Hiding in Plain Sight

Periodically, it's good to lay low for a while or just hide out. The picture above is me- ostrich like- covering up and being invisible at work. I am still recovering from the hub bub that was my show in NYC and the constant commuting back and forth... I still need a vacation!
But at the same time, I have loads (and then some) of work to do as I have a show to install at a local college* and another show in Brooklyn in June. I love working towards shows but sometimes I experience a strange longing to have a day or two (or even three or four) where I have "nothing" to do. Gotta recharge the batteries sometime!
And this past week was especially hectic and action packed. It's been crazy busy at work (check out me disappearing above) and in the midst of setting up for another auction, I got called to jury duty. I was excused after a morning's expenditure, but I had to re-arrange my work week to accommodate the court appearance and later in the week, we went to NYC to attend a friend's opening but also just to wander around and consume art.

Look what we found in Chelsea! An expression of someone's First Amendment rights! One of the most refreshing things we saw all day. Bob and I got pretty tired of being handed stupid plastic three D glasses with built in flashlights to view photos and videos; they didn't seem to work too well and after a while it got very gimmicky. But we did see two videos that were engaging: one had wildly dancing artificial shrubbery and a loud repetitive soundtrack (sounds horrible but it was funny and quirky) and the other featured some nice line drawings morphing into other line drawings.
We stopped into Jim Kempner Fine Art- he's a stand up comic turned art dealer who skewers the art world in a show entitled, "The Madness of Art". Jim Kempner was seated right there behind the desk so I took the opportunity to tell him how much we enjoyed his videos. He seemed honestly appreciative and stated that many people don't even know he does a show about art, despite his having done five seasons. (Check it out on YouTube. I think you'll still find it funny even if you're not directly involved as an artist or consumer of art.)
 We also saw a tremendous amount of forgettable stuff but the day was lovely and we had a swell time. We capped it all off with a delightful meal at our favorite Indian restaurant, which has newly decorated itself in a "Happy Birthday" motif. The ceiling gets lower and lower with layer upon layer of strings of Xmas lights; even I had to duck! (Inexplicably,  despite knowing exactly where the restaurant is, we wandered around in a big circle and were almost about to give up and eat something else when we stumbled on it... we must have been very tired and hungry!)
I need to spend a few days in the garden, just cleaning up and getting a grip on what's growing and what's not but it keeps snowing. (Seriously!?!?) Maybe it's good that the weather has been cranky and uncooperative as it's compelled me to stay inside and finish up my work...

*A religious college no less! And I brought along a copy of my book, "God Hates Artists" to the initial meeting for the group organizing the show. I was informed that that particular piece probably wouldn't go over so well...

Winter Sort of/Kind of/Maybe

We finally got some snow- not that I was all antsy on the edge of my seat about the lack there of. (But Jules the Dog seems really happy today!) Some confluence of Climate Change coupled with a strong El Nino has manifested in our oddly benign weather to date. People keep posting all the plants that are growing (and even blooming) and the insects that are drawing winter blood. It is remarkable.
So the picture above illustrates the dusting of crusty white stuff that appeared this morning in the Blue Garden. I guess the end of year and the arrival of a small storm make me consider this year passing and the New Year approaching.
What are we remarking on this year? (Besides the weather).

1. The perfidy of creeps that poached my domain name and messed up my website... leave us poor artists alone for god's sake. Do something good for us: Buy our work. Or advertise us but don't fuck with us. There are plenty of other opportunities for that! So let's hope the New Year returns www.ritavalley.com to me! (It seems to be "down".)
2. Both Bob and I had really dynamite shows this year... and neither one of us sold a bloody thing. I guess we can claim to have had "positive experiences" and we "learned a lot" (but wouldn't it have been nice if the universe smiled that one bit more and caused filthy lucre to have been delivered to our bank accounts? I think so...) Let's hope the New Year brings art sales and splendid offers of shows and good reviews!
3. Bob and I had truly lousy motor vehicle experiences this year. The truck died (and it took a while to replace it) and then the Honda and my mother's elderly Subaru died. We're still dealing with the fallout of all this. Let's hope the New Year brings automotive joy!
4. I can't complain in the "health and happiness" department. We were (overall) healthy and happy. That's a good thing. Let's hope for a continuation of that, come the New Year.

