Observations on Art 8.2

Just another short Court sent me that I kinda like something about. One of these days I may have to try my luck at film because seriously I have so much spare time to fill.

PSYCHEDELIA from Kevin @ Bayard Studios on Vimeo.

Observations from the Shore 7.31, Final Edition

I always hate leaving the shore, I'm really just so much more at peace when I am there. That may sound deep but I really can't think of any other way of putting it. My mountains, if I can still call them mine, are like that too but different at the same time. I like to go into the mountains to think but once I drive over the drawbridge into Stone Harbor I don’t think much at all, I just am. So I wasn't too upset yesterday when my plans suddenly changed and I had to stay at the house another day. I took one last swim while I waited for my dad's friend to arrive and but when I got back there was a message on my phone. Due to car problems he wouldn't be down until Sunday and did I mind staying another day? I thought long and hard on that for as long as it took me to return the call, yes I could force myself to stay.


With an extra day I decided to cram in some things I hadn't gotten around to yet. The best was an early dinner at Sylvester’s in Avalon. I have been going there for a dozen years but just didn't feel like driving up this week than decided this must be the reason the gods had immobilized that car. Sylvester’s is a fish market meets back street BYO picnic style diner which also happens to have the best seafood you will find anywhere. Grilled swordfish and two dozen steamed clams put a big smile on my face.

I can still remember the first time my family ate at Sylvester’s. My dad had been looking for a new place to try out and found an ad for Sylvester’s in one of those little beach mags. The kids were both little so we went to eat at 4PM which was when they opened for dinner. To make a long story short it's up 21st street near the bay, has a gravel parking lot, looks like a dive, and has no clientele at 4, but we went in anyway. 'In' isn't the right word because you eat outside under a green tarp roof and are served in styrofoam containers. Until we left the line to get in stretched to the end of the block and I've been back every year since. To this day Sean still talks about working there one summer. I'm not sure if it is for the food, the money they must make in tips, the cool Sylvester’s t-shirts they all wear, or the leggy sun bleached blondes that always seem to be working there.

I also wandered into a new downtown shop called Skirt which I should have stayed out of. It's another designer shop so I really didn't expect to find anything I wanted but I was never in it so I checked it out. I saw some AG jeans in a cut that looked awesome so I tried them on which was a big mistake. Being tall and on the thin side I have a ginormous problem finding jeans that fit me right but these fit like a fine leather glove. I so loved the way they looked but they also cost $165 and there was no effing way I was paying that for jeans. On their website I did find that they make the same cut in 'leatherette' which they describe as a "fabric is coated and brushed to give the surface of this legging a leatherette appearance! They look like they are painted on your body." These I might have to have.

I just wrote about jeans. It really was time to get back to the Village.

Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed

Observations from the Shore, the Mirage

Possibly my favorite thing at the shore is walking on the beach at dawn. No matter how little, if any, sleep I have had I drag myself out to the beach and just walk. I love to look out over the ocean as the sky turns multiple shades of pink and orange, slowly blending together everything from the palest nadeshiko to the brightest amber and gold. Standing on the empty beach with my feet in the cold water as the sun finally climbs into the sky. My lungs filled with the salt air, the breeze off the ocean in my face, I just smile at the beauty of it all. I wouldn't call it meditation but the effect it has on me seems to be about the same.

All week the mornings had been rather cool and I was excited to wear a sweatshirt for my walks. This morning was a bit warmer and more humid so I just pulled on some ratty jeans with the top of my swimsuit and headed down to the water. But for a few fishermen the beach was wonderfully deserted as I walked with my feet in the cold, almost numbing, water.

After a bit of walking I saw a girl in the distance sitting as close to the water as possible, just like I sometimes do in the morning. As I got closer I stopped to take a few shots of her than thought I might say heyas or some other profound word. I mean I do like my morning walks alone but than again I don't normally run into somebody as stunning as her either. By sheer luck I took this shot just after a wave rolled in a bit farther than she expected. We just looked at each other for a moment than began to laugh like two kids playing in the surf.

