Post-Fashion Forward

In the spirit of blood and liveliness I hereby endorse this new look for whatever season. It is a timeless look that will accent whatever color is your chosen shirt or vest. This is the look of the future, the look of disguise, the look that tells you it's not as bad as it seems from the outside. This is the look that tells you to think inward and see into the windows of the wounds, into the souls of others. It's very spiritually motivated, insofar as spirituality is connected to wanting to truly know others.

I am post-tooth extraction so things are a bit nutty over here. Looky here. At least I can type.

Freaky Formats

The life format revealed below, although mostly disguised, may be too frightening to keep up. Maybe a one-day only fabrication. Vandals are coming in my mind to self-cancel.

I am in love with chairs today.

Thank you Sloth, Belatedly

Sloth, I must take close-ups of the beard and wig and the things embedded within, but until then, I am venturing out with this photo. MM takes special note of Sloth's close attentions. You are a darling gender-neutral fabrication with much fur, much log. I heart you. Thank you for your strangely considered costume-gift. I honor it.

A Student

Last afternoon, into the evening, was my drawing studies class for sophomores. I must tell you about one student in the class. I will change his name but you must trust that his real name is close to being this strange and telling: Bud Wise, I am deciding to call him. He is tall, skinny, weedy, with two tufts of mange on his chin. He seems like he sells hay or healing balms by the side of a dirt road in a fairy tale. He is a wonderful quiet kid and I feel lucky to know him. Here are some reasons why:

1. In an initial questionnaire I handed out last week, one of the questions was, What interests you most about drawing? His answer:

nature, automatic writing, boats, trains, shamanism, illusions.

2. Another question: Describe the best drawing you ever made (best according to you). He wrote a long treatise about his grandfather who was an acrobat and an airplane pilot, that he used to like to sit in his office and look at his stuff. That his grandmother collected porcelain owls and images of owls from all over the world and he is planning to draw them all. He never described a drawing.

3. He completes the first assignment incorrectly but makes beautiful drawing of himself with eyes extremely to each side, like a fish, with his hands touching, palmward, in front of him, legs crossed, like a Buddha pose, but not. He went on to explain that the drawing represented total happiness and he chose to use branches and snakes as substitute genitals, they were emanating from his lap.

More anecdotes to come. Bud Wise, I may pay you to be a student in every class I ever teach. I predict he will do everything incorrectly but better than anything I could have hoped for.

Paul Celan

He is one of my favorite poets. He was in a Nazi labor camp, his parents were murdered by Nazis and he killed himself in 1970. What more disaster could possibly befall a person? But his poetry is so incredibly beautiful and concise. Sometimes I like to read them in the studio because they focus me - my thoughts and my feelings - into condensed, purposeful action. They always do the trick, when I remember to read them, that is. Just thought I would share a few:

SOUND-DEAD SISTER-SHELL,
let the dwarf-sounds in,
they have been examined:
together they muffle up the great heart
and bear it off on their shoulders to
every distress, every distress.

THE CORDON OF DOVES cut through,
the blasted
powers of blossoms,

charged with misdeed
the sought-for-thing, soul.

DREAM-DRIVEN on the cir-
cular track,
swollen,

two masks for one,
the dust of planets in hollowed
eyes,

nightblind, dayblind,
worldblind,

the poppy-capsule within you
goes down somewhere,
silences
a fellow star,

the swimming domain of sorrow
records another shadow,

it all does you good,

the heartstone thrusts through its fan,
no cooling
at all,

it all does you good,

you sail, smoulder, and die down,
swarms of eyes pass the straits,
a blood clot enters the track,
swarms of earth encourage you,

all the weather in the universe
is harvesting.

Motivational Fiction

I am posting more artwork. It is an attempt to motivate self into the upper atmosphere of finishing new paintings. Here is one from a few months ago. Also, please, Oh Merciful Goddess of Assertiveness, help me to begin asking people over for studio visits. Like UF said this morning, if you never have anyone over, nothing is sure to happen. Except by magic. But UF, I said, magical thinking is my favorite kind. Hi to you all. Have a gracious gray day and remember that someone out there, someone, somewhere, is probably squeezing you in their mind's eye. Giving you the thumbs up without you even knowing it.

And Corny, this one's for you:

(excerpted from the ridiculously narcissistic journal of MM at 18)

Now I can breathe. It's dark but light enough so I can write a little and I am listening to Beethoven's 6th Symphony, the first movement, and finally it is possible to sway back and forth in my mind without interference, all the while conscious of what it means not to be undead.

Brain Damage

It's there, I can feel it, like phantom limbs in the pathways of death.

I have something to say but can't remember what it is. Last night was a patchwork quilt of sleeps, cobbled together from 10 minute bits.

I watched Marathon Man. Yes. The dentist. Not as scary as I thought it would be but still, OMG ow.