I hope in the New Year that Bob and I accomplish even one of the household projects that we were laughing about with a friend yesterday. We all have long lists, I know, but even one thing (like the hallway shelves/sliding doors or the back terrace area or even my closet!) I'd be really happy with any of those!

Here's what I've been working on in my (old) studio): a series of collages based on those annoying (and all to present in our modern day world ) phone menus. While stuck on one the other day, I decided I had only two options. Number One was to get really angry and rip the phone out of the wall, or Number Two, make art out of my (and everyone else's) experiences. I chose the latter.
I have made seven of these, including such high lights as, "Please hold the line; your call is very important to us". Or the classic, "Press 5 for more options". Approximately 28" x 22"; I mixed graphite and paint for the grey field areas and the rest is collage.
In the meantime, my membership in the "Losers Club" is in good standing. I applied to- and got fucking rejected from ($^#$%&!!!) three separate art shows/ venues that I thought were appropriate to me and my work. Hey! What do I know? Why I even bother is beyond me. I mean that rhetorically, of course. I do despise submitting to juried shows, as when they reject you, they never even tell you why so it's not as if you learn anything. On the other hand, most of the time it's like what the jurors had for lunch didn't agree with them when they come to your piece. You can't win. But the sheer wanton fear of never showing again compels me forward. I just submitted to another show today, at the insistence of a couple of friends. I truly must be a glutton for punishment!
But on an entertaining art related note, I am currently in a show in New Bedford at the Colo Colo Gallery. (Our good friend Don Wilkinson invited Bob and I to participate). The theme, loosely Christmas inspired, was "Naughty and Nice". An idea come to me almost at once, when out on my morning walk. I thought to make two plates of cookies, as befits the holiday season. Both plates were covered with cookies made from the same recipe of sugar cookies but once batch, while looking innocent, had chunky kosher salt on top (looks like sugar) and the other had lumps of coal. I polyureathaned both batches three times so as to make them as shiny and artificial looking as possible. Guess what happened? A so-called "art lover" (according to the gallery owner Luis Villaneuva) promptly ate one! This was despite them being labeled as "inedible" and a "work of art"! And at the opening, they had to assign a "cookie watcher" to discourage others from attempting to eat them. The least they could have done was buy my piece before consuming it. Hahahahaha.

I suppose as a very funny footnote I should mention that the person who ate my cookie reported that the flavor was good, but they were hard!

Twenty Five Big Ones

Doesn't this look weird? It's our laundry that came in from the cold- and it smelled great, too. But it looks (to me anyway, but we all know where that goes.) like some sort of odd layered dessert. What's a trifle? Doesn't that have layers? I guess you had to be here... (Very old painting in the background!)
In any event, Bob and I successfully celebrated 25 years of being together. This year, our anniversary was late, late, late. (For those of you who don't remember, we celebrate when the frost kills the basil). We officially celebrated Monday, but went up to visit our friends Don and Elizabeth in their new New Bedford digs on the weekend. We spent an utterly relaxing time, looking at art, walking their dogs, eating interesting food (that we didn't have to prepare!) and not working on my studio. It was a much needed break.
Of course, I forgot to bring my camera on this road trip, and spent the entire weekend lamenting this egregious oversight. Somewhere between Columbia and Foster, Connecticut (who knew? Foster CT?) there was a rock painted like an eagle and an even better on painted like a lizard (nice and mottled and gnarly). There was also a hot dog wagon shaped like (gasp) a hot dog and a few other choice things that got away. I suppose having taken (yes, this is true) over 7000 (that's seven THOUSAND) pictures for the last auction has something to do with my resistance to dragging my camera along everywhere. Just maybe, but you should have seen the things we saw...
Including some very good art: a digital show with interesting kaleidoscope images of birds grooming their feathers and the colorful geometric patterns they generated. Some nice subtle drawings, too. Also our friend Don Wilkinson's one person show at Colo Colo Gallery- very different scanned images of small figurines made huge and heroic. A true departure for Don!
Tomorrow we continue work on the studio. I do have one door that works, which is a major achievement, thanks to Bob's persistence and determination. The double French doors are slated for installation too. That will be a big step towards civilization. Bob had the light on in my studio yesterday when I came home. Despite only plastic on the windows, it looked cheerful and made me believe that I really will get in
there soon.
Oh and here's a gratuitous photograph of the last flowers I picked this year.