Description of a Lucid Dream of Art

I had the most incredible lucid dream of art last night. If I could explain it, I would say it was like watching an animation. It lasted about 5 minutes. I was as lucid as I am typing this, so I can recall vividly how it looked. I am posting this to keep it fresh in my mind for future projects.

Basically it was like looking at a stained glass image. The image below is somewhat like the initial image looked like, except there were more facets in the dream image, and the image was much more colorful and brighter.

Now the interesting thing about this, was that the image was constantly moving. For example, imagine the outlines moving in and out and this way and that, and the colors inside shifting as well to different shades and hues.

BUT on top of this motion and movement there was a second motion happening. It was a dimensional flux which pushed sections of the basic image forwards and backwards. The second dimensional movements were of secondary imagery and kept everything in flux.

There may be a way to recreate this with animation, but it would take a pro to do it. Now I can say this unequivocally–I have never seen any animation that looks anything like this dream I had last night.

Now if I had only had this dream back in 1992 for the Lamproneiro Art and the Lucid Dream show with the Boston Visionary Cell I might have had a decent entry for that show.

STICKERS – from punk rock to contemporary art – cool video

i just found this cool video – check it out! 

STICKERS – from punk rock to contemporary art – cool video

it is from the streaming museum – check it out!

when i posted this it only had 26 views. by the way yo have to watch it on you tube – it won’t play while embedded.

 

TAGoZINE #5 – FEB ’12 – Northampton Street Art

CLICK HERE TO SEE ISSUE #5 of  TAGoZINE in FLICKR 

Special Issue – My ten favorite Works of Street Art in Northampton from 2011.

TAGoZINE is an occasional photo journal of Northampton Street Art.

PAST ISSUES: CLICK on cover(s)  TO READ in flickr

   

  

Lecture by William Parry – photojournalist – “Against the Wall”

This lecture looks really interesting. Feb 22, 2012. Seelye Room 308. William Parry author/photographer of Against the Wall.

“This stunning book of photos captures the graffiti and art that has transformed Israel’s wall into a living canvas of resistance and solidarity. Featuring the work of artists including Banksy, Ron English, Blu and others”

Art Walk Night Out Easthampton, FEB 11, 2012.

We stopped at the Easthampton City Arts first and there were constructed boxes by Rosemary Barrett. They were kind of like those Joseph Cornell boxes. They were interesting to look at, depending what was in them you would get transported to some space in your past, some hidden reflected memory. One of them had a bunch of small folded linens. I had to resist the excruciating temptation to take them out and unfold them and refold them back in place.

Up on Cottage Street we stopped into the White Square books and there were some nice small works by Hannah Richards. I didn’t get a chance to talk to her, mainly because I had something in my eye, and it was watering. I couldn’t get it out. I kept blinking and it was all watery and I couldn’t focus on anything.

Then I got distracted by a really interesting book that had actual prints bound into it of Marilyn Monroe, and I got real hopeful that the owner didn’t know its value and I could buy it for $5 or something. But then I opened it up and saw it priced at $75 so I got disappointed. Then I heard someone say “Gouda Cheese” so I went over, but there was just cheddar. They were making a joke saying, “This cheese is good-a.”

We walked down to Nashawannuck Gallery and there was some really cool art there with the theme of matchbooks by Maggie Nowinski, David Poppie, and Dean Nimmer. They weren’t collaborative, they each had their own work. They were mostly constructions made with old matchbooks. They were cut up and arranged. So they were kind of abstract, but with old objects (the old matchbooks, many of which in and of themselves were objects of art). It was a cool show.

From there we went over to the Paragon Building. We’ve never been in there before. There used to be a guy who lived in Easthampton and he had a blog about his art life while living in the Paragon Building. He was from Albany and moved to the Valley because he had read how great an art community it was. Well, he kept a blog about his life here. Things went so badly for him that within a month or two he ended up moving back to Albany.

I was sad to see that he had left because I would have liked to have met him. Everything went wrong for him. His studio was next to a guitar player who played his guitar at all odd hours of the night so he couldn’t get any sleep. He didn’t sell any art. His car registration was messed up and his truck kept breaking down. Then he had to eventually get a job at some crappy place. It was really quite tragic. Anyway, he had a studio at Paragon building, so I always thing of him when I think of the Paragon.

