The September Issue

The little Leo.
Sits at the edge
of the dock.
As the summer closes
and the small waves
lap under her legs,
She watches the glitter
at the edge of this
wood and the things
floating and thinks
about her season fading
away into the waves,
into the wind
away from her skin, her
mane, her cheeks.
And how she dreams of
having such grace as
the East coast seasons.



The Autumn came
with a confused yet somehow graceful transition.
It happened in the wee hours
of the first day of fall,
a Monday.
Things fell again.
They fall and fall and keep falling,
but the leaves haven't yet.
Like when they start falling,
start going brown and crunching,
What sense of loss
overhead and undertoe.
The Leo.
In her new season unknown.
Foreign winds impinging on her warm, lazy, electric summer.
She is elegant, but confused,
Autumn,
not knowing whether to weather warm rain and hot high suns
or chill her inheritors' hands into silk lined
pockets.
It gets darker now,
early in the evening.
The day shortening quickly.
Too quickly for a summer baby and her reliance
on the sun.
Her comfort in daylight.
The quick and beautiful month of September,
scrunched short and rushed by the last days of
August and the infringing chill of October.
The sky is so blue this time of year.
This month in particular.
Not long before it's dark at four and in the days
the sky is white and bright..

xo ac




p.s. Check out The September Issue, an intimate look into the inner workings at Vogue and the making of the infamous September 2007 issue of the magazine. I saw it yesterday evening..with such characters as Andre Leon Talley, Anna Wintour and Grace Coddington (<- amazing) leading the pack of diligent workers during the production of the 840 page issue and butting heads in the process, I think even the anti-fashionista would find the clashing quite interesting and the amount of work for one publication astounding. Thanks to my friend Joan Becker for recommending it...ciao.

paper trees in brooklyn

This past weekend was the Art Under The Bridge Festival in Dumbo where interactive art is installed throughout the Dumbo area of Brooklyn. Among the throngs of people and the fantastic digital graffiti, the installation that stood out for me was The Experience of Green show at the Dumbo Arts Center (DAC). And well it should because I stood in line for nearly an hour to see it. I am a big fan of the outside-inside effect. I have tree branches as curtain rods and piles of dirt around my living spaces. Maybe it's a symbol of consciousness overtaking ego and the material world. I don't know, but the world created by Wade Kavanaugh and Stephen B. Nguyen was phantasmagorical. Encased within the unyielding framework of glass, brick and metal of the DAC they manifested a winding network of gnarled scarlet trees and vines entirely created from red craft paper. It's stunning upon first sight, walking into this indoor forest but the most exciting part for me were the caves and crevices you could wander into and become completely enveloped in. Some of these recessed areas were very dark, cozy little spaces. Others had skylights that filtered in glimmers of crepuscular light. The visual sensation was that of scuba diving through a cave and looking up to see the ripples of light filtering down through the layers of brine and kelp. I could stay in one of those little spaces for hours in contentment. The photos do the exhibit no justice.

The exhibition runs through November 29th. For details go to http://www.dumboartscenter.org/.

Lightning Strikes

I love the feeling of when a new idea hits...It feels somewhat like what I imagine being struck by lightning to feel like...You get all excited and crazy and can't write anything down because you're thinking through your ideas at what feels like a mile a minute...I love it!

The subconscious rumblings of a lightning storm started 2 days ago, during an interesting conversation with my hub and some friends of ours about how they always used to find dead dogs in old lots and whatnot in the city...They figured people were just getting rid of them...What a hell of a way to go, left in a lot to decompose...gross...

Anyway, that stuck with me and yesterday I found this story online about a cat someone duct taped and left in a North Philly yard. (Someone found it and called the SPCA and they saved it...I heard its name is Sticky, which I thought was awesome.) So I'm staring at the photo of this cat and thinking that I should sculpt it...because it was just so sad and cute and that's kind of my thing, you know...And then I was thinking about how alot of people in the area of the city that I live in have no regard for anyone or anything...not their kids, their pets, their houses, not even themselves...SOOOOO my thoughts have turned to the idea of using these stories of dead, abused, etc animals to convey how people treat themselves and those around them...Still very much in the beginning stages, but I'm excited nonetheless...

Yinka Shonibare MBE, will you marry me?

