am not interested in the trivial corners of the BIG PICTURE but rather in the whole effect of said picture. Some are mathemeticians some are carpenter's wives, I dont know how this all got started, I dont know what they do with their lives---Bob Dylan.... I am very happy and excited to be back in NYC and cant wait to start painting again! ALAS----I have major deadlines due before april 1 and I am so stressed I wake up at 4 AM and stare at a white ceiling. I have to make 8 large glass pieces for a nightclub and I can only pray that the God's of Glass and equipment are on my side. The people in NYC seemed to be a bit stressed as there is still the foul stench of winter's breath in her air (at least they are not in SUV'S on cell phones cutting me off as I drive.) I thought milk was expensive but imagine a Uhaul full of milk! It only cost me 366 amero's to get my commercial vehicle on a parkway. I am in kinkos and a lady is screaming that she was charged for tape to tape a box. What any of this has to do with art is hard for even I to fathom but I will wrap up this package and pay for my tape and....as I packed my uhaul and looked at my lives work I was taken aback by the lack of art I had actually packed and how much crap I own that is not worth an icecube to an iceman. I thought back and realized that I have sold almost everyhting I ever made and that made me both happy and sad at the same time because the money was long spent on previous moves and wine. I have determined that I am addicted to updating this thing because if I dont I feel I am being lazy and useless.

will the following people please call me?!


barry

amy

angela from smithtown

andrea and sister

mary

carla

joe from NYC

evan


S.dali

and whomever logs in from nepal...

(anyone who wants to talk)

917 400 1317

morning

I move today and I have my flu-haul ready to load. ...I will update asap even if I haven to use a different computer. I am planning on doing an entire series of central park watercolors soon. will update.


my ghost likes to travel.---peter gabriel


good luck

alex

arisman--article page one

Here is an article I wrote (described in previous entry.) If it is too small to click on and read-let me know and I will remedy soon...

arisman article---by gardega

Here is an article I wrote a number of years ago for a magazine called "The Improper." I wrote an article/ story about my friend and former professor at SVA as we went in search of buffalo on long island. I found it this morning as I was packing. (I hope you can click on it and enlarge it to make it readable.)

UFO House Ebay

Instead of moving out of my UFO House I have decided to stay and I hope you do not bid on my house on ebay. I am comfortable here and Chattanooga suits me fine so I am not moving to NYC after all.

if you wish to call me at my ufo house the number is 917 400 1317


commander alex

moving

moving and packing is fun, It is kind of like a mini mental breakdown except you use a lot of tape.

war---age 6

indian chief---age 6

drawing by gardega--age 6

quote of the day--mark twain

"In the beginning of a change,
the patriot is a scarce and brave man, hated and scorned.
When his cause succeeds however,
the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot."
Mark Twain

Carl Jung and the dream of the apocalypse

I have been a huge fan of Carl Jung since I was a teenager. I have had a life with a high level of odd and psychic incidences that were often beyond rational explanation. When I found Carl Jung it was like finding a map of a forest that I never fully understood because there were too many trees. I once had a dream that it was the end of the world. I am not very religious but in my dream I sought refuge from the great battle of good vs. evil in an old church. I was there with my old restaurant manager, Albino, who was Italian (symbolically catholic). In the church was a huge floating surreal sculpture of Christ that was made from bones. It was not long before the sculpture began to shake and crumble as it could not stand the great forces of evil and even the church began to shake and fall apart. As the bones of the great sculpture fell to the floor I went into another room and there was a dirt floor with a huge hole in it, I threw the bones into the hole as some kind of sacrificial burial. There was an overwhelming feeling of sadness and doom that the world was actually ending. It seems that evil was actually winning the battle vs. good. As I escaped outside the crumbling and falling church roof I saw horrible landscapes of demons and humans charging over the hills. (It was not unlike a Bosch painting.) The point of this story was that recently I opened the NY times and I saw the dirt floored-church of my nightmare many years ago. I can remember being haunted by the dream for weeks and feeling very different in my day to day life. This entry would make more sense to anyone who has studied Carl Jung but I think it is interesting to that end. I never tried to draw or paint the dream but I may one day.

hope

I found this photo on a weather website. When I saw it my brain said "hope" so I named it hope. God is quite an artist, whatever God is.

socks

I have three hundred socks that dont match.

