Picked RAW Peeled: University Heights Arts Open

by Angela Babb Timmons

I had been staring at a blank page for weeks, cursing the paper and typewriter keys – where are the words, where are the words, I kept asking. The infinite white space scared me. I had convinced myself that I needed a concrete direction or at least the smallest grain of a story before I could allow myself to type a single word. I was so afraid of the empty page that I actually stopped writing and decided I would just wait for the muse to find me.

Several days passed and I soon realized the muse never comes knocking; she doesn’t even tap lightly. The muse prefers to be courted, flirted with, seduced. She’s a prissy little thing and she was not interested in the likes of me.

It was Sunday and the University Heights Arts Open was happening. I decided if I couldn’t make art, I would at least go out and observe it. As I walked out the front door, I paused for a moment and asked the muse for the smallest of favors – please teach me something.

LONDON 2011 - PART ONE

My London Trip is Sept 15 to Oct 31, 2011 and I am sharing my art adventures this year on the A* Art Blog. This covers Sept 15 to Sept 26.

This is the beginning of my exploration of the London Design Festival 2011 and there are 200 participants and over 280 events in 25 different design areas. I have plans to go to about a dozen of them as it is quite overwhelming but fascinating. Evidently this is the largest design festival in the world. Hold on to your hats as what follows is just the first day.
 

I started with a lecture by Murray Moss at V&A about digital 3-D printing and examples are scattered through out the Victoria and Albert Museum so it was like a scavenger hunt to see them all, but brilliant and he is one cool old dude. He curated this collection from existing and commissions works and each is set for a reason in its space. It reminds me of what Ruben Ortiz-Torres says he is doing for the Long Beach Museum for Pacific Standard Time. By juxtaposing art works, you provoke new meaning on both. Displaying works of art in a relationships which are not time lined or regional but has to do with the influences is more historical but Moss envisions museums that could be science oriented one day and economic the next. . Moss was very interested in the way that nature can be mathamatised and how that could teach us things about structure in design. New architecture is not so much a referral to older styles (the variation on the box) but wide open to new materials construction in brand new ways. Some of the objects on view could not have been any other way but by 3-D printing.

Picked HONNA: Decade and a Day Ago

by Keikichi Honna

Because of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 there was nothing to watch other than tribute programs. So I was watching cinemas and somehow ended up with cinemas of angry teenagers. Kristen Stewart showed her usual fuck-you-I-don't-give-a-shit attitude. I don't dislike her. On the contrary, I rather like her, but she's so one trick pony that I call her the Kevin Spacy of teenage anguish. (has he ever played any character except an arrogant ass with "I'm smarter than you" attitude?) Anyway, on one scene, she was walking on a bridge, which looked awfully familiar. Indeed it was a bridge on Olentangy River under I-71. I could even see familiar buildings afar. Which brought me back to some memories on that fateful day.

When I saw the second plane hit another tower, I knew it was deliberate. But I was so shocked that it was much later to realize that we had to abandon our plan. We - I and Wiley, had started talking about another Pearl Harbor just a few weeks prior. Well, not exactly another Pearl Harbor attack we were planning, but some event/installation on Dec 7th, which would have been called "Food Fight." Wiley, as an American, would represent allies - allies of wheat, beef, and ketchup. and I, as a Japanese, represent axis - axis of rice, fish, and soy. I might have needed assistance of fermented beverage on "event" part, but I had been fermenting some idea for installation.

Our humble plan was postponed indefinitely, and Wiley exiled to an appendix of Europe. (No, not Italy)

Other angry teens I saw: Tracy Fragment: Admirable acting of Ellen Page made otherwise almost cinematic disaster watchable.  She was bullied, teased, and even called "no tits." No tits!  Had she gone to Columbine, I wouldn't have accused her. Wendy and Lucy: Michelle Williams' presence was sooo real and her troubles were sooo real in this non-drama drama. During the movie I was afraid that something worse would happen on top of all the trouble she'd already had. I wish I could give her hug or cash, or both.

You Saw Art Where? The Dark

by Andrew Printer

One day last week I sat down to gather my pile of promotional material and my thoughts in order to write my weekly arts column when all of a sudden my fan stopped fanning and my computer went kaput. “Perfect!”  I bemoaned and started bitching about the humidity, my puny bedroom air-conditioner (which presumably caused the outage) and my absent boyfriend who typically deals with anything electrical.  When I finally accepted the fact that said boyfriend was in San Francisco I went outside to take care of the problem myself only to realize that it was not a circuit of my house that had blown but the circuit for all of southern California and northern Baja. 

As neighbors flocked to the street to find comfort in numbers I dug into my earthquake preparedness kit (formerly known as the Y2K kit), found my wind-up solar radio (impressive, right?) and learned from LaDona at KoGo of all stations that the power outage could last for hours, perhaps even days. This was my first thought: “But tonight’s Big Brother eviction night! How can this happen?” Subsequent thoughts went like this: “I better find a flashlight because it’s going to get dark soon” and “I should cook things in the fridge that might spoil”, this followed by a whole lot of media fueled alarmism involving looters and terrorism, fear and mayhem.

Daily Art Nag: Richard Hamilton RIP

from the Guardian and Jonathan Jones

Richard Hamilton, the original pop artist, dies at 89
Driven by intellect and political belief, Hamilton created undying icons of the modern world

Richard Hamilton, the most influential British artist of the 20th century, has died aged 89.  In his long, productive life he created the most important and enduring works of any British modern painter.

This may sound a surprising claim. We have our national icons and our pop celebrities. But neither Francis Bacon nor Lucian Freud nor Damien Hirst has shaped modern art as Hamilton did when he put a lolly with the word POP on it in the hand of a muscleman in his 1956 collage, Just What is it that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?

Hamilton has a serious claim to be the inventor of pop art: this collage is a visionary, yet ironic, manifesto for a new art that would be at home in the modern world. For him, in a postwar Britain of austerity measures, pop was a utopian ideal. Big, fast cars were the metal angels of a smooth, beautiful future.

Read more

Daily Art Nag: Jonathan Hobin

thanks to Fabian D'hondt for the link

Jonathan Hobin

Lois Stecker Leaves a Huge Hole in Our Lives

Our own sweet Lois Stecker died this month and she will be so missed. We know she is resting in peace after a fall and short illness. Born in 1919 she was at every event and intrepid to the very end. This is a very sad passing for the SD Visual Arts world.

Picked RAW: "Decade" - Marilyn Mitchell at the Garage

from the press release

Detail from “American”

DECADE
works considering our culture since the events of 9/11

@ The Garage Gallery
9/3/11 – 9/30/11

4141 Alabama St.
San Diego, CA 92104
By appointment - please call Larry Caveney @ 619.549.9687

Twin Towers

Picked HONNA: Power of K

by Keikichi Honna

Kim Kardashian married.  That's old news.  My guess is that I have to suffer mass media's Kim K over saturation, at least for next 1 year or 2.  I can see koming headlines of tabloids at grocery stores.

Kim K Wedding!
Kim K Honeymoon!
Kim K Pregnant!
Kim K First Baby!
Kim K divorce!

A white guy being her husband is a kind of surprise.  But his name is Kris.  Maybe that's the sole reason she married him.  (her sisters - Kloe, Kourtney, Kendal, and Kylie.  Her mom is also Kris)
 
I didn't know K's attraktion was this strong.  But this klan is a disgrace of a whole kongregation of K's.