 

On Saturday I discovered the new love of my life in the art world.  Yinka Shonibare MBE.  I had been dying to see his show at the Brooklyn Museum since the posters went up around the city but I only just managed to slip in under the wire the day before the exhibit closed.  Before even knowing anything about Shonibare's objectives I fell in love with his sculptural installations.   Among my favorites are Leisure Lady (With Ocelots), Gallantry and Criminal Conversation and The Swing (after Fragonard).  There is a seductive decadence in the layers and layers of elaborately ruched fabric in colonial style, which contrasts wonderfully with the flamboyant and playful patterns of dutch wax fabric.  His sense of humor and irony are palpable before even reading his artist statements.  His choice to leave his characters headless, partially to create racial ambiguity, deeply resonated with me of course because in most of my work I also exploit ambiguity in not allowing the viewer to see the face of the characters.  Shonibare explains that his gravitation towards the use of dutch wax fabric stems from the concept that it is such a culturally African look on the surface, but this is fake because in fact those fabrics were made by Dutch and English factories and shipped to Africa which reasserts the idea of European colonial control even on the most basic cultural levels.  

By the time I reached his photo series, Diary of a Victorian Dandy, I had nearly had a cerebral aneurysm in my excitement.  I really love elaborately staged photographs that have a complex narrative and heaps of details to dissect and these images were brimming with these qualities.  Inspired by the satirical art of William Hogarth this series pictures a day in the life of the Victorian Dandy with Shonibare as the central character.  The images show that the dandy rises at 11 am, attends to his business at 2 pm, plays billiards at 5 pm, attends a recital at 7 pm, and partakes of an orgy at 3 am.  All the while surrounded by doting white servants and admirers, Shonibare plays with the idea of the dandy as an outsider.  My feeling in viewing and interacting with Shonibare's work is that I have entered a mirror world.  He makes reference to classical paintings and clothing styles and eras we all know, but flips them a little bit while still making them feel totally believable.  

Another piece this feeling really struck me with was Odile and Odette, based on the ballet of Swan Lake.  Two dancers mirror each other separated by a frame.  One dancer is white and one is black but everything they do and what they are wearing and their physical builds are exactly the same.  I got the sense that on opposite sides of the mirror world things operated more or less the same only on one side of the mirror it was Europe that was colonized and on the other side it was Africa that was colonized.   Shonibare's work has qualities of activism but without the angry moralizing that a lot of activist art seems to have.  Shonibare seduces the viewer in a playful celebration of excessiveness and decadence while expressing what could be, what was and what is.  There is so much more I could say but I will hold off for now.   All of this is hugely inspiring for some photo ideas that I’ve had for months but procrastinated on starting on!  Ahhh Yinka Shonibare I love you!

Shecky's Girls' Night Out, Part II

In case you're just tuning in, you can find below a post from last week in which I itemized the contents of a goodie bag I received at an event a few weeks ago.

A good friend had heard about Shecky's Girls' Night Out, an evening that promised shopping, drinks, food and whatever else it is that women love to spend their money on. For $25, we thought it would be a hoot. Upon entering the giant site of the event, we knew that whatever it was we were expecting, this was not it. To set the scene, the giant room was filled with rows of tables where vendors (of clothing, makeup, handbags, etc.) were hocking their wares. At the far end of the room, there were two bar stations set up, one with bottled beer selections and the other with cutely named vodka cocktails. Oh, and women. Hundreds, if not a thousand or more, women. Here are my observations, in no particular order:

• There was no one "type" that stood out more than another. These women were of all shapes, sizes, ages and ethnicities. The only constant was, of course, gender.
• I've been in a number of "open bar" situations and, regardless of circumstance, there is always a long line at the bar. In this case, there was a small line for the cocktails, but relatively no line for the beers. Each time I went to get one. In contrast, the lines for the only "food" being offered [bite-size portions of Lean Cuisine paninis hot out of the microwave] snaked through dozens of tables. Worth the wait? Definitely not.
• People in crowds move slowly with no regard for those around them. Removing men from the equation does not change this annoying fact.
• I likened the quality of sound in the cavernous, estrogen-filled room to a beehive. Many indoor-appropriate voices that never, ever stop. This was very different from a mixed sex crowd.

After three beers and no more than an hour, both my friend and I agreed that we had seen enough. We picked up our goodie bags and headed to the nearest bar. It was there that we spread out the goodies and found that the contents could be divided into two piles: products targeting women that have sex, and products targeting women who don't. We laughed and laughed while dividing them up, but in re-examining the freebies I thought about how this tied in with a theme that recurs in the collective like clockwork - the dualities present in every woman.

