The Other Woman Collective

On the Horizon...

2010-09-09T10:38:00.001-07:00

Hey Ladies: Being A Woman Musican Today

2010-08-02T00:34:00.000-07:00

An interesting music interview I found today on NPR:

We asked hundreds of women working as musicians today to tell us what it's like right now: the good, the bad and the same as it ever was. Read their responses, find new music and join the discussion.
Hey Ladies

Miranda Lee Richards:
"I have received so much advice, but some of the best advice had to do with learning to do what was right for me. It's important to know somethings about the business so you can make educated decisions, but even then, you will have to be in touch with yourself to know when a situation feels right, when someone has your best interest at heart, or when an opportunity feels exciting or just the opposite. Very rarely do you feel good about things that turn out bad. I have felt cautious about things that ended up turning out great, but I've never felt bad about something that turned out good, does that make sense?"

After a lovely homemade breakfast of pancakes and coffee with Laura Graham this morning, talking dreams, talking film making and music making, I began seriously thinking about the lifestyle and decision makings and potential of the creative artistic woman. I think I wanna make music...Stumbling across this little vignette today of all days was very interesting.

Happy August Leos,
xo ac

Collectively Speaking, Then and Now...

2010-06-24T21:50:00.001-07:00

Collectively Speaking, Then and Now:
The Other Woman and The Philadelphia Ten

June 25th, 2009 - September 7th, 2010

The Galleries at Moore
20th & the Parkway
Philadelphia, PA

OURS...

2010-05-31T00:34:00.000-07:00

I took this photo last week while I was walking about Old City with my best friend. The Bourse sign with letters out...

XO AC

Daily Affirmations

2010-05-18T09:41:00.001-07:00

The Element of Freedom

2010-05-10T00:34:00.000-07:00

Alicia Keys begins her album, "The Element of Freedom" with a reading of one of the strongest and most prevalent quotes ever by Anaïs Nin:

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

xo ac

Window Seat

2010-04-26T00:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hVp47f5YZg

xo ac

High Heels

2010-04-19T00:34:00.000-07:00

Mr. Alexander McQueen's pieces of art...

xo ac

Rouge

2010-04-05T00:34:00.000-07:00

xo ac

Lori Nix

2010-03-24T20:37:00.000-07:00

Amazing photos by Lori Nix (the pieces are photographed miniatures)

Creepy Sweet

2010-03-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

With the weather as nice as it is, i'm looking for plants to fill up the inside and make it look like the outside. While scouring Etsy for terrariums I came across this one by LBrandt:

Girls, Girls, Girls...

2010-03-15T00:34:00.000-07:00

After going to Wendy Williams on Thursday and having to almost ask a question about my art during the Ask Wendy segment and being freaked out to do so, and then seeing myself on TV, I started to think about the vibrancy, the energy, the voice of the highly publicized, highly outgoing, famous women in POP culture...and how I sometimes fantasize about being one...it's probably a wild, wild ride.

xoxoxo
AC

how you doin'?

HOW YOU DOIN'?

2010-03-11T00:15:00.000-08:00

A How You Doin' Tutorial by the Queen of all Media

Oscar..

2010-03-07T09:20:00.000-08:00

Every woman is a rebel,
and usually in wild revolt against herself.

-OSCAR WILDE

It hasn't been this beautiful out in a long, long while. I want to swallow it up and never go inside.

XOXOXOXO AC

Lost Things

2010-03-04T00:15:00.000-08:00

A Single Man and The Valley of The Dolls

2010-03-01T11:29:00.000-08:00

A Single Man, an Interview with Colin Firth

Within a day of each other, I finished reading Jacqueline Susann's The Valley of the Dolls and saw Tom Ford's film rendition of Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man with a friend. I'm fascinated by 1960's America and by the way these two character stories were told. There is a strange parallel between that time and our current. The way people acted and lived was very different back then and yet somehow strangely similar to today...and the distant thoughts, the inner conflict of the characters in these two stories resonated with me, felt somewhat familiar. The juiciness of the tales, the subtlety of the characters' pain, the longing, all these felt familiar. But I guess that parallel can be made with many other time periods and today. And I guess these attributes are those to be coveted for good story telling. Susann's novel was maybe not as cohesive or full as one may hope for, but it sure was a page turner. I read someone called it their guilty pleasure. I found it to be just that for me with it being my many a late night companion. And Tom Ford's film had very distinctly beautiful moments, and visual gems so epitomizing of the impeccable taste of the talented, classic fashion designer. Parts quietly screamed fashion. I loved that about it. The subtlety conveyed in Colin Firth's performance was very real and heartbreaking and quite relative. The subtlety in general in certain parts was very beautiful.

xo ac

TOW XMAS III

2010-02-25T15:53:00.000-08:00

Zef Side

2010-02-22T00:34:00.000-08:00

XO AC

Woah...Ricky Swallow....

2010-02-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

I love finding new sculptors that blow my mind...and this guy is amazing!

Bronze Balloons by Ricky Swallow...

These are insanely amazing...Beautiful wood carvings by Ricky Swallow.

Be my Valentine

2010-02-14T23:59:00.000-08:00

In Honor of Valentine's Day...

<3
XO AC

Love this...

2010-02-11T21:49:00.000-08:00

Beauty in unexpected places always makes me smile...

Women and Women First.

2010-02-10T15:12:00.000-08:00

Ok. I can't get enough of this St. Vincent video- "Laughing With A Mouth Of Blood". The weird women's theme and the dude dressed like a girl made me recall days at Moore College of Art and Design.
I can't wait until The Other Woman starts our band....:).

XLG

Ladies and Cakes

2010-02-03T09:44:00.000-08:00

A friend sent me the link to this video last night and I just thought it was awesome. It combines my love of cakes, clothes and religious symbolism into one messy soiree. Très Other Woman.

<3

Sculpture Dad

2010-01-28T09:26:00.000-08:00

I like to say that Ron Mueck is my sculpture dad...meaning that if anyone in the worldwide sculpture community were to take me under their wing and give me fatherly advice, I'd like it to be him. This is why:

En Vogue

2010-01-25T00:34:00.000-08:00

I really feel like the soul of The Other Woman parallels that of En Vogue.

XO AC

Girl-crushery

2010-01-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

From UrbanDictionary.com:

girl crush: feelings of admiration and adoration which a girl has for another girl, without wanting to shag said girl. a nonsexual attraction, usually based on veneration at some level.

I suppose everyone has their girl crushes, sometimes one each for various aspects of life, ie music, fashion, art, overall life...

My current art girl crush is Melissa Dixson, a New York City taxidermist. I first saw Melissa's taxidermy on Etsy and then again later, when I saw her blog while google searching for images of taxidermy. I obsessively read her blog as far back as my brain could stand.

My reasoning for girl crushery is first, who doesn't love a girl who does taxidermy? Thats so bad-ass. I love taxidermy, collect skulls, sculpt dead animals and I have a deerhead hanging in my kitchen that looks at me while I eat oatmeal...but could I actually do the deed of cutting into an animal and stuffing him(or her) back to life? Probably not, as I am a bit wussish about guts and whatnot. That doesn't stop me from taking photos every time I see a dead bird or hanging out in the Wagner Institute drawing the oldest crustiest taxidermy I think I've ever seen, but it does makes me respect/jealous of someone who isn't a animal guts wuss like myself.

Secondly, she seems to have great taste based on the random art and style bits that end up on her blog.

Thirdly, she seems nice...she doesn't just go out and slaughter animals for the stuffing. She makes sure she gets each one in a sustainable way.

Finally, she did a taxidermied fawn as Bambi, which was especially appealing, given my Bambi obsession of early last year, which hasn't really gone away...(Case in point - I am using Flower (the skunk) as the "model" for the skunk piece I'm currently working on....Justin says I can't use an animation as a model. I say he can kiss my bootie, I'm doin' it.)

Anyway, all this talk makes me curious to know who the other ladies girl crushes are..(Aub, I know a few of yours!) La, Aub, Laura...spill yo' girl crush beans!

The Swell Season

2010-01-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

The Swell Season featuring Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

The cat's out of the bag, LG...this is it.
Ticket with your name on it.
Tuesday night, 8pm.
Radio City Music Hall.

XO AC

AC helping Haiti

2010-01-14T12:43:00.001-08:00

Ms. Aubrie Costello, is donating 50% of all art sales to help relief efforts in Haiti. Please check out her website at www.aubriecostello.com for details.

The Theatre, 2008

Bring it back...

2010-01-07T00:01:00.000-08:00

Today I saw a tweet by Art in the Age about John Paul Thurlow and the drawings of magazine covers he's been doing:

This is an attempt to remake cover art for every great magazine I own (+ a few record covers soon). Covers is an hommage to the creative men and women who produce such disposable perfection.

With each Cover I take a perfect mass-produced object and turn it into a fucked up one-off. Don't expect perfection here, that's not the way I see beauty in the world.

For 2010 I'm planning the Covers 1 -100 book (limited edition of 100, numbered and signed), a new site, and an exhibition. If you think that sounds interesting let me know...

I love the idea of taking something so commercial and spending so much time making it your own.

MMXoxo

2010-01-04T00:34:00.000-08:00

Miss Olivia Rae
New Year's Weekend, OC, NJ

From me to you,
Happy New Year.
Let 2010 be the year of LOVE.

with 2,010 xoxoxo's
love love love ac

This Time Last Year...

2009-12-28T20:54:00.000-08:00

COLUMBIA, DECEMBER

BUS STOP BOUTIQUE, CHRISTMAS

NEW YORK, NEW YEAR'S EVE

TOW POLLYANNA 2008

happy new year..
xo ac

Merry Xmas...

2009-12-26T10:23:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone got what they really wanted...(which is obviously this:)

Merry xmas!
xoxo
Darla

BLIZZARD OF '96!..I mean '09.

2009-12-20T20:14:00.000-08:00

There's nothing quite like braving a blizzard in Center City. While cat sitting in a beautiful home downtown with TD, the snow started to fall. And it kept falling. And falling. With no snow gear, no snow boots, not even a pair of long johns, the two of us slipped into some homemade snow shoes and tramped our way out into the world. The white, deserted, wintry world of Philadelphia. At nightfall, we ventured out again and I was treated to a delicious dinner at Kanella...mmm...while the winds kicked up the snow drifts wildly outside. Here's some of my cell phone documentation of BLIZZARD OF 2009! brrrrrrr.

it can be rough, winter in the city...it is beautiful though...

and it was fun...

xo, a chilly philly ac

That time of year...

