Vollis Simpson Whirligigs

I walked into a friend's house this week and there was a Vollis Simpson whirligig. I thought this couple was cool in the first place, but this took the hummingbird cake. It's like every day I get more Southern and feel more like laying down in a field of metal whirlygigs built by an old man in North Carolina. Please look at http://www.wilsonwhirligigpark.org to get the picture.

Vali Myers and Gianni Menicheti

My friend Jessika told me about this woman who had a pet fox and wore bright red hair and black eyeliner. She had a cage in her house that she liked to go into and a throne for the fox. She lived in Italy with a much younger man who was totally in love with her and over 100 animals in an enchanted, wild valley. They were both artists.

I developed a fixation upon hearing this. It turns out that I had Vali Meyers' picture on my wall, just by happenstance. I just finished reading her biography, written by Gianni Menicheti, whose artwork is posted above. Her is a short, inspiring video, if you have 9 minutes to spare:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK1tflgkX8A

The Sketchbook Project

This is the sort of thing I would dream up, but never pull it off, because I don't have the resources or know- how (my head is FILLED with such projects!)....

"TOGETHER, THOUSANDS OF CREATIVE PEOPLE AROUND THE
WORLD ARE FORMING A TRAVELING LIBRARY OF ARTISTS' BOOKS."

A touring library of over 22,000 sketchbooks from over 130 countries and growing. Eventually they will reside in Brooklyn, New York.

I was happy to learn about this, but I never managed to turn in my $25 to get a sketchbook and participate. Wasn't I overjoyed when my dear friend Michael visited this weekend and BROUGHT ME A SKETCHBOOK! Happy, happy.

http://www.sketchbookproject.com/

Cornelia Konrads - Killer art in public space

http://www.cokonrads.de/

All of this artwork is by German artist, Cornelia Konrads. Imagine stumbling on this without warning.

Magical landscapes - I will take all I can get.

Here is a great article about a magic maker, word wrangler and "One Thousand Feathers" creator,  Raven Mack. A snippet:

How do you think being born and raised in Virginia has influenced your writing and other creative works over the years? Does living out in the country have a particular effect on your work these days?

I guess I am the product of where I grew up, which even more specific than Virginia is Southside Virginia, which is sort of the abandoned orphan section of Virginia, similar to Southwest Virginia except we have no mountains. But it fits because it’s a trash part of the state, and I am born from trash people. I enjoy living in the country because I can have stinky ass pigs and goats and chickens and broke down cars and jukeboxes beside the chest freezer on my front porch and nobody can say anything; though even where I live, which is allegedly rural as fuck, I have had complaints from the law-abiding, God-fearing assholes who live in proximity. It affects my work because I’m connected to that, though even when I lived in cities or couches or whatever, I tend to see the beauty in the grime, and the disgusting nature of the shiny. Not sure why that is.


http://rvamag.com/articles/full/17120/writing-you-can-stab-people-with-an-interview-with-raven-mackhttp://rvamag.com/articles/full/17120/writing-you-can-stab-people-with-an-interview-with-raven-mack

Carol Es

http://esart.com/projects/journal/http://esart.com/projects/journal/
"The Journal Project began in March 2004 and continues to this day. It is a continuous, stream-of-consciousness diary created on manila, hand-cut garment patterns. Using only pattern making pencils, inks, and stamps for manufacturing, I write or draw whatever comes to mind in the moment. The patterns shapes are prepared just as they would be for manufacturing, like when I was a kid working beside my father in downtown Los Angeles. Satirical textile terms, rants, poems, dreams, and anecdotes are included; personal worries about being an artist and working in the art world. It's a candid view into one artist's life. The pieces are then installed somewhat like a mosaic - shapes are pieced together in an aesthetic fashion and fashioned to the wall with colored sewing pins."

Alexander Korzer-Robinson Books

Stellar hand cut altered books. Such precision.They are surprisingly affordable as well.

http://www.alexanderkorzerrobinson.co.uk/

Birthday Picnic

All of these photos: www.aaronfarrington.com
Incredible paper mache masks by Jessika Flint

Birthday with my Time Twin! This is what we do on October 15 - dress up, have picnic cake and wine and take pictures.

I am going to start reporting my "thrift scores". Tattered parasol with lucite handle in the pink wig photo. Makes me really happy.

Candy Darling

Since I am on the heartbreak train tonight, one last photo. Candy Darling, on her deathbed.

Yayoi Kusama

I love finding an artist who is new to me (but in this case, someone who has been creating for many decades) but feels like an old friend, or even a part of my own psyche. She has lived in a mental institution in Japan since 1977, painting the polka dots ("infinity nets") that she sees in hallucinations. She writes, paints, sculpts, draws and stages installations and happenings of epic proportions. My heart races when I look at her work. I really do feel my molecules breaking apart, or something dramatic like that,

I found this in Juxtapoz magazine: "From paintings as a teenager, to her experimental performance work while living in NYC in the 1960s, to major and immersive installations, to her return to painting and voluntarily living in a psychiatric institution, the Tate's examination of Yayoi's amazing career is thorough and extensive. What the viewer feels leaving the exhibition is that the artist was a art project herself, presenting each project and work as an extension of her life and lifestyle."

http://www.juxtapoz.com/Current/yayoi-kusama-tate-modern-london

And Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yayoi_Kusama

October is Thrilling Because it is Spooky and Inspiring

Just watched the Roky Erikson documentary, "You're Gonna Miss Me". I have to post this video, which was shot during one of  his many stays in the mental hospital.

He was a genius, through and through. He had an odd childhood, forced electroshock and over 300 acid trips. That is where this poem comes from. It's more than 7 minutes long but it will give you chills, I promise.



These are images from needlepoint/group therapy sessions at Hammer Museum in LA. Images are culled from Josh Greene's blog.

 http://www.josh-greene.com/2010/07/group-therapy-needlepointing/