Stefani and I drove to CalArts last week to hear Kerry Tribe speak about her work.  Kerry was so generous and congenial in her lecture. It was a real delight to hear her speak about her projects (past and present) and process. Above is a still from one of my favorite pieces of hers calle Here & Elsewhere.

About the project:

In Here & Elsewhere, two synchronized videos are projected side by side, creating a vertical seam where they meet. What might be called the project’s “narrative” revolves around an interview between an older man who remains off camera and a thoughtful ten year old girl. Periodically the visuals cut away to quotidian interior shots of the girl at home and exterior locations in and around Los Angeles… The relationships that emerge between the images on either side of the central vertical seam serve as a structural score for ideas addressed in the interview, such that the continuity, friction, gaps and overlaps that result from their simultaneity underscore the girl’s desire to speak a coherent articulation of time, space, image and identity. (SOURCE)

You can see an excerpt of the video HERE.

Sidenote: For those of you near CalArts, our friend Akina Cox is having a reception for her thesis show, Ticket to Heaven, from 8 – 10 pm this Thursday. See you there!

You know how sometimes you go in a shop and you feel like you immediately want to leave – like somehow you are bugging the people there, or for some reason there are bad vibes?  Well, when this happens I suggest you leave that store immediately and head on over to one of the friendliest and warmest shops around – Society Of the Spectacle.  Not only is their name a nod to an incredible idea/philosophy/thing, but they have a gazillion radical glasses & sunglasses for you to try on and they want you to try them on.  Going to the little bungalow on York avenue is like walking up to your spectacle dream.  Oh and they have cupcakes from Auntie Em’s on Saturdays – Toot Toot! Below is a Q+A with the two fabulous owners and sisters:

Tell us about some of your current obsessions. Vegetable planting !   Currently I am  really excited about upcycling old wine barrrels cutting them in half and using them as vegetable planters.

Tell us a story from your childhood.  I used to want to marry Elton john.  I loved him to death when I was 11.  I took my mom’s sunglasses- removed the lenses,  painted them and applied sequins.. and then wore them… sheesh!

What is something that you heard or saw recently that has stuck with you? At this years Oscars: When Meryl Streep thanked her personal make up artist and said he had been at her side for every film for over 30 years.  The loyalty and kindness and the remarkable result of that longterm freindship made me cry.. so wonderful. 

What is one thing you think the future will have? Lack of poverty and cruelty  because everyone will know everything about everybody .  There will be no possilbilty to deny the problems- We will all have to fix them.  Peer pressure for good.

What would be a dream come true? I would love to own a log cabin in the woods.  

What is one of your favorite places in Los Angeles?  The Arroyo Seco in springtime right after it has rained.  Walking my dog  (on a leash).

Thank you so very much! 

Society of the Spectacle – 4563 York Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90041

Website

PS. The glasses in the picture are my new and amazing and really sexy Masunaga frames.  Thank you ladies for all of your help and advice.

I have to agree with Proust on this one. I have often thought of myself as a kind of weathervane, twisting and turning with each change of weather. This time of year and this particular change in weather has a way of turning my world inside out. I’ve been restless (so restless) and experiencing bouts of longing (for something else, there). I think this is called spring fever (or some version of it).  Have you been feeling it too?

Rain or shine, we bid you all a happy weekend, dear readers.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled posts for something very heartbreaking.  The world has lost a kind and gentle soul, our friend and classmate, Sam Michel.  We are shocked and deeply saddened.  You are in our thoughts. We send our love and thoughts to his family.

This Lunar Beauty

This lunar beauty
Has no history
Is complete and early,
If beauty later
Bear any feature
It had a lover
And is another.

This like a dream
Keeps other time
And daytime is
The loss of this,
For time is inches
And the heart’s changes
Where ghost has haunted
Lost and wanted.

But this was never
A ghost’s endeavor
Nor finished this,
Was ghost at ease,
And till it pass
Love shall not near
The sweetness here
Nor sorrow take
His endless look.