2009-12-10T11:34:00.000-08:00

Every year the ladies of The Other Woman exchange gifts in a pollyanna fashion...and every year I worry about what is the perfect thing to get for whoever it is that I'm buying for, which usually involves me going crazy for weeks. Not so this year! We haven't even picked names yet and I already found the perfect gift for whoever I get...see as different as we all are, we also all have the same streak of fancy lady sauciness running through us and I think this gift appeals to that. Heck, if I wasn't broke I would've just gotten one for each of us I think its so perfectly The Other Woman! Now after all this hype, I hope it lives up to all I've made it out to be...we wil see...

Lingerie Football League

2009-12-06T20:37:00.000-08:00

The Lingerie Football League kicked off professionally this year, breaking free from its once annual NFL Super Bowl half time broadcast.

Below you will find an introduction into this new fascination.

"This is The True Meaning of Fantasy Football"

-Spike

"Unbelievable, every man's dream"

-SportingNews

http://www.lflus.com/

Did you ever see that movie Idiocracy?

Well, I've come to realize that we are beginning to parallel that film more and more as the days go by.

...because women cannot gain popularity playing professional American football without a gimmick..

xo ac

The Other Woman: Unwrapped

2009-12-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

Please join the ladies of the Other Woman and the fellas of Trinity Framing on Friday, December 11th for an evening of art and holiday cheer. Check out the window display containing new works by Aubrie Costello, Darla Jackson, Laura Graham and Laura McKinley and browse all of the great framing options offered by Trinity. Art makes a great gift, and beautifully framed art makes an even better one!

We hope to see you there! Festive refreshments will be served.

Friday, December 11th, 6:00-9:00pm

The Other Woman: Unwrapped!
Trinity Framing
701 South 3rd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147
215-351-1600

www.trinityframing.com
www.theotherwomancollective.com

Ladies

2009-11-29T21:20:00.001-08:00

Since I was a little girl I've loved ladybugs.

They've even creeped into my artwork...

My grandmother would always speak of their good luck whenever we'd see them together.

With their recent flock to the interior of my parents' home,

Gram again reminded me of the the good fortune they would bring me.

Below is a memorial to the sweet ladies that resided in my parents' home before their untimely deaths by Raid. A few of them beat the odds though...

R.I.P lil' gals<3

xo ac

Regretsy

2009-11-27T20:12:00.000-08:00

Regretsy.com: a new found source of entertainment at the expense of those less artistically fortunate.

"So, let’s see. There’s a black satin headband, and a burgundy bow, and a gold and white charm, and what else what else . . oh yeah, A GIANT FUCKING BIRD GLUED TO YOUR HEAD"

"Okay, what happened here? It looks like her tits caught fire and she tried to put it out with her purse."

"You know, it’s unnerving enough that there’s someone out there, painstakingly making polymer replicas of your cooter. But it really gets weird in the description:

After purchasing, send me a convo describing your vagina: the shape of your inner and outer labia, colors, how much or how little your inner labia extend out from your outer labia, how well hidden your clitoris is, is it heavily hooded, or can you see it fairly easily?

Yeah, I don’t think so. If I’m going to spend that much time online talking to a stranger about my pussy, I better be playing with myself."

Videophone

2009-11-22T13:07:00.000-08:00

I've been listening to Queen B's album on repeat recently at work.
And I just watched this video today at said location.
For all you crazy ladies, concerned citizens, conspiracy theorists, and humans observing the times, this video is on some shit.

You just gotta look past the thighs...

With sex, lies, and video phones,
xoacxoacxoacxoacxoacxoacxoacxoacxoacxoac

The Vagina Monologue...

2009-11-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

As I sat here last night, wrapping presents for our upcoming window installation at Trinity Framing I was laughing about how wrapping boxes first in pink paper and then covering them with tan paper made me think they were like a bunch of weird vaginas...and that our window was going to be a bunch of framed art popping out of vaginas...and I wondered if that was a good or bad thing...undertones of sexuality seem to find their way into everything we do as a collective so I feel like its normal for us...and hell I just saw a commercial the other day that used boobs and an ass to advertise workout shoes, so how far off are accidental vagina presents advertising frames, really? Anyway, stop by to see the window after November 22nd. Trinity Framing, 3rd and Bainbridge Streets...

Yo back when...

2009-11-13T10:59:00.000-08:00

Someone sent me a link to this article on Animal Mummies and its amazing to me how much time and care and ceremony went into handling the dead...even their animals were mummified and given fancy final resting places...it acts as a reminder of what jerks we are nowadays...

Oh baby baby...

2009-10-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

As life would have it, I just so happened to give birth to little Ms. Olivia Rae Jackson Grant on Friday, October 23 at 4:15am. She came into the world as I like to say "quick like a bunny" via an amazingly fast and wonderful home birth. She weighed 6lbs 5oz at birth and is 19 1/2 inches long. She's a total doll and I couldn't have wished for a more wonderful little lady.

indigo

2009-10-28T13:02:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago a friend called to invite me to have my aura photographed with her at the Padlock Gallery by a visiting "galactic channel, spiritual counselor, visionary speaker, and existensial alchemist" named Ackbar.

Here is the best definition I could find regarding how the photo is produced:

"This is classified as a biofeedback apparatus. Our technologies produce an electronic interpretation of what we believe the Aura would looks like. It does not photograph the actual Aura. There's nothing that exists which can do this. The camera actually moves through two processes. It takes about eight to ten seconds to take an aura portrait. In the first two seconds the Polaroid camera snaps the portrait. In the remaining six to eight seconds, the biofeedback apparatus measures the electral potential along the meridian points of the palm of the hand, then converts that information into an electrical frequency and displays this as colors and pattern which are shown directly over the portrait to represent the Aura. The aura photos are brighter than the aura seen by psychics, because we amplify the signal. "

When Ackbar did my reading, he talked not only about the meaning of the individual colors, but also their relationship to the different chakras. In my case, he saw primarily indigo (along with blue and purple) which generally indicates a search for truth, but also psychic abilities (say wha??) which emanated from the "third eye" and crown chakras.

Since having my aura photographed, I've been doing research online regarding the strength and energy associated with color. I found a really intriguing website which clearly spells out the strengths, weakness, abilities and ailments associated with each color and chakra, and goes on to describe ways in which you can use color to improve your life. The part that I found most exciting was "color breathing."

http://threeheartscompany.com/chakra.html

If asked why I choose to paint instead of some other medium, I would probably talk about it's relationship to drawing. But, of the all the formal characteristics of paint, color is by far the most important to me. I often use flat shapes, or in some cases fields, of color to lend to my paintings a certain moodiness or psychological weight. In the past, I have just thought of it as my personal, somewhat eccentric, palette. I am pretty psyched to learn more about these ancient associations of specific colors to the body and spirit, and I can sense this becoming much more important in some upcoming paintings...

Ice House

2009-10-27T13:58:00.000-07:00

I just read about the coolest project. Pun intended. Heh. The piece is a collaboration between New York based architect Matthew Radune and photographer Gregory Holm. They intend to transform a foreclosed home in Detroit this winter into an "ice house" by gradually spraying it with layers of water. In the spring, what is left will be salvaged or demolished and the lot will be donated to become a community garden. The intention is to draw attention to foreclosures in what was, decades ago, a thriving region. I like the project first off because it sounds like it will be visually really awesome looking, but also knowing that the lot will go from a place of icy desolation into a flourishing place of new growth seems like such a lovely use of space and symbolism. They have a swanky blog like us and also a place to donate if you like the project.

http://icehousedetroit.blogspot.com/

Ladies who sculpt...animals

2009-10-22T07:39:00.000-07:00

Every time I get ready to start sculpting new work I take a look back at some fabulous lady animal sculptors to get inspired...here are a few that I'm thinking of at the moment...

Malia Jensen

Adelaide Paul
Nicola Hicks
Stephanie Metz

Tricia Cline

Beth Cavener Stitcher

The Legacy of Harvey Finkle

2009-10-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

Dearl Richards
from The Jobs Project
by Harvey Finkle

Last week I went to A Tribute for Change, a fundraiser for Bread and Roses at the National Constitutional Center with a tribute to inspiring photographer Harvey Finkle.

I've had the pleasure of seeing Harvey in action on marches and organizing events, at Truth commissions, at protests ..because I was a part of them. To get an intimate glimpse at an artist, a documentary photographer, finding the little and big moments at just the right time and shooting them with his camera was a gift. I'm fascinated with what he saw during moments of sadness and frustration, of power and resilience, of unity and love, of community organizing. I especially love what he sees in the little, often mundane activities in the everyday lives and struggle of people in this country. His images are haunting. They are beautiful and they tell a story of many people, of our nation. And of the fight and heartache and power of people from all over the world.

The event was amazing. Tim Dowlin shined with his rap about Harvey. And his wife Carol, did an amazing job. She must love that man:)

please visit Harvey's website:
www.harveyfinkle.com

Here's a couple to get you started. He is a fascinating, kind man. If you ever see him clicking away, say what's up.

xo ac

Girls with Hooves.

2009-10-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I did a photo shoot with Darla and Laura on some ideas I'm playing around with just to see what develops. And of course to document Darla's fantastically beautiful belly! I love that thing! Anyway, I've posted a couple of favorites. I have to admit I think my most favorite of all are the ones where Darla was messing around with a couple of disembodied deer hooves. I can tell you right now one of these is going framed in my living room.

In other news, I got to shoot a very fancy Rebecca Minkoff event at the lovely Three Sirens Boutique for Philadelphia Style Magazine! If you haven't been there lately to see Aubrie's amazing window display I recommend going over to check it out and then trying on some of the hot little numbers they sell there.

Tumbleweeds and Crazy Animals...

2009-10-15T00:01:00.000-07:00

It's like a ghost town in here...where the heck are you ladies? Must be super busy - ness because I know a whole lot of fancy The Other Woman ish went down this past week, involving saucy windows with partial nudity, fancy openings and photo shoots and above all else, crepes and peninas.

Anywho, with all this hub-bub, my brain is rip raring to go on this upcoming project I have to start...A crazy animals take over a house installation. I did a piece on this subject for Petit Fours, a show of miniature work by The Other Woman at Arcadia Boutique earlier this year but it ended up as more of a maquette for grander plans in my head...And when approached by the Art Alliance to create a room specific installation, I knew this would be the best fit. The space is an old mansion and the first floor is chock full o' architechtural detail, similar to what I loved about the space in the Barclay for my January show at CFEVA. Right now I'm working out how many pieces, what animals, what are they doing, where can I get furniture that will work, etc etc etc...