I'll try to get it together to say something more better later.

I love you, world!!!! I love you, bandits!!!!!! Especially the ones who get drunk, fall into things and move about strangely, making ululations in the night. Keep on feeling the feelings.

Jesus Plus Toast Equals Something

Can you see his face I mean my face in the burn marks on the toast? It's a birthday miracle. Also born today:

Lorenzo Lamas

I feel myself becoming more loving, in the way of Jesus, just as I suspected I would. This is the year for me. I am going to emerge big time, in high-quality gender-neutral style, and then disappear, making you all feel guilty for eternity that I martyred myself for you. Or something like that. I forget. I am part Jew just like Jesus, so I never really read that much of the Bible. At any rate it promises to be a great year of observation, ecstatic frenzies, embezzlement, bastardizing and tearing up inappropriately, etc.

Happy Un-Birthday to all my fellow bloggers.

Chewy Winds of Despair and Grace

Can you believe these windy ideas? I think we will all be swept into the Hudson today.

Last night I had a dream that I was continually burning things: a cheese souffle in the kitchen, a weird crusty pie on the moon. Yes I was on the moon, magnetically pulled to its surface, pretty much ok, pretty much feeling out in space but not bouncing around, weightless. I had just learned I was not the winner of America's Next Top Model and was consoling myself, making said crusty pie. Then I was back on earth, consoling the dealers whom I had hoped to show with: it's ok, I don't need you, don't feel weird, I will find someone else. I was trying to work harder on my renderings of the lunar surface in ballpoint. Then I realized someone I care for deeply had been involved with a female country singer (very upsetting). Then I went to a waterslide amusement park with PD and could not go on the menacing conveyor belt squish-splash ride. PD jumped right in. I could not. I met her at the cafe at the end, near the parking lot. Sorry, PD. You weren't too mad.

See you soon,

MM

Drawing Syllabus

This is my basic idea. Class starts tomorrow, Drawing Studies for Sophomores. If anyone can remember an interesting or particularly fun assignment from art school, please post. Perhaps I can integrate. I am looking for maximum fun capacity involvement of these stinkers. I want them to want to draw. I want them to need it like they need juice or beer or skittles from the machine. I have divided the class into 4 sections:

Figure

Self Portrait
Figure/figures drawn from photographic sources
Imaginary figures
Doodling
Integrating doodles with sources

Landscape

Literal landscape, drawn from the world – either natural or urban
Dreamscape – imaginary mental space
Landscape into abstraction – focusing on color, recognizable elements simplified into shapes or patterns

Methods

Rule-driven abstraction, drawing according to formula
Mapping or diagram of a place from memory
Collaboration - in class
Process – drawing as trace, rubbing, imprint, spill
Collage as archive – bulletin board, scrapbook, collection


Integration

Overlay and juxtaposition– Superimpose and/or integrate 2 or more approaches in a final project.


It took me way too much time to get to this subjective place. This class could be taught in a million ways, I am trying to be inclusive, but it really does sway towards my own interests.

And meanwhile, MM, you really need to start getting more work finished in the studio. Just saying. Time to finish up and move forward. Time to have studio visits and shit and crap. THE TIME IS NOW. I will be the age of Jesus the year he died on Friday. I am Jesus Jackson, the new-fangled Jesus. My time may be nearly up, it is imperative to make the most of it, as they say in the cancer ward. There is something real wrong with me otherwise I wouldn't say these things. Please forgive me.

Love and kisses on the neck,

MM

One More Thing

In the spirit of free to be you and me, guess what? I just sold this painting. I haven't sold anything in a year. I am very very very happy. It's called "Nest" because it is a nest for a shallow vortex of sparkle. It is hovering. That is the story.

Dear Friends

Hi. Please try to identify me. The winner will receive a gift certificate for

1. General Satisfaction

or

2. Instantaneous Fun

Good luck to you, it's not as hard as it seems. What am I?

Simple Thoughts

Thanks everyone for the wonderful show title ideas. That was the most fun thread I have had yet on this blog. I had to take a break for a little as I was so immersed in it that I began to frighten myself. Becoming united with objects again, pushing into new territories in the paint world has been my ideal, I have both succeeded and failed as always. The thread on Fairy Butler's blog about studio time and how much is enough makes me feel better about my guilt about not being there enough which invariably leads to insane extended hours and obsessed anti-social behaviors. I don't have what I want yet, either in my work or my career but maybe that's good because it keeps me working? Dunno. I am fearful and fearless like a kitty cat on its own turf. I must return to my nest of blankets and nurse from the teat of simplification.

Have a nice weekend. I am going to Atlanta to view UF's show.

I am almost 33, next week, a week from today. I don't understand any of this. Thanks for listening.

