The Porcupine School of Poetry

The "School" has Moved!

2006-01-14T15:47:00.000-05:00

The Porcupine School of Poetry has a new home in this wild world of a web, and is now affiliated with the Grand Rapids community site G-RAD.

Check out the new School:

www.g-rad.org/porcupine

A Movie

2006-01-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

I'm going to be changing this blog to a new URL soon. I'll post a link here when I do. In the meantime, here's a video I made:

View this clip on Vimeo

Update

2006-01-05T23:12:00.000-05:00

Hey. Needless to say I'm home from New York now. Some of you who had been reading this asked me if I'm going to keep updating this blog. I am. I don't have a lot to report right now. I do have a few pieces that I did in New York right before I left which I'll get up here pretty soon. I'll also try to keep updated with new stuff as I make it this spring. Stay tuned!

The NYCAMS Show

2005-12-07T23:34:00.000-05:00

Yesterday the end-of-semester NYCAMS student show opened. The show was curated by two women that John Silvis selected, so we didn't get to pick what got hung. They selected seven of my Snake Boy pieces, which I was pleased with. The opening was ok. Brian came, and so did a few other people I know, including several people from my internship. The whole affair got me a little down, which I couldn't figure out at first. Then I realized that everyone I'm really close to couldn't be there, and the people that were there that I've begun to get close to I'm going to leave in a week and a half. It got me thinking about other friends I've made and left behind when I've lived other places for several months at a time. Leaving these people is hard to do and I don't think I'm getting any better at it, despite my growing wealth of experience. So it was a bit of a bummer in that way. The show looked good, but it was all things I'd seen before, which is no surprise I guess. Instead of having an after party we all went home right after the opening to frantically finish the two papers that were due the next morning, one of them 10 pages, the other 12. I wrote nearly my entire 12 page one last night, which kept me up beyond 5 AM. I think the end might have degraded into incoherent babble, but I don't really remember. So today we had to sit through the usual Wednesday 6 hour lecture dose. As an added treat Prof. Romaine ripped on controversial British artist Chris Ofili, essentially boiling his work down to a "masturbratory" "racist" "gimmick" (his words). Ofili is the very same artist I had just stayed up all night defending in my paper. So I can't wait to see how that goes over. One of the worst things is that I think Prof. Romaine is really wrong about Ofili, but I doubt my paper make him see the light because I didn't leave myself enough time to do a really good job writing it. Oh well.

Here's a studio shot I like. I was preparing the work for the show.

Here's the whole crew, Professors John Silvis and James Romaine included.

Here's me and the work. If you're wondering what I'm holding it's...

Prof. Brent Dickensen's outrageously cute puppy named Doug!!! Who could look at art with a puppy like that around?

Me and the tree

2005-12-03T22:43:00.000-05:00

One thing I didn't mention in my last post about my trip to Rockafeller Center was that I got my picture taken by a professional photographer. I can see the thumbnails online, and of course they want me to buy prints. So here it is, my participation in the ritual:

At first I wasn't smiling, but at the prodding of the photographer's assistant and several middle aged women in line behind me, I finally cracked a smile. One of the women said, "Your girlfriend will like that shot!" How did she know I have a girlfriend?

This family was in line before me.