It all became a bit surreal when I looked at her and realized she was dressed like I was, tall like I am, and was alone on the beach at dawn like I always am. I never did get to talk to her though as she got up, smiled, and walked away brushing off her wet sandy jeans. I stood there watching her walk away until I lost her in the morning haze and instantly knew what I would title the photo if it was good.

"She walked on, comforted by the surf, by the one perpetual moment of beach-time, the now and always of it."
William Gibson

Karma

Observations 7.28

After too little sleep last night and a long walk this morning it turned into a total veg of an afternoon that was highlighted by a long nap on the deck. I was going to try and write a little about Stone Harbor every day but it doesn't seem to be happening the way I planned. I just wanted to share this tune by Crash Test Dummies. It's a tune I only heard recently when a good friend posted it with one of her pics. I just thought it was so totally awesome and fit perfectly.

"When I Go Out With Artists"

"When I go out with artists
They talk about language and the cubists and the dadaists
And I try to catch their meanings
And keep up with all the martinis
I don't know which should be my favorite paintings

If I could see, if I could see, if I could
See all the symbols, unlock what they mean
Maybe I could, maybe I could, maybe I
Could meet the artists, and get to know them personally

If I were David Byrne
I'd go to galleries and not be too concerned
Well I would have a cup of coffee
And I'd find my surroundings quite amusing and
People would ask me which were my favorite paintings

What if the artists ran the TV?
All the ads would be for fine scotch whiskey:
Glenfiddich, Glenlivet, the whole single malt family

The artists of the future
Will make up new things and different nomenclatures
And they'll stand amongst their pictures
And they'll sing and laugh and quote from scriptures and
When they go home they'll dream of brilliant paintings."

Crash Test Dummies - When I Go Out With Artists

Observations, Amy Winehouse

I've read and watched so many things about Amy Winehose in the past few days. Nothing I have seen says it any better than this piece by MSNBC's Martin Bashir and the video that follows it. The vid is an hour long but so worth watching. If you must just skip to 47 minutes and just watch "You Know I'm No Good." Damn she was good.

"Just a few hours ago, one of the world’s most talented musical artists was laid to rest, as the funeral service for Amy Winehouse took place in London. Amy Winehouse had only spent about seven years as a professional musician but her contribution to popular music already places her very near the top of her business.

Her two albums, “Frank” and “Back to Black,” sold more than four million copies. She won a total of 23 music industry awards, including five Grammys. It’s estimated that over the last three years, she made almost $20 million from recording and performing and all in such a short space of time.

I saw her twice and she had a voice that harked back to previous eras, somehow combining Motown, Soul and Jazz but all in modern form. Her tone was smoky, burnished with an old single malt whiskey – brought to fruition at an incredibly young age.

It was her sound, but sadly, it also became her life. She was a drinker, who by her own admission “didn’t know when to stop.” Her parents talked openly about her drug use and her father once claimed that smoking crack-cocaine had given her emphysema – a debilitating condition for anyone, but imagine its impact upon a woman whose work relied upon her lungs and voice.

There has been some helpful discussion about addictive behavior and how all of us need to understand that many such people are not criminals but are seriously ill and in need of care and support. But if you listen carefully to the lyrics that Amy Winehouse wrote – there is a universal theme that almost proved too difficult for her to bear – that happiness never lasts; that love, as she put it so expertly, is a losing game.

Amy Winehouse’s music was profound because she confronted some of the starkest truths of our existence. That’s some contribution and all in such a short space of time. Amy Winehouse was just 27 years of age when she passed away on Saturday."

Amy Winehouse - Live At Glastonbury Festival 2008

Observations from the Shore 7.26

One of the things I love about Stone Harbor is its total lack of a boardwalk. I suppose I enjoyed them as a child but as I got older and saw the darker side of life they just started to give me the feeling of being trapped in some kind of ocean side freak show. I do still like to ride a bike on them in the morning though I tend to ride too fast and so get dirty looks as I weave around people. But late in the evening they get too loud, too crowded, and too damn bright which taken together is the exact opposite of why I come down here.