So once he moved back to Albany he did an art project where he was living in a storefront window for a couple of months. The whole thing was really tragic. I can’t remember his name so I’m not sure if his blogs are still up. I wish I could remember his name. It was an unusual name. I hope he is ok.

Anyway, tonight there was a nice group showing going on at the Paragon. There was some nice work there. Our friend Amanda Hill had a great painting of an old rusty engine block. It was really nice. Heather really liked it too. From across the room at a distance it had a nice realism going on, and from up close it was really nice and abstract. She is doing a series of them so I can’t wait to see more of them.

Then we went in Joe Sziranko‘s studio which was right next to the exhibit. His studio was really cool. He had a lot of big abstract works on found materials. They had a lot of ‘material’ in the works along with drips and form. It was really a peaceful place to be in. Everything was very tidy and all his supplies were neatly laid out.

I wish I had a big space like that. My studio space is so small and there are so many stacks and piles of things that if I want to look at something I have to plan three days ahead of time to think of how I’ll have to move everything to get to it.

I want to get the photos from when Heather and I did the 25 Mona Lisa paintings from 1993, but I’m not exactly sure where they are. I want to scan them in and add them to this blog, partly because at Todd Sinclair‘s opening last month he mentioned how our friend Andrew Dickinson still had his painting. I want to scan the photos in and put them online because the 20 year anniversary is coming up of that series and we are thinking of returning to Providence to do 25 more. I still have the original acetate!

Yeah, so anyway, it’ll take me three days to move everything until I can find those photos. I literally have stacks of boxes and papers and all sorts of junk that it is a major effort to look for anything. The other day I was moving stuff around and I found this pile of four or five prints I forgot I had bought. One of them is from FOE of this little kid and an octopus. Another is the Chris Millette buffalo print. I have to get those things framed.

So next we went over to Eastworks to Luke Cavagnac‘s opening. We hadn’t been over there in a couple years for some reason. I asked him if I could make a video for my blog.

Then he asked me what my blog was called and I said, “My Art Journal.”

So he started laughing and says, “I love that.”

Then I thought maybe he thought I said “My Art Journey”, because what is cool about “My Art Journal”.

But it turns out he thought I said “My Art Urinal”, and he thought it was some Duchampian thing. So now I am really seriously considering changing the name of this to My Art Urinal. I really am considering it.

Luke has a giant painting that he is working on that is incredible. It is little squares and in each square he is painting a musician he likes. It is really cool already, and it will be incredible when it is done. There will be over 1000 small paintings on it. He might get prints made if he can figure out the logistics once it is done.

So I found a little painting I really liked of some cars. I think it is one of his best pieces. It is called Traffic Jam Blues. Then Heather was flipping through one of his photo albums with pictures of people with the paintings they bought, and she found the photo of us from two years ago. I had a really really short hair cut back then. I took a picture ’cause it was so funny.

So then I got the idea from seeing his musicians painting to see if he would do a Johnny Rotten painting for me to go alone with the Johnny Rotten Garamon thing from FOE and he said he would do it. That is going to be cool.

Traffic Jam Blues

Heather and Chris from 2009 or so.

Art Walk Night Out in Northampton – Feb 10, 2012

This was ice sculpture day – unfortunately it was in the 40s most of the day and the sculptures were melting into the night. I was watching Don Chapelle carve his ice in front of Thornes during lunch and he was really a pro – he had all sorts of high-tech ice sculpting equipment. He was making some alcids from the looks of it.

Heather and I headed out later on and stopped at Living Art Tatoo where there were some paintings by Michel Bellici. But nobody was there, it turns out the opening was a month earlier and the artist is in New York. The paintings were really interesting – large abstract nudes and smaller studies. They were very dream-like.

I have an idea (after watching the Ed Hardy documentary) to have tattoo artists do little drawings in a book–kind of like a graffiti writer black book. The guy at the tattoo shop suggested I go to tattoo conventions and bring the book, then all the tattoo artists would do a little quick signature and I could build up a collection quickly. I could bring some of my own drawings and trade them if they didn’t want to do it en gratis.

