Monday, January 27, 2014

managerial effluent babysit



To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.
Aldous Huxley 

They took it easy on me at PT today, and as soon as I got out I raced to the studio as I had promised myself.  I tried to get an image prepared for one show but kept coming up against my learning curve until I finally decided I probably wouldn't get in anyway and nixed the show.  The other show I was ready for, had everything already prepared and it was just a matter of making a CD so that went well. In fact it's now in my mailbox with a tad extra postage just in case.  I was also able to get some stitching done but had to leave to take Pepper to the vet.  I brought him back afterwards and stitched another couple of hours but had to beat the mail girl back so left after 2 hours.  

Cross your fingers.  I haven't been having much luck lately-  last entry arrived in smashed CD state, one before that I wasn't accepted.  OK, so I lied about the size... Bummer.  

I mailed all my class info to myself so I can work on my 'assignment' tonight in preparation for the promised rant.  I have a whole lot of material and it all needs to be digested and retyped so there's lots of work ahead on that.  I *thought* I could just cut and paste my class notes but it appears that I can't open docs and everything is in that format.  Oh well, it needs weeding out anyway.  



So, as I get back to work, here's something to keep you all busy-
Bet you haven't seen these-  Rats With Teddybears:



Not being a rat fan, it's hard to be impartial here, but with their wee teddys and their sleepy eyes, I gotta say they sort of got me... For the last few years, Jessica Florence and Ellen van Deelen, two independent photographers, have been celebrating the fun relationship they have with the tiny rodents by taking photographs of them hugging miniature teddy bears. Yes, rats hugging teddy bears. It’s as cute as it sounds.




In this arresting photo series by Mark Nixon, some of these bears are world travelers and one has fallen off a train. What remains of these often decades-old stuffed animals is just a rough and often creepy vision of their former cuddly selves. Don’t tell their owners they’re ugly though… these are treasured family members with storied pasts.




 Mike Kelley, “Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites” (1991/1999)  The piece features big hanging clusters (satellites) of stuffed animals, with custom-made monochromatic “deodorizing units” arrayed on the surrounding walls. Grouped based on color and bound together in tight balls, the stuffed animals become subsumed in the whole, vehicles for a more classical and formally minded artistic expression of shape and color.  Mike Kelley continues at MoMA PS1 (22-25 Jackson Avenue, Long Island City, Queens) through February 2.

Mike Kelley, “More Love Hours Than Can Ever Be Repaid and The Wages Of Sin” (1987), 2 parts: found handmade stuffed animals and afghans on canvas, dried corn; wax candles on wood, metal base


And in keeping with the Teddy Bear theme today, it appears that SQUIRRELS LIKE TEDDY BEARS too, and of course i have proof:



awwwwww

1 comment :

Mary Beth (not a slaves to squirrels) Frezon said...

I can't wait for Feb. 1! Tonight I was trying to figure out what book to get for my next set of "conversations about poetry" when I remembered I meant to give you this poem. You know, for your squirrel collection, because it's by the esteemed W.B. Yeats:

To a Squirrel at Kyle-na-gno

COME play with me;
Why should you run
Through the shaking tree
As though I’d a gun
To strike you dead?
When all I would do
Is to scratch your head
And let you go.