Love,

MM

Underwater Visions

This was one of my favorite paintings in the show at MOMA which is up until January 23. In the passage from seahorse on the left to unidentifiable but clearly meaning-laden forms through to the right, I can see the merging of his interests: the decorative, the biological, the glyph, the fantastical, the anatomical. There was an early drawing in the show called Dream Polyp, which says it all - that occurences of body are connected to imagination and dreams. His use of color or thick black atmosphere creates the mind-stage from where apparitional moments emerge only subtly. Little faces, trees, chimerical creatures, ghostly figures, butterflies, are all seemingly a part of the almost toxic ether he creates with either color in the paintings, or dense blacks in the drawings and prints. The radiant glow he manages to achieve in his paintings seem like synthetic light sources or alien emanations, they are so unnatural and extreme. He borders on cheese but it's so loopy and ahead of its time, and I have a tendency to embrace the cheese, so....I said YES!!! I loved this show. Go to the MOMA site www.moma.org to see more images. They made it impossible for me to link to the images, unfortunately.

Quite a departure, I know, this post is, from the dead baby shenanigans and bad show titles of the last few days. I think we all needed to get something off our chests, if you will.

I am thinking the Bad Show Titles should be a regular occurrence that we keep adding to. There are so many more out there, I am sure. Any other game suggestions will be much appreciated.

One more thing....missing angels, our little stillborns, we are not done with you. I don't know how or when, but you will be back, I can feel it in my sick thick gullet......

Please Excuse Me

In no way do I want to cease ruminations on the topic of Bad Art Show Titles, but I have this love for Donald Barthelme and it is so deep that I must post another quote. This one is from "The Rise of Capitalism" also from the 60 Stories collection.

"The first thing I did was make a mistake. I thought I had understood capitalism, but what I had done was assume an attitude - melancholy sadness - toward it. This attitude is not correct. Fortunately your letter came, at that instant. "Dear Rupert, I love you every day. You are the world, which is life. I love you I adore you I am crazy about you. Love, Marta." Reading between the lines, I understood your critique of my attitude towards capitalism....Darkness falls. My neighbor continues to commit suicide, once a fortnight. I have his suicides geared into my schedule because my role is to save him, once I was late and he spent two days unconscious on the floor. But now that I have understood that I have not understood capitalism, perhaps a less equivocal position toward it can be "hammered out."

A Fun Game

Here is a fun game that I only started to play last night with some friends just as we were leaving a dinner party:

What would be the most wrong, the most embarrassing, the most raw and inappropriate title for a solo show?

Here are my ideas:

1. My Barren Womb
2. I am Miserable
3. Please Buy My Art and/or Write About It

On the Steps of the Conservatory

This is the opening from a Donald Barthelme short story:

-C'mon Hilda don't fret.
-Well Maggie it's a blow.
-Don't let it bother you, don't let it get you down.
-Once I thought they were going to admit me to the Conservatory but now I know they will never admit me to the Conservatory.
-Yes they are very particular about who they admit to the Conservatory. They will never admit you to the Conservatory.
-They will never admit me to the Conservatory, I know that now.
-You are not Conservatory material, I'm afraid. That's the plain truth of it.
-You're not important, they told me, just remember that, you're not important, what's so important about you? What?


Kind of reminds me of something. Something about, I don't know, being an artist?

Medrie MacPhee

I loved this show. Please go see it at Michael Steinberg Fine Art. It was a fun and crowded opening, a testament to Medrie's wonderfulness. I have to go back to see it again with less people in order to have a coherent thought about it. They are very DiChirico, very Tanguy, there is a desert-like loneliness to them but the bright palette and warped biomorphic playfulness make them feel simultaneously buoyant and alive. I said a version of this already on Corny's blog, but felt the need to repeat self here.

Go Medrie! You are very loved.

A Great Book

"Atonement" by Ian McEwan. Highly recommend. Very sad in a strange and removed way, very epic and wonderful. Just thought I'd mention it.

Welcome Back

So Uncle F. and I got back last night, tired, homely, quaking like jelly. Woke up and went down to the shack for an hour or two, just to remember who I am before the duties of the weekend conspire against me and my liver. Ok. Here's what happened. I sit down on my futon. This is my futon from 1994. It has seen many homes in both Philadelphia and NY and finally found purchase in the shack a few years ago. It is very uncomfortable, forcing one to sit upright, which is not fun for one if one has ever tried it. (I am more of a huncher but I digress). HERE IS WHAT HAPPENED:

I am sitting there thinking, Jesus I am a shitty painter, then I thought wow it smells like cow in here. I mean really. I smell cow. I didn't smell cow when I walked in and didn't notice it right away but there it was. Was it b.o.? My brand new pants? What? I sniff and sniff. Did I step in dog whatnot? No. Nothing. No sign. I hallucinate that maybe my pants were in a box near a pile of dogshit for weeks before they are taken out and put on the rack. Some weird coincidence of poo. Huh. How could the employees not notice a pile of dog doo in their stockroom? How could I not notice the smell when I tried these pants on yesterday? Why is there no stain? I quickly sit up. Revelation. I pull back the blanket I have been sitting on for several minutes. Underneath is a squished dead mouse. A mouse. Yes. I have been sitting on a mouse corpse. It smells real real real grody. I almost cry. I scream. I puke a little. I make believe I am someone else who is more adept at mouse disposal it gets disposed of. I leave shack. I go home. I take taxi. Taxi driver asks me if I would like to go to a club with him on New Year's, he is looking for companionship. He asks me also to accompany him to San Juan, Puerto Rico in February, tells me all about the roads there. High quality, no bumps. As I exit the cab, he hands me his phone number. He tells me to meet him at the club at 1 am on New Year's, I am to dress Goth. I tell him definitely I will be there. On the scrap where he has written his phone number and name (name is unintelligible, written in Arabic, I think) he has written "Karma." By this time I am somewhat freaked out.

I just wanted you to know. Thanks for your time.

Handlebar Hamburger

On the ride home yesterday I sampled a hamburger from a rest stop food purveyor. This hamburger felt lukewarm through the foil, still I purchased it. I opened up the foil to find an ancient burger, heatlamped beyond recognition - but my hunger ushered the dry patty to my mouth anyway. I took a bite, felt strange, looked at the inside of the grey lumpy mass. For some reason I thought I tasted handlebars. Not newfangled handlebars but the old kind, the curving kind from the 70's, initially black but now grey and tattered from overuse. I ate the entire burger and felt unique for the whole rest of the way home.

Do you not think that food criticism is in my future? I may have found a new passion.

Gnar

Ffffffffffttt. Ffffffftttttt. That is the sound a fanged tapeworm makes. This is the disguise of the tapeworm who comes to bite and deplete your gut. Fffffffftttt. Ffffffffftttttt. It is yellow inside. Going crazy, harming things. Tomorrow I come home. Tonight we had a party at my parents'. I guess it was ok. Lots of food. Only 2 Republicans. Could have been way worse. The food was good. Nothing canned. It is lucky. But. Still. I ache to come home. See you soon.

Post Porcutongue

Hi! I am sitting on a tree trunk with a larger tree trunk as my desk. I have wireless in the woods, near the mountain shack that is not my home. Actually I am in a bed with pink sheets and a dust ruffle but it's an act of will on the part of my mental state to pretend I am elseworthy - somewhere weedy.

This Christmas has been about downloading and appreciating the new musics. I am also compiling a list of resolutions for the coming year. Does anyone else do this:

1. Waste less product packaging (swear)
2. Eat less ham (lie)
3. Go to the pain arena every day
4. Appreciate music more, more varieties
5. Join Audible.com and listen to books going hither and thither in the urban cakehole
6. Drink more water and less wine, despite what Jesus says
7. Learn Bluegrass and Gypsy music on the violin (I used to play violin and it languishes in the corner, guiltily unused)
8. Rid mid-section of spare-tire type gut

What are yours?

There are forms grasping into the witless shelves of mental space: leaning proto-figural elongated monolith blobs which encroach upon and sometimes wind around each other. I CANNOT WAIT TO GET HOME AND GET BACK IN THE SHACK!!!!!!!!! We are back on the 29th. At least they like us, our families, it could be worse and they could hate us.

I am soaking my hands in pickle brine, readying myself for a meeting with my new friend. We will mime and stare at each other, attempting to move in unison, his hands dirty with gefilte nonsense and mine stinky with garlic dills. We are attempting to bring the way of the Jews to Baby Jesus.

Merry What-Not

Can you believe these are porcupine quills? They are. I was as shocked as you.

Well, it is time to depart for the caravan of kinship. There will be no negativity, no undermining, just a surrendering to the wills of our tribesmen. I have already lost my appetite. I hope for delight in the day and night for all of you. Thank you for your time and and attention to these matters of the blog. I don't know what I am and I am sure you don't know what you are, but at least we are part-human and it is time to attempt not to triage.

I have love in my gut, it trembles inside me and gives beyond-intangible pats on the fur of my chums.

Happy Post-Everything.

I Just Have One Question

How are people expected to WALK to work from Brooklyn if it is 22 degrees out? I am wondering what my friends in Brooklyn will be doing today. What are you expected to do? Are your places of providing transport? Are you carpooling or something? This is f*cked.

A Short Stay

I am sequestered here but unjuried, there are no peers to speak of, only thoughts of my own divining and pearls of wisdom from the Lord of Hamburgers. I perpetrated badly on the record albums of the 70's collection of my uncle jo-jo and now he is forced to wear gold chains in the night and the day. I am tied up with licorice and smiling from enforced play.