I feel like there's alot of opportunity to create some crazy pieces but want it to read as realistic and believable as possible...I want viewers to walk in and for their experience to be as if they just got home after a long trip and found out that all these animals had taken over their house...and these animals are all still there trashing the place and are all of a sudden staring, maybe even looking a bit hungry...oh my oh my....I'm getting all even more excited!

Here are some photos of the space (with some crazy amazing installation in it! I don't know the artist's name but its really fabulous)...any thoughts???

2 shows to go see...

2009-10-08T05:57:00.000-07:00

I haven't been to these shows yet, so its not so much a review as it is a "go and see these shows"...TONIGHT!

Grave Concerns
Matt Pruden solo exhibition
October 8-November 6, 2009
Nexus Gallery at the Crane Building
1400 North American Street, Suite 102
Philly, PA

OPENING RECEPTION: THURSDAY OCTOBER 8, 6-9 PM

GALLERY HOURS: WED - SUN 12-6 PM

FROM THE PRESS RELEASE:

"With “Grave Concerns” Matt Pruden presents his 3rd solo exhibition at Nexus.

Stemming from research into 19th century attitudes towards the afterlife, each graphite drawing in the “Grave Concerns” series brings together a symbolic funerary ornament from Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, and a terse bit of text from the Magic Eight-Ball. The drawings are a mash-up of high and low cultural sources: both ends of the spectrum that addresses perennial concerns about the nature of fate, supernatural force, and the survival of consciousness.

The funerary decorations observed throughout Laurel Hill derive from a long literary and art-historical lineage, a deeply symbolic language denoting such profundities as faith, grief, redemption, loss and immortality. The Magic Eight-Ball is a child’s toy invented in the 1940’s but still popular into the present. When an anxious question is posed to it and the ball is shaken, a pithy response floats out of darkness to the surface. Much as the Ouija board descended from the “talking boards” of Victorian séances into a spooky parlor game, so the Magic Eight-Ball is a laughably watered down version of divination.

Working across many media, Pruden is primarily concerned with cultural responses to the unknown, geographical imaginings, and the spectre of loss. He makes use of obscure histories as a kind of cultural subconscious, probing the ways in which they inform our contemporary world. Having previously delved into such 19th century phenomena as polar exploration, mountaineering, and Spiritualism, he now brings his focus to bear on material that is both very near at hand and forever mysterious."

About to Surface
Featuring work by Andria Bibiloni, Julie Boyer, Brooke Holloway, Jessica Jane Julius, Brenna K. Murphy, and Lareen Griffin.
September 28th through October 16th, 2009
Center for Emerging Visual Artists
1521 Locust Street
Philly, PA

3 pieces below are by Brooke Holloway, who told me she did a giant wall piece for this show...super excited to see it.

An exhibiton curated by Julien Robson, Curator of Contemporary Art at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art. Select work and installations by artists participating in the 2009 Philadelphia Open Studio Tours.

Le Confessionnal

2009-10-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

Ah, BAMcinematek. Thank you for being only a short 20 minute walk from my apartment and having the most engaging shows! Last night I saw Le Confessionnal with a brief introduction by the French Canadian director Robert Lepage. Set in Quebec City, Le Confessionnal cuts seamlessly between the present time and 1952. The plot line for the former involves Pierre Lamontagne's return home for his fathers funeral and to track down his drug-using adopted brother. Scenes from this story line interweave gracefully with the same family in 1952 and their struggle to deal with with the unexpected pregnancy of Mrs. Lamontagne's 16 year old sister, Rachel. Alfred Hitchcock's visit to town to film I Confess coincides with, and actually mirrors, Rachel's story and is filmed inside the church where Rachel worked until the revelation of her pregnancy. In Hitchcock's film a priest is accused of a crime and is unable to disclose the name of the culprit because it was revealed to him inside the confessional. In Le Confessionnal, a young priest is expelled from the church because everybody assumes he is the father of Rachel's child.

Even more interesting then the story (though the story is fantastic!) is how the film was made visually. There is an amazing overhead shot that follows Pierre through a labyrinthian bathhouse as he searches for his brother. The voyeuristic aspect of this sequence reminds me of some of Ms. Aubrie Costello's work. We are privy to the covert activities going on inside the cramped rectangular cells below. There is the beautiful metaphoric progression of Pierre painting and repainting a wall in his parents house because the outlines of the photos that used to hang there continue to permeate. The color red is a motif that returns again and again in thoughtful ways.

This was Lepage's first film. During his introduction to the movie he said most of the people involved had a theater background so there was a lot of excitement and freshness that came into the creating of the film. He also said that he was finished making films because he didn't like the process of it. He is still, however, involved in theater direction and currently has a show, Lipsynch, as part of BAM's 2009 Next Wave Festival. As a testament to Lepage's unconventional way, this performance is an 8 hour and 30 minute marathon with 4 intermissions and a 45 minute dinner break! Now that's commitment!

Through the Keyhole...

2009-10-05T00:34:00.000-07:00

Through The Keyhole,
a window installation by Yours Truly

This week marks the unveiling of my new window installation for the competition Windows Throughout old City, an event that is part of Design Philadelphia 2009. Please stroll by (and stop in!) Three Sirens Boutique at 134 N. 3rd St to see it live!

Keep strolling around Old City to see the 50 other window displays scattered about like little secret surprises in the windows...

You can read more about Design Philadelphia @ www.designphiladelphia.org.

And pretty please with sugar on top vote for my window if you like it at www.discoveroldcity.org
or text 4040 TO 267-582-2521.

Thank you to the beautiful Laura Graham for being the watched woman in my piece....

xo ac

Beautiful Human

2009-10-01T09:15:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a panel discussion of the Beautiful Human show at Haverford College. Our very own Laura Graham is one of the six talented artists who were invited to include their work in the lovely show, along with Donald Camp, Matthew Fisher, Rob Matthews, Joshua Mosley, and James Mundie. There were several works exhibited by each artist, which gave the feeling, as curator Shelley Spector mentioned during the discussion, of six mini- solo shows.

In looking at the show, I personally was more interested in the way each artists' work defined portraiture rather than beauty. Formally, there were a lot of common threads - working in black and white, varying-but-all-on-the-high-side degrees of representationalism, obvious attention to detail, relatively minimal/clean technical execution, etc. But, each of the artists really approached portraiture in very different ways.

To start with the lone woman represented in the show, Laura's use of masks and archetypes serve to remove the individual and transform the models into specifically articulated, albeit anonymous, characters. Matthew Fisher's soldiers are similarly reduced to any/every-man status through their uniforms and stylized faces.

At the other end of the spectrum are the small, intimate and painstaking graphite portraits by Rob Matthews. His subjects are rendered with incredible draftsmanship and disciplined, repetitive line work. The care and patience alone taken in the act of this type of drawing suggest a relationship between the artist and sitter. The further inclusion of the symbolic objects held by the people in his drawings invite the viewer to "get to know" them in a humble and personal way.

During the discussion, there was one small comment that really resonated with me. In talking about process, Laura said that none of her photographs ever turn out the way she pictured them in her head. Rob added that the ones that you know exactly how they're going to look are the ones you never bother making anyway. This is something that I've always struggled with -- I've had ideas that will stick with me for years, that I never get around to. It wasn't until I heard him say the words that I realized why, and why I shouldn't worry so much about it.

New Secret Lady Lair...

2009-10-01T06:38:00.001-07:00

This past weekend I went on a tour of the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia. I wasn't quite sure what to expect at all...and I have to say I was quite surprised! For a top secret men's club, this place was, for lack of a better term, lady-tastic! Each room was modeled after architecture from a different place/time period and I was expecting to see super machismo and phallic references out the wazoo, but no...it was amazingly beautiful! It looks like each room was painstakingly crafted and lovingly decorated. Many of the architectural elements were plaster and faux finished to look like wood, tile, marble, etc. Amazing and beautiful...

The ceiling of this room was made of carved (or cast?) plaster tiles...incredible...

This was the Egyptian room...insane...

Egyptian room ceiling...

Egyptian room podium...(with what the tour guide mentioned were greek style sphinxes, rather than Egyptian style...curious...)

A fabulous view of the hall, which featured a cast iron staircase...

All the "wooden" ceiling beams in here were actually faux finished plaster painted with turkey feathers to make it look like wood grain!!!

AMAZING CEILINGS THROUGHOUT...!

52 foot high ceilings?!?!

...!

Caryatids...

Yet another amazing plaster ceiling...

Wtf...

What looked to be one of many amazing tile pieces...

Owl!

Bottom of the main staircase...so crazy...

Really and truly the place was amazingly beautiful and I can't believe this is where men go to have their secret meetings...surely this is a place meant for secret lady meetings, no?

The September Issue

2009-09-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-28T18:52:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-09-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-09-17T08:06:00.000-07:00

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.

2009-09-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-11T00:34:00.000-07:00

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....

2009-09-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

ladies who blog...

2009-09-10T06:42:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-09T08:44:00.001-07:00

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):

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
"Orchid Sparks" eye accent pencil
3 o.b. tampons in a reusable carry case
Body Shop samples: white musk, vitamin E moisture cream, tea tree oil blemish fade night lotion
Griptastic hairbands
Colour Collection hairbands
Aveeno sunblock
Riceworks parmesan and sundried tomato gourmet brown rice crisps
KY touch massage 2-in-1 warming body massage and personal lubricant
Suite Scarlett, a novel by by Maureen Johnson
Aquafresh white trays Revive
KY jelly personal lubricant
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..."
Betty Crocker Warm Delights molten chocolate cake bowl
Noah's Naturals grapefruit shower gel
Colgate Wisp mini-brush with freshening bead
Noxzema Spa Shave razor
Aveeno essential moisture lip conditioner
Alka-Seltzer Wake-Up call pain reliever/alertness aid "for after a night out"
Larabar lemon bar
Softsoap body butter apricot scrub
Yes to Carrots C Me Smile lip butter
Noxzema soothe & smooth maximum strength medicated bikini cream
Organics by Noah's Naturals rosemary mint lip balm
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...

2009-09-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-09-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

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

words

2009-08-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

www.brianandbobbyspeak.com

I've known this guy, Bobby Wolter, for longer than just about any non-McKinley. He started writing letters years ago to someone he was introduced to by a friend. They're both Philly musicians, and both have cystic fibrosis. Because of the latter, they were never able to meeting in person, but developed an amazing freindship through correspondence.