As for the items themselves, here's a couple examples to illustrate what I'm talking about. Most are pretty straightforward, but almost all could be assigned. Women who have sex: the bikini cream, the mini-toothbrushes, the Alka-Seltzer hangover pills. Women who don't: the microwave brownie, the romance novel, the sunblock. Some even had counterparts - bulky maxi pads for the sexless, ob tampons in their own discrete carrying case for the sexed.

And, of course, this leads to the question of whether they're for two different women, or two different sides of every woman. To cite another Mad Men example (my present obsession), there was an episode where they were coming up with a new ad campaign for Playtex, who wanted to tap into the sexiness of Maidenform advertisements. One of the lesser characters came up with an inarguably good idea - to play on the idea of all women fitting into one of two archetypes (Marilyn or Jackie) and having a bra for each. Don, being the brilliant heartbreaker that he is, added the twist that each woman embodies both of these personality types.

But is that the case? There seems to be an obvious answer -- that within each of us exists both sides of the coin. But, I'm not so sure that I buy it. Sure, our behaviors and attitudes at any given time might fall into either category, and of course there is a spectrum rather than a dichotomy, but when I look around at my friends, and myself, I have no trouble assigning a type.

Nesting...

Apparently this is me...I'm nesting...

So I mention on Facebook the other day that I'm doing bills, organizing and cleaning...fancy grown up stuff. Someone comments that I'm nesting. I was like "WTF? This isn't fun! I thought nesting was like...cute, fun stuff, like painting baby's room and picking out little baby booties and things like that!" Apparently no...nesting can be plain old boring cleaning, without baking pies or anything else seemingly more fun than cleaning...I looked it up online and read that it can even be very intense cleaning, like scrubbing things you've never cleaned in your life (under fridge, ewww...) However I am happy that for me the nesting instinct has included organizing all my art documents, including starting to make sense of my 20 different mailing lists, making a press binder, organizing old show cards, etc, etc, etc...
Here's how nesting goes...according to a random internet source:

Nesting Instinct

Around the fifth month of pregnancy, the "nesting" instinct can set in. This is an uncontrollable urge to clean one's house brought on by a desire to prepare a nest for the new baby, to tie up loose ends of old projects and to organize your world.

Females of the animal kingdom are all equipped with this same need. It is a primal instinct. Just as you see birds making their nests, mothers-to-be do exactly the same thing. The act of nesting puts you in control and gives a sense of accomplishment toward birth. You may become a homebody and want to retreat into the comfort of home and familiar company, like a brooding hen. The nesting urge can also be seen as a sign of the onset of labor when it occurs close to 40 weeks of pregnancy.

Nesting brings about some unique and seemingly irrational behaviors in pregnant women and all of them experience it differently. Women have reported throwing away perfectly good sheets and towels because they felt the strong need to have "brand new, clean" sheets and towels in their home. They have also reported doing things like taking apart the knobs on kitchen cupboards, just so they could disinfect the screws attached to the knobs. Women have discussed taking on cleaning their entire house, armed with a toothbrush. There seems to be no end to the lengths a nesting mother will go to prepare for her upcoming arrival.

This unusual burst of energy is responsible for women ironing anything in the house that couldn't out run them. Being preoccupied with ant killing, squishing them one at a time for weeks on end. Packing and unpacking the labor bag 50 times. Cleaning the kitchen cupboards and organizing everything by size to the point that you make sure the silverware patterns match when it's stacked in the cutlery drawer. Sorting the baby's clothes over and over again is a favorite theme. Taking them out of the drawers and re-folding them, putting them away and doing it over and over again. Nesting will provide interesting stories for years to come.

Nesting can be one of the more humorous aspects of pregnancy. One that you and your partner are sure to laugh about in the years to come...if he ever forgives you for sending him off to work and ripping down all the wallpaper in the hall! You may laugh about it now but you probably won't laugh when you're in the middle of it. No one can pull you out of it no matter how silly your behavior may seem. It simply becomes something that you must do!

Ok, now I feel less crazy...but do think that maybe there will have to be art made about this...maybe birds in a nesting frenzy, wrecking a house in the process...we'll see.....

Weird Shit I Put In My Mouth.

Well, I've been MIA for a couple of weeks and that's because I've been in Cambodia and Vietnam! And you may be hearing quite a bit about that for a while because Asia really filled my senses. Two amazing places full of beautiful, resilient people. I can't help but start out with the food because right off the bat I knew I was entering an exciting new culinary horizon and I tried to experience this to the fullest. All of my film is still at the lab but provided are some quickie digital photos we took for reference.

