Dadaism

In front of Marcel Duchamp's To Be Looked At (from the Other Side of the Glass) with One Eye, Close To, for Almost an Hour at MoMA.



Or am I behind it?

In Need of Graffiti

This ridiculous pro-life billboard in Greenpoint is just begging for some sort of scathing public art intervention.


Any ideas?

Americana

Some Norman Rockwell for this fine 4th of July.







Check out this cool article and slideshow in New York Times.

Folk Art Father's Day

FATHER AND DAUGHTER OF ELIZABETHTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA/ Jacob Maentel

Best & Worst Babysitter Award

So, I was supposed to go to Arizona for Christmas on Sunday evening, but my flight was canceled-- one of many victims of the blizzard this past weekend. I was not able to get another flight until Thursday, so I'm stuck in NYC for three days longer than expected. I managed to turn lemons into some awesome lemonade by booking some last minute babysitting so now every day, all day, until I leave, I'm chillin' with Emma. I'm savoring it because, once my new job starts, I'll no longer be babysitting her regularly.

So far we've been having a grand old time indulging in indoor, wintertime activities. Today, for example, we spent an unhealthy number of hours playing Super Mario Bros. on the Wii. I'm not really a video game person, but this is hands down the funnest game I've ever played. Every half hour or so I'd say, "maybe we should take a break," and then quickly follow with "after one more round." While this probably qualifies me as a candidate for worst babysitter ever, I think I managed to redeem myself with a kick-ass craft project: Emma's book report diorama.

Believe it or not, fourth graders get homework over the holiday break. Emma's was to complete the art component for a report on Morning Girl, a book about the Taino people that's part of her school's New York State history curriculum. Emma wanted to create a diorama that represented the themes of night and day in the book. Now flashback to when I was in fourth grade, also studying state history. A key part of California's curriculum was a unit on the Spanish missions, and each kid made a model of our chosen mission using cardboard, foam core, or rice krispie treats. And my (well-meaning) dad totally high-jacked my project. Even though I wanted to take the lead, I wasn't permitted to use the Exacto knife. I made some bells out of clay and painted a few shrubs, but my dad created blueprints, measured and assembled the entire structure. We even went to the model train store to buy miniature donkeys and monks.

I always found this memory comical, but today, I had to hold back from totally highjacking the diorama project. I came up with the dyptic design and cut paper medium, but I consciously limited myself to only making the skeleton structure and cutting paper to fit the various backdrops. I had Emma create all the artistic details, but when I complemented her design, she proclaimed, "I got all my design ideas from you!" Oops.

Exterior Night Scene (stars are made of tinfoil)

Interior morning scene.

I am exceedingly proud of our work. I hope we get an A.

A Little to the Left

Vermont Memories, #3
I mentioned in my last post that Marina had recently moved into an apartment downtown, which meant that one of the activities during my visit was helping settle into the new place. We carried some shelves back from Marina's mom's house, looked for treasures in an amazing little antique store, and hung some art. Here are some favorite little corners of her new room: some great kid art depicting Peanut, comfy couch and blankets, and a little art nook.

Dog of the Future, Dog of the Past

This is SNIFF

Childhood Memories Remixed

Electronic music artist Pogo creates tracks by sampling and mixing sounds from films, many of them children's movies. He also creates awesome music videos to accompany them. I have watched this one, based on the movie Hook, about a million times. This was a favorite movie of mine circa 1997, and one of the few I still own on DVD. I love the choice of raw material and the results.


I realize quite of few of you out there might have never seen Hook (shame on you) so here's another example based on Mary Poppins.


If there were a Reappropriate This Academy Award, Pogo would surely be the winner.

Is It Too Early for Christmas Shopping?

Because I think I know someone who would like these tree house prints by Jill Bliss.
Available at 20 x 200.

My Report on the Renegade Craft Fair

The Renegade Craft Fair is taking place here this weekend, and today Jamie and I conducted our second annual visit. Sprout came along too. There was an almost overwhelming amount of great stuff to see, but I think I've finally narrowed it down to my personal top five favorites.

