New Online, and Physical, Location

Changes. That is what is up, and I'm not just referring to the seasons. This is my last post at artsravel.blogspot.com, as I move Art Ravels over to Wordpress. I'm trying to set up a redirect, but in case that fails please click here: www.linneawest.com/blog. I hope you'll follow me over! This will stay up as an archive as long as Blogger doesn't change, but I've migrated the old posts over.

I am writing this from Budapest, where I will be living for the upcoming year. I was awarded a grant to research contemporary Hungarian art. I am beyond excited and, as you can imagine, this means I'll be writing more about art in Hungary and Europe and less about New York City. I also have started a personal blog about the experience here: www.ayearinbudapest.wordpress.com.

I've lived in New York since 2006 (except for one long hiatus) and have blogged here since 2008, so these are big changes, but definitely ones I feel good about.

Thanks to all you who have read, commented, and followed me! It's been a pleasure reading your blogs and following your thoughts and life changes as well.

Maine Interlude

Maine has a gorgeous, rugged coastline. I just spent a week around Blue Hill, Maine with family, not doing much besides visiting, eating, and playing with color settings on my camera that I didn't know I had.

The seaweed there is a bright yellow-orange that reminded me of one of my favorite poets, Edna St. Vincent Millay, who came from Maine.

I shall go back again to the bleak shore

And build a little shanty on the sand

In such a way that the extremest band

Of brittle seaweed will escape my door

But by a yard or two, and nevermore

Shall I return to take you by the hand;

I shall be gone to what I understand

And happier than I ever was before.

The love that stood a moment in your eyes,

The words that lay a moment on your tongue,

Are one with all that in a moment dies,

A little under-said and over-sung;

But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies

Unchanged from what they were when I was young.

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

I imagine the coast of Maine in winter would be a bleak thing indeed. In summer, however, it's quite glorious.

Good things from across the web...

...descriptively titled.

“This is Seara, my sea rabbit." 

"Oh, he’s…cute. Thanks for letting me take your picture.” 

“You can pet Seara if you would like. He is very gentle.”

• When you photograph New Yorkers, you know things are bound to get a bit strange.
• "The stars would come in one by one. They just waltzed in,' she said." - This other photogrpaher named Sherman
• Going dotty at Voitton on 5th Avenue and other bad metaphors that I'll spare you.
• "I’m not sure you could convince me that this elevator didn’t have a floor labeled ’Tim Burton's Apartment’."
• Ghosts in the Machine open at New Museum.
• Banksy the Olympian torches advertising
• Tom Waits nararrating John Baldessari. 6 minutes

And in other news, I fly to Hungary in 40 days. Nothing is ready, except I did get my passport back. But who's counting?

Are we having fun yet?

So far the New Year has brought change, but not necessarily of the pleasant sort. And change is always stressful.

Which is why, for your viewing pleasure, I bring you a little something to make you appreciate life. Girl Walk // All Day is a full length, music video of a film charting three dancers encountering New York City.


Girl Walk // All Day: Chapter 2 from Girl Walk // All Day on Vimeo.


Released in clips, there are 11 available on the website with the 12th and final clip coming today. I'm having fun now.

Catching Up

I've been away a long time now. On vacation, seeing family and old friends, but not, as it happens seeing much art. I'm catching up on my google reader now and coming across all kinds of good things though:

• I would like my holiday decorations to somehow channel this.
• An always funny literary agent blog. Writers, take note of what not to do.
• Theory: great male artists have more sex.
• My [awesome] [wonderful] donation-based yoga studio, Yoga To the People, is being sued by Bikram for teaching hot yoga. This is ridiculous. Sign the petition.
• More gorgeous, luminescent Chinese illustrations like the one above.

And, now, tis the holiday season and New York remains an almost balmy 55 degrees and sunny. Pandora is set on the Christmas station, I've already done all my holiday shopping, and now if I can just catch up on my reading, art viewing, blogging, and writing, I'll be all set until the New Year.

Caption Contest

"So close"

From my walk to work this morning, a lost half-mannequin on the street. Does anyone else want to play the "what is she thinking game"?

"I wonder if this is how Venus d'Milo got started."

"Well, my mother was right. She always said Steve had an obsession with that chain saw. And it was just one limb after another."

Golden buddha

I got inspired at the Rubin (and invited into a sculpture sessions that I suspect was intended  for children) and so made this little Buddha man to bring home with me. Normally they say feet of clay, but here we have hands of clay, a pipecleaner for support, and a lot of gold glitter. He will probably just remain a common household god.

The lotus pose of the Buddha Shakyamuni, below, from the Rubin collection looks far more perfect, as it does in most other respects.

Buddha Shakyamuni from northwestern Nepal (Khasa Malla rule) from the 14th century. It is made of gilt copper alloy with inlay. Rubin Museum of Art.

In other news, people seem to be doing precarious things outside my 20th floor office window.

Sunny days are here again

Literally. I can see the buildings across the way clearly, I did not have to hide my face under a hood and umbrella this morning, and subway performers are getting better-dressed by the day. There's even a tad bit of light left in the sky when I get out of work.

Spring must be coming.

Photos from the Halloween Parade

It's close to midnight and something evil's lurking in the dark
Under the moonlight, you see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes
You're paralyzed

'Cause this is thriller, thriller night

And no one's gonna save you from the beast about strike
You know it's thriller, thriller night

You're fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

 

 

 

 

There were some creative costumes out there, ranging from scary to creative to conceptual art. And then there were the Lady Gaga's. Quite a few Lady Gaga's.

 

 

The Halloween Parade NYC

Pictures to come. Suffice it to say, always inventive, always amazing. Halloween might be one of my favorite holidays in New York.