A huge highlight in Ho Chi Minh City were the Vietnamese Pancakes, a rice crepe made from Bánh xèo (sizzling cake) flour then filled with shrimp, pork, and onion. Add some mint leaves. Wrap in mustard leaves. Dip in nuoc cham sauce. Come in your pants.

Corn Milk! From what we could gather, Cambodians are crazy about corn. Not just corn as part of the processing of the product like us corn-crazy Americans, but corn as a flavoring. Like some crackers we got that were basically two Ritz crackers sandwiched with Oreo cream only the Oreo cream was the flavor of corn. Here I am testing out some Corn Milk. It was sweet, milky and yes, corny. Kind of like liquid cornbread.

There were lots of street vendors in Ho Chi Minh City who sold fried egg sandwiches. The egg is literally fried in heavy oil then slapped into the freshest baguette imaginable with cilantro, daikon, shredded cucumber and hot sauce. We loved that they wrapped this one in scrap paper with computer directions on it.

I have to say, without a doubt, I had some of the best soup in my life in Vietnam and Cambodia. The Phở goes without saying, but even slurping down some of the murky looking soups at roadside bus stops or at the average street food vendor was a transcendental experience. There is something crazy going on with the flavor that you just can’t get here. Not intense as in just plain old spicy, but like all of the flavors in the soup combined and multiplied by 1,ooo. A burst of umami.

There are stands by Tonle Sap in Phnom Penh selling fried insects- larvae, beetles, crickets, spiders. I had already tried crickets, grasshoppers and larvae (as well as a nest of ants that accidentally got baked into some baguettes we ate at the Angkor Temples…oops), so I went for a big ol’ tarantula. Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy because I’m terrified of spiders. He was big, fat and hairy. But when I finally took a bite of his spindly leg I was pleasantly surprised. This is what I had been terrified of? Slightly greasy, but also garlicky, spiced and savory. I ended up having another one before we left.

My final exciting foray into the world of Asian cuisine was a sizzling plate of chicken testicles, renowned for their positive effects on male virility. I preferred the tarantula. They were encased in a thin, tight membrane, like a sausage. The effect was like biting into a grape- that little pop. The inside was the texture of soft tofu. Despite the garlic they were served with, they were kind of bland. A bit gamey too. But the size was pretty impressive for a bird. Here my travel mate, Dani is inspecting a plate of cock’s testicles….err, roosters’ balls….

Tilt-a-whirl

I'm, well, depressed.
The summer is nearly over, I have three jobs but no said career, I need to drop a few (15) pounds, I had to buy cellulite cream online, I'm boyfriendless, I'm aimless, I'm back at home with my parents, I spend 50% of my time in my car driving all over the state of New Jersey from the Jersey shore to Philadelphia (in my beloved chariot of course, Star Jones), I'm not in my studio, I'm behind on projects, the world is all crazy and shady, I'm scared, I'm weird. I'm freakin' out! WTF.

I know, I know. I said I was going to stop complaining...

...but in times like these, there's really only one thing that can make me happy....























I must go on my favorite ride ever...The Tilt-a-whirl.

Who's with me?

I'm not bs-ing here.

Gillian's Wonderland Pier.

Ocean City, NJ

6th and Boardwalk.

Any day of the week.

Holla.

xo ac

Ah-mazing....

ladies who blog...

I love reading other artist's blogs....people I don't know, people I kind of know, people I wish I knew better, people I really know....doesn't matter. I think the reason why is because 1) I really admire the ability of people to just lay things bare for the world to read... and 2) it makes me feel more like there is a community of artists out there...despite the fact that I may not be directly communicating with them, I feel like I know whats going in the local art world. It's also a big inspiration to hear what people are up to and see what they're working on...every time I read about a project someone has going, I get all excited...Last night and today, I spent some time reading blogs and got super motivated to get in the studio...I love that...
Anyway, my real point here is to share some blogs of local artist ladies with you guys, and so here I go:

Zoe Strauss www.zoestrauss.blogspot.com
Katie Henry www.madebyhank.blogspot.com
Erika Ebert www.erikaebert.typepad.com
Sequoia Medley www.artinbars.com
Marie Elcin www.colored-thread.blogspot.com
Katie VanVilet www.katevanvliet.blogspot.com
Lauren Hallden-Abberton www.laurenhallden.blogspot.com