- W.H. Auden

I recently read Salvador Plascencia’s People of Paper, a book that’s unlike anything I’ve read before. Set in El Monte, California, the book tells the tale of Federico de la Fe, his daughter Little Merced, and their town’s fight against Saturn. It’s a story about love and war, Rita Hayworth, and writing. If you have any interest in magical realism and/or metafiction, I would highly recommend this book.

Among gang warfare and paper cuts, this book is about the wounds made by first love and sharp objects. The People of Paper reveals the ever elusive prophesies of the Baby Nostradamus and the approximate temperature and incendiary potential of halos. Herein disillusioned and AWOL saints reclaim their crowns and fight purses, while a gang of flower pickers go off to war, led by a lonely man who cannot help but wet his bed in sadness. Part memoir, part lies, this is a story about loving a woman made of paper. (SOURCE)

Find out more HERE. Read an interview with the author HERE.

Sometimes I go up to Stanford with my husband on work related trips, which means that I have my days free while he is working.  Wait… that sounds too leisurely! Especially when I say that I love to spend my alone time visiting gardens and exploring the city – but it is the truth.  He is whistling while he works though.  A favorite garden of mine is Filoli – one because it is incredibly beautiful, and two because who doesn’t like to say Filoli over and over to themselves (try it in several accents!)?

“Located 30 miles south of San Francisco, Filoli is an historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and one of the finest remaining country estates of the early 20th century… The House is an interpretive museum exhibit for an extensive collection of 17th and 18th century English antiques. Special rooms of interest include the Butler’s Pantry and Kitchen with the walk-in safe, the wood paneled library and the 1925 Ernest Peixotto paintings in the Ballroom… Filoli was designed to include many of the elements you would expect on an English country estate. In addition to a formal garden, plenty of space was allocated for a large working kitchen garden with espaliered fruits, berry cages, vegetable garden, cutting garden and greenhouses. ”

I very much enjoy a beautiful day strolling around a garden.  God, that sentence just made me barf in my mouth a little bit.

What are some of your favorite gardens? (to stroll alone, while your love is hard at work)

Filoli Website / Garden Finder / Whistle while you work

I was first introduced to Carmen Winant’s photography some five or so years ago. Since then, Carmen has received her MFA from CCA, moved to Brooklyn, and has begun writing for art publications. Whether it’s photography, drawing, or collage, Carmen’s work is consistently thoughtful and inquisitive. Here she is telling us more about herself and some of the things that have been keeping her busy.

Describe for us a typical day. I usually run in the morning, weather permitting, and eat oatmeal and buy coffee. Is that too specific? A few days a week I work for the photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia, and the rest of the time I am either working in my own shared studio space in Gowanus or working on a piece of writing. In addition to being an artist I am an arts writer, and sometimes reseraching and pitching reviews, interviews and essays can be a full time job of its own.

Describe for us the room you are in right now. I am in my studio apartment in Downtown Brooklyn. It is sunny in here, and I can see the Brooklyn bridge.

What are you currently working on? In my studio life, I am working on completing a body of work about and around Linda Lovelace, the deceased star of the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat. She is a fascinating and devastating subject. Lovelace’s wrote five autobiographies over the course of her relatively brief life, and I have read all of them (and made work directly from cutting up their pages), attempting to reconcile some semblance of her contradictory, and often brutal, life. While Linda was a star of sex cinema, my work is not strictly interested in the look or politics of pornography, but rather Linda’s capacity to convey disjointed meaning about the expectation of feminine performance. She was both a victim and a perpetrator of her own image, desperate to please her personal and public audience. The work is largely drawing and collage based.

What have you been reading? Linda Williams is a great critical resource to my and my visual work. I just finished Rich Texts by John Kelsey, whom I became mildly obsessed with after reading his text in the Alec Soth/Catherine Opie/Rodate book last year. Have you read it? It’s influenced me profoundly. I am trying to read more books of essays, and am part way through John Updike’s Higher Gossip and Jonathan Letham’s The Ecstasy of Influence — very different books working in the same model. Luc Sante is good for this too. My boyfriend is reading this book of essay’s by James Baldwin, so maybe that will be next if I still have steam. I read a lot of fiction too — I keep returning to Lydia Davis, Joan Didion, Roberto Bolano, and great writers like that. Reading is an important part of my life, though it doesn’t necessarily drive my visual work.