We wandered over to Market Street but there wasn’t anything open over there tonight. Then we ran into Dave Huckins. He is in an upcoming show at FOE. Leah Moses is having a 3 day show in March at WhooSpace. It is going to be an installation of  Yumyos – I am looking forward to that show. We only have one Yumyo and it is lonely.

Then we met up with our friends Kim and Brian and went over to FOE Shop to see the Garamaniacal show. It was interesting to see all the different artist’s takes on Garamon. It was crowded show with lots of great artworks.

Michael Nordstrom from Garamania was wearing an incredible Garamon costume. It was almost too real and triply. I liked the GiL piece he did. It had Garamon looking like Johnny Rotten. The mask was hand-created specifically for him.

Then we headed over to APE Gallery where Katy Schneider had a large body of work of portraits (two decades). They were really nicely done. They almost had a Vermeer quality – perfect sense of light and value and economy of brushwork. The paintings were glowing.

At Michelson Gallery there was the Richard Yarde  tribute show. It was nice to see the paintings actual size – a lot of the reproductions don’t do them justice. I think he showed once at Pahana Gallery in Northampton. Either that or Bob had one of his paintings. It was also cool to see Barbara Spencer‘s sculptures. There is a lot of inspirational artwork in there. I was watching a video of Leonard Nimoy taking photos. It was wicked funny.

Then we dropped by Unite to check out Ramiro Davaro-Comas‘ show. They were smallish portraits– there was one of the Statue of Liberty that I liked. His art is somewhat reminiscent of Ralph Steadman, but a little darker and more interesting. He said that he has a bunch of residencies coming up in Europe–in Berlin and Amsterdam. He will be missed in Northampton.

The last place we went to was the Dynamite Space in the basement of Thornes where there was an interesting group show sponsored by C3. Each artist basically did some art once a day in January, then they showed all the pieces in the show. So it was like a group show of art for each artist in the group show. It was cool to see. A lot of it was conceptual, and a lot of it was kind of riffing on a theme, and some of it was really nicely executed.

I didn’t get all the artists names in the show, but a few things I liked included a collage of tea wrappers in a big frame, photos of numbers from different things for each date in January, a series of haunting portraits of different people with some prose next to them, and some drawing of birds–some were fanciful and imaginative, but others were real species like kinglets and gallinules.

Mimi Lempart had some zentangles that were really nice. Her style has really evolved – they were in color and had really intricate lattices and dimensionality to them. I was enjoyed seeing them.

Then we saw that one of the artists, Miranda LaPolice, had some photos that included shots of Northampton street art, and of course I recognized all the obscure graffiti. We had a lot of fun talking about Northampton street art. She suggested we go to Brattleboro and check out that scene.

Perhaps the most interesting art I saw all night was a recent sticker by Alased. Interesting to me because I don’t recall seeing a signed Alased sticker before, so it was a serendipitous encounter. I have to check all my photos to see if any other stickers look similar.

All in all a memorable evening in Northampton.

garamaniacal color contest entry for foe shop gallery garamon show

this is my entry for the color contest for the garamaniacal show at foe shop gallery. i have to drop it off this week. you can buy it friday at the opening and the $ will go to the mspcc. this is a monster called garamon from the 60s. I never heard of it before, but it is really popular.

2012 Art Projects & recent Movie Reviews

The Oscar nominated movies list came out the other day and I am thinking about making a mad-dash to try and see a bunch of them before the awards show. I don’t think I’ve seen a single film on the list. Of course two years ago I made an attempt to see every film nominated and I only have three or four left to see to accomplish that. They are all streaming netflix so I could do it pretty easily, but the ones I have left to see look pretty depressing - Milk of Sorrow, and Which Way Home.

The point I’m making is that I haven’t been going to too many movies lately, but I have seen a few the last month or so. The main reason I’ve been watching movies again lately is that the process involved in my 2012 art projects is condusive to having a movie playing in the background on the laptop while I work.

I am working on three main art projects this year.

1. The first is a series of acrylic paintings of northampton at night which I’ll make giclee prints of for my show next December at Woodstar Cafe. I’ve done one already – the one of Happy New Year Northampton. I hope to  do two a month and end up with twenty images or so and put the best ones in the Woodstar.

I made a test giclee of the one of Jakes and the Calvin at night and gave it to the guys at Jakes to wish them good luck with Jakes. I had lunch the other day and it was nice to get an omlette with sun-dried tomato!