Shecky's Girls' Night Out, Part I

A few weeks ago, I went with a friend to an event named Shecky's "Girls' Night Out." Upon leaving, I was given a goodie bag containing the items below (in no particular order):

1. Kotex "Night & Day" maxipads, packaged in an unnecessarily large box with an illustration of a woman sleeping with the words "move freely" and "free samples inside," but no mention of maxipads
2. "Orchid Sparks" eye accent pencil
3. 3 o.b. tampons in a reusable carry case
4. Body Shop samples: white musk, vitamin E moisture cream, tea tree oil blemish fade night lotion
5. Griptastic hairbands
6. Colour Collection hairbands
7. Aveeno sunblock
8. Riceworks parmesan and sundried tomato gourmet brown rice crisps
9. KY touch massage 2-in-1 warming body massage and personal lubricant
10. Suite Scarlett, a novel by by Maureen Johnson
11. Aquafresh white trays Revive
12. KY jelly personal lubricant
13. Crime Scene at Cardwell Ranch, a novel by B.J. Daniels, the cover of which prominently features the promise of "Romance and Mystery await you between the covers..."
14. Betty Crocker Warm Delights molten chocolate cake bowl
15. Noah's Naturals grapefruit shower gel
16. Colgate Wisp mini-brush with freshening bead
17. Noxzema Spa Shave razor
18. Aveeno essential moisture lip conditioner
19. Alka-Seltzer Wake-Up call pain reliever/alertness aid "for after a night out"
20. Larabar lemon bar
21. Softsoap body butter apricot scrub
22. Yes to Carrots C Me Smile lip butter
23. Noxzema soothe & smooth maximum strength medicated bikini cream
24. Organics by Noah's Naturals rosemary mint lip balm
25. Skyy Infusions magnetic drink recipes for XRated Flirtini, Midori Margarita and Shop Till You Drop

Part II of this blog will include my observations during the event and further analysis of all the "goodies."

Oh man...

As per the request of Ms. Aub, I've been trying to think of what kind of man I'd be...and I've been having a terrible time with it! Every time I try to think of it I get overwhelmed by all the choices and options and which qualities are ones I wish I'd have vs. ones I actually would have...sooooo confusing! I tried looking online for a basic list of types of men but have yet to find what I'm looking for.....most lists were "10 guys to avoid" (!), "3 guys who will cheat" (!?!!), "5 types of men all women hate" (?!??!) and even "10 most common penis types" (!?!?!?!?!?!?). None of those were very helpful, though the penis types were pretty funny...
So then I'm thinking, who do I admire or look up to...I love Eminem's music and really feel like he is my art hero (as in I wish to make art as ballsy as he makes his music) but he seems like kind of an asshole and I think I'd be nicer than that...
I love my dad and look up to him, and while I think I could be very similar to him as a guy, there are a few glaring differences that would prevent me from picking him...
Same with my brother and even my husband...parts of them I see in myself, but some things are just way to different to label myself as such....
Hell, I even just tried looking for a facebook quiz to see if that would help, but no such luck!
Maybe if I start making a list of guys I wouldn't be:
Hipster
Sports Guy
CEO-type
Crackhead
Loner Dude
Computer Nerd
Cool Computer Designer-y guy
Star Trek Obsessed
Wrestling Obsessed
Super Duper Hippie
Thug
Musician
Punk Rock
Goth
Raver

Guys I might be:
Guy who Builds stuff
Artist
Rockabilly-ish (but not over the top)
Guy who likes to figure out how to fix stuff
Nature dude
...

Ok, I need to meditate on this some. To be continued...

Love Letter

From the series Love Letter by Stephen Powers and the Mural Arts Program

A passage by Randy Kennedy of The New York Times from the August 28, 2009 article Art to make you Laugh (and Cry). Mr. Kennedy had a rendezvous with bits of the Philly art scene on a recent trip to Philadelphia and reported on his findings. This one sparked my interest and an adventure ensued...

"The final stop on my tour actually ended up being many stops, as I stared out the window of an elevated-subway train in West Philadelphia, where the Mural Arts Program has been working for weeks with the artist Stephen Powers, a West Philadelphia native, and many local painters to create a series of more than 30 huge, text-based murals, collectively called “Love Letter,” along a sometimes blighted stretch of Market Street.

