MoMA

Pin Rug 1990
Mona Hatoum
Stainless steel pins, canvas and glue

This rug was so unobtrusive as it looked like an ordinary plush rug. But upon futher inspection you saw that it would be rather unforgiving in its comfort. There literally had to be hundreds of thousands of pins. It measured maybe 4 x 6 feet.

Holiday Shopping

Yeah, I am pretty much done shopping and wrapping! Then again, I started the day after Christmas last year. Need to wrap two that are pictured and I have to still buy one more and finish buying for two, but that is nothing. Ribbon and bows will be added last minute as the cat likes to play and chew on them and that don't make for such a pretty gift!

The large brown packages are for Letters to Santa from Chicago Public School kids. They are wrapped, boxed, wrapped again and then wrapped a third time for shipping! My favorite this year was a little boy who asked for a fire truck and said he would not play with it when the baby was sleeping!

If you look closely you may even find a gift that will be heading your way, if you were good this year!

Beeswax

For one of my friends, I am making a package of all things bees. I have bought in her honor, a hive of bees through Heifer International, which will help a family become self sufficient. I am also giving her a jar of natural honey, Burt's Bees lip balm, and I wanted to give her some beeswax candles. Does anyone know where one can buy beeswax candles? It seems the candle du jour is soy wax! Who knew?

So, I finally found sheet beeswax and decided to make my own candles. On this cloudy and gray Sunday, I spent the afternoon rolling candles and came to this assortment to send. Two tall, two votive and three tea light size. A fine Christmas present indeed!

Christmas Windows

Not all the windows of New York's Fifth and Madison Avenues were revealed during my recent trip. But of the ones that were, my hat's off to Bergdorff Goodman, and not even all of theirs were complete. But what they did have to show off, stole the show!

The day after. . .

Thanksgiving 05

Well, I am cooking away for the feast of the bird. Mom is doing the heavy lifting, turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes etc. I am making the Jello, lemon jello with carrots, walnuts and pineapple, YUM! And an onion tart. I also could not resist and made my mushroom pate, oh so good! Sister is making traditional green bean casserole and spinach dip.

Wishing you and yours all a happy turkey day! I know we all have much to be thankful for!

Aqua

The New York Design Center hosted Canstruction. Designers built sculptures out of canned foods as a benefit for a food depository. Canstruction will be featured soon!

The New York Design Center is home to various decorating showrooms where interior folk and clients can come and see all sorts of furniture, lighting, flooring, and all other things interior related. A highlight for me was an undersea fantasy of lights at a place called Aqua Creations.

Many of the lights reminded me of Dale Chihuly's work in glass. All the lights have wonderful names like Perla, Viola, Palm and Suuria. They look like sea urchin, jelly fish and anemone. They also have some furniture pieces that look like rock forms found on the bottom of the sea. Their site is certainly worth a look.

I'm Baaaaaack!

Does anybody care?

New York was great! Did many things I have never done on previous trips. Walked to the Dumpling Man from Brooklyn, and the Dumpling Man lived up to my full expectations!

But for today's post, I want to share some culture. Finally got to the new MoMA, a great building and space. Now I am not often a photography fan, but Carlos Garaicoa does something really great with his images.

Here is one of his pieces and a little about him.


Untitled, L.A, 2004
Diptych, b/w photographs and drawings with thread
Each: 47 x 59 inches

The recent work by Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa, addresses Cuba’s politics and ideologies through the examination of modern architecture. Presenting a selection of new works created specially for the exhibition.

Organized by MOCA Associate Curator Alma Ruiz, Carlos Garaicoa features 13 works that use architectural models, renderings, drawings, videos, and photographs to articulate the failed outcome of social and architectural programs in Cuba. Adopting the city of Havana as his laboratory, Garaicoa has been working since the early 1990s using a multidisciplinary approach that includes architecture and urbanism, narrative, history, and politics. His works are charged with provocative commentary on issues such as architecture’s ability to alter the course of history, the failure of modernism as a catalyst for social change, and the frustration and decay of 20th-century utopias.

