Sculpture??

I feel so dumb about sculpture, but here are some things I like in honor of in the round creations. I wish I had the gumption to assemble and knead images into 3-dimensions. I am taken in by these dense singularities, they are mirrors of the brain, the gut, the thought spasm. This post could have more meat in terms of ideas. But I am currently meatless, more into just mute looking.

Snowmen in Love

The snowmen have left the front yards and shed their scarves. They have entered the Snowman Love Lounge and are flirting, dancing, making out, making sexy time near the wall, and finally passing out from their hedonistic endeavors. They are anonymous to each other but frenzied when they get up close. These snowmen are coy and jaunty, they make lovin' fun.

David Humphrey at Triple Candie. Opens today 4-6.
461 West 126th Street
open Thursday through Sunday, 12-5

Pet Pelt

Sorry, this pet pelt was for sale so I had to buy it. A $3 bargain, I know it was wrong and will be each time I use it but still, I had to, it's quite soft, as you will see, when you come over, if you come over. This pet's name was Mindy. Mindy, I honor your memory, in spite of how it may seem.

Special Needs

Ham, this one goes out to you. There is nothing to be ashamed of, sometimes there is a shortness that accompanies the fur, sometimes there is a quickness that goes along with the stumps. Kitty, run! They'll never get you!!

Tilting Ship

Yesterday was a day of many coincidences. The culmination was a dream appearance of a large boat on the Hudson, run by rows of men along the outside levels - dangling from steel circles, upside-down, they steered the boat and kept it afloat with one foot each, the men on the lowest level sometimes dunking below the water's surface. Inside the boat was a large waiting area, a checkpoint, and several Chi-Chi's type bar/restaurants. There was sensitivity and love of water, as well as tremendous lack of balance. Sounds familiar.

Charles Burchfield

I am in love with his paintings and the story of his sensate ways. I can barely take it. I am subsumed by the Romanticism and sublimity of another era. I believe in the magic and primitive mating rituals in the fire escape of the head. A quote from CB:

"The agonizing mystery of Infinity. It is impossible ever for man to comprehend it, but it is always there in the background of my life. Infinity in time and space; it is impossible to our puny minds, yet it has to be. I know that it should not concern me, that of more importance to me are the beauties of the world I know - the joy of sunlight on the glossy needles of hemlocks in early spring, or the flaming glory of a meadow of dandelions in bloom, the song of a songsparrow on a pussy willow branch hanging over a stream - yet there it is, eternally nagging at my consciousness."

Keepin' it Real

Tonight, me and my good buddies from college whooped it up in crotch-enhancing costumes, drinking the beers of manhood and jamming about old times. Jamming about old times involves excrement which is not pictured due to its fouling nature, its nature to obscure all else, the omnipresent surface-covering intentions of stool samples which were part of the fun but not part of the picture. My apologies. Anyway, I am headed back to cyber totality. I have a plan which involves content, I cannot be more specific.

I have tied up my best friend Chichi to a tree out on Greenwich St., instructing her to try to get at the chocolate milk pint I have placed just out of her reach. I am filming her. It is a metaphor for striving, for self-destruction, for the conflict of wanting and not wanting, for the beholden object to remain just out of reach seems to be the constant story of everything.

Night.

Sprinting and Snorting

The Olympics are a good source of sickness, if you are looking to feel both better and worse about humanity. To be German vs. American: I can't tell which is better. Early leads, shockers, late-race showboating, it's all very stressful but multicultural, thank goodness, I guess. I am yearning to rejuvenate and have new thoughts of family packs and sody pop nonstop into the night.

I am a shell of nothingness, a place of succor for those who do not exist, I wish to become comatose and fall in love with love.

I Bought A Lady's Head

To practice tying knots on. I am getting better at the horse knot and the captor's knot. The knot of the end. There are many different types of knots to tie, some you can generate with math. Thanks be to math. I am back in the studio today, I am scavenging for sources and the incitation of head-riots, the kind that are visible through the eye sockets, a dashing about, an intuition of what means what and where to put them.



Later we will venture out in to the night for art. We will try to view the art above and betwixt the people's heads while we chatter. Not easy. And don't forget to wear something different than the last time you went out and don't forget to bring your gum.

Klimt

Ok, what I need to know is how does he do it? It's proto-psychedelic, deep space, the enchanted realm of flora, overgrown and buzzing like pixels or soda bubbles. I want to paint the woods, maybe a clearing in the woods, something, somewhere far away, a comatose woods where branches are like brain-parts, little micro information carriers, some kind of encompassing, tangling blur, but with a sense of recessing nows, thoughts that shrink into the background. Something like that.

And ps, thanks for feeling funny and wanting to kill puppies. Thanks for the owl sacrifice, and the lion taming. Your smells are always the smells of your captors. This is the way of the apocalypse, proven by figure skaters tearing their shirts off to reveal gold flames. We are all victorious in our damp and fibrous journeys to success and the disappearing past.