They recently decided to publish these letters as a blog. They contain their most honest and intimate thoughts about life and death and art and love. I found them to be both uplifting and humbling. I also noticed that there is absolutely no transition in their voices or their subject matter when the means shifted from intimate letters between two people to letters that they knew were going to be published on the blog. Their openness and sincerity is refreshing to find on the internet.

In re-reading his letters over the past couple days, I was struck by how often Bobby mentioned his desire to help people. I know that his words have helped me a lot, and in celebrating his life, I wanted to pass them on.

Beauty in sadness...

2009-08-27T14:27:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine posted this photo on his Facebook page the other day...not sure what he was planning on doing with it, if anything, but it really spoke to me... It's so insanely sad, this little, young looking fox, dead...the blood, the guts and all that... but I have been thinking about the image often and want to make a sculpture of it... It's so depressing, yet so gorgeous...(at least I think it is anyway)... I think its so funny how we keep going back to the phrase "the beauty and the sadness" as a collective but I really believe that it is part of what brings us together as a group...not everyone can find beauty in sadness...but I think the 4 of us ladies are quite good at it....now what that says about us is a whole 'nother story ;)

The Female Gaze:Women Look At Women.

2009-08-25T14:20:00.000-07:00

Katy Grannan, Nicole, Potrero Hill, 2006

I saw The Female Gaze show the other week at Cheim & Read Gallery in Chelsea and it has been haunting me ever since. You know, in a good way. So many of my favorite ladies all in one room- Diane Arbus, Alice Neel, Louise Bourgeois, Sally Mann, Vanessa Beecroft, and Francesca Woodman to name a few. Shortly after viewing the show I came across an article by Ariella Budick that contended that most of the female artists in the show perceive women within the same "limits of convention" that men have perceived women for hundreds of years- very often nude and delicious looking. Maybe it is odd that as women, we accuse men of liking to look at women, but we apparently like to look at women too. Would women feel differently if these images had been made by a man? Do women cling to this vision of ourselves as first and foremost sexual or vulnerable? Are we looking for something to "take back" from the oppressor but then we just dump it back on ourselves and fuck around at the step of self victimization and self oppression instead of moving on to the level of genuine power and strength? Sometimes for sure.

But also maybe women have the tendency to playfully explore these areas of vulnerability within ourselves in a different way then a man might. It's not good to wallow solely in vulnerablity, but to honor that it's there, well maybe that's not such a bad thing if we use it to move forward. There were indeed several artists who portrayed their women with a more resolute air. Alice Neel's Olivia, for example has a look of defiance. As do Roni Horn's images of French actress Isabelle Huppert. In a way, I feel like every "woman in the room", or each piece of art could be put together like a puzzle to create one whole woman. Each image is like a snap shot of each of us at one moment in our life, or in a different stage of our evolution. It's like each artist has agreed to represent one face of a whole woman. After all, it wouldn't be possible to portray every aspect of a persons being in one piece. Viewed apart, an image like Lisa Yuskavage's Heart could be viewed with a measure of derision- How cliche to portray a woman so sexually. Well, yeah I guess, but part of life is being sexual, whether your a man or a woman, so why not embrace that? Lets embrace male sexuality while we're at it. Should we pretend that women aren't sexual or vulnerable as a defensive mechanism? Maybe as a woman the key is not to make art that you yourself would find objectionable had a man made it. People are complicated. Men and women. Personally, I think vulnerablitity is a good thing. And the responsibility to treat yourself and others with respect and dignity as well as honesty falls on both sides of the gender fence.

Here's a link to the article I referenced earlier: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9abedb9c-8046-11de-bf04-00144feabdc0.html

Strike a Pose

2009-08-24T00:34:00.000-07:00

Mary Louise Brooks

Last Sunday I posed for Laura Graham, for the new photo project she's started...

I looked at the test shot and saw how I was transformed into somebody else. I took instructions to bring the protagonist she thought up, with her layered back story, her uniqueness, to life. But when I looked at the photo I was not just her created character but a combination of myself and the person Laura conceived...

Even on set, with its specialty lighting and exotic, old timey quality, and in costume, I still saw myself in the photo...through it all. I wonder if it takes a special person to convey the subtle duality of both the intended character and the posed model in a piece, or if IT, that thing, is inborn into the photo, or drawing, or film reel...can a model ever completely transform into an invented character or will she somehow find a peephole to shine through?

I have modeled in costume for a few artists, one in particular on a semi-regular basis, and I sit thinking, what do they see when looking at me as their created characters? Do I transform?

As I embark on a new project drawing my girlfriends as different characters, I hope that through the medium I can convey that magic that happens when you can see that line between fact and fiction. Because on that line sometimes lies truths about the model and the artist that were previously unbeknownst to them both....

xo ac

Cliff Jumping

2009-08-20T06:01:00.000-07:00

I feel like alot of times taking risks is brought up in this blog, and funnily enough it's often refferred to as some kind of diving or jumping into water...a perfect visual that expresses the fear of the act of making oneself jump and the fear of the unknown that you're jumping into...
I've been feeling alot like that lately but in a slightly different way than I normally do...my life is planned...always schedules, schedules, schedules and future coordination and "I'm free this time during this week, when are you free so we can make a date"...Looking ahead though my calendar starts to thin and this scares me. It was intentional, because who knows what I'll have time for once I pop out a little one, so I didn't want to schedule a bunch of stuff and not be able to handle it...but nonetheless, not having a plan scares the shit out of me. So in order to appease my planning self I looked online for actual cliff jumping instructions to see if they would apply in any way to metaphorical cliff jumping...

From Wikipedia

Platforms for cliff jumping

For cliff jumping, the platform is usually a simple clearing in the bushes and other vegetation along the cliff above a river, ocean, lake, or quarry.

Sometimes railway bridges and other bridges are used as platforms. They can sometimes be distances up to approximately 100 feet above the water.

Abandoned quarries, and deep ponds will often have platforms, whether by design, or by improvisation of the people in the community. For example, platforms will often be affixed to towers in abandoned rail yards, overlooking a deep pond.

Safety and traffic control

Many naturally occurring platforms are unofficial, and simply known among the children in a community. For example, the children are often tresspassing on quarry land, or the like, when they use the platforms. Usually the locals check the water to make sure it is deep enough and free of clutter, but there is always the danger of a dead fish or beverage can, bottle, branches, or the like floating near the surface of the water. Bad angle of entry can also cause injury even in the absence of clutter (e.g. broken bones or re-arrangement of internal organs from the impact of the water itself, if landing crooked). Being knocked unconscious by the impact can also lead to drowning.

Technique

For cliff jumping, there are several techniques that can be utilized. The main technique involves landing in a pencil shape typically with hands at the sides or above the head. Keeping limbs in results in a freer and more painless entry. Pointed toes and closed mouth also assist in a smooth jump. Some prefer to jump with shoes or sandals, while others jump merely barefoot or naked.

For larger jumps (50 ft +), the angle of entry is critical. To ensure that you always enter the water vertically, it is proper to jump leaning slightly forward, keeping your point of entry in view. Extend your arms for balance. As you fall, gradually tuck in your arms, and bring together your legs. A gradual backward rotation throughout the jump will bring you from your initial forward position to complete a vertical entry. Common errors include backward over rotation, which may lead to butt flops and painful enemas, not tucking in arms or legs, which can leave nasty briuses on big jumps. Generally, the highest jump that should be attempted is 100ft. The world record dive stands at 172ft, set by Dana Kunze.

Always work your way up gradually in height and never jump big alone.

I guess what I can glean from this is that people jump from different situations all the time, some of them fuck up and/or do metophorical butt flops/get painful enemas (?!) , and some of them do just fine. I think "checking the water first" and planning your "angle of entry" both sound like good ideas...as does working your way up gradually in height and never jumping big alone...

Plan, 1, 2, 3, jump...

Vacation from my vacation...

2009-08-17T17:29:00.000-07:00

This is my makeup post from last week since I was away on vacation...the week flew by and I had all these intentions of getting many many things done...sculpting bunnies, reading books, making lists. Instead I did nothing but a whole lot of sweating my ass off...It is such a rare day, let alone week, when I am doing nothing at all, so it felt insanely good to blow off everything I wanted to be doing and just relax and sleep and sweat (it was hot!) and swim and eat animal crackers and chocolate soy milk...I came back today feeling tired but ready to go with everything I have on my plate. Not doing all these things while I was away means that technically I'm "behind" where I wanted to be at this point, but I think it was for the better...too often we push ourselves to the breaking point, when sometimes breaks are what end up being more beneficial. It's really hard for me to relax and let go, but I'm trying. I want to do more of this in my life, both art-wise and normal stuff-wise. We'll see how it goes...I feel like its akin to Aubrie's post on not complaining...letting go and taking breaks and recollecting thoughts is so hard...you just have to let yourself off the hook sometimes...
I am exhausted and planned to write more, but in the vein of letting go, I am going to go to bed now (at 8:40 pm!) and am not gonna feel guilty about it for a second ;)
Happy to be back...

Not the Wheel, the Carousel

2009-08-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

Always a bit slow to pick up on television shows, I have just recently discovered the dark sexy magic that is Mad Men. I feel like I could blog about this show for months, there are so many sides of it that address the issues I confront in my art. And it's just so pretty - the clothes, the light, the color - and goddamn Don Draper. I just finished watching the first season thanks to the good folks at netflix, and was so moved by the scene below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suRDUFpsHus

So much of my work is rooted in nostalgia, not only for things as they were, but for how I wished them to be. For me that is the ultimate frustration ("God it's so painful when something that's so close is still so far out of reach") -- haunting memories of possibilities squandered or beautiful people and situations that somehow slipped away.

I've always considered family snapshots to be one of the most interesting genres of portraiture. Candid pictures capture moments that would otherwise be forgotten, and often let you see something in yourself and your loved ones in a way that you can only notice when frozen. Posed pictures can say even more - in attempting to put your best face forward, you reveal not only how you would like to be perceived, but often unintentionally whatever side you're trying to hide.

This monologue really captures the incredible strength of personal photographs. I know that I can think for days of my memories of a family member who's passed away without shedding a tear, and one quick glimpse of them blowing out their birthday candles can reduce me to a sobbing wreck. As Don eloquently points out, these images have the power to transport you to another time.