After the Cuban revolution in 1959, many architectural projects and buildings were left unfinished or abandoned in Havana as well as in other Cuban cities. Garaicoa creates a series of pop-up books depicting the decrepit turn-of-the-century buildings in Havana’s Plaza Vieja district and buildings in other cities in Towers; Plaza Vieja, Habana; Minneapolis, Mills; and New Projects (2004). In his photography series Sin título, (Arcos madera) (Untitled, Wood Arches) (2003–04); Sin título, L.A (Untitled, L.A) (2004); Sin título, Espigón (Untitled, Pier) (2001–04); and Sin Título (Edificio neoclásico)/ Untitled (Neoclassical Building) (2002–04), Garaicoa addresses the collapsed buildings in Havana by pairing black-and-white photographs with drawings made of thread rendering the reality of the absence of these structures.

About the Artist
Garaicoa was born in Havana, Cuba, in 1967, where he currently lives and works. He studied thermodynamics at the Instituto Técnico Hermanos Gómez and studied visual arts at the Instituto Superior de Arte in Cuba from 1989 to 1994. Although never formally trained as an architect, he has been an active observer of architecture and has applied this discourse to his artwork.

NYC baby!

I am heading to New York for a couple days. I am taking that little orange guy with me and some clothes. That means the next couple days there aint gonna be nothing new here!

Enjoy the break, I know I will!

Hi Dork!

Need I say more?

Prismacolor

No this is not a rerun. Rich Kryczka, the artist of Two Headlights, a bumper, Jayne Mansfield and a Squeeze submitted his work to Prismacolor for use on their new packaging. He won the account and now the artwork that I own will be featured on the packaging for charcoal, which this is. I do not benefit from this at all other than to say I own the original art!

Who am i?

This "container" was created to express myself as a project during grad school. It is a simple container really. I went to a toy store and found a really cute huggable teddy bear. I then slit it down the front, gutted it, turned it inside out, restuffed it, sewed it back up and called it me. I am quite certain a psych-person would have a field day with it. For me it is simple. I feel a bit more attractive on the inside and am willing to expose my inside to the outside.

J-E-L-L-O

Finally! Someone with a great appreciation of Jello!

Elizabeth Hickok is an artist like no other. Just look at what she has done!

Liquefaction, the geological term for the way soft soil turns to mush during an earthquake, seems oddly compatible with the making of gelatin, a homely, if colorful dessert that’s primarily composed of water. Which is why there is something pertinent and unexpectedly poetic to Liz Hickok’s photographs of a scale-model San Francisco rendered in the translucent primary colors of Jell-O®. Part sculpture, part photography and video, her project resonates beyond the immediate appeal of the rainbow colors to become a sublime form of landscape. Her version of the city, which stems from a long-standing interest in three-dimensional city maps, emits a different kind of luminosity than the late 19th century Hudson River Valley variety. Refracted light through gelatin, it so happens, resembles semi-precious stones.

There’s a delightful irony to creating architectural landmarks and government buildings in a jiggly material most equated with hospital cafeterias. The novelty of the sculptural medium – Hickok casts her urban visions from molds she constructs herself based on idealized postcard images and her own photographs – has a way of making her vision go down smoothly. And when she makes her city shake, as in her short video work, the landscape comes alive with the power of nature and culture on the brink of transformation. Hickok spikes her Jell-O shots with a bracing dash of real life, giving her kaleidoscopic imagery a potent kick.

9

A cockroach can live for nine days without its head and then it starves to death. IT STARVES TO DEATH! That it has no head is of no consequence. That its innards could be spilling out, of no matter. BUT IT BEING HUNGRY? That kills it!

Question?

How long can a cockroach live without its head?

Answer tomorrow!

Bar Fly

As the story goes, these little brass flies sat on the bars in English pubs. When you needed another drink you simply lifted the wings and the bartender would bring a fresh one over. I heard the story and went to ebay to have my very own bar fly!