1. Cindy Tomczyk's Letterpress Prints

2. Brainstorm Prints

3. Charlie and Sarah's children's clothes

4. Payton Turner's sticker wallpaper

5. Rifle Design's wedding invitations


The non-design highlight of the trip was the lemonade from Green Pirate, the elusive juice truck I'd been futilely searching for since I had one of their lemonades at last year's craft fair.

myMondrian

For a great new way to waste time on the Internet, check out this website that turns your personal data into your very own Mondrian-inspired work of art. I quite like mine.

Four Somewhat Related Thoughts About Elephants

1. Once in college, I (alone and sniffling in my dorm room) watched an Animal Planet documentary about elephants. Why was I sniffling? Apparently, elephant herds must make the same trek each year to find water during the dry season, and they are led on this difficult journey by the matriarch of the group. The matriarch of the particular herd being followed by the filmmakers had been shot the previous year by poachers; she managed to escape, but only to die later along the trail. Next year, when the elephants approached the spot where she had died, they became noticeably somber. They found her bones, and caressed them with their trunks. Then, they took her tusks (the parts valuable to the poachers) and hid them in brush, so that her remains would not be disturbed. I have loved elephants ever since.

2. A former roommate of mine had a watering can shaped like an elephant. It got me thinking, how cute would it be if elephants, kind of like horses, could be bred so small that they could live as household pets?! It would be so comforting to have a little trunk draped over your knee.

3. I recently learned that a perfectly preserved baby mammoth was discovered in Siberia. It is almost the perfect size for a household pet!

4. Aria posted this amazing YouTube video of an elephant painting. It can paint better than I can.

The Week in Review

I have been 25 for a week now, and what a week it has been.

Friday

Meredith (who had surprised me the day before by taking an earlier flight than expected) and I journeyed to Beacon, NY where we visited Dia:Beacon, explored Main Street, and ate at Homespun Foods.

Saturday

I met up with pals for a delicious brunch at DuMont. It was a great first day of spring; I had made little seed packet party favors, and was given tulips by both Meng & Kashmira. After eggs benedict, a handful of us went to PS 1. The best thing thing there was Leandro Erlich's swimming pool. Afterward we headed back to Brooklyn for a neighborhood promenade. We eventually ended up at our old haunt, Brooklyn Ale House, where sadly, the free bagel brunch was not happening. But there were plenty of peanuts.

Sunday

The day began with brunch, my favorite meal, at Enid's, followed by a routine stop-in at Spoonbill & Sugartown and Catbird. On the way home, we decided to brave the moody proprietor of Cheeks to pick up a dozen cupcakes. Later that evening we met up with the old museum gang for bowling (and the aforementioned cupcakes) at The Gutter. Even though I lost, I bowled a strike for the last two frames, so that was pretty sweet.

Monday

We met up for brunch with a couple of Meredith's pals at Clinton Street Baking Company. We shoe-shopped unsuccessfully. We had a Sprout photo shoot.

Tuesday
We went to hear Heather Armstrong (aka dooce) read from her new book at B&N and dreamt of one day being Internet moguls, too. Then we saw Sunshine Cleaning at the Landmark Sunshine.

Wednesday
Double trouble. We met Megha for delicious food in Prospect Heights: Mexican at at Chavella's and ice cream at Blue Marble. I think my dreams came true when I saw they offered banana chip. Then we headed to trivia night at Pete's Candy Store with Meredith's pal, Katie. We placed 7th (out of about 16, not too shabby) and learned what a philtrum is.

Thursday

Dinner at Westville East, where we enjoyed brussell sprouts, beets, artichoke hearts, plantains, and many more vegetable delights.

Friday
Today we had brunch at Shopsin's with James. They have macaroni and cheese pancakes, and they're delicious. After we checked out Economy Candy, we walked up to Union Square to catch a matinee showing of A Haunting in Connecticut. The theater was full of rowdy high schoolers, but the ectoplasm was cool. Now we're about to head up up uptown for a sleep over at Stiggy's. Fun fun fun.

Delightful

Cristoph Niemann's I Lego N.Y.

A Smattering of Vacation Delights

School's out here in the city of dreams, which means that all three of my regular jobs weren't happening, and instead, I spent the week with Ms. Emma. We had a grand old time. Here are some of the things that happened:

We went to one of the Met's family programs, which turned out to be about Greco-Roman art. Coincidentally, we had spent the previous afternoon sketching gods and goddesses from her D'Aulaires book, so she was well prepared and eager to answer questions. When the educator mentioned the riddle of the Sphinx, Emma knew both the question (what walks on four feet in the morning, two feet in the afternoon, and three feet at night?) and the answer (a human).