UFO House ebay

I have found my dream art studio. I swear I would love to live and work in this house. It is in Chattanooga Tenn. and for sale. I have relatives in Chattanooga Tenn. (I think they are rich) ----maybe they would buy this house for their favorite wayward artist in NY.

a road map of jupiter

Hes got a road map of jupiter
A radar fix on the stars
All along the highway
Shes got a liquid-crystal compass
A picture book of the rivers
Under the sahara

They travel in the time of the prophets
On a desert highway straight to the heart of the sun
Like lovers and hereos, and the restless part of everyone
Were only at home when were on the run
On the run

Hes got a star map of hollywood
A list of cheap motels
All along the freeway
Shes got a sister out in vegas
The promise of a decent job
Far away from her hometown

They travel on the road to redemption
A highway out of yesterday -- that tomorrow will bring
Like lovers and heroes, birds in the last days of spring
Were only at home when were on the wing
On the wing

When we are young
Wandering the face of the earth
Wondering what our dreams might be worth
Learning that were only immortal --
For a limited time

Time is a gypsy caravan
Steals away in the night
To leave you stranded in dreamland
Distance is a long-range filter
Memory a flickering light
Left behind in the heartland

We travel in the dark of the new moon
A starry highway traced on the map of the sky
Like lovers and heroes, lonely as the eagles cry
Were only at home when were on the fly
On the fly

We travel on the road to adventure
On a desert highway straight to the heart of the sun
Like lovers and hereos, and the restless part of everyone
Were only at home when were on the run
On the run...


N. Peart

reality show

I have an idea for a reality shoe that would be highly humorous---The idea is to follow me with a video camera as I try to pack and move and battle my horrible ADD at the same time. I can never figure out what goes and what stays so I muck around and run in circles loading and unloading boxes and tripping on stuff. I have piles of papers from 1983 that I am fairly sure I dont need anymore but I think there may be an idea or a sketch or something I could use one day. Its just comical--at least from an outside perspective.

Biomimetics

I am taking a break from studying geometry and have moved on like a crow to a new shiny thing that has caught my eye---biomimetics. Biomimetics is where engineering meets biology, it is basically stealing natures evolutionary tricks to create revolutionary applications. An example would be science trying to copy the feet of a lizard or gecko in order to make vehicles that can scale walls etc. It is almost like looking through God's notes and stealing some ideas. Da Vinci employed this kind of thought quite often in his work and notes. A current example is the development of a material (inspired by a sea slug) that is hard and then soft when water is added. This material could be better used as a way to add an electrode tho the brain that would last longer than current electrodes which destroy the surrounding soft brain tissue because they are hard.

4:14 AM

I awake at 4:14 AM every morning like clockwork. It is so strange but I dont have a clock in my room so I long on to my computer and it is always the same time. I am packing today and will keep my computer unpacked until tomorrow so I can update. I had the strangest dreams about lost loves from my youth. Dreams are such strange animals.

more than this

I will be leaving the comfort of my studio for a new space on sunday. In hindsight you always see the good in things. Even thought the space I am in is small I was really able to paint and work in it, I created hundreds and hundreds of pictures in the single year I was here. There are spaces I have moved into where I cannot create or paint at all. I think there are energies that I pick up on. I think there is more than meets the eye in environments---I grew up in haunted house as a child so I believe there is much "more than this"


I woke up and the world outside was dark
All so quiet before the dawn
Opened up the door and walked outside
The ground was cold

I walked until I couldnt walk anymore
To a place Id never been
There was something stirring in the air
In front of me, I could see

More than this
More than this
So much more than this
There is something else there
When all that you had has all gone
And more than this
I stand
Feeling so connected
And Im all there
Right next to you

Special Offer

Download Peter Gabriel Ringtones Now!

Saw a group of people forming
Round a figure lying down
And someone runs to make a phone call
And the man kneels on the ground
The man kneels on the ground
Theres a tightening in my chest
I know that Im drawn in
Oh God let it not be you

Dont leave us
Dont leave like this
Dont leave me here again
Im not quitting on you
No one else
Youre not quitting on us
No running out

The colour in your shirt is darkening,
Against the paleness of your skin
I remember how you held the goldfish
Swimming around in a plastic bag
Swimming around in a plastic bag

You held it up so high
In the bright lights of the fair
It slipped and fell
We looked everywhere

Dont leave us (your eyes are bright, your blood is warm)
Dont leave like this (your heart is strong, youre holding on)
Dont leave me here again (I feel your pulse, I hold your hand)
Im not quitting on you
Theres no one else
Youre not quitting on us
Theres no way out
No way out

Dont leave us
Dont leave like this
Dont leave me here again (I feel your pulse, I hold your hand)
Im not quitting on you
Theres no one else
Youre not quitting on us
No running away no way out


p. gabriel

word of the day

rodomontade \rod-uh-muhn-TADE; roh-duh-; -TAHD\, noun:
Vain boasting; empty bluster; pretentious, bragging speech; rant.