The project, painted in consultation with business and building owners, is in part Mr. Powers’s homage to Darryl McCray, known as Cornbread, a legendary Philadelphia graffiti artist who began painting messages of love on walls in the late 1960s to impress his girlfriend. (Mr. McCray also once managed to tag the Jackson Five’s private jet, and painted “Cornbread Lives” on the side of an elephant at the Philadelphia Zoo to dispel rumors that he had died.)

Jane Golden, the executive director of the Mural Arts Program, said she remembered Mr. Powers as a teenager, when he was a prolific and notorious graffiti writer known as Espo who couldn't be persuaded to “come over to the other side” and paint legally. So there is a “wonderful irony,” she said, to the fact that now, as an established gallery artist living in New York, he has returned to Philadelphia to mount an ambitious urban beautification project, one whose odd, affectionate messages — like “Forever Starts When You Say Yes” and “Pre-pay is on/Let’s talk/Till my minutes are gone” — are about love and reconciliation. (The project will be unveiled officially on Sept. 10, though most of the signs are now visible for the price of a $2 subway token.)

Mr. Powers said the idea was to create a single, serial urban work whose hopeful messages might resonate with a kind of universality in a neighborhood in need of hopeful messages. And as a fringe benefit, he said the murals might even help in a more practical way.

“Hopefully, there will be a few sly guys out there who say to their girl: ‘Hey, Baby, I wrote that up there for you.’ ” "

I hopped on the el after work with a boy that will always have my heart. From 2nd and Arch we walked over to Market to go underground together. I missed him and he missed me too I think. It just seemed right and appropriate...doing this trek together, seeing this Espo project. I was intrigued by the inspiration for the project and the scale. He was intrigued by the project because of historical ties to the Philadelphia graffiti world. It was a beautiful day on Sunday and it just felt right and sorta magical to hop on the el with nowhere to go, nothing to do, but sit back with a true confidant and friend and watch the world and the art go by outside the window. We rode to 69th Street. When we got above ground, past 46th street, adrenaline pumped through me when I was hit with the first piece. I felt like an excited little kid. Dotted in unexpected places on roofs and walls, with impeccable and intentional timing, the murals came into view.. They brought us to our feet to see them as we looked from one side of the train to the other. It became a sort of treasure hunt. Who can find the next one? Did you catch that one? Did you see the one hidden in the cut? Wow!...We oo-ed and ah-ed our way to the last stop, rode it back to 46th St and hopped on a train up to Millbourne to catch a glimpse of the murals one last time....They were beautiful. They read like 1950s ads but with a vibrancy of color unmistakably "today". I've dreamed of having the know-how and the perseverance and the drive, the clarity, the directness, the appropriateness that I found in this work. The language was of today, of Philly. The quality of the painting was unlike any Philadelphia mural I have seen before. The cleverness of how these ads could fool your eye into seeing them as relics of a 1950s ad campaign was so fascinating. It's almost like your eye tried to scan through them like any other advertisement but just couldn't once you read what one said. The old timey quality was captivating on its own because it had that graphic look of the past with a subtle show of the hand and the fact that this old fashioned looking ad was not faded and worn brought on another level of interest hard to ignore. It felt like I was riding the train in a different era, seeing the old tricks of the advertising world. But my eyes were really captivated by the of-the-moment language. How simple and effective using regular young folk words can be...we live in city and a time of distinct language, slang. Sometimes only young people can understand it...or maybe just people exposed to the city can understand...

There was an effectiveness about this work. The fact that it was done by an iconic graffiti artist made it, I dunno, more real or prevalent. In recent years, I've gotten mad at the graffiti world, at hip hop...I've wanted a culture so influentional on my generation and the one before to say something meaningful to me, to say something more than it's original intentions, to break beyond the act of "getting up" into the act of getting up to say something from the depths of the heart. I feel like this Mural Arts Project did that. Though Espo did it legally, the murals still resonated to me as secret pieces done in the night. Because of the freshness of the project I felt like I was catching the moment they were seeing the first light of day the next morning. They had the newness and energy of freshly done, beautifully crafted graffiti pieces, vibrant against the industrial walls of the city, but with a pleasant offness due to the messages of life and love. Simple phrases made important, prominent, elevated.

It's unique and alive and romantic and special, Espo's work....it gave me courage to pursue the things i want to pursue in my art and in myself and in love....it made me wanna fall in love...It allowed me to remember the jewels of love... there is such a complexity to it. All the ups and the downs. But this work let me remember the most fun part of love...the romance. I definitely fell in love on the el that day and had the perfect road dawg with me...what a magical afternoon...

See it as the sun sets.

xo ac