Time to throw open the albums and pick up the paint brush...

Don't Complain

2009-08-17T00:34:00.000-07:00

Huseyin Alptekin, "Don't Complain"

I got this email from my best friend, Beth:

Friday, August 14, 2009 8:56 AM
From: "beth King"
To: "Aubrie Costello"

I'm intrigued by this, thought you may be too......

http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/reinvent-your-life/articlegh.aspx?cp-documentid=20985140&GT1=32036

Do You Complain Too Much?

Author Valerie Frankel tests the popular program outlined in the book A Complaint Free World and tries to curb negativity, one gripe at a time.

By Valerie Frankel

Times are tough. I'd been saying that a lot lately. On the phone with my sister, I was refining the theme in detail, whining about the economy and free-floating anxiety along with the usual daily snafus. Annoyingly, she refused to join in my gripefest. It was so unlike her.

Then she told me she wasn't allowing herself to complain. In fact, the congregation at her temple, inspired by the book A Complaint Free World by Missouri minister Will Bowen, was attempting to stop griping, moaning, and whining en masse.

"For God's sake, why?" I asked.

"No need to put more negative energy out there," she told me. "It does more harm than good." As she continued to explain, and as I later read in the book, Bowen's theory was that complaining only exacerbates problems, individually and collectively.

"When we complain," he writes, "we are using our words to focus on things that are not as we would like. Our thoughts create our lives, and our words indicate what we are thinking. It is vital that we control our minds in order to re-create our lives."

The first step in controlling your mind? Become aware of what comes out of your mouth. By Bowen's logic, once you notice your complaints, you'll start to notice your negative thoughts and can learn to reframe them with more positive ones. Then you'll be happier, healthier, and wealthier.

It sounded ridiculous to me. Complaining was the glue that held my emotional life together. I didn't call it complaining, anyway. It was bonding, commiserating, friendship-building. Sure, I might veer toward the negative, but that was just my personality — and the personality of everyone I knew. Besides, the very concept of doing away with complaints was preposterous. Would not griping about the economy help pay the bills?

Then again, complaining wouldn't pay the bills, either. My sister, not complaining for only one day thus far, hadn't yet noticed a new serenity. Which, I pointed out, was technically a complaint. "You're right," she said, "I have to switch my bracelet now." The wrists-on component of Bowen's prescription: Each time you griped, you had to move a rubber bracelet* from one wrist to the other. The physical reminder focused your consciousness on the quest. On his first day of taking the no-complaint pledge, Bowen switched his bracelet so many times his hands got tired. A few months later, he'd achieved his goal of going 21 consecutive days without complaining.

I doubted I could go 21 minutes.

But I was willing to try — especially since not complaining was free. I'd give it a week, and then assess whether I felt less stressed. My husband, Steve, and daughters — Maggie, 13, and Lucy, 10 — agreed to join the fun (see? more positive already). I had to bribe the kids, offering them $100 at the end of the week, minus one dollar for each complaint. To my ears, all they ever did was complain, so I felt sure I wouldn't owe them a dime.

*A bracelet can be ordered for $1 at acomplaintfreeworld.org — so far, nearly six million have been sent out.

After my initial reading, my response:

Friday, August 14, 2009 12:14 PM
From: "Aubrie Costello"
To: "beth king"

this is amazing....can we do this though.....the writer put it perfectly... it is the glue, complaining. it does bring people together... but i know that the stiffest my neck gets is during complaining sessions. damn. crazy. i honestly feel like i'd loose a piece of me if I gave up complaining. I do it all the time. i can't even count how many times I do it during the day..or think it...i think complaints....wtf.
this is a challenge. especially if i have to work with my father....like how do you control it if you're surrounded by people who are complaining to you. won't it be awkward if you don't join in w/ empathy or sympathy for their complaints...I seriously cannot imagine my life without bitching ha.
i need to find a rubberband here at work...

All this talk about complaining brought me back to '07 and The Pavilion of Turkey at the 52nd Venice Biennale....http://www.biennale07-turkey.org/giris_en.asp?m1=ana

xo ac

Connections.

2009-08-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

Apparently I am the last person to know. Which isn't a surprise because I can be a little slow on the uptake. But for those of you a bit slower than me, check out Krzysztof Kieslowski's Trois Couleurs stat. Due to my recent Irene Jacob obsession I rented the last one first, Red. The films are made in the order of the colors of the French flag, blue, white and red (liberté, égalité, fraternité!). The common thread running through the films is the need for human connection, which resonates hugely for me these days. But the parallels in each film and throughout the three films are what makes them profoundly beautiful. Nothing is a mistake, everything is there for a reason. Which is what life is, I think. Everything is connected and everything has a lesson in it, but not in a moralistic or obvious way. What can you make of a chance encounter?

24

2009-08-10T19:35:00.000-07:00

I'm 24 today.

from wikipedia:

In other fields

Astronomical clock in Prague

24 is also:

* The number of bits a computer needs to represent truecolour images (for a maximum of 16,777,216 colours). (But greater numbers of bits provide more accurate colors. "Truecolor" is one of many possible color representations.)
* The number of a broadcast television channel
* The number of Carats representing 100% pure gold.
* The number of cycles in the Chinese solar year.
* The number of frames per second at which motion picture film is usually projected.
* The number of hours in a day.
* The number of letters in both the modern and classical Greek alphabet. For the latter reason, also the number of chapters or "books" into which Homer's Odyssey and Iliad came to be divided
* 24, television series starring Kiefer Sutherland. Each episode covers one hour, with 24 episodes making up one entire "day".
* The number of points on a backgammon board.
* When pronounced "two-four", a 24-pack of beer (Canadianism).
* A children's mathematical game involving the use of any of the 4 standard operations on 4 numbers on a card to get 24 (see Math 24)
* "24", a song by Welsh musician Jem
* The maximum number of Knight Companions in the Order of the Garter
* The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is one of the Civil Rights-era amendments, abolishing poll tax requirements in federal elections.
* The designation of US Interstate 24, a freeway that runs from Tennessee to Illinois. Also many other roads called Route 24
* 24 is considered an unlucky number in Cantonese culture because its pronunciation is similar to that of "easy to die". For this reason, many buildings skip this floor number. The same goes for 13, 34, 44, etc.
* #24 is a recurring character on The Venture Bros.
* A Straight Edge symbol, for X is the 24th letter of the alphabet.
* The number of the French department Dordogne.
* In Brazil the number is associated with homosexuals due to the number representing the deer in the gambling game Jogo do Bicho and the word viado (a misspelling of veado, deer in Portuguese) being a slang for homosexuals.

..to a new year. I hope it's filled with unfamiliar adventures. And I like it.

photos courtesy of Laura Graham
cupcakes courtesy of Beth King
what a lovely birthday with great friends.

xo ac

Goals...

2009-08-06T20:48:00.000-07:00

I found this bit when I recently reread a book I made during my first year at Moore...

(Click to enlarge image)

...

a day in the life

2009-08-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

I thought you, dear reader, might be a little curious about a day in the life of the Other Woman. Well, not a whole day, but the latter part of the morning and the afternoon last Sunday. On my way to the home where we will one day live together, making art and eating chocolate and raising babies and goats and entertaining the occasional gentleman caller, I encountered torrential rains and flash floods. But nothing can keep me from my girls... Sadly, Aubrie and I were literally two ships passing in the storm, but one day soon we'll all be together.

And now, a brief accounting of the events that transpired, the topics of discussion, and the horrors stumbled up on youtube (in list form, of course):

blueberry pancakes
"milking" as a possible income-earning opportunity
shaved heads
our band-to-be
breastfeeding third graders
jacko
hyper-realistic baby dolls
real dolls that look like us and whether or not we'd have sex with them
a real doll that is a composite of all of us (our "baby")
munchkin suicide
talking toys with secret messages
nakie swimmie
the G train
Twitler, a variation on Twitter used to track Gerard-Butler related thoughts and acts of stalking
former [fingers-crossed!] stalkers
French men

And, on a barely related note, my mom just sent me an e-mail containing the following [unattributed] quote:

'Whatever you give a woman, she will make greater. If you give her sperm, she'll create a life. If you give her a house, she'll give you a home. If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal. If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart. She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her. So, if you give her any crap, be ready to receive a ton of shit.'

Here comes the (ghost) bride...

2009-08-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

Artists dressed as chinese ghost bride and groom at Halloween event in Hong Kong.

My newest fascination? Ghost weddings. I can't even remember how I stumbled upon this topic, but now I can't get enough. It seems this is a tradition that has been practiced worldwide in various forms (even in France, unexpectedly), but it occurs most notably in Chinese culture and within an ethnic group called the Nuer, who are indigenous to Sudan. A ghost marriage can bind two deceased spirits, or a living person with a deceased person. In China, the belief is that the journey of the afterlife must be a shared one. Therefore, if a son of marrying age dies alone, his family may feel they need to secure a partner for him. Other reasons include integrating a daughter into a patrilineage (historically in Chinese culture the belief is that a woman has no ties in the afterlife to her birth family- she must integrate into her husbands family line), or to make sure a younger brother isn't married before a (dead) elder brother. Some living women choose a ghost marriage over marriage to a living man to have ties with in-laws but maintain a measure of independence... though she is then required to then move in with her in-laws to care for her new mother in-law and live a life of celibacy. whont whont.

In the Nuer culture, the deceased grooms brother will act as a stand-in for the groom during the marriage ceremony. An interesting twist in the Nuer tradition is that sometimes a woman (most often one who cannot have children) will marry another woman. The first woman will be called the "husband" and may marry 2 or 3 more wives. She will then appoint men to impregnate her wives, though she as the female husband will be regarded as the father of any offspring. American conservatives would shit a brick with this one. A priceless combination of polygamy and gay marriage. I love it. Sign me up.

It should be noted that in modern China the tradition of ghost marriage is regarded as simply a relic of the country's extensive history, and is now practiced only in a few rural provinces. The part where it gets really creepy is that in recent years, there have been several instances of grave robbing as well as the murder of innocent, living women to fill the shortage of young female corpses to be used as ghost brides. Supplying grieving families with ghost brides can be quite the money maker, apparently, and fresh corpses in good condition solicit more money than a dessicated husk. I suppose it should come as no surprise that the preoccupation with feminine beauty and youth extends beyond the grave.