Death Warmed Over

Albert York, Woman and Skeleton, 1967

Luckily there are no end of art images to give visual expression of my inner state (hint: I'm the one on the left). It will have to do as there are no appropriate images of "death warmed over" from a Google search--in fact, I recommend you not Google that. But now I'm rambling, so may I recommend:

This image of Albert York's came from Art Inconnu, a blog where somebody knowledgeable showcases interesting art. I suggest you check it out while I wallow in self-pity.

v

Sick

Paperweight,  3 ½" x 2 ½"

Apparently this knick knack has a toothache, but its a close enough approximation of how I feel--swollen head and all.

My new mantra that I mutter as I walk around is: "I will not be sick" followed by (on the subway) "do not touch anything". Let see how that works for me.

l

Williamsburg 2nd Fridays Gallery Crawl

It's not all crowded subway trains in my neighborhood

What do you know? I moved to Williamsburg just in time for the 2nd Fridays gallery crawl. It will be great to see a bit more of my new neighborhood, an a few galleries I like (Slate Gallery for example) are having events and some I'm not familiar with (Graphite with a new show by Tae Hwang) come recommended.

Full list of events and spaces if you are so inclined:

• Tae Hwang In Between at Graphite
• "Exploring 100 Years of Figurative Art: Part II " Including the Realists" at Figureworks
• Sarah H. Paulson Your point will change... at Alice Chilton Gallery
• Chino Amobi Pregnancy Pact at Like The Spice
• Artist Talk: Barbara Thomas The Floating Color Series at Slate Gallery

And then there's also:

Gitana Rosa (Can't forget the show name: Hung: Checking out the Contemporary Male)
19 Hope St. #7 (b/w Roebling and Havemeyer)


Black and White Gallery (less than a block from my new apartment)
483 Driggs Avenue (between N 10th and N 9th)

Hogar Collection (recommended to me)
362 Grand Street (the corner of Marcy Ave)

Pierogi ( <3 )
177 N. 9th St. Brooklyn

Sisyphus

That's what I'll be up to this weekend: moving.

Lots and lots of moving. The expected difference being that I will be done when this weekend is over. I have gone up and down the stairs only a few times, but enough to despair a bit.

However , where there is despair, there is also LOL cat photos in google image searches, sort of a visual illustration of the greater cosmic ying and yang.

If you don't hear from me next week, assume a couch fell on my head.

A Room of My Own

I signed the lease on an apartment last night! I plan to move in October 1. After 9 months of going from place to place, whether St. Maarten or Mexico or different sublets in New York City, I'm tired. I want a place of my own. And so it is with great relief that I am hiring movers to help me get my stuff out of storage and put it in this white box in Williamsburg, Brooklyn for a year.

But the question is: what to do with all those big white walls?
k

Distractions: Robot Birthday Invitations

Note that "birthday" is written across the top in binary code

Yep, robot birthday invitations. Not really normal fodder for the blog, but it is what I was up last night writing instead of a blog post: an article on robot-themed birthday invitations. Isn't it amazing somebody would pay me to do that?

Blog Hiatus

Taking a summer vacation is standard in most jobs, so considering how much time I sometimes spend blogging I'm giving myself a break. In case you were beginning to get jealous that I was sunning or adventuring somewhere fabulous, don't worry. I'm just taking some time to adjust to my new job and find a new apartment, hopefully ridding myself of a ghastly two hour commute in the near future.

The commute is very handy for tweeting, however, in case you want to look me up there. Until then, happy summer and happy arting!

Governor's Island: The Little Pleasure Island Next to Manhattan

It's not only because its a quirky little green spot of land looking over its sprawling lawns and old buildings toward Manhattan. One free ferry ride over and you arrived at a Pleasure Island, full of people picnicking, riding bikes, eating ice cream, and far stranger things: like dressing up as flappers and dancing to 1920s tunes or even taking trapeze classes.

Last summer's art festival was more prevalent, but this year they still had the artist-designed minigolf course (love) and on the lawn next to it a group of playful installations that adults as much as children seemed to enjoy. I especially loved the bright graphic birds of Flock to Living.

Colorful Morning in Brighton Beach

As I told you my new habitat is Brighton Beach, just a stretch of boardwalk down from Coney Island (home of the infamous 4th of July hot dog eating contest). To take advantage of my new surroundings, and because I feel compelled to do uncomfortable things that are good for me, I have started jogging.

Howl says the circus poster. I felt like howling myself, if I had the breath to, but luckily it's an interesting stretch of boardwalk to torture yourself on: full of joggers and sunbathers and swimmers. Even at 7 AM on a Saturday morning, the old people had made their way down to the shore line for sunbathing and calisthenics.

Barnum and Bailey circus has set up their tents just past Coney Island and before a gorgeous old landmark that is now a roller rink. The man in front was sporting a very chipper boating outfit complete with ship's captain hat.

Then, just as I was starting to feel really proud of my panting and puffing, I came across what appeared to be hundreds of  penguins. It turns out they were triathletes in wetsuits. It was a little demoralizing, but not as much as seeing people three times my age jogging past me.

At this point you might be wondering whatever happened to that art blog I had been writing--me too. I can't think why I'm dribbling on about my morning run except that all my mental space is currently occupied by my new job. Yesterday was my first day, and I left quite excited about some of the projects I will be working on. If you'll bear with me a bit though, I have some lovely interesting art posts that I'm working on as well.

Whew...blog posts to date=

Now that's a lot of posts. I think I'll rest on my laurels today, and by resting on my laurels I mean work really hard to wrap things up at my old job before moving on to the new. I came across a great opportunity to do marketing for a publisher and I'm happy to say I accepted a job offer last week!  I'm very excited for some of the changes in store, but in the meantime I need to roll up my sleeves a bit.

Happy Monday!