Proud to be an American

The last time I was excited over postage stamps was when Al Hirshfield did an illustrated series of great comedians. And now we have the Muppets and Jim Henson, or rather Jim Henson and his Muppets.

A great American who had a simple mission, "…to leave the world a little better for my having been there." I think he did just that. So many great characters. I always had a soft spot for Fozzy, Gonzo and AN-I-MAL! And Beaker too. Meep! Meep!

Polaroid of yore

I just love this picture! That's me cruisin the trike with my best friend, 1969. What's with riding that trike side saddle?!

A little comfort food

Did me a lot of cooking today! Pork tenderloin, sweet potatoes, fried rice, and chocolate chip cookies!

It started out just making some fried rice for lunch this week, and then it just went crazy in the kitchen. The best are the chocolate chip cookies! Mmmm!

Favorite cookie anyone?

Dumplings

Every culture has their own version of this delectible delicacy! Jews have kreplach, Poles have pierogi, Italians, ravioli and Chinese have potstickers and have pretty much brought an artform to all the dumplings they have created. Well, I just may have a new favorite restaurant in New York, Dumpling Man.

I have not been there yet, but saw it this past weekend on the Food Network and am looking forward to dropping in on Lucas and his tasty treats in a couple weeks.

Drive Home

Good Sh*t Maynard!

And now the truth can be told that when someone says "Good Shit Maynard!" they are talking about Wine Gums!

Wine Gums are a British Cadbury version of Ju Ju Fruits known stateside. But the difference is the distinctly vineyard flavor of some of the treats!

Mmmm! Wine Gums!

Who'd a thunk it?

It is the craziest thing ever, EVER! Someone can actually go into a library and check out something I wrote! It is still just one of the craziest things I can think of and never even though of it.

Southwest Airlines

Traveling. Can't get enough of it. I most recently went to Louisville, as you loyal readers know. I did not purchase my ticket but was given a ticket on Southwest Airlines. They really do call it an airlines! It all starts at the airport when you see people sitting on the floor by the gate door as if they are waiting for concert tickets to go on sale. Then you have the open seating which is dumb as hell. Because you know the first person on the plane will just stand by the first row and thus block everyone else from boarding even though there are plenty of people waiting! THEN, you would think you were in a grade school cafeteria with everyone saving seats for their friends.

The most amazing thing is they actually have groups to board by. Here is a breakdown.
Group A - You will sit in the first seven rows and will stand there while you prevent anyone else from getting by you while boarding. You will then hold every seat around you making boarding even more difficult.

Group B - You are the people who then have to battle with Group A for a decent seat and usually are friends of or related to Group A as they are holding seats for you.

Group C - You will be sitting in the back of the plane and most likely in center seats. Groups A and B laugh at you as you board the plane.

Before everyone is even seated the polo shirt khaki pant wearing flight attendants are taking drink orders. Where am I? Some bar in the air? Then if you are lucky enough to get a window seat so you can lean up against the wall to snooze, you can look out the window and see southwest.com on the wing! Do they consider this advertising? It reminds me more of writing on a bathroom wall!

The overall Southwest experience for me is kind of like a Greyhound bus ride with wings. Cheap, but you aint gonna want to do it again!

Gingerman Trivia

While checking out some friend's blogs, I came across this post in the form of a contest.

Here was the question:
Located @ 3740 N. Clark. Trivia: What movie features the interior of this Wrigleyville bar? First one to respond by email with the correct answer wins bragging rights. And, if they wish, a print of this image.

Hint: this flick features a cameo from a performer whose lust for life led to some real cut-ups on stage.

Well the next day this is posted:
The winner of my modest lil contest is Richard Zeid. The correct answer to the question "What movie features the interior of this Wrigleyville bar?" is The Color of Money. And the answer to the hint? Iggy Pop.

More art for my walls!

Louisville Slugger

Pretty damn cool! Thanks LGDA!