Good night until tomorrow. Trust me I remain a girl, half-jewish, unrepentent, a whore, un-american, size c-cup teat, vicious, animal, a paint-out mucker of the vilest brand.

Delight in the night is what I wish for all of you. Smooches.

MM

The Truth

This picture represents the truth which is forthcoming now and over the next few days. What I would like to start with is that I feel constrained by my very own blog, by the form I created in part for myself. Sometimes I hate the character I have invented for myself and no longer feel free to be you and me even though I still like Mountain Men. But listen. I am not a man. I am part girl, but with a severe case of BDD, as was mentioned in the last post, and therefore feel relief when thinking of myself as a man even though I am not one. I have distant early memories of myself as a three year old dancing on my bed under the lavendar top sheet like a ghost, swaying, arms out, with an invisible other, singing quietly "I'm a man, I'm a man," in a faux-blues melody, even though IN NO WAY did I act or feel like a man. Or even a boy. I am not really masculine so much, in all honesty. However, I would just wonder, what is it like, being a man?

So. That's all for now. I feel full and drunk from teat milk. I saw many friends this evening: Sloth, HFP, HP, Damian, FB, Arthur, Lupus...it was nice. We went to an opening of a group show I am in and also Uncle Fritz is in but he was out of town. Sadly. Uncle Fritz is named for his real life uncle who is actually a very unpleasant and horrible man. I have often wondered why he decided to pick this name for himself, in wondering it makes me love him more. Uncle Fritz is a good man and I miss him. Kudos to you UF. I am ready for curdled slumber, and tomorrow, it's time for the Swedish Calisthenic Squat method.

Disorders that I think I have

Both ADD and BDD. Can you believe it? Now will someone give me some heroin?

I am here in my studio and am unable to focus at the tasks at hand. Get to it MM, STOP YOUR DAWDLING YOU FOOL!!!!!!!! This public admission is meant to spur me on. Come on. Paint you damn turd. Do it!!!!! Stop checking your email and all the blogs. QUIT. Stop checking the corners for mouse poo. Stop picking your eyebrow hairs. Stop wishing you were one of those kids from Laguna Beach, the Real OC, one of those clean blonde tan children with bright futures and lots of disposable income. You can't go back, you can only go forward, accepting yourself for who you are in the moment. Forgetting your many flaws in order to make some (semi) compelling or something pictures. GET TO IT.

Skunks

Skunks came to lick my eyes in the night. Small black birds feasted on my guts. There is someone named Bobby-Lucy who is entering this quadrant, claiming to be my advice guide of the moment. She is not. There is a boil on my cheek, it's ok, it's purple.

Today is for inside/outside living, achieving something with yaps and small brushes and returning without really returning to the ideas in my junkyard. Painting has been virtually non-existent for weeks and even drawing has seemed unusually hard. Where is the porpoise of truth, not in liquid or dry formats, not in gesture or spills, not in patterns or squeaky bits. Resolution anticipates coming in January. I am trying hard not to buy heroin for the holidays. I have many many families to visit. If anyone has heroin please call me.

HEYHEYHEYHEYHEY!!!!!!!

I am home from 2 killer days in Philthadelphia teaching the kiddies. I AM DONE!!!!!! It was team teaching all day both days. I AM DONE!!!!!!!! I am so happy I had to tell the blog. I am so dead freakin' tired, it's time for pizza and beer and bed. And guess what else? I actually read my student evaluations and they were not just good but excellent. I almost cried. I am so relieved to be done and I can't believe I did ok. My independent study student told me today that the word on the street was that people heart me. She used the word heart. Sorry to boast but for those of you who knew how deep the suffering ran, like daggers into the withering veins, you will know how much this means to me.

Thanks be and glory be. It's a Christmas Miracle from the olden days.

Be back tomorrow.

Love,

MM

Gary Petersen

Dig it! Are you the most optimistic painter on the planet? I was just reading Peter Schjeldahl's article on Gerhard Richter and the end of the following quote made me think of Gary:

"American painting by such artists as Pollock and Warhol showed [Richter's] generation how to begin again, though in a void of meaning. The German response to Pop art, Capital Realism...was brilliant but sepulchral, about loss...You don't have to agree with his pessimism. (To be an American, even in disastrous times, is to be hardwired against such an attitude, I think.)"

I agree. I was thinking about this yesterday - that there is so much joyous, inspired, colorful, dreamy, twisted, ridiculous painting being made - that it struck me that it can function as a respite from all the shit on the news, the harsh horrendous reality of the times we live in. Artists are allowed to react in whatever way they want. Escapism, the sanctuary of mental space, the satisfaction taken in color and shapes are just as valid a response to contemporary life as the most conceptual political art. FREE TO BE YOU AND ME. That is my motto for the day.