(I am thinking of changing the name of this site to rodomontade..)

words of the day---peter gabriel

Climbing up on Solsbury Hill
I could see the city light
Wind was blowing, time stood still
Eagle flew out of the night
He was something to observe
Came in close, I heard a voice
Standing stretching every nerve
Had to listen had no choice
I did not believe the information
(I) just had to trust imagination
My heart going boom boom boom
"Son," he said "Grab your things,
I've come to take you home."

To keep in silence I resigned
My friends would think I was a nut
Turning water into wine
Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Tho' my life was in a rut
"Till I thought of what I'd say
Which connection I should cut
I was feeling part of the scenery
I walked right out of the machinery
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" he said "Grab your things
I've come to take you home."
(Back home.)

When illusion spin her net
I'm never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free
Watched by empty silhouettes
Who close their eyes but still can see
No one taught them etiquette
I will show another me
Today I don't need a replacement
I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
"Hey" I said "You can keep my things,
they've come to take me home."

moving

My move date is march 16th. Bear with my lack of devotion to this site and art while I pack boxes and pull up the stakes from my teepee. I have developed the flu so now I have major deadlines, I am sick and I have to pack. At least I have my sanity---um....

quote

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.
Niels Bohr

forest of souls

It is a long hard to of cleaning, painting and packing for a pack- rat. The advantage of being a pack rat is you find things you forgot you had. I painted this last year and put it away because I didn't understand it yet. I think it works on some levels. It is oil on masonite 21" x 24" It is for sale for if anyone wants to inquire via email.

painted hand of the day

someone sent me an email with a bunch of painted hands. I will share them daily.

word of the day---inchoate

Word of the Day for Monday, March 10, 2008

inchoate \in-KOH-it\, adjective:

1. In an initial or early stage; just begun.
2. Imperfectly formed or formulated.

Liquid Prozac

Next time you have some tap water in NY or New Jersey (or many other states that are united) you can rest happy knowing that the water is polluted with pharmaceuticals. There is trace pollution from prozac to estrogen in twenty four reservoirs in NY and in the drinking water of twenty four million americans. In Europe the fish in the Seine are actually changing sex due to the high level of estrogen in the water. How do they get in there one may ask? Sewage...I have always ranted that fluoride is a poison and now you can wash down your flouride with someone elses hormones. In Brave New world you chewed down a Soma, in brave New America you need only drink some water to lobotomize yourself or two have some estrogen to keep you from being too manly. Drink up, johnny---I'll have a whiskey.

procession

I sometimes like to mess around with photography when I am too lazy to draw/paint or actually work for my images. I often take photos off of my TV or You tube. This is a photo from a conspiracy video I was watching on you tube. I really like the color and mood and have been itching to make a watercolor of this photo. I may use my 20 dollar sheet of paper to paint this one. I think I will leave out the computer cursor in the upper right.

commuting snapshots

These are snapshots of my tiresome daily commute. As it will soon be over I decided to document my journey. These photos are not exciting and have the same lifelessness of modern art or a Whitney show. At least now you wont have to go to Chelsea to see modern art, you can simply look out the window of American Alex's pick up truck.

ride home

I will not miss my commute when I move into NYC--I drive into Brooklyn 7 days a week so I decided to take some photos for old time sake. Here is the Le Frak Building in Queens. To pass time in traffic I used to take photos of Le Frak each time I passed.

