New stuff I'm looking at now.

I took a little mini trip recently and visited some artists who I've known for a very very long time - since the beginning of what we might call "my art career."  It's always a good recharge to the batteries to go back and have a talk about art with people who know you very well, and whose aesthetic is both familiar, and similar to your own.  One of my artist friends teaches in an even more remote location than I do. He used to have a lot of time to make art up there, but lately has been distracted by just generally life.  I could say the same for myself.  Anyway, after I left the artists, and came home, I realized I had not shared with any of them some of the great stuff that I've been finding lately and that has me often thinking of each of them individually.  So here's a quick tour of a few things that make me want to call other artists up and share.  (Even though, with my aversion to telephones, I don't.)  I'm not advocating any retail therapy or endorsing any product - these suggestions are just for Idea Harvest (i.e. inspiration.)

Gyongy Laky's wooden typography sculpture

Gyongy Laky. She's wonderful.

"Man Shops Globe" on Sundance Channel (or from Yidio /Netflix), jewelry from the Sundance catalogue (not all of it, but certainly some of it), Habu Textiles (yarn).

The darling goat farmers, Josh and Brent

The Fabulous Beekman Boys on PlanetGreen (Discovery) for their goats, cheese, and connection to both Martha Stewart AND "Farmer John," cover tunes EP from the Old '97's, Raphael Saadiq, felt, Selvedge Magazine.  

Bunsen, a Berner, looking for treats

Old letters as raw materials for art, and my dog.  Yes!  My dog. He's authentic, visually compelling, intense, and has a real attract/repulse aspect to himself that is something I think more artists should aspire to in their works.

  

Little Peregrine drawing with caption

On the curious to see what happens list of interests we have Work of Art contestant Peregrine Honig (I like her pre-Bravo work, eg. image left of the donkey - and am curious about her sculpture now that the bastard Jerry Saltz has suggested that work was more compelling. Since Peregrine is a successful lingerie store owner from Kansas City, I can see the 3-d thing happening, and if they let her near a sewing machine...well, I'm interested to see what happens next, as they like to say at Bravo.) Also, I think baskets are going to break in the craft world in a minute. The last contemporary basket book was published about 9 years ago, as far as I can tell, but they just finally came out with 500 baskets.  And there's an important basket show of selected works from the Lieberman's collection at MAD Museum thru Sept. 12 in NYC. That usually heralds a big re-awakening. I'm a little ahead of the curve on that one, having found an old copy of Ed Rossbach's "The New Basketry" last winter and well, you know what happened there.

Lazy pays off

Today I was surprised to hear from the head of the National Basketry Organization.  Apparently, a woman who runs a gallery in Portland OR saw the images of the Web and Flow show in Minneapolis, and selected 15 baskets to put in her gallery for the duration of the National Basketry Organization annual conference this summer.  My basket, Lazy Amphora, was one of those chosen!  (For those keeping track: 300 entered Web and Flow, 80 got in. Of those 80, 15 were chosen for the Portland show.) Web and Flow received mixed reviews, with one reviewer saying it was the basketry show of the year, another claiming that "too much art" was a bad thing in baskets. For once, I was happy not to be mentioned in the press. 

This basket thing...I guess I should keep going.  I was unsure, since the last batch I sent off to be juried were not accepted (though, the one non-basket piece was, and is, going to be in a show called Fibers Expanded opening next week at the Luke and Eloy Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA.)  Very flattering to be selected!  I only wish I could go to Portland for the conference and secure the title of a bona fide basket case.  

Other baskets: "Elk Cove" continues to show at National Fiber Directions, in Wichita. These shows are not reviewed any more, apparently we've been showing the nation's direction in fibers for too many years?  Anyway, other baskets: Cream Puff, which Husband says resembles Davy Damkoehler, and Carp, a new "sister basket" to Elk Cove, now appearing in my dining room, where the work for the Luke and Eloy show normally resides.