Thursday, April 17, 2014

bernstein capacitor standeth



There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. 
(often attributed to Ernest Hemingway)

Spent the day 'recovering' from my night of carousing around here.  I'm too old for this.  i did manage to get back to sleep for a few hours but by tonight, after a day at Costco, I'm ready for the couch.  But instead we're waiting for our friends to pick us up for some Thai food.  I love this place but sure could forego the evening and sit with my new pack of sardines for dinner.  (Yeah, I overbought)  Anyway, I was talking to a friend and was whining about how nobody commented on the Serial Killer quilt.  Hell, I even sent it to my little gang of seven and only one of them replied.  So, I'm gonna take the bull by the horns and post it again, now, here, and BIG.  
There.  NOW will you say something?  I can take it, just don't want to be sending it around being rejected over an over-  perhaps you have suggestions?  I'm open!  Hey, I've been doing stuff like this forever and need to explore why!  Help me.

UPDATE:  Hmmm, so it's been suggested to me to add a bit of verbiage to this, so here goes:
Serial Killers have always fascinated me but because what they do is so heinous while the victims get lost in the publicity.  Women are many times ‘local prostitutes’ or some hapless old farmer.  Most are carefully chosen for their helplessness or invisibility.  The outside border is a bunch of famous killers (since I had 40+ on my computer from doing the Serial Killer Book, it didn’t take long to print them out on old shreddy curtain fabric (Nate Berkus for Target).  The girls are two innocent victims, found after a hunt for them in a pastoral setting-  the night sky and snow in the trees speaks of their lonely shallow graves.  The quilting pattern was done from the back following a floral design and it takes over the girls like root systems do.  The blue, leftover from a solar printing day, is the tarp that these killers wrap their victims in  And THERE YA GO. 
If you ever hear of a Serial Killer Show I’m your gal.  Meanwhile, from the book last year I got many comments on how other folks are fascinated by the pathology too so I know I’m not alone.  No killers in my past, no incidents or close calls here, just a weird interest in how these people come about and how they return again and again to killing for pleasure while hiding in plain site.

Too busy with Costco today to get to the studio, but I hope tomorrow I can spend a couple of hours, then back here to cook a few things in advance for the kids coming Friday.  It will be a short visit, but that's better than no visit, eh?  Last night I made a giant bowl of granola and tonight I mixed up some oatmeal cookies but used the granola from yesterday instead of straight oatmeal-  dough tastes yummy-  I'll stick it in the refrigerator and bake it off tomorrow.  I DO NOT want to spend the weekend in the kitchen so doing stuff ahead feels good.  
Now, lets get to some things we need to look at.  First off, I saw that James Franco has done a whole Cindy Sherman thing, disguising himself as his subject for photography, but it's a giant fail from what I saw.  I thought it pathetic enough that I won't even post a picture-  I'm sure you can find one if you don't look too hard.  Like a turd.


Toronto-based artist Jess Riva Cooper created this haunting collection of ceramic busts called her Viral Series as part of an artist residency last fall at The Kohler Factory in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. The pieces seem to lie at the peculiar intersection of life and death, as it should be given her inspiration behind the sculptures. Cooper shares about the Viral Series via email:   “In my art practice I integrate colour, drawing, and clay to create installation-based artwork. I investigate fallen economic and environmental climates in regions such as Detroit, Michigan, where houses have become feral, disappearing behind ivy, trees and Kudzu vines that were planted generations ago. In my sculptures, the world sprouts plant matter. Colour and form burst forth from quiet gardens and bring chaos to ordered spaces. Nature reclaims its place by creeping over structures. Wild floral growth subverts past states, creating the preternatural from this transformation.”





Colorado-based art director Suzanne Heintz decided she had enough of her mum asking when she was going to settle down and get married, so she went ahead to buy herself a mannequin husband and daughter. It’s a hoot looking at Heintz’s insanely huge grin as she poses for these gorgeously staged holiday snapshots with her pseudo family.  Genius.  I wonder if this got them off her back.

‘Piipshow’ is a three month long live broadcast of a bird feeder in Norway that looks like a trendy coffee shop. Instead of macchiato and cappuccinos, this café serves up nuts and seeds. Different customers come in during the day, most of them avian, including a Nuthatch, a Blue Tit (not THAT kind of tit), a great tit (not THAT too), and a Bullfinch. Sometimes the occasional squirrel thieves drop in too.The live stream project was the idea of photographer Magne Klann, in collaboration with Norwegian broadcaster NRK and model maker Lars Aurtrade. You can watch the Piipshow




OK, I found a studio assistant.  He doesn't talk much but collects dropped pins like a champ

4 comments :

max said...

Talk to me about the serial killer quilt . . . why did you decide to do it. Who is in the center? I don't follow serial killers so who are these people. Even though you think you put it up big . . . I can't see what is going on, because I can't enlarge the image. For me, this is a piece that is going to require context . . . what are you saying with this piece?

Paula Kovarik said...

The image is at once disturbing and bold. The two center figures and their saintly robes are so powerful and innocent looking that I am spellbound. Halos? Blood spots? Target practice. great use of color (reminding me of Mother Mary robe blue) Having just returned from Europe where every cathedral we entered had images of tortured saints I think your modern interpretation is just as disturbing. A warning to us all. I am uncomfortable about using the actual photos of these beasts within the quilt, they don't deserve the publicity. How big is it?

Terry Grant said...

I don't know what to say about this piece. The central figures are so compelling that it really demands a closer look. But that closer look drags one into such a dark place that I feel a little bit betrayed. I don't want to think about it. I'm looking away now...

Sandy said...

Somehow I think if the perpetrators each had a large red x over their face, so as to cross them out rather than give them a sort of victory, that the subject matter could more easily be swallowed.
But also, it would balance out the blue in the centre, which for me seems to visually over whelm.
Sandy in the UK