We had planned to go to the Central Park Zoo in hopes of catching a sea lion feeding, but abandoned our plan while waiting for the bus because it was much too cold and windy. Instead, we headed for an old standby-- Museum of the Moving Image. I ran into lots of old pals, Emma and her brother made some awesome stop-motion animation, and we all watched Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers.

We played with Sprout. She and Emma got along famously. Emma pet her and brushed her and whispered, "Hello my name is Emma, I'm not sure what I smell like to you..." They ran with each other up and down the block, which had the benefit of tiring them both out. Sprout inspired Emma to start a dog spa, and she already came up with the first treatment, "Shih Tzu Shiatsu."

We had a playdate with a lovely child, who unfortunately came as a package deal with her insufferable mother. This lady shared with me her unsolicited thoughts on race ("If my child dated a black man, I wouldn't mind if he was like Obama"), pop culture ("Britney Spears is an example of what happens when you give white trash money"), Perego versus Maclaren strollers & iPhones versus Blackberrys (both an excuse to mention the dollar amounts she paid) and my personal favorite, foreign policy ("I know you're not supposed to support genocide, but I'm this close to saying-- just blow the Middle East up!" and "We can't negiotiate with terroists, because they want everyone to be like them... and I don't want to wear a burka"). Needless to say, it was difficult and upsetting to be around this pathetic lady, but I took a cue from Emma, who earlier that day had proclaimed, "patience is my best virtue."

2009 Vermeer

Meredith carefully selected a button from her collection and repaired my gray sweater.

Good Point

I spent the last two days babysitting for Emma. Despite the snow flurries on Friday, Emma, her 14 year old brother and I ventured crosstown to MoMA. The main purpose of our visit was to check out Pipilotti Rist's exhibit "Pour Your Body Out," which invites you to take off your shoes and lie down on a large doughnut-shaped couch while watching large projections on three walls. I think we all enjoyed it. While watching, Emma whispered, "what do you think we're supposed to be?" The work did make you feel like you were somehow a part of it, but I wasn't sure how.

Next we checked out "Here Is Every," an exhibition of four decades of contemporary art. It featured Felix Gonzalez-Torres' piece "Death By Gun," which is actually endless large paper posters depicting dozens of obituaries of victims of gun violence. Copies are left in the gallery and meant to be taken by visitors. Naturally Emma wanted one. After briefly explaining the meaning of the piece ("Um, it's pictures of people who have died...") I suggested she might just share one with her brother; one per household seemed plenty. "Well," Emma countered, "it's kind of fun to just get to take something from a museum." True.

Our final stop was the design exhibition, "Rough Cut." It was full of cutting edge (get it?) design treasures: padlocks with smiley heart faces welded on them, faceless stuffed toys for developmentally disabled children, and a Stokke stroller. There was some sort of chair/cave creation made of soft purple fabric. Upon seeing it, Emma gasped, "Oh, I just want to sit in that so badly." Luckily she is well-versed in museum etiquette, and even with the confusion of contemporary art (take this art home! don't sit on this chair!), by now she's enough of a pro that I can let her wander a little bit knowing she won't make a grab for anything. In case she should forget the museum rules, there were plenty of these signs to remind us:

Presumably they were created to complement the "rough cut" theme of the exhibition (yes, that's blood spurting out of two chopped off fingers), and despite the incredibly poor quality of my phone's camera, they are worthy of documentation.

The Tale of the Mystery Portraits

What's better than a charming small town museum? A charming small town museum mystery. I recently stumbled across the website for the Museums of Old York in Maine, which looks like a real gem. When I saw the category on their page labeled "Library Mysteries!" (the exclamation point is theirs, not mine) I obviously clicked it, and found this call for help:
I can't solve Old York's portrait mystery, but perhaps one of Reappropriate This's 48 unique visitors can.

I Once Had A Professor Cry When Lecturing About This Piece.

"Untitled" (Perfect Lovers) Felix Gonzalez-Torres

I got me a scanner

First order of business: a family portrait I once drew. My mom added the captions.