2. The next project I’m doing is for a late august early september show at Salon 241 on Main Street. I am keeping the idea for this show under wraps. I’ve already done three paintings and will probably do another 10. They are Acrylics, hand-painted Pop Art.

3. The third project I am working on is someting I am keeping under complete wraps, but it will dovetail with the Salon 241 show. I will start to unveil it in mid-March.

So, that is why I haven’t been posting much artwork on the jornal, but rest assured I am busy doing things and it will eventually all be shown.

and here are my reviews . . .

Dark Days (2000), B

This is a gritty black and white documentary about people who used to live in the tunnel by Penn Station. I am fascinated watching this documentary. I don’t know why, it just fascinates me to be able to look into their lives. On one hand (and they talk about it) they are completely free from having to be part of the rat race, but on the other hand, they are living in the subway.

Eventually they got housing vouchers when Amtrak kicked them out of the tunnels.

DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2010), B

There is a movie on youtube that I watched called the Spirit Molecule, but it isn’t this version. This one is a documentary that talks about a study of the physiological effect on DMT, but it also gives insight into the actual experience of taking it. It is ok, but it really doesn’t come close to Terrence McKenna talking about it. Also, the Alex Grey (artist) movie really explains it all a lot better.

This movie kind of goes into a psuedo-religious bent at the end, which really is just a bunch of speculation. I’ll probably watch it again and pay a little more attention to it. I was reading the reviews on netflix and one of them said to watch Enter the Void which has a DMT sequence, so I went ahead and watched that next.

Enter the Void (2009), A+

I really am not sure what to say about this movie. I feel stupid giving it a grade. There were times while watching it I had to remind myself that I was indeed watching a movie and that what I was watching wasn’t really happening. I don’t know, you are either going to experience something watching this and connect to something on some level, or you won’t. Nothing I say will matter anyway.

The closest analogy I can make is that this movie is like when you were a kid, and you find out what hot dogs are made of. You can never not know what hot dogs are made of after that. This movie is like that about death. You think, ‘oh that is what that is.’ I guess we are like Oscar stuck there roaming around, we just have to watch, there is nothing else to do. We can’t unwatch, we are stuck. We can’t deny what this is.”

Now as far as the ending, I like to think that Oscar is reincarnated as his sister and his friend’s baby. I read an interview that said it is just a memory of his ‘Oscar’ birth, but I think it is more poetic with my interpretation.

And by the way, the intro credits are great. The whole movie is really beautiful – even the violent parts. It is very sad. A very sad nostolgic, deep sad. If this is what happens when you die, then I would suggest watching this movie to get used to how boring it will be.

I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (2002), A

I saw this Wilco documentary last year, but since then I’ve became more familiar with a lot of the songs in this movie, so I enjoyed it a lot more this time around. If you like Wilco watch it (watch it again) and if you dont like Wilco or don’t know about them, watch it, and then watch it again next year like I did.

Style Wars (1984), A

Watched this one again with the directors commentary. It was a lot more interesting because you get some good insight. Also I met a few people in the movie and it adds a dimension to it. You slowly learn more about the people in it and it kind of resonates more. I spent a lot of time finding the building where SEEN did his piece by looking at google street view. I love that you can do stuff like that with computers. This is the best time to be alive with all these cool computer things. I think I’m the right age and mindset to not take it for granted.

Wild Style (1983), A

This one I watched again with the commentary turned on. You get a lot more insight. In my previous review of this I called it kind of corny, but Fab 5 Freddy in the commentary called it kind of corny too, so I feel better about my initial review. However, after watching with the commentary on I think it is less corny and really enjoy it more.

Herb and Dorothy (2008), A

I like this movie. I will watch it again. This viewing inspired me to get all the art I bought that is still sitting in a pile and get it framed and up on the walls.

Ed Hardy: Tatoo the World (2010), B+

This is a documentary about Ed Hardy, tattoo artist. It is a cool movie because it gives a good historical perspective on graffiti by one of the people who was there from the beginning of the modern era. This got me thinking that maybe I should collect art from tattoo artists instead of getting tattoos. I really like the old school style of classic tattoos. This movie has a lot of that imagery.