What are three things that are inspiring you right now? Springtime in New York. Sonja Iveković at the MoMA. Elizabeth Warren.

What is something you are looking forward to? I have forthcoming print pieces in Frieze, WAX, and X-tra magazines — it is always exciting to see my text in print…even though online sites can actually have a wider readership, it’s most satisfying for me to see words on a page. Another thing: I’ve just joined the team of editors at the Highlights journal (founded in 2007), which has been a great experience. The next issue, which has the theme of ‘closed communities’ will come out June 1st, and is shaping up really well.

On a non careerist note, I’m looking forward to trips to Big Sur, CA and Sweden in the coming spring and summer. In fact, that is what I am looking forward to the most.

Thank you, Carmen!

WEBSITE

See more of Carmen’s work HERE

Secret messages and codes are one of my most favorite things and a classic method of communication for spies (wink).  More than 2000 years ago the ancient Greeks and Romans were using the milk of the tithymalus plant, vinegar and alum to write notes and letters of utmost secrecy.  People will go to many lengths to conceal messages – spies have been known to engrave messages on their nails.  I would love to send you a note by post with a secret message.  Using lemon juice I will inscribe something very top secret and you can use the heat from a flame or an iron to reveal the message for your eyes only.  If you are interested email us and we will get one to you! - contact@collectionof.org

Read about the CIA’s oldest documents and spy recipes for invisible ink – LINK

‘Tis the season of the chocolate bunny! I can already taste those hollow ears in my mouth. My aunt used to be the bearer of chocolate bunnies in my family every Easter. I remember seeing them displayed on her dining room table, all different sizes, surrounded by painted eggs and plastic grass, waiting to be released from their foil covering. Here are some fun facts about this holiday staple:

- The use of the bunny as a symbol for Easter originated with the pagan festival for the goddess Ēostre, celebrating spring, fertility, and new life.

- The chocolate bunny tradition originated in Germany in the early 1800s, though the first bunnies were made out of pastry and sugar instead of chocolate.

-  In 1890, Robert Strohecker was the first American shop owner to use a five-foot-tall chocolate bunny as an Easter promotion in his drug store.

- Americans spend roughly $1.9 billion on Easter candy, second only to Halloween in candy consumption.

- 90 million chocolate Easter bunnies are produced each year—ranging the full spectrum from white to dark chocolate, and with limitless varieties of fillings, including almond crunch to caramel to the ever popular hollow center.

Find out more // Take The Chocolate Bunny Test

Sometimes you need a little (in my case a lot) of help. Luckily I have dear friends who recommend interesting things to me. Like this book – Feeling Good, The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns, MD. There is always a jerk inside of me that scoffs at the idea of self help – major negativity bummer. But I respect my friends and heard many positive things and as the book jacket says, “FEELING GOOD feels wonderful!” Why not, right?

The book was first published in 1980 and has steadily stayed the book most frequently recommended for depressed patients by mental health professionals in the United States. The book starts off with the definition of cognitive therapy – “a cognition is a thought or perception. In other words, your cognitions are the way you are thinking about things at any moment, including this moment. These thoughts scroll across your mind automatically and often have a huge impact on how you feel.”

You take a test (don’t get nervous!) and then start learning about cognitive distortions like:

Jumping to conclusions: You make a negative interpretation even though there are no definite facts that convincingly support your conclusion.

Mental Filter: You pick out a single negative detail and dwell on it exclusively so that your vision of all reality becomes darkened.

You then learn how to apply your thought patterns to the distortions and make sense of it all. For me it was very eye opening. I highly suggest this book!

Learn more about how some self help books may actually help! LINK
Get your own copy here: LINK