I’ve been coming to Stone Harbor for twenty years and there are so many places that I have gone to for most of them, another reason I feel so comfortable here. I can spend hours wandering the tiny downtown area and than do it all over again the next night. Yes I said downtown, two blocks by three blocks and that is what we call it so that's what it is. Even better is to walk down the empty main street after a sunrise beach walk and smell the sticky buns baking at the bread shop. The street just fills with the scent of sticky and cinnamon buns fresh out of the oven. I’ve already stayed in Wildwood, about twenty minutes to the south, and driven up in the morning just for that.

Mimi's and the adjacent Suncatcher Surf Shop is a spot where I could spend any amount of time and money. I don’t like to pay an outrageous amount on clothes that aren’t made out of leather but something about the selection at Mimi's sets off my deeply buried feminine genes and I want it all. The Suncatcher has anything surf related and has the largest selection of surf-ts I have ever seen anywhere. I probably own more t-shirts from here than anyplace outside of State College.

Than there is Fred's, Fred's Tavern and Liquor store, a place for which I have no words. Fred's is one of those dark bars that let you forget its daylight outside until you stumble out the door into the afternoon sun. It's always my first stop when I arrive in town and this trip was no different. To my surprise Fred's had been newly renovated or what passes for renovation at Fred's. It is the same big square room with its big square bar and the liquor store through a door in the wall but with new tables, chairs, and other such decorative things that the regulars seem to abhor. What I found awesome was the new TouchTunes jukebox which will run playlists you can upload from your cell phone. Something I could cause some real damage with.

I have been drinking at Fred's longer than anybody in my family cares to remember. I think because it's easy to get served when you are tall and look like you might freak without a drink, some things never change.

The Black Eyed Peas - Pump It

A totally unrelated note, my current must have is the just released Motorola Droid3 with a dual-core 1 GHz processor, 4" hi-def screen, full html browser, and numbers on the keyboard!

Observations from the Shore 7.25

I live for this place. More than any other spot I seem to find peace here, even more than my mountains. The scene of my greatest failure may be a short drive to the south but it doesn't matter at all as if it was a different life entirely. This spot is my Jersey shore and not the snookified version of your nightmares. If I had to stay at one place and never leave for the rest of my life this would be it. No mountains, no Paris, no Village, just this house on this beach in this town, and Fred's. Nothing compares to sitting on the deck in the morning as the sun slowly rises and listening to the waves crash on the beach. Nothing else matters as I sip my coffee and just listen.

I left New York early yesterday to drive home and pick up the house key than drove down to the shore last night. It's a drive a have taken so many times yet I enjoy every minute of it. That is a little silly considering it's almost all highway and goes through the heart of Philly but it's a drive with so many memories. The drive through Philly, past the stadiums, and over the Walt Whitman Bridge leads to a speed run down the ACE that cuts through the Jersey Pinelands. With the top down I flash past bus loads of gamblers heading to the Atlantic City casinos and their fortune or their pittance. Than after a short drive south I do as I always do and jump off the Parkway so I can drive through the towns of Seven Mile Beach. Sea Isle City, Townsends Inlet, Avalon, cruising south with the top down on a warm muggy star filled night. Finally the requisite stop at Fred's to pick the alcohol and I'm back. The deck, the beach, the salt filled breeze off the ocean, and the waves crashing till the end of time.

Every time I get back it feels like I never left.

Now if I sound all serious I don't mean to at all. When I come here I leave most of my seriousness behind and short of some earth shattering cataclysm that is how it is going to be for the rest of the week. The world will just have to go on with out me. This is how I change by life, by doing absolutely nothing at all.

A friend shared this tune with me and it's just so awesome I had to share too. With a title like that how could it not be awesome?

Crash Test Dummies - When I Go Out With Artists

Observations from the Window 7.24

Some random notes from the heatpocalypse.