Bud Wise: The Next Wave

Yesterday's class was intense for Bud, mostly, when he could focus enough to sit still. High pitched noises and buzzing with the fingers are the norm with Bud. Bud, I asked, what do you want to draw today? (We are mixing photo-derived drawings with doodles, but for Bud, anything goes). I was wearing an owl t-shirt which mesmerized him, possibly instilling trust, because he admitted the following intentions:

Well, I want to think of all the ways to ritually sacrifice and kill and owl even though IN NO WAY would I EVER do this in real life for I love owls so much. He said there are so many ways to kill an owl if you think about it, and then if you think about all the weapons you could use, like a sword, to start with, then all the ways you could ingest it, but I am not sure I want to have them ingest it...and then who would be ritually killing these owls? Are they doctors, scientists, Africans? And then maybe there are some curious Anthropologist types coming around to examine and study the sacrifice, you know young guys with their top shirt buttons open, sent there to take notes.....

Just a snippet. I told him to make lists of all the possibilities but he could not complete them, noting that he would have to be in a more somber mood. Everyone loves Bud. He is a true believer.

Victor Hugo

Ham Paw recently reminded me about Victor Hugo's incredible drawings. They are so dark, recessed and shadow-driven, the ideas are transported stretchwise from one era to another, like stains into decisions. Sense is less important, communing is disappearance. Whirlwinds, stormy waters and false positives - vague like the chicken nuggets and the calming toys of today's Happy Meal. I am conquering minutes with slime, sleep is almost near.

Contortion Frenzy

I am really into big guts. I can't stop posting.

Lousy Hair

One thing I can say that's positive about this Ft. Lauderdale airport is excellent wireless connection and it gives me purpose throughout these interminable hours. What I would now like to bring your attention to is the beauty of lice, nits and other bugs of the hair strands. Looky! It's almost like Art.

These are Fake Bruises

These are Fake Moustaches

Borges Part 2

From "An Animal Imagined by C. S. Lewis"

Treading delicately during one of the loudest bursts of music he at last saw through the flowery branches a black something. Standing still whenever it stopped singing, and advancing with great caution whenever it began again, he stalked it for ten minutes. At last it was in full view, and singing, and ignorant that it was watched. It sat upright like a dog, black and sleek and shiny, but its shoulders were high above Ransom's head, and the forelegs on which they were pillared were like young trees and the wide soft pads on which they rested were large as those of a camel. The enormous rounded belly was white, and far up above the shoulders the neck rose like that of a horse. The head was in profile from where Ransom stood - the mouth wide open as it sang of joy in thick-coming trills, and the music almost visibly rippled in its glossy throat. He stared in wonder at the wide liquid eyes and the quivering, sensitive nostrils. Then the creature stopped, saw him, and darted away, and stood, now a few paces distant, on all four legs, not much smaller than a young elephant, swaying a long bushy tail.

That is just part of the greatness. This one goes out to Fairy Butler.

The Book of Imaginary Beings

I recently re-found this book in a box in my studio, it's by Borges, it's a series of descriptions of fantastical hybrids and creaturely inventions from the imagination. It is amazing. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants their minds stretched and tickled while trying to envision these beasts. All of my dearest ether companions are sure to appreciate it.

USB, if you are reading this, it has Uncle Stinky's name written in the front. I think I must have gotten this book from the basement of US's mother, in other words, Bubbles, the Orange Jew.

Here is a quote from the section on Harpies:

"Harpies are winged divinities who wear long loose hair and are swifter than the birds and the winds...they are vultures with a woman's face, sharp, curved claws and filthy underparts, and are weak with a hunger they cannot appease. They swoop down from the mountains and plunder tables laid for feasts. They are invulnerable and emit an infectious smell; they gorge on all they see, screeching the whole while and fouling everything with excrement."

Right on, Harpies, keep at it you smelly foulers!!!

Florine Stettheimer

She's been coming up recently in conversations, in reference to other artists and just as an all-time favorite. Let's look at some of her kookoo ideas. She is one of my favorite painters, she lived in Manhattan and celebrated everything fanciful and fantastico.

Yoga Mystery: The Tree of Fitness

In my research I have stumbled upon the following mystery: (please visit www.treeoffitness.com for more)






And finally, for the outdoor enthusiast:



What I want to know is why? How? This is a complex issue for our times.

Guilty Pleasures, Part 1

Here are some of my favorite painters who have the melodrama of the morning, noon and night on their side. It's all too much, it's very very overwhelming, they all seem to say, in their own way (according to me). I am so happy to feel the agony, the burden, the exciting sensual love of bodily accentuation, the rampant theatrical notions of spirit-laden physicality in blameless ecstatic moments. Girations and twisting, choreographed into frozen poses. Please give me more. Please, it hurts...I must have more!

Ether Notes

1. Headed back to the dentist today. Turns out I am in possession of "dry socket." Pain, exposed bone, badness.

2. Quotes from Bud Wise:

"Trees are the MOST spiritual thing a person can draw." Agreed, Bud!

On explaining a family snapshot brought to class "This is the dog that my parents got to try to teach me how to walk. He had a lot of skin problems. He didn't really teach me. I still can't walk very well....what I like best about this photo is the stain above the dog."

On returning to class from break...high pitched humming, hands raised in conductor's position. "Are you ok?" I asked. "YES. I just needed to get centered."

Meanwhile, his drawings were incredible yesterday. I am telling you. This kid's a keeper.