Being a crafty girl, my favorite part of this custom are the ceremonies. In China, traditional marriage rites are observed using stand-ins constructed of paper bodies over a bamboo frame with a paper mache head (sometimes bearing a smiling face cut from a poster or calender). They also get paper servants! And home products such as a refrigerator, paper clothes, a dressing table ect... These paper belongings are burnt after the ceremony so the happy couple can use them in the spirit world.

Ghost wedding ceremony.

Paper ghost bride.

xoxo,

Playing Possum

2009-08-03T00:01:00.000-07:00

Maxwell's Playing Possum on Black Summer's Night:

Come back from the dead
You left my, my heart here
Say what you will and won't forget
Express disappointment, speak your regrets, yeah
Or baby call out my name, I'll be where you are
I'll be very still, step down to my heart

Amend this broken
If only you'd wake up from your constant possum playing
If only you'd wake up

I'm begging you sugar, have some leniency
Call the President and ask him baby, to pardon me and bring you
back to me
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oooooh

And mend this broken
If only you'd quit this nonsense of you possum playing
If only you'd wake up, would you wake up, would you wake up baby

I used to love musicians. On a private level I'd daydream of them writing songs for me.. not telling me until I heard them perform a set somewhere added to the fantasy of it all. There's an intimacy in real song writing. I'd like to think that lyrics come from the depths of the mind revealing secrets not always shared between two people. There's just something about it, secrets about you being sang from the lips of a lover over the mesmerizing sounds of an instrument. Those lyrics sang on stage in front of a room of people, unraveling thoughts, unearthed secrets, storytelling about you and him so intimate its like you're making love in front of them. So uncomfortable, so sexy, so labyrinthine, so thick all at once.
I guess it felt like it authenticated something...a song about you...that someone finally saw you were something else, different.. off enough from the monotony that you inspired thoughts worthy of becoming a song to share.

Like a possum I've played dead for years. For fear of feeling too much. Of letting in the wave. The wave of love with its changing tides. To feel normal I've felt like I needed the waters to be still. If, in a song, he told me to wake up, would I be hypnotized to wake up, mesmerized by the combination of his voice, his words, and the sounds of the band of instruments? Or would I fall paralyzed to his honesty? Would I be knocked over by the tidal wave, floudering and blind in the exotic water? Would I drown...

The Wading Room no.8

I sit thinking, what if someone wrote a song about you and you never knew it?

xo ac

p.s.
Playing Possum
and
Baby I'm a Fool

..Melody Gardot. I went to school with her. And she made it. She's striking. I think we should collaborate...and sometimes I want to be a singer.

a final xo.
AC

All work and no play makes Darla a crankie girl...

2009-07-30T12:04:00.001-07:00

past work

2009-07-30T11:30:00.001-07:00

I came across this card I made for my mom. I'm always fascinated by the shit kids come up with. I think it speaks for itself.

Grown Men And Women Playing With Dolls.

2009-07-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

I feel like the idea of virtual people has come up a lot this week. Da, Aubrie and I were talking about Madame Tussauds and the idea of Darla working as a sculptor of wax people (well, that was my assertion). Ah, the oddness of celebrity in the media age. These people in our culture who are so revered that we build wax idols of them and pay to visit, have our photo taken with, and in a strange sense, worship. I remember going to Madame Tussauds as a child and being completely enraptured by the life-like appearance of the figures. It seemed like magic that there were artisans who could create such beings.

The topic of artificial people came up again in an email from Da. She, Justin and Aubrie had been watching videos about “Real Dolls”, the incredibly realistic silicone sex dolls. The video I had seen on these dolls had centered on an interview with a Japanese man who had amassed a collection of nearly a hundred of them. When he walked into his apartment, the lights came on to illuminate the 90 plus dolls arranged on couches and chairs around the living room. The theory of uncanny valley comes to mind. The presentation was a dense array of female virtual creatures, a forest of glabrous limbs, 90 plus shocks of glossy dark hair. They were well cared for and loved. They can’t cheat on you or betray you. He said, “They belong to me one hundred percent”. His story resembles a modern retelling of Pygmalion.

The final, and for me most compelling brush I’ve had with virtual people came in the form of another online video. “Living Doll|My Fake Baby” it’s called. The video opens on the artist who creates the dolls as she carries what looks like a real baby into a supermarket. The downy hair and puckered face is reproduced so faithfully that it’s difficult to differentiate from a live baby except for its silence. The reactions of the people in the clip vary from awe and excitement, to near disgust.

I’m not sure what my strong attraction is to these unreal people. Artifice is an interesting draw. I think what initially drew me to the medium of photography was it’s ability to weave such a convincing lie. Story telling, role playing, lying to ourselves or to the world. I admit my initial reaction was to judge people in the world of real dolls, but I think we all have the same void based on fear- fear of rejection, fear of loneliness, fear of death. Fear- that has been a key word lately. Fear and finding ways of overcoming it and feeling whole. In a sense I think we are these dolls- submerged in a role. Inanimate isolated and lifeless- or at least unconnected to ‘life’ or a greater energy source in a broader sense. I think my art used to be dark for the sake of being dark. Unconscious I guess. But my increasing hope is to be able to make art consciously. I want to create a positive impact on the collective consciousness, even if it’s immeasurably small. I guess I was wondering if these virtual people are contributing in a positive way or a negative way to the collective psyche. I think the initial reaction is that it is a negative one. But what if they’re just a bridge? Can we see them as a reflection of ourselves? Can they be used consciously to heal and move beyond, or do they inhibit people from moving forward? Everything can be part of human evolution I suppose. Maybe we have to look at everything as a bridge. I don’t know. Just thinking.

Grosses bises,

P.S.- You can see the videos here if you want:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU33HLj1CWU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klmhNSu2ZbY&feature=fvw

Dear Juliet, will you marry me?

2009-07-27T11:18:00.001-07:00

I was walking in West Philadelphia last week when I heard my name called out. I turned to find one of my most admired BFF crushes, Juliet Wayne, screwdriver-filled McDonald's mug in hand. We have been acquaintances for years and have a great appreciation for each other's artwork. Every time we cross paths, we vow to make portraits of one another. The time is now!

Anyway, we talked for a while about portraiture and how people are sometimes bothered that what is intended as a portrait of the sitter more closely resembles the artist. Bullshit, we say! Why wouldn't it look like the artist? When is art ever really about anything else? In this case, though, I am going to try to make a portrait of her, and her new M.O. - she's "just not taking it anymore." The part that seems simplest to explain is having a job in order to make money. She's so over that. Now she's trash-picking items to sell at yard sales, supplemented by tarot card readings and Otter Pop sales. My favorite part of her explaining this newfound philosophy -- "So today I felt hungry and I was thinking 'what am I going to eat?' and then I said 'no, Juliet, it's not gonna be like that anymore!'" So, so good.

I have always been envious of Juliet's work. Video, paintings, drawings, collage, puppets, storytelling... and that's not even half of it. If you're my friend on facebook, become hers - there's a bunch of photos of her art. And she has the funniest status updates ever. If you're not my friend on facebook, you should be, just so she can make you laugh. Oh, and her next project? A board game that combines Memory and fortune telling... I can't wait. I'm going to try to track her down to see if she has a website I can post a link to, but in the meantime, her's a little drawing about working at the art museum that I stole from her profile:

Real talk with Dad, Faking it, Making it, "Me" time, Suicidio, and the challenges of being a young woman.

2009-07-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

It's crazy...
What you ask..
everything.
Somehow all these things relate.

From my ongoing photography series about my Dad.
we sit and chat here...

I had one of those talks with my father tonight, after work. We sanded and routed a dozen pieces of oak today. I wouldn't say I'm a Daddy's girl, honestly that phrase has never sit well with me, but I will say that I have always felt strangely connected to my father and his way of thinking. I'm a divorce kid. I always had this weird way of being über conscious of his emotions, and I would fixate on his every word. I still fixate on his every word. He used to joke sometimes, "I'm gonna kill myself." As a kid, for years, I never picked up on the joke part, and used to worry like mad that he's was actually going to. I told him this tonight. After a few drinks, two beers on my part, Grand Marnier on his, we had one of those convos that we've had, occasionally, before. Where he talks about his colorful past and I can't help but compare my tame existence with his wild one. After telling me of his affairs, his one million girlfriends, and apartments, his el camino, his leather pants, trips to Cafe' Elan and Bleeps, marriages, partying every night, he then reminded me of the dark parts, the somberly colored roots of his childhood. He experienced a lot of scarring from his dysfunctional upbringing, and, later, lots of stress from his relationships with women. He used to say "I'm gonna kill myself." But he never did. Now I say it sometimes, in passing, how I wanna kill myself cause this is so annoying or that is all f-ed up, blah, blah, blah. But in his quirky way over a cigarette he tells me, "hey, hang tight...you'll be aight."
Well now I'm ready to try it. The fear does hover over my head a lot though... It's good to talk to him, a survivor of sorts. Sometimes it's hard to hear the stories, sometimes it brings up my scars. Tonight, in a kind of joking manner I told him that the anxiety makes me sometimes wanna fuckin' kill myself.
He told me not to.

Darla says fake it 'til you make it. Well that's exactly what my father did at 24. And still does at 54. And I'm gonna try it now. I'll have to train that part of my head to buy into that idea, faking it until making it. What can I say? I'm thick-headed, a product of my parents. ..Maybe I just need some "me" time..

I was watching the eleven o'clock news. This lady in the suburbs killed herself and her young son at home. Her husband came home and found their bodies. Neighbors said she was sweet but off. The news report said that she was battling depression... Then, a 22 year old, riding on the el with her infant baby, was held at knife point in her seat and sexually assaulted by a man. They said that people around her didn't know it was happening because she didn't scream. He fondled her while her baby was on her lap.

I did a phone interview this week, yesterday actually, for a website. I was asked questions about my work, what inspires me, what it's about, etc., and I said something about a particular thing that's always inspired me in a way I have never said before. I told her that I am inspired by the contemplations of women and how I felt that all women share on some level a constant and, at times, common state of contemplation, dynamic, abuzz and alive. The ignition, the starting spark in the thought machine of the female mind, the seasoned thoughts, these things differ from female to female. But that linking thread is there...I watched the news tonight and something about what I had said earlier during my interview clicked with these two tales of misfortune.