When I first get on twitter in the morning I normally check two things before anything else. My horoscope, but we aren't going there right now, and the weather. Friday morning my NYC weather tweet said simply "the city is ready to boil." Not an effing good way to start the day, not at all. Also State College tied an all time record for high temperature Friday, 102°. In all the time I spent there I never remember it being that hot. Seriously, the mountains are supposed to be cool not an amazonian sauna.

The Phillies beat the Padres Friday night with Cole Hamels' collecting his 12th win of the year in an amazing performance. He struck out 10 batters in 8 innings in a game that began with a 7PM game time temperature of 98° which didn't seem to keep the usual 45,000 fans away. Unbelievable.

You might know by now that my vendor across the street is my barometer for all things weather related. Saturday he may have had his best idea ever. Bottled water. Not those little spray/fan things but honest to god iced bottled water. Cold, pour it over your head refreshing. Well done vendor guy. Friday night the temp in Central Park didn't dip below 100° until 7PM, just unreal.

Words just don't seem to describe it. Unbearable, blistering, wretched. No matter what you call it its fucking hot.

Billy Idol - Hot In The City (live)

Observations, Amy Winehouse

If you know anything about music you probably know by now that Amy Winehouse was found dead today at age 27, a death in all probability related to drugs or alcohol. Whether I know the person or not I always have a rather melancholy reaction to news of this sort which wasn’t helped today by being surrounded by artist types that wanted to talk of nothing else. When I write a blog post I give it all kinds of tags some of which show in the sidebar and some that don’t. I remembered a ‘gotta meet amy’ tag with only one lonely post linked to it and I couldn’t quite remember what it was. What I found was one of my very first posts with every word as true today as when I wrote it, only now the ending isn’t possible. For my own reasons I thought I would re-post it and it follows below. I heard all kinds of shitty comments today but I did see one on twitter that best said how I felt, maybe her tortured soul has finally found peace.

"I was an addict. I *am* an addict. It’s a very hard thing to say but its true. It's something that, once you have been there, you never totally leave it behind. I have an addictive personality. It has taken many forms in my life from cigarettes to Ben & Jerries Cherry Garcia to, at times, sl. But its also left me with demons Ill forever struggle with. I left myself in a pit so black I never thought I would be able to climb out. I’ve spent a month in rehab and almost wrecked a car. The police found me sitting on the hood of my car in a ditch. I think I waved. I burned through a years worth of tuition money in a month. So in other words I’ve been to hell and I know what it looks like.

The memory becomes the backdrop that you forever look at your life against. Little things that bother other people I shrug off as nothing. Than I’ll blow up over something trivial because it sets off something in the deepest darkest part of my brain. Some people think I’m down right crazy.

I tend to use the word ‘karma’ now.

I’m thinking Amy and I have a lot to talk about …."

Amy Winehouse - Rehab

Observations from the Library 7.20

I took a day off from the gallery to work on some photos and find that it's so hot the creaky old air-conditioning in our building can’t compete with the returning heatpocalypse and it’s cool but muggy in our apartment. I managed to drag myself from my usual working spot, which happens to be my uber size bed, and headed off to the library to work in some air conditioned splendor. It seemed as if every street I crossed on my way to the library was on the verge of melting and attaching itself to my sandals. Thankfully I learned my lessons last time the inferno came to town and the only black I have on are my shorts. The stripped down me with no makeup at all, a white t-shirt on, and my hair pulled back might not look so hot but it feels a little better. Even my backpack carries the minimum laptop, camera, and sketch/writing pad so this is as bare bones as I get. Still with the current real feel temperature at 103° it doesn’t seem to matter, it's just hot as hell.

So for now I plan on working a bit before I venture back out. Problem with my working on my projects is I sometimes get frustrated and find myself easily sidetracked. You know, with blog writing and such things. What with the idiots in Washington prepared to crash the world's economy, the Phillies continuing to have the best record in baseball, and Sunday's first gay and lesbian marriages in New York, well, my mind is just always wondering off somewhere. I should explain that New York City will be holding weddings on Sunday, the very first day they are legal. A lottery is being held to pick 734 couples to be married by 60 judges who volunteered to work Sunday. Mayor Bloomberg said the lottery was being held to avoid couples needlessly standing in line only to be turned away. "We are going to make history on Sunday, with the eyes of the nation once again turning to New York City," Mayor Bloomberg said.