Vonnegut---cat's cradle terms

Terms of Bokononism

The religion of the people of San Lorenzo, called Bokononism, encompasses concepts unique to the novel, with San Lorenzan names such as:

• karass - a group of people who, often unknowingly, are working together to do God's will. The people can be thought of as fingers in a Cat's Cradle.
• duprass - a karass of only two people, who almost always die within a week of each other. The typical example is a loving couple who work together for a great purpose.
• granfalloon - a false karass; i.e., a group of people who imagine they have a connection that does not really exist. An example is "Hoosiers"; Hoosiers are people from Indiana, and Hoosiers have no true spiritual destiny in common, so really share little more than a name.
• wampeter - the central point of a karass
• foma - harmless untruths
• wrang-wrang - Someone who steers a Bokononist away from their line of perception
• vin-dit - a sudden shove in the direction of Bokononism
• saroon - to acquiesce to a vin-dit
• duffle - the destiny of thousands of people placed on one person
• stuppa - a fogbound child
• sin-wat - a person who wants all of somebody's love for themself
• pool-pah - wrath of God, "shit storm"
• Busy, busy, busy - words Bokononists whisper when they see an example of how interconnected everything is
• boku-maru - the supreme act of worship of the Bokononists, which is an intimate act consisting of prolonged physical contact between the naked soles of the feet of two persons.
• Borasisi and Pabu, the Sun and Moon; the binary trans-Neptunian object (66652) Borasisi and its moon (66652) Borasisi I Pabu bear their names.†
  • Borasisi, the Sun, held Pabu, the Moon, in his arms and hoped that Pabu would bear him a fiery child. But poor Pabu gave birth to children that were cold, that did not burn...Then poor Pabu herself was cast away, and she went to live with her favorite child, which was Earth.

Oslo

My west village neighbor from many years ago found me online. She is from Oslo. It is in my celestial cards to go to Oslo, the birthplace of Munch and Nerdrum and blond hair. Vonnegut had a name for people who you meet in life and you learn something from, it was from his novel Cat's Cradle, I believe. Anyone?

movies

I do not go to movies and I dont watch TV. I keep the TV at night for company when I sleep to make up for all the brain programming I miss during day. I rent one movie a month and never watch it and return it late. I rented Beouwulf and it is still here late and unwatched. An unwatched movie never boils...must return!

mornin' america

I woke up at 4:30 this morning in order to get ready to paint my apt. I will hold "bigger brushes" today My landlord is a bit upset because I used my apt as an art studio first and a living quarter second (Priorities!!). I got paint on the walls and on the rug so I offered to replace the rug and to re-paint apt. My art comes from chaos and not from neatly ordered sketches or mechanical drawings, neat artists are like skinny chefs--dont trust them! I hate being in the zone of the "in-betweens' before I move in one week. I am a nomad and move once a year as I dont trust roots. I am paint-splattered tumble weed, rolling across the relatively new carpet of the american psyche. (I think I want to boycott the Whitney Museum because they are ruining american art with their Biennial of crap.) I would be perfectly happy living on the road drawing and painting different cities like a rock star or a traveling salesman. I have lived in 25 different places since I was a child and I like to pull up my teepee and head out to new plains when I can. One would think I was running from something or chasing my tail but I like to feed my ADD with new things so she doesnt chew my out insides.

Deadlines

I have the worst deadlines ever and then I have to move on top of it all. Good coordination/ thinking and timing is the key to my success! If I dont die I will emerge stronger and actually enjoy my spring! I still have not painted my watercolor on my 20 dollar paper as I am not feeling it yet.

upodato

I decided to take a break tonight from work and to (attempt) paint an nice watercolor to clear out my system from rust and stress. (I bought a $20.00 sheet of arches watercolor paper today.) There is always a fear factor when I attack an expensive canvas or paper because it seems so precious that you afraid of "mucking it up." The trick is to forget that it is a twenty dollar sheet and to just lose yourself in the work. I will post the result tonight (me promise.) I saw an artist in Brooklyn yesterday I used to assist as a kid, he needs work so I am may hire him a bit. It is funny how the world turns.

spring ahead

almost time to run the clock forward into spring and turn our backs on the foul witch of winter---Must be nice to live in a climate that doesn't freeze! (Then again the seasons build character.) I am buried under deadline hell and will emerge soon with art and wisdom. I will emerge soon like a butterfly from a chrysalis, I will transform myself from a serious "artiste" who is exploring the shadowy depths of a wayward psyche to one who will paint your beagle for some rusty shillings.

article of the day

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/03/02/travel/02next.html?ex=1362546000&en=b185f7e5a5975980&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

painting of the day---william blake

william blake

the great red dragon and woman clothed with the sun.

alex rates this piece:

imagination---- 9


skill/ technique---------4



soul--------10


mood----9


color----8

word of the day---rara avis

rara avis \RAIR-uh-AY-vis\, noun;

plural rara avises \RAIR-uh-AY-vuh-suhz\ or rarae aves \RAIR-ee-AY-veez\:

A rare or unique person or thing.