Ellen Altfest

Tumbleweed, I see into your twiggy infinity and want to merge into the empty spaces, be surrounded by scratchy pricks. You are a knotty tangle which is one my greatest loves and desires. Thank you for taking the time to articulate each brownish, beigish line - close up, this painting is a wonder, a place to get lost in.

Hitting the Chelsea Forest with FB

Andre Ethier. This show was good that we laughed our way through the whole thing. He seems to be having so much fun making these paintings, it's infectious. I predict many imitators will be spawned in the coming months. We felt strongly that Derek Eller should open an Andre Ethier museum on his premises so his paintings could be on view permanently. What is it about dirty pirates, shrunken noses, strippers and Jews that work so well together?

Runner-up: Andrezej Zielinski

He had a small room at Nicole Klagsbrun and had been in the Greater NY show at PS1 earlier this year. He paints ATM machines and computers in a colorful funhouse way. Buttons become relief elements, there are mounds and spills and pastey goo. Technology reduced to Play Doh. We like.

Hello Sunday

Here is a group show I am excited to be in, it opens next Saturday. Wanna come? I hope some of you nice people will come. Mean people are allowed too, it's ok.

Hello Sunday
Curated by: Holly Coulis

Katherine Bernhardt, Benjamin Butler, Maureen Cavanaugh, Jennifer Coates, Matthew Fisher, Portia Hein, Ridley Howard, David Humphrey, Brad Kahlhamer, Dave Miko, Brad Phillips, Bettina Sellmann.

December 17 – January 28, 2006
Opening: Saturday, December 17, 6-8


Hello Sunday will be on view from December 15 thorough January 28, 2006. Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, from 11:00A.M. to 6:00P.M. For further information please contact Claire Lemetais or Ron Segev at 212.967.2260.

www.sixtysevengallery.com

My Friend Pippin

He has a bad problem with a bisected stomach. Forget about taking him to the beach. What can we suggest to help Pippin's tummy turn back to one unit? Please advise.

I have a son

I got up real early, farm-like, at 4 a.m., woke up my son (my new son!!!) that I grew overnight in a terrarium. We made this bread bear together and are eating it with loads of jam. I love my new son! He looks just like me and is so well-behaved.

In other news, I must report that I am in total complete belief that even if I do not sell my relics I am still a great great artist for the world of my mind. It is ok. I will plod ahead, the delusion quotient is ever so high. Today I will venture back in the studio - I am thinking of ancient tortures performed in the primeval woods, in hopes that my landscapes will become more menacing. Or more hallucinatory. Or just basically better and more exciting. YEAH!!! And then I will try again to make other people love them. If they do not or will not due to 1. they don't like my work, that's all or 2. they don't like the way I smell and it carries over to their feelings about my work, it doesn't matter, I will forge ahead.

Also I must find some more teaching jobs. If anyone is looking for a competent and "quirky" 7 ft. she-male with skin disorders to teach art to college students please give me a call.

Poofy

It is time to take a moment to be soothed by the kitty of poof. His big eyes watch over us. Hi Poofy. Are you like Jesus?

Thinking about Miami

Wondering about my little babies at Pulse. Reading blogs obsessively - not healthy, not healthy. The problem is that if you didn't sell you will most likely find out by hearing nothing, which only reveals itself to you slowly, over the course of days wherein you are not contacted by the witch/wizard revealing your wares...However, I read the following on "I Get My Show on the Road!" at rubberbandlazer.blogspot.com.

"Today was fantastic! It was out of control crowded during preview this morning and people were in a buying frenzy. We did above & beyond what we expected and so did nearly every dealer there that we spoke with. It was all so overwhelming but in a really good way.

My favorite thing was hearing from numerous art world folks that they liked Pulse much more than NADA. Word."

Let's hope that sentiment rubs itself all around. That would be special.

MM is hoping for the best. I pray to Steve Perry each morning, noon and night.

Feckless

There is nothing less or more important than the unhinging of the interior mangle-cords and their wraparound compulsions on the thinking apparatus. The legs are like tree stumps and provide stability but for no obvious purpose. I bought some inks that I thought I would experiment with. The word strangle keeps occuring to me over and over, but I am not sure this is the right idea.

I will finish with my Guston project later. In the meantime, I am crying into my pickle jar. The tears add flavor to the delicious green tubes, giving them an interesting tang.

Philip Guston is my dream date

"If This Be Not I." Early work, still kick ass. Shallow spaces, masks and theatrical social allegory. Inspired by Picasso, Di Chirico, Siqueiros and Rivera. Big ideas, big feelings, beautiful painting.

The Tormentors

This is one of his last quasi-representational paintings of the early years, from 1947. Looking back at Guston's early work is like going on a roller coaster ride to me, you know exactly what is coming next, but it is incredibly exciting. Trying to make sense of all his decisions, his urgent need to continually evolve and absorb influences and events from the outside, always inspires.