I have been thinking about the totally awesome suggestion of a friend that I start a new Flickr just to handle my blog photos. At the moment I have them spread out net wide with some on Picasa, some on Photobucket, and my own work on Flickr. I first used Photobucket because it's possible to use photos from there in comments on Flickr something which I didn't think possible with Picasa but that turns out to be untrue. That pretty much ends the Photobucket part of the decision. I like the Flickr idea because I have used it for years now and I'm comfortable with it, I know what I want to do and how to do it. Being a Google product Picasa is so easy to use with this blog and with my phone, a droid. I'm a late comer to the Google world but for better or worse I now use it everywhere and everything is linked. That brings up an entirely different set of problems when my blog photos end up on my phone of there own free will, even after I deleted them, and I don’t even want to think about what happens if my phone gets jacked. For now I'm leaning towards a new Flickr but haven't decided yet.

See how easy I get sidetracked?

The Airborne Toxic Event - Changing

Observations on Art 7.20

Jimmy Indra is an Indonesian film maker/artist who Court had first told me about a few months ago. As film making is Court's forte I didn't get around to looking until now but I was glad I finally did. I quickly fell for this short video called "Dark Passenger." Maybe because I think if I ever made a video it would look something like this. Scary thought indeed.

Dark Passenger from jimmy indra on Vimeo.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 7.18, The Hope Solo Tribute edition

You could say I wanted to pass along some Hope Solo post game comments or you could say I still can't put that game behind me. Both might be true but the real reason is that I wanted to use this photo again. The video under it is from the Nike Women "Make Yourself" campaign which was shot by Annie Leibovitz. The quotes below that were posted on the US Soccer website immediately following the game.

From Hope Solo

Link

On the disappointment of the result:
“We lost to a great team, we really did. Japan is a team that I’ve always had a lot of respect for, and I truly believe that something bigger was pulling for this team. As much as I’ve always wanted this, if there was any other team I could give this to it would have to be Japan. I’m happy for them and they do deserve it.”

On missing out on a World Cup title:
“This is something everybody’s wanted their entire lives. I’m realistic. It doesn’t always go your way. I felt like it was going to go our way this entire time and I felt like this was our tournament to win. I think we played great soccer tonight. I think the fans were incredibly entertained. We were attacking, we had chances on goal. It was fun to watch. It was a fun game. What can I say? Let’s just hope I can stick around for another four years so I can go after the gold.”

I know I'm hoping she can.

"Tears in the Sake," Observations from the Bar on the Women's World Cup Final

Sitting in a bar isn’t always how I spend a gorgeous sunny summer afternoon but there is a World Cup Soccer final to watch. I could think of worse ways to spend an afternoon than watching Hope Solo on six screens and drinking cold beer. The sixth Women's World Cup comes to a close as two time winning US team goes up against first time finalist Japan in Frankfurt, Germany. As a pre-game activity we were watching the Tour de France and something struck me as funny. Now I was always a big Lance Armstrong fan and watched the Tour without fail but without Armstrong honestly it's just guys riding bikes. That is until somebody tumbles and takes out half the peloton than it's excitement. But this is a day for soccer and Hope Solo, all of the 5' 10" long legged dark haired beauty of her, I mean 5' 10" keeper for the US team. Damnit I have to be serious here but it's hard because she is seriously hot. Shift to the compulsory tsunami story and how a win would be so good for the national psyche of Japan. It may be cold but to say today I totally don't care.

From Hope Solo

Solo looks like a giant tweety bird in her yellow uniform. My artistic side doesn't take this as a very auspicious start to the game as the black warm-ups looked much better. But this isn’t a style blog so I will move on to the game. The beginning reminds me of one of those games I always hated to play in with US shots peppering the goal only to clang off the post or sail over the net. In a game like this I always knew it was only a matter of time until the other team scored. Because of games like that I first developed a taste for my fingernails, alcohol came later. Dear god we are wasting chances here, not good. The first half ends with the score locked at zero. Phillies are beating the Mets 5-1 in the 8th inning I suppose it's a tradeoff. Why couldn't they play the final yesterday when the Mets handily spanked my Phils? My mystical side is beginning to worry the sports gods didn't like my tsunami comment but I was just complimented on my Penn State soccer jersey so there is that.