1377

This is post # 1378. That is a lot of posts and it was also probably a good year for wine. That is a lot of rambling/ mumbling/ preaching/ reaching/ beseeching and teaching. Today all my glass is ready to start laying out and designing and I am going to photograph the entire process of creating 8 glass carvings before march 23. I am not going to have too much time for typing etc but I will post the progress of the job all the way until completion and installation. I probably wont have real art to show until tomorrow but I will post some photos tonight of step numero uno.

mailboxes

although I am in a maelstrom of deadlines, my brain thinks often about mailboxes and especially of the rusty "southern variety" mailbox standing dutifully on dusty Texas roads. These were the mailboxes of my youth. Mailboxes are metaphors for waiting and patience, methinks.

election

this is the election process as I hear it from my TV:



blah blah blah change blah blah blah change blah blah blah change


although change is truly the only constant I agree with simon and garfunkel that any way you look at it you lose.

I think I should be president because I would dutifully ignore my duties and hide in the basement bunker of the white house and paint pictures and let things "unmuck" themselves over time.

quote of the day--mark twain

It is a gratification to me to know that I am ignorant of art, and ignorant also of surgery. Because people who understand art find nothing in pictures but blemishes, and surgeons and anatomists see no beautiful women in all their lives, but only a ghastly stack of bones with Latin names to them, and a network of nerves and muscles and tissues.

---M. Twain

ebay

Not sure why I bid on this on ebay but there is something strangely surreal that transcends the intention of the artist. There is no "irony" in this piece. I will one day have to paint some "blades" myself.

busy alex

I am buried trying to make eight glass carvings for a nightclub by march 25th. The deadline is more brutal than I can explain. It is 4:49 AM and so windy out I think a witch on a bicycle just went past my window. I will update with my glass pieces when they are ready to photograph. sorry for being lazy on my site.

artist of the day--arisman

This is a painting by a good friend of mine and a former professor at art school. his name is Marshall Arisman and he is an illustrator and fine artist who mainly focuses on fine art these days. He is a rare artist and and a rare human as he walks his own path and it seems to be a very honest path. There are not many living artists that inspire my work but he is a great artist and a lot of fun to hang out with, we took a journey together to find buffalo out east on long island and I wrote an article about it for a magazine. you can google his name to see more of his work or find his site at www.marshallarisman.com

disasters of war--goya

Goya was a genius of the highest level--- and he makes some great canned goods as well. I wonder if you canned the disasters of war if they would sell to a public. Instead of beans you could have this picture on a label. Some conceptual artist will probably steal this idea and run with it to the local superartmarket. These are the things I think about when I am doing my laudry at 6 am on a sunday.

a dark and ugly thing

I joined a gym yesterday to work out some rust and to get my brain in shape as winter has sculpted my psyche into a dark and ugly thing. I move in two weeks so I thought I would take some time and get in shape before I leave the white picket fences and SUVs behind. I drove this morning at 6:30 to work out and the gym was closed. They open at eight o'clock on Sunday. There is no place in the suburbs for maniacs who start the train of their day rolling at 5 Am on Sundays.

glass study--by gardega

Here is my fifth doodle/design for a glass carving. I think this piece can work with some refinement. I have to finish all work by march 20th.

Harvard Yard

My former assistant has been accepted to Harvard Med School, she will be attending in the fall. I am very happy for her and will recommend she study the blood of the noble horseshoe crab for her thesis and after she makes the big breakthrough that will cure all cancer she will give me a footnote in the great book of medical discoveries.

Jarvick gets canned---by gardega

I was one of the first to let you know that the claim that Jarvick invented the artificial heart had more holes in it than your average swiss cheese. I get very annoyed when people take other peoples labors and pretend they are their own. It was gardega who told you about paul winchell, the voice of Tigger, and his part in inventing the heart. I was informed by a friend that Jarvick has been canned from the commercials as the cat was released from its bag! Viva gardega and Viva knowledge and infomation which is more valuable than art at times. The truth will set you free.