off the radar

This past week the New York art fairs took place and normally I'd try to be there. Not because I saw amazing and wonderful art, because that's not what art fairs are about. The amazing and wonderful art, when it's shown in that context, becomes not so amazing and wonderful. Too much stuff, too big, too much visual shouting for attention, in the midst of white cubicle after white cubicle, or in the case of some fairs, all in the same room begging for attention, which doesn't do anything much good. For me, going to New York for the fairs is to reconnect with friends, and sometimes I don't go to the big Armory show at all, preferring the smaller fairs like Volta, which is organized as solo shows in each booth. I did feel a little out of it though, reading about them and hearing people talk about them on Facebook.

Today I read a blog post called "Resisting Pier Pressure,"which is a good read, by one of my favorite artists, Mira Schor. Her blog, A Year of Positive Thinking, is thoughtful and informative, as Mira has a long history of critical writing. I recommend you add her to your list of blogs to follow. I have one of Mira's works on paper that I bought at a benefit for AIR, the feminist women's cooperative gallery, still going strong after 40 years.

Here is one of Mira's works, from her website:

The truth is, as much as people bemoan the demise of galleries, I often find amazing and wonderful work when I'm in Chelsea, or the Lower East Side, or wherever there is a gallery space that has a thoughtful and well-run program. Without the pressure of having to see everything, throwing down an espresso to keep moving up and down the art fair aisles. 

there went that resolution

Really ridiculous. What kind of a self-promoter am I? First of all, after resolving to post more often, here it is the end of February and I have not posted since the day after Christmas. Not great at following through, obviously. But there are extenuating circumstances. This semester I'm teaching three classes and am curating the Al-Mutanabbi Starts Here book exhibition at school. I've hardly gotten to the studio at all, which always makes me a little crazy. If only I didn't have a dog to take care of, too. But you dog owners know it's worth it to take their needs into account. It's just sometimes I feel she's running my life instead of the other way around.

Anyway, today I noticed a whole lot of traffic to my website from  a blog called booooooom.com. If you're reading this, you may very well have gotten here from there. Well, thanks Lana, whoever you are, and the other wonderful blogs who have featured me in the last months- jealous curator, youme&charlie, designtaxi, and others, besides the big Kahuna, huffingtonpost.com. It's been exciting and gratifying! In fact, the year has started off fantastically so far.

My work is in an exhibition at the New Mexico Museum of Art called "Art on the Edge," and it was curated by Toby Kamps, who is the curator at the Menil Collection in Houston. Very prestigious. It opened in January and I was thrilled to find out that the museum has chosen my work for their permanent collection! Here is a snapshot of the installed work taken with my phone. I hope to have better photos provided by the museum at some point.

And as for other news, a new gallery, Fitzroy Knox, which will be based in NYC, has added me to their program. For now they're doing the art fairs, but they intend to look for space in the city next year. A new venture, very exciting. And I'll be in a group show of works on paper in CB1 gallery in Los Angeles at the end of June. 

And now, I have to get back to real life. The dog needs walking.

it's about the weather

Gaetano Pesce's America table at Design Miami

New year's resolution: post more.

I have curly hair. Here in Santa Fe, curly hair is not very common. For one thing, it's so dry that it's hard to keep the curls. On the other hand, if you labor to keep your hair straight, the southwest is the place to be. I mention this because last night a friend with curly hair was complaining about it. Much better to live back east where the humidity keeps curly hair just this side of frizz if you use the right product. She said, you really should choose where you live based on how your hair behaves.

Speaking of humidity and frizz, I went to Miami at the beginning of December for Art Basel Miami Beach and all the satellite fairs (that link takes you to a video tour.) So much has been written about them that I don't have much to add, but to say it was a mob scene, gridlock everywhere. Best to park not so close and walk. Friends who tried to get to some of the larger parties told me it was like trying to get into a rock concert, and not fun. But I'm sure if you were a collector or an important curator, or a blue chip gallerist, there was plenty of champagne and hobnobbing. The weather was beautiful, perfect Miami winter days of 75 degrees and soft breezes.