Finally Alex Morgan scores to give the US the lead at the 69 minute mark and now it seem the gods do love me or maybe just have a sense of humor. And than just as fast it's back to nail biting time as the clock is down to ten minutes and Japan begins to take more and more chances than finally score to tie the game and the bar becomes eerily quiet even as we are informed the US team has never lost a World Cup game in which it has scored first, 24-0-3 coming into this game. The game heads to extra time as full time ends tied at 1, I'm just glad it isn't sudden death but penalty kicks loom on the horizon.

Extra time with my nails about gone and for the first time I wish I could smoke a cigarette in this bar. Two minutes left in extra time and any goal scored now will be the latest in Women's World Cup Final history and just like that Abby Wambach scores in the 104th minute to give the US the lead and the bar erupts. Old guys are beginning to tear up now but I'm not quite sure if it's the soccer game or the fact that the Mets truly do suck this year, losing to the Phillies 8-5 today. Omfg Japan scores on a corner just after Solo spent time on the ground recovering from a hard dive and I begin to wonder if there is some drinking game for penalty shots, my mind can't take much more. Penalty shots, the most hellish thing ever invented for a sport.

By now you prob know how it ended, Japan winning in penalty shots with the US missing three of its 4 shots. Totally awesome game but one that should have never been this close. The US just blew too many early chances when they could have put the game away. That’s what they call a heartbreaking loss, enough to make me cry in my sake.

Go Phillies!

Observations on Art 7.16

No matter what I do I still always consider myself a painter first, a painter before anything else. Even as I spend most of my time on photos I still love to dabble in my paints just mixing one color or shade with another than dabbing some on an old canvas to see if I like it or if it is worth saving. Just a couple days ago I had lunch with my fav art guy who is going to get me some samples of a new Atelier acrylic that supposedly is easier to blend and comes in 75 colors and shades. I'm so excited because honestly I like to play with paint as much now as I did when I was a little girl with watercolors.

After my last post it came up that I can't seem to paint and do any serious photo work at the same time. My brain just doesn’t seem to function that way at all. To me photography is a much more externally generated art while painting is created internally. What I mean by that is that when I take a photo I am showing you what I see with my eyes. It may be distorted, modified, or transformed in some way but it is still what I actually saw and my brain has little to do with it. When I paint I am showing you what my brain sees which is a totally different and sometimes scary thing. I paint in abstract because I sometimes see the world in abstract which is something I won’t even try to explain now. What is strange is that my eyes see a simple world of b&w while my brain sees a colorful world yet totally distorted. Like I said hard to explain so I'll leave it to the shrinks.

As I said before my painting can involve days of isolation and a lot of tequila, nicotine, and caffeine with little if any food. I get in a zone where I'm totally into the painting and nothing else. It's what I do. For the first time in awhile I seem to be in the mood to paint. Not play with my paints but seriously paint something. It's a feeling I haven't had in almost two years now but it feels different in that I don't feel the need to run off to the liquor store to stock up on tequila and cigarettes. Not that I won’t be heading there but in ways I feel like a muse now lurks in the back of my brain and that inspiration replaces the need for some things. I was never one to feel inspired because inspiration seems such a random thing which always points you in the direction you were already heading anyway. It's also a fickle beast that comes and goes at its own time and place, usually when you least expect it. In the end it's best just to go with the wave and not try to force it because it simply goes where it will.

Things seem to change even as they remain the same. See what comes of it.

Keep in mind that I started this before my last post or what I'll call my 'insanity' post. So if it seems a little confusing no worries, my brain is confusing. Actually I have been writing this over so many days now I have no idea what it means.

The Good Natured - Skeleton