Jittery Squishing Fields

Anchored by a grayish or flesh-colored pink fields, painterly effects became an irreducible, essentialized subject. Guston applied the paint thickly in the abstract paintings - the brushstroke became subservient to non-objectivity in his hand, serving an end unto itself. It embodied coherence without overt meaning, a space defined by light rather than form, a favoring of color over image.

However it was generally considered that there was a crisis rather than a resolution in these paintings, not so much a fulfillment in this new way of painting, just a departure from the old way - an acknowledgement of the impossibility of the old way. He said in 1958 “I do not see why the loss of faith in the known image and symbol in our time should be celebrated as a freedom. It is a loss from which we suffer and this pathos motivates modern painting and poetry at its heart.”

Meanwhile, his critics saw a continuation of the expressive and political intentions of his earlier style even in his most formally abstract works. Frank O’Hara spoke of an “openly anxious ego-identification” with seemingly abstract clusters of paint. While Leo Steinberg likened Guston’s meshes of red and gray to bleeding tissue “a universe expanded from a surgeon’s cut.” For both critics there was a powerful sense of the body, as if the artist haunted the work in spite of his non-objective aims.

There was an obvious joy in Guston’s restraint, a dispersal of the artists’ self over the entire picture-making process. His paintings from this time became performances for him, each mark was carefully considered. He achieved an awareness of the material urgency of his medium - to achieve a continuous flow and consistency in handling, quickness of execution was of prime importance. There was a sense of urgent speech rather than the sense of a particular thing spoken.

(Robert Zaller's essay in Critical Inquiry, Autumn 1987 is a reference here - I don't know how to footnote on blogs!!)

Darker, Denser, Messier

By 1954, a significant shift was already present in the abstract paintings, his palette had darkened and his textures had thickened. The abstractions emerged from a grayer, darker field, but there was a clotting, things became denser, characterized by a spooky, anxious geometry. The density was centrally focused, cohering into messy black squares. It was as if the dynamic forces of Guston’s paintings were condensing and concentrating rather than dispersing. This core could be read as the frustrated desire for representation and narrative meaning – he generated pictures through slow manual gestures that still seemed to contain the residue of politically aware, socially conscious narratives, recognizable objects from personal experience.

Guston wrote, presciently, in 1960, in the middle of his abstract period: “There is something ridiculous and miserly in the myth we inherit from abstract art: that painting is autonomous, pure and for itself and therefore we habitually define its ingredients and define its limits. But painting is “impure.” It is the adjustment of impurities which forces painting’s continuity. We are image-makers and image-ridden.”

Imagery Creeps Back

By the 60’s, Gustons’ anguished self-questioning, the weight of decision with which he invested each stroke, seemed a Romantic excess, especially in the light of the cooler and more removed Pop Art that was beginning to emerge at the time.
Things had really begun to shift ideologically with Pop Art and its emptying out of the so-called heroic aims of the abstract expressionists... the earnestness of Postwar abstraction seemed outmoded. Limitless reproducibility was the reigning concept and aesthetic. Pop Art mocked consumer culture but also the cult of difficulty associated with the abstract expressionist. Unwittingly, Guston’s career came to symbolize the embattled fate of abstract expressionism in a new era.

Eventually, in the mid 1960’s Guston’s desire to re-incorporate recognizable forms creeped back. Although he resisted it at first, feeling a polarization between non-objective abstraction and its purity of purpose and his innate need to tell stories through recognizable forms and archetypes. He began to feel that the purely abstract works were hollow, missing something. His initial steps back into figuration were rough sketches of the concrete simple objects around him in his studio – where he spent most of his time.

Guston had virtually abandoned painting at this time, producing instead hundreds of drawings in ink, brush, and charcoal. He was simultaneously making drawings of shoes, canvases, paintbrushes, lightbulbs, cigarettes, easels as well as more abstract drawings, sometimes comprised of only a single line or two. These parallel practices yielded an immediate, straightforward pictorial style that revolved around the line – rather than contemplating each stroke and achieving effects through indirect layering – the lines became the objects themselves spontaneously. The drawings began to be about the creative act itself – generating images with a directness and focused intensity and clarity of purpose that his work hadn’t had before.

Moist Asphalt

Are those not the two grossest words ever to be used in proximity to each other? I've been having visions of getting trapped under hot moist asphalt. I am stuck within it and simultaneously attempting to rescue myself. Nearby, there are noodles. My hair is long and matted, tangled. That is the partial revelation. The rest will come when I am dead.

Florida was beguiling in its freedom to live and love the other. Good for them!!!! Right????

Upon return the apartment has grown shiverous, extremely icy for no apparent reason. I dream I am Paris Hilton in the night, I am Paris Hilton singing together with Morrissey and it makes so much sense.