Since I've been writing for adobeairstream, a website dedicated to the arts in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas and Arizona, my editor asked me to write about the design fair, Design Miami. Here is the link to that piece:

http://adobeairstream.com/design/design-miami-2012/

Wishing everyone happy holidays! And a new year of peace and hope.

it's all such a big unknown

Today is the birthday of Rainer Maria Rilke. So I wanted to post my favorite quote from his Letters to a Young Poet, the result of a ten year correspondance with a young man seeking his advice on his poetry. Here is an excerpt:

"You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

How hard it is to "live the questions!" It reminds me that even in dark moments, it's important to remember that the darkness will pass. But so will the good times! And that trying to force an answer is guaranteed to create anger and frustration. Maybe by the time you get to my age you start to recognize that everything goes in cycles and we have very little control over the outcome. Serenity prayer, anyone? 
For me it's comforting to think that staying in the moment, eventually the answers will come.

morning in America

I'm old enough to remember the Ronald Reagan ads for his re-election back in the day, 1984. There was a very effective one called "Morning in America." It was a fuzzy, nostalgic, and patriotic piece, only 30 seconds, showing a cowboy, a wedding, people raising flags, with a voice-over about low inflation, high employment, all the things about what was Good. And of course he got re-elected and because of his trickle-down economics the country went on a downward swing that we haven't recovered from, despite some good years during the Clinton administration.

I wish we could have seen well-produced ads like that one this year. But no, every political ad was negative, horrible. Paid for by secret groups that were funded by who knows whom. Finally it's over and it's morning in America and Obama is still our President. He's far from perfect, but he and his family make me proud. At least for today, I can carry that around with me.

the force of water

Twenty years ago I lived in Rowayton, CT, a little shoreline town about 40 miles from NY, when a powerful Nor-easter rolled through. It was December, I was married but my husband went off to work that morning. I remember watching the tide come in- rolling down my street, carrying everything in sight along with it. It was terrifying. The basement filled immediately and I stood at the basement stairs watching the water creep higher and higher, ultimately stopping maybe an inch or two below the floorboards of the house. Electricity was shut off to the area to prevent fires from electrical panels, it was cold and we were newbies so we had no generator or pump. My husband waded down the street to get home and the water was chest high. Ultimately there was extensive damage to the basement but it was covered by insurance. It was uncomfortable and a pain, but we were lucky.

Of course all this came back to me this week, seeing the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. No one expected the flooding that occurred. People had put things a few feet off the ground, but in many cases it wasn't enough. Photos that I saw were shocking, and I was glued to CNN and Facebook for hours. The loss of life is horrible, in many cases could have been prevented. But what to say about the entire neighborhood of Chelsea galleries, many of which suffered terrible damage, thousands of dollars of art lost, besides damage to their offices- and the artists whose studios were under water, in some cases from the miserable Newtown Creek between Greenpoint and Long Island City, work lost, toxic chemicals from the creek permeating everything. My heart goes out to all who will have many sad hours cleaning up and repairing, and getting used to the losses.

You can read about it here and see the shocking photos.

I remember the clear blue sky

Billy Collins was poet laureate in 2001. He wrote this poem for the one year anniversary of September 11th. 

The Names

Yesterday, I lay awake in the palm of the night.
A soft rain stole in, unhelped by any breeze,
And when I saw the silver glaze on the windows,
I started with A, with Ackerman, as it happened,
Then Baxter and Calabro,
Davis and Eberling, names falling into place
As droplets fell through the dark.
Names printed on the ceiling of the night.
Names slipping around a watery bend.
Twenty-six willows on the banks of a stream.
In the morning, I walked out barefoot
Among thousands of flowers
Heavy with dew like the eyes of tears,
And each had a name --
Fiori inscribed on a yellow petal
Then Gonzalez and Han, Ishikawa and Jenkins.
Names written in the air
And stitched into the cloth of the day.
A name under a photograph taped to a mailbox.
Monogram on a torn shirt,
I see you spelled out on storefront windows
And on the bright unfurled awnings of this city.
I say the syllables as I turn a corner --
Kelly and Lee,
Medina, Nardella, and O'Connor.
When I peer into the woods,
I see a thick tangle where letters are hidden
As in a puzzle concocted for children.
Parker and Quigley in the twigs of an ash,
Rizzo, Schubert, Torres, and Upton,
Secrets in the boughs of an ancient maple.
Names written in the pale sky.
Names rising in the updraft amid buildings.
Names silent in stone
Or cried out behind a door.
Names blown over the earth and out to sea.
In the evening -- weakening light, the last swallows.
A boy on a lake lifts his oars.
A woman by a window puts a match to a candle,
And the names are outlined on the rose clouds --
Vanacore and Wallace,
(let X stand, if it can, for the ones unfound)
Then Young and Ziminsky, the final jolt of Z.
Names etched on the head of a pin.
One name spanning a bridge, another undergoing a tunnel.
A blue name needled into the skin.
Names of citizens, workers, mothers and fathers,
The bright-eyed daughter, the quick son.
Alphabet of names in a green field.
Names in the small tracks of birds.
Names lifted from a hat
Or balanced on the tip of the tongue.
Names wheeled into the dim warehouse of memory.
So many names, there is barely room on the walls of the heart.