I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream

These are from a series of paintings of ice cream and candy my husband did a few years ago. All images belong to the artist, Russell Maycumber.

Anna Von Mertens

Last February my friend Julie and I got to interview the artist Anna Von Mertens for site95, an alternative non-profit organization established to present exhibitions for emerging and established artists in temporary urban locations. site95 also hosts an online monthly journal with contributions from writers, curators, and artists, which I've lately gotten to do some copyediting for. Anyway, Anna Von Mertens makes these incredible quilts that she hand-dyes (actually she stretches the fabric like a canvas, and then paints the dye on with a brush) and hand stitches based on themes like the auras surrounding famous paintings or the stars above violent moments in American history, and she has recently shown her work at the Smithsonian Art Museum's Renwick Gallery, Berkeley Art Museum, Ballroom Marfa, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Below are some pictures of her work, and you can read the full interview on site95's website by clicking here: http://www.site95.org/?p=1716

My Odette-Odile Complex

I meant to go to ballet class this morning, and overslept once again! It's terrible because taking ballet makes me genuinely happy, and I inevitably wake up anyway right when the class is starting...I just need to get up a little bit earlier. I guess today I have to settle for listening to my Swan Lake record, and a dream that next week I'll wake up on time.

Coney Island

I love these photos my sister took while we were on a trip to Coney Island together several years ago. Her camera had a light leak, but I like it...

Lately, I've been rather enamored of family portraits like this, taken when my son was so small...I think it's a knee-jerk reaction to having to look upwards to see his face these days.

flowering tea

My in-laws are globetrotters in the truest sense of the word. Here is one of the perks from their latest trips: flowering tea, likely grown in the Yunnan province of China, though purchased in Dubai.

I felt a bit like Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette..."it's jasmine."

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7tycz_marie-antoinette-drinking-chinese-t_shortfilms#.UTl4jo7bQ7Q

Pablo the Sailor Man, toot toot

Andre Villers photo of Pablo Picasso, as Popeye. I took this photo from tout ceci est magnifique's blog, but I think I may have actually seen it first elsewhere, maybe on either Sho & Tell, or evencleveland.

if I wrote a novel, this would be page 1

            I looked at the mess crowding my dresser top, trying to remember in which crevice of clutter I had last seen my notebook. The dresser looked like every other flat space in my home: a mish-mash of drawings, to-do lists, debt collection notices, seashells, ipod chargers, bracelets made from sixteenth-century Spanish shoe buckles, a Soviet-era military cap…you name any item, it was probably there. I once saw an Andre Villers photograph of Pablo Picasso dressed as Popeye- well, dressed like Popeye from the neck up, anyway, as the rest of him was only wearing boxer shorts. He stood in front of an armchair, heaped with piles of clothing, and a disorganized dresser top much like my own. When I saw this photo, I felt a pulse of small pride in my heart; Pablo Picasso and I obviously shared a certain bohemian proclivity for chaos. Nevertheless, when guests are over, I always seal my bedroom door tightly closed, lest anyone should see what a disastrous pig I really am.

            Finally spying the notebook, I gingerly pulled it from its hiding spot, being careful not to knock the rest of the area’s mountainous contents to the floor. I was running late to the gallery, and besides, I certainly didn’t want to cause a loud crash when he was lying there in bed, still seething with silent rage and contempt for my very existence. I deserved his anger: I had been snippy and short with him one too many times yesterday morning. I hummed the tune of that Modern Lovers song, breathing the words as a sort of anthem to myself, “Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole…Not like YOU!” as I walked out of the room. I was an asshole, and I knew it.

           

 http://youtu.be/k43XjuhInkU