I miss you all in the deepest most loin-shrinking way. Don't be grossed out. Please. I am re-vamping to re-emerge afresh later. Tomorrow is for teaching so I am preparing a presentation on Philip Guston. He seems like a good idea to me. Next week is the final week of classes, the week after there are critiques or some such nonsense. It is narrowing thankfully down to the end...

I feel rabid. I am unsure. I am seeking of answers in the form of chemically-altered water.

Happy Turkey Head

Uncle Fritz and I are boarding a jet airliner for Florida tomorrow morning to visit his mother. Today is for gathering the dust and harvesting the dashes before the onslaught of migrations. Krakow must be airlifted to his donkey hotel and I must purchase sand-worthy footwear in the style of Jesus of Nazareth and camouflaging corn patches to cover a world of hurt on my sore dogs.

What I will not do while in Florida:

1. Wear a bathing suit in any way
2. Smile too broadly
3. Poison anyone (promise!!)

I am hoping to move around a bit possibly as it's been weeks since MM has seen any movement in the muscle regions. Very pale, very flap-aroundy. Very un-masculine.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my favorite superpowers:

FB, HP, PD, Sloth, Krix, Lupis/Lupin/Lupus, Chimney Sweep and everyone else. Muchos Gracias for you.

Cake Head

I decorated my head like a cake today, with multi-colored frosting and sprinkles. It has written in cursive "good luck twins" on the very top. If I bend forward you can see it. The twins need luck so I did this for them. Have a lovely day.

More Paul Nash

He was an official WW I and II artist in England. There is a sense of surrealist space, symbolist space - that each object or feature in the landscape had psychological presence and that what he depicted was not the real world but some kind of epic dream space that was barren and sad, but somehow meditative. That he wasn't just recording what he saw, but imbuing all the explosions and wrecks with mythic significance. I think Paul Nash is totally underknown in this country. I was lucky enough to see a huge show of his paintings and drawings a few years ago in Liverpool. Totally blew my mind. Trees, clumps, airplane remains, monoliths, barbed wire. Panoramic vistas of ruined landscapes. His greatest war painting shows a sky battle with explosions and trails of smoke far off in the distance. I had posted an image of this in the summer but am not able to find it again on the internet. Sadly.

Happy Sunday. It is time for work.

Hi there

Fever subsides but antibiotics cause unease and malaise. But better than earlier in the week. Goodness be thanked. There is a wizard update which is: there has been full acknowledgement in writing of all coins owed and 25% of coins deposited in piggy bank. The rest is coming to me in the form of "soon you will be able to cash them" notes. This is an improvement. Threatening language was used ad nauseum to some decent effect. Deadlines were set and emphasized, delay tactics were referred to as ridiculous and unacceptable. MM turned thuglike and achieved something. A little something.

Also, is it wrong to use this blog to shamelessly promote self? Am changing attitude on this since posting images of drawings. There may soon be an announcement about upcoming public display of relics.

I am feeling more like blogging again...the brain is beginning to get re-charged. Hi again. Hi.

Sickly Wimp

MM is a sickly wimp. Had to go to doctor's yesterday morning and am now on antibiotics. The details are unwieldy so they will go unmentioned. Tired is the status I can report. Shreds and confetti are falling upwards. I am unholy.

Kitty is Ready

Kitty is ready for battle but I am not. Please teach me kitty. I feel weak. Please reinforce my head with citrus rind so that I may look upon my tasks with less fraidiness, less impossibility. I want to be me but not me at all.

Hans Bellmer Drawings

So good!!! The woozy, wavy lines themselves seem to refer to innards, interiority, unconscious bodily meanderings - echoing and reinforcing the dreamlike content. The lines are so precise, like they are performed, yet they refer to states of matter that seem in flux, out of control. I saw a show of Bellmer drawings at Ubu gallery uptown with Hams in 1999. So long ago...yikes.

More on this tomorrow. Nighty night. I am a fox on the run in the perilous danger of the nighttime hours.

Butter is Grody

You know something interesting about me is that I hate butter. It makes me gag.

Also, I am edging towards the swamp nirvana, an ecstatic hellhole with rotting wooden boats as transport, damp oars and asymmetrical portals. Smiles come unwillingly, it is fine. Hair grows into a dress pattern on your body-notion.

Hi.

I am going to try to make some friends today.

Twists and Turns

Thought process of entwining, spiralling, interlocking bits and tangling mazeward travels. Heavy and light like ice cream sodas. Happy Day unto you and your kin.

I am dead

But someone please kill me to make sure. I woke up at 5 a.m. in Maryland, got on a train to Philadelphia at 6:40, arrived at 8:30 then prepared for the clients until 12:30 then maintained clients until 7:30 and am now in the train station to come home and it's 8:00 and my train is running late and I want to go home so bad. Fooey. That's all. Also, I am harvesting wicker baskets in my mouth hole. It is very Chesapeake Bay back deck.