My dad and I said tonight that we're going to get tattoos that read "such is life"...

buona.
xo ac

Fake it 'til you Make it

2009-07-23T07:20:00.000-07:00

All this talk of greatness and wanderlust on here and various other things going on outside of "blogland" (I just threw up in my mouth a little from saying that word) has me thinking...I mean I'm always thinking about something but it makes me wonder why I'm thinking so much and so hard all the time...I like to think of myself as one of those people who needs to make art no matter what....that if I lived in a cave in the backwoods of nowhere that I would just keep making and making and making, even if no one ever saw the work, ever. I like to think that...but sometimes wonder if I were ever just to stop planning and just wait and see what happens next...what would happen? Would that drive be there? Would I just have to make art because something inside me would freak out if I wasn't? Or would I fall perfectly into the life of someone who goes out every night and spends their time and money on drinks in bars, fancy outfits and new electronic devices, instead of art supplies, websites and postcards...Would my house be clean and finished if I weren't an artist? Would my brain not worry as much over the insanitites that it does worry about constantly? Would I have another interest or would I just float around aimlessly? Would I care way less about social stereotypes than I do now, or more? Do people who aren't artists feel like something is missing? I can't help but feel like there would be a huge gaping hole in my life and that I would be more miserable than ever before if I didn't make art...La once called art "painful masturbation" and that seems to be a pretty great comparision...It hurts sometimes, it makes you crazy, but after all that work you feel so insanely wonderful...even if only for a moment, before you start all over again...What keeps us coming back, even though sometimes (most times) we torture ourselves during the process? Is it all for that moment of feeling really really good? Or are we just some crazy art version of masochists, where its the pain and the feeling crazy that makes us keep at it?...
I don't know...I am going to try not to think about it too much...I am just going to keep planning and doing and making and freaking out and making some more...because I don't know the answer, I don't know what would happen...no one does...and if I worry too much does then it become a self fulfilling prophecy?...see what I mean, too much thinking just adds to the freaking out...Someone that I used to work for once said to me "Fake it 'til you make it" and I've always thought that to be good advice...I think I'll just continue to prescribe to that mindset...making it up as I go, with some random planning along the way....I also think that I will start to flip off anyone that gives me the "Oh....you're having a baby, there goes your art life..." look...Sounds like a plan to me...
til next thursday...
xo D

Wanderlust

2009-07-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

Flipping through some old photos of a trip to Cameroon... God, I want to go on an adventure...

Jumping Waves

2009-07-19T23:59:00.000-07:00

on the bus to Venice, Venice Biennale 2007

"The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace."

from The Awakening by Kate Chopin. I read this in high school. It was my favorite book in AP English. I think it may have influenced my work.

I jumped into the crisp and cold Atlantic on Friday in New Jersey far from the city. I had to dance around at the water's edge before racing into the waves. I took the plunge, head-butting a wave at about thigh's height. It shocked me. So much that after a short soak, I slowly trudged out of the water towards the shore. I told Darla on the sand that it was like being in battle, a phrase I stole from my father, mouthed when a situation gets rough. It was hard to jump into that cold body of water alone. When you're young standing at the water's edge you have a hand holding yours. You know that that grown-up hand won't let go of your small one and you can simply look forward to doing what you came here for, the only activity in your mind worth doing standing at that foamy part of the water, jumping the waves. And if that hand holding yours belongs to someone of great strength or great fun, you may not even have to jump at all. You may be carried over each wave with both arms by two big grown up hands..

I come to you from West Philadelphia. I'm in my panties and boots drinking red wine in a cup. And I'm just going to write.

Laura Graham said potential... we talked about it over Yuengling in Brooklyn. So did my best friend and I over the phone in regard to our futures, both immediate and distant. I think about it a lot. I think of the little girl I once was wearing a red sequined beret, twirling around in spin-around dresses and charming strangers everywhere my mother would take me. I wanted to be a star. This is what I think about when I think about potential. The potential to be great...oh how gauging greatness changes as we age. To be great at age six was to be a star. To be great now...how to be great now...this is the thing that keeps me up until the wee hours of the night.

I want to be great. To be great is to be fearless and sexy and confident. And alone and accompanied only be choice not necessity. To be full. To be eager. To be experimental. To be open to change. To love not hate. To get off a lot. To laugh and cry no holds barred. To be brave enough to scream, when scared, when mad, when having an orgasm, when in labor, when laboring. To not apologize blindly. To not forgive blindly. To forget when it's poisoning your head. To feel pain. To get out of bed. To get up in the morning. To write. To draw. To Paint. To be ballsy like Sophie Calle and Tracey Emin and Candy Depew. To make and not give a fuck what others think. To not give a fuck and do it. To do something. To do anything and not feel bad for not doing something else. To jump in and stay there. To jump in. To not be terrified. To be terrified and do it anyway because if you don't you're being untrue. To be honest and jump in and jump waves all by yourself and love it because you finally did it. To finally do and be. To jump in. To jump waves. They never do stop coming at you when you're standing at the water's edge.

We've talked and jokingly said that we're either gonna end up killing ourselves or start over in completely different lives...

from the Letters to Past Boys series

oh how beautiful and pertinent this line is from a book I loved at age 17..

"She looked into the distance, and the old terror flamed up for an instant, then sank again."

Kate Chopin

Oh Edna Pontellier.

I dream to be great...buona sera

xo ac

telephone pictionary

2009-07-17T08:20:00.001-07:00

Back in art school, we played and made up a bunch of games involving drawing, but this one really takes the cake. I was introduced to it last weekend when I had several friends at my house. Sitting around my dining room table, Lisa taught us to play a game called telephone pictionary. Your sense of humor counts for at least as much as your draftsmanship skills.

I would recommend playing with no less than four people, with 5-8 being optimal.

Game play is simple:

1. Gather up a bunch of small pieces of paper (we ended up playing with pieces that were approximately 4" x 2.5" -- but use whatever you will feel comfortable with). For each round, every player will get a stack of papers equal to the number of players in the game. In this case, we had eight players, so we needed 64 sheets per round.

2. Distribute the papers to each player. Number the pages (in this case, 1-8).

3. For the first turn, each player writes a phrase on sheet 1. It can be anything, and any number of words. It doesn't have to be a person, place, thing, or quote - make up whatever you want.

4. Each player passes their stack of papers to their left, with 1 on top.

5. When you receive your stack, look at the phrase on sheet 1, put it in the back of the stack, and draw the phrase on sheet 2. No words, of course!

6. Pass the stack to your left.

7. When you receive the stack, look at the drawing on sheet 2, put it to the back, and write on sheet 3 a phrase which best describes the drawing from sheet 2. Most important rule here - no peeking at sheet 1!

8. Pass the stack to your left. Look at sheet 3, put it to the back, draw on sheet 4 your best representation of the phrase from sheet 3.

Game play continues this way (alternating between drawing and writing, only looking at the top sheet) until all of the papers have been used and the stack is returned to the person who wrote the first phrase on page 1. Everyone reviews the results.

...Enjoy!!!

I don't sleep, I dream....

2009-07-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

I am an Aquarius, and I believe that's part of what makes me the super-charged nut-case that I am when it comes to ideas I'm excited about, specifically those that are art related. The other ladies of the collective have been many a time subjected to the crazy that is a Darla idea...(though part of why I love them all so much is that we're all each our own special brand of crazy and tend to balance each other out a bit....) Anyway, here's another idea ladies, should you choose to accept it...
Yesterday, I randomly remembered a book that Justin saw and was going to get for me a while back. He showed it to me, I loved it and I'm pretty sure its on his list of things to get me one day, but me being far too impatient for that, just ordered it for myself. (Damn this world of instant gratification that we live in!) Problem was that I couldn't remember the name of it for about 45 minutes and kept thinking it was "White Hot Black Magic" and Amazon kept turning up all these voodoo books (another time, ladies, another time). Finally I typed something else (what it was I don't remember) in the Google search and found it, somehow, someway, and ordered it. Then I was remembering all the weird, twisted art that is in it and got all excited to see it again, and, in the true spirit of instant gratification, found shots of some pages from the book online to look at.
Sidebar, I'm currently in the process of updating photos of my work and plan to put together another book of my work. (I did one in 2007 that came out really well.) This fact and looking at the pages of this book, I was like "Hell, why don't WE do a book...?!?!?!?" I feel like this has maybe been tossed around a couple of times before but I mean for real...this could be an amazing project that could be used for both individual and collective promotion, fund raising (ladies gotta eat, you know) and I think would be a fabulous end product (see....my crazy is very practical....). The magic that is Photoshop combined with the wonders of the online book publishing world could allow us to put together a bangin' piece worthy of many a fancy lady's (or man's) coffee table/art book shelf/under their pillow while they're sleeping area cause its so awesome they want to dream about it every night.....you catch my drift. Anyway, this is whats in my head this week...I leave you with a few images from "Black Magic, White Noise" to inspire you...
xo
D

The things it loves.

2009-07-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

"The mind plays with the object it loves"... I was thinking of this quote by Jung today. I thought perhaps writing a list of loves would be a good starting point in the creative process to garner ideas. I have to say, I wasn't very good at thinking of physical objects I love, but I suppose the quote could be extended to include concepts as well...

Here's what I've come up with so far...

1. The anonymity, excitement and mystery of traveling to a new and distant city.

2 The nostalgia of returning to a city that I've already experienced.

3. Thinking of something hard enough to make it true.

4. Strange words in strange languages.

5. A warm, melty, flaky pain au chocolat. Bacon chocolate. Truffle oil. Pork buns. Um... food.

6. The exhausted feeling of euphoria after a run.

7. Utter decisiveness.

8. Dogs and their every wag, wiggle and lick.

9. The word and meaning of "oneiric".

10. Something old made new.

11. Masks.

12. Potential.

À bientôt,

Summer, Sparklers, Friends, Solitude, Philadelphia, New Jersey, The Places between, Working, Cigarettes, Sadness, Exploration, Existentialism, Hope

2009-07-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

No words just pictures.
xo ac

oh, and
theartblog+hollaAtchagirl
"it offends the men and delights the ladies," she said.

Take a chance...

