and you will succeed.
Elbert Hubbard
Jim & I had a whirlwind trip to Art Expo at the Javitts Center in NYC two weeks ago: our annual pilgrimage to immerse ourselves in an amazing array of diverse art. Individual passion & artistic dedication made visible. An artist has to be CRAZY to spend as much time as she/he/I do with big or tiny brushes, tubs and buckets and smears and palettes of paint, melted wax, cameras, computers, scissors, clay, bronze, patinas. All of the tools of our trade. The show is a visual smorgasbord: samples of every sort of art from every continent.
Well, maybe not Antarctica.
Several artists grabbed my attention this year, but I only took one photo. Here I am with Michael Albert. What a dynamic, creative, delightful artist, working in the medium of collage: tiny snippets of contemporary packaging assembled into a new reality. He calls his work "Cerealism." Michael is yet another example of artists who look at the same things we all see on a daily basis and imbue them with new meaning and purpose. His excitement is contagious. His work celebrates, mocks and renews our consumer culture, empowering what would soon be thrown away with new significance and potential..
After several hours at Art Expo we rode the bus through snow clogged city streets to the
Museum of Modern Art. The new building is well worth the visit unto itself. Architectural nuances abound in a soaring bright space. An Escher-esque quality is revealed as balconies and staircases emerge across vast soaring interior spaces. The sculpture garden, blanketed with snow, was visible through a wall of windows.
Brancusi, Picasso, Monet, Klee and many others, icons and guideposts of my childhood, were all there. Bizarre to see Clifford Still's "Red Wall" displayed so reverentially. At this point in my life his work does seem like the emperor's new painting, amusingly validated by the audio curator…
How many delicately brushed layers of red over red does an artist need to paint to make a meaningful painting?
Good to see Frida too. Her tormented muse stares out from frames as elaborate as the Mexican traditions which sustained her. I was wearing my Day of the Dead cowboy barn boots- perfect for a snowy day in NYC, but also very much in her honor.
Time to get to work.