2009-07-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure most artists do, I get an idea that's "IT"! "THE IDEA!" "I AM GOING TO MAKE THIS NOW!" and then change my mind 500 times and have 499 other varieties of the "IT" idea to further confuse myself with ("Now which one was better....idea 387 or idea 493????")
I've been feeling a bit that way over an upcoming show...I had the idea set, changed my mind a million times and then was left hemming and hawing between 2 "final" ideas. Funny thing is that you can mention these ideas to someone and they're like "Well what about (insert another good idea here)"...normally this sends me into a tizzy of reworking and re-evaluating but last night it was what clicked everything in place. Thank you Ms. Aubrie for unlocking the craziness that is my brain and helping me lock down on what is to come... "What did I do?" you might be asking yourself but sometimes its just as simple as that...I mean how many times has someone said the tiniest of things that made you want to race home to make art...? (It's not often or ever that I've actually done the racing home part...usually I just try not to forget what they said until I can write it down somewhere...) Anyway, specifically I was wrestling with two ideas: one involving animals and the use of boardwalk chance games and the other which will remain a secret until I get around to making it...one thing at a time, for fear I will whip myself into another art idea frenzy at the mere mention of another idea (I am so dramatic today...)....So anyway, I've been trying to decide how the animals make sense in this situation blah blah blah and Aubrie says "well, what happens next to the baby rabbits in the last piece you did?" BINGO! Insert baby rabbits into boardwalk style chance games....Huh? You might be saying but here's how it goes: As you and any reader of the Philadelphia Weekly and City Paper know, I am currently knocked up. Bun in the oven. The stork has my address....however you wanna say it, there's a baby on the way. This is by far the biggest risk, leap, chance I've EVER taken in my life, so I figure Hey! Let's put little baby bunnies into these boardwalk games in a way that it looks like it could go horribly wrong. What the hell am I talking about? Picture a baby bun hanging among balloons that people are about the aim darts at... Another atop a Milk Bottle pyramid that is about to be toppled over with a ball...baby bunnies in dunk tanks and so on. I figure I will be scared about the baby getting hurt everyday once its here so maybe I can get some of the worry out of my system by making this work....maybe...we'll see....
More on this later...
xo D

alike but not the same

2009-07-08T14:59:00.000-07:00

In thinking about what to write for my maiden post, I settled on Pedro Almodovar's celebration of women in his films. And then, just this afternoon, I got an e-mail from my mother containing a link to this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDIoN-_Hxs

At first glance, I found it a bit gauche, but within seconds I was mesmerized. For such a simple idea, it made me think so much about portraiture throughout art history.

Much has been said about Mona Lisa's smile, but in seeing the portrayals of these many and varied women, one into the next, the eyes have it for me. I have been thinking lately about how it is possible to depict pathos with a minimum of "expression" in the face, for lack of a better word. We pick up on it in each other's faces every day, but how do you capture it as an artist? How do you communicate sadness without a frown, or show defeat while staring straight out at the viewer?

In almost every case, there is a story to read in these women's faces. Not necessarily a specific story, but one that the viewer can imagine, and often relate to their own lives. And to get really out-there for just a moment, I also see in these portraits a more universal thread, having to do with the "beauty and sadness" present in women's lives [to borrow a phrase from the collective].

With all of the variation in costuming, hairstyle, facial structure, and pose, there is a strong and persistent element shared by these women that makes them all appear similar. In many, I see a strength born of pain. In some, a guarded reluctance, and in others, a flirty invitation. In these faces I see my friends, my mother, and myself -- and they are all beautiful.

Hula hoops, food and NYC.

2009-07-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

I am fortunate enough to represent the NYC branch of The Other Woman Collective. I have to admit, I’m with Aubrie in feeling that the idea of writing a blog is very foreign! So, to start off simply, I am posting 3 photos I’ve taken in the last 3 days. To elaborate, I’ve decided that because I do so much of my work in a studio setting, I would like to try to take my camera out with me more often as a way to loosen up and get ideas.

This photo was taken on the 4^th of July at Rockaway Beach in NY. My friend Ceci is an avid hula hooper, and I have to admit, when she met me in the subway lugging along her big ol’ black and silver hoop, I was a bit of a naysayer. I was so very wrong. These things are fantastic! I’m quickly becoming addicted and realizing there is a lot more to hooping than a quick twirl around the waist. Here are a couple of sites I’ve been recommended to see more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0aUr_7DBJQ&feature=related

http://groovehoops.com/

I made this photo while being lucky enough to enjoy the most amazing dim sum of my life at Dim Sum Go Go on East Broadway. We ordered a lot of food, so I kind of lost track, but I’m pretty sure these crispy, toasty little buggers were the Sesame Balls. Pure heaven. And the Pork Buns? Orgasmic.

My last little photo was taken in the late afternoon on Monday, around the time people were scrambling to get home from work and enjoy the last few hours of sunshine before the gloaming. I think it snatched one of the facets of NYC. Industrious worker bees rushing from place to place. A moment of bustling frozen. The sense of constantly being surrounded by people but not knowing their story and often only catching a glimpse of them before they disappear into the crowd.

That’s all I have to say for today, Lovelies.

À bientôt,

Hey Pretty. Don't you wanna take a ride with me?

2009-07-06T00:01:00.000-07:00

How you doin' Da? Thanks for the unbelievable intro luv.
Darla's work is ambitious and creepy.
With her little created scenarios, I find myself wanting to know, "what happened here?" and wanting to hug vulnerable baby animals as their parents lie dead in front of them. The creepier Da's work, the better. As her studiomate I want to be disturbed when I walk into our studio...

Okay weird cyber world.. I am, very hesitantly and officially, a BLOGGER. ew. Sorry to all you intense and awesome bloggers out there. But you may slowly but surely come to know that I am freaked out by computers and my fellow associates had to very gently devirginize me (how they doin'?) as one who blogs. Actually, I really feel like I cannot call it blogging. I'm just going to have to list things that I like right now, combine it with the word blog and go from there..

Things I like as of 7/3:
The Piazza
TOW
skirts
summer boots
outdoor drinking
Patron

Okay, since summer bootlogging sounds bad, I shall call my weekly words...patronogging. Hopefully as the summer progresses I will be drinking Patron while blogging. I mean patronogging.

Laura Graham and I went to The New Museum on 6/25 and caught the Younger Than Jesus Exhibit.
I think she will agree with me that the best thing there was the OMG obelisk. It was very witty and of-the-times and ominous and sad. Because, OMFG what is going on anyway? I also loved the piece done by a Japanese artist who bought everything off the bodies of three young people in Japan and displayed each person's belongings on three tabletops. It was simple and complex all at once, a very interesting glimpse into the lives of three young people. How similar we all are, the things we carry, the clothes we wear. There was also an Asian artist who had female volunteers sleep in a big white bed in the middle of a gallery space with the assistance of sleeping pills during gallery hours. I connected with this piece. It was weird and voyeuristic and the fact that all sleeping beauties were female was poignant. Tracey Emin-esque. Also, I am an insomniac so it clicked with something in my head.
I loved the "Myspace introductions" piece by an artist my age. I think it's important to talk about the shit that has blasted into our lives in the last couple years like wildfire. Like Social networking sites.. how off they can feel.
There was a lot to see. A lot of interesting things and it was really something that all the artists were so young. Some of it I didn't connect with immediately but I got the direction of the show. Weird, technological, 80s, hip hop, apocalyptic, confused, sad, bizarre, youtubed, myspacefacebooktwittered, tired, lost, wet, nostalgic, hopeful, drained, young, energetic, bombarded people making things about the times and the past...

Also that day strolling through Manhattan I was texted by my best friend from NC that Michael Jackson died. Immediately afterwards the streets of NYC were filled with passing words said on cell phones about the loss.
It is the end of an era. And his death brought out a strange unity among people in Philadelphia. Dance parties and sing alongs. And me singing P.Y.T. and Dirty Diana in my car (affectionately known as Star Jones) the loudest and most passionately I have ever sang them. I fucking love Michael. My family does. And everyone's rediscovered and renewed appreciation for his banging soulful music now is honestly really awesome.

It needs to be explored in more detail by an introspective eloquent writer the symbolism of MJ's death to people of my generation and the one before in the current times. I can't put it into words but I can see and feel it.

I believe that is all for now. Please check out Summer In The City at Projects Gallery on N. 2nd Street and see my piece "Holla atcha Girl" among other cool works.

You can read an opinion of it at www.colored-thread.blogspot.com.
^(Thank you so much for the words! Really awesome)

Alright lovers. Until next week, I bid you adieu. XO AC

And here we go...

2009-07-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

The Other Woman Collective has decided to dive headfirst into a new project...a blog. So to start it off real proper-like, I thought I might introduce us...

To keep it consistent, we'll each post 1 day per week, Monday through Thursday (this means you'll just have to be sad Fridays through Sundays without us, but on the bright side it will make Mondays that much better....)

First up, on Mondays, the fabulous Ms. Aubrie Costello - www.aubriecostello.com

Holla Atcha Girl, wall installation with summer clothes and two paintings, 2009

Aubrie has a way of making the most (pardon my french) fucked up things look beautiful. Her drawings and installations all manage to be raw yet refined, which would seem to be a contradiction but that girl has the eye and the balls to make it all work. How she doin'?

Tuesdays bring us the lovely Ms. Laura Graham - www.lauragrahamart.com

To the Sea, tintype, 2008

Laura Graham could take a photograph of the most boring thing you could imagine and somehow would manage to turn it into the most interesting and mysterious thing you've ever seen. Thing is, she never takes photos of anything boring so her work is even better than you just imagined it to be. Her carefully set scenarios, the secrets of her photographic processes and the sharpness of her eye all add up to a knockout combination...either that or its some kind of secret magic she knows and just isn't telling anyone about. Either way, I'll take it.

On Wednesdays, we'll hear from the saucy Ms. Laura McKinley - www.lauramckinley.typepad.com

Shilly - Shally, oil on canvas, 2009

Laura McKinley's paintings, to me, are each a carefully preserved moment in life, as if she just took that moment and put it in her pocket to show you later (except that she really made it into a big painting that wouldn't really fit in her pocket, but you know what I mean). And despite these moments being snips from her life, I feel like they speak more widely than that...like each piece is a bit of a story that you can imagine yourself in it. I am always so excited to know what's happening next in this story...! And formally speaking, this girl can work color or a pattern like its her job!

And on Thursdays, it will be lil' ol' me, Ms. Darla Jackson - www.darlajacksonsculpture.com

Vessel, gypsum cement, wood, ribbon, 2009

Me? I make strange sculptures of animals, which are based on human emotions, where the animals are kind of stand-ins for figures. I realized a while ago that this is what seemed to get more people to relate to the work, oddly enough. Maybe people feel more empathy toward animals? Maybe they subconsciously relate to the symbolism? Maybe it's easier to see what the piece is about when you're not worrying who it's about? I have no idea...but for some reason it works out.

So that's us...according to me anyway. Hope you enjoy all that is to come...I'm excited to see what craziness ensues...

'Til Monday...xoxo Darla