Contemporary Magic

2005-12-01T22:13:00.000-05:00

After spending some time in the library I decided to give the Rockefeller Christmas tree another shot. It was crowded, but I was able to walk around and get a good look at it. It got me thinking about how Christmas has become a very dense American ritual. I still believe that the core of Christmas is the birth of Christ, but it has become a very complicated ritual beyond that. I was thinking about rituals today because of research I've been doing on Joseph Beuys and a show I saw at Gagosian Gallery by Mike Kelley. The show is a maddening funhouse of video projections, stages, sculptures, paintings, and photographs. Kelley is exploring ritual by taking images he's found in old high school yearbooks and recreating them with live actors. The original photos depict familiar rituals such as school dances, Halloween costume contests, and school plays. But when these things are recreated in a way that you know is fake, the underlying assumptions made by the original rituals are suddenly blown open. We immediately recognize the reenactments as fakes, but what about the originals? They're fake as well, but we never really think of it that way. When someone dresses up as a vampire or is crowned homecoming queen we know we're not dealing with real vampires or queens, but there's still something very authentic about the experience. So authentic that most of us have never stopped to say, "hey isn't it weird that we're doing this?" So, back to Christmas in New York. About 2000 years ago Jesus Christ was born. That's an incredible event which deserves celebration, but the things we do today have very little to do with that. (I remember wondering as a child why Christmas and New Years were six days apart, because if we're really counting years from Christ's birth, they should be the same day. Or maybe a day in between, like my birthday, the 29th). Anyway, Christmas is loaded with ritual. It's more often called tradition, but I think it's more than that. We collectively feel a sense of magic around Christmas time, it's palpable. Everyone reacts to this, either by embracing it, altering it, or rejecting it. So many songs and movies have been made about this phenomenon, it's probably second only to romantic love. And let's not forget that those two go hand in hand, which leads me to the next happening down at Rockefeller center. I was walking around alone, feeling rather cynical. Not about what Christmas really is, but about how much of a production it is, especially in New York. It seemed like it wasn't Christmas as much as it was CHRISTMAS ON TV. I was thinking things like, "This sense of magic we're all supposed to feel is a sham. It's an elaborate ruse put on by corporate America to sell us things we don't need. Look at all these people, they're walking around on the set of a commercial in which they are both the stars and the audience." Suddenly some people started cheering and screaming. I heard someone say, "Is there a celebrity?" People were looking down in the ice rink which is in front of the tree in a depression in the ground, about twenty feet down. You've probably seen it on movies and TV. The ice rink was almost empty because the skating was closing for the night. Unable to resist spectacle, I pressed toward the railing with the rest of the masses until I saw the last two people on the rink: a man and a woman, kissing. They weren't celebrities at all, they had just gotten engaged. I feel weird admitting this, but I actually got a little choked up. Someone actually threw roses down to them! It was at that moment I realized that although many of our rituals are fed to us by the media, that doesn't make them any less real or important. That scene on the ice was just like something from a movie, which you could criticize as being cheesy and unoriginal, but I think that lack of originality made it even more authentic. Everyone there already knew the story, and it's a story that we all love. We love seeing it on TV and in movies and pop songs and especially in real life. People cheered! They're in love! That's exactly how it's supposed to be and we all know it. Cultures have always told stories about life, then imitated them in real life, then told more stories about that, and on and on. We have a collective sense of what is romantic and what is magical, and while I'm willing to admit that these things are cultural constructs, I don't see them as hallow gestures. Believing in these stories and acting them out ourselves lies at the core of who we are. We don't think about it this way very often, but I think that Americans really do believe in magic.

Sorry all these thoughts aren't very organized. It's something I'm going to keep thinking about.

The tree: supernatural?

These blurry people are in love! *cheering*

New Images

2005-11-30T22:58:00.000-05:00

After Ben and I were done doing some research at the library in midtown we decided to go down to Rockefeller Center where they were lighting the huge Christmas tree. We were a little late, so we figured it would already be lit. We got within a few blocks when the crowds became so large that we could no longer move forward. People were totally gridlocked. We turned back, we'll see it another time. Sorry I don't have a breathtaking image of the tree. In the meantime here's some stuff I've recently done in the studio:

This is another big one on three sheets of paper. It's about 7'6" long.

This is a detail from the piece above.

Another detail.

This is a new piece. It's much smaller, maybe 11x7 inches?

Back in Action

2005-11-29T22:04:00.000-05:00

Haven't posted much lately. I was home for Thanksgiving where I saw most of you who read this. It was wonderful to be home and see Kelly and family and friends. Traveling was a different story. I took four flights total, all of them were delayed. I managed to get home on Tuesday as planned, but on the way back I was forced to spend the night in Milwaukee. Luckily I was able to stay with my cousin Travis and his college buddies.

I have some new work, but I haven't taken pictures of it yet. I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have to make work or put it on the blog because I have to write two 10 page papers by next Wednesday. I'm not too excited about that.

Several Stories

2005-11-15T22:54:00.000-05:00

I've been bad about keeping updated on this blog lately, so tonight I'm going to play catch-up. The last several days have yielded a few interesting stories.

Last Friday I worked in the studio for a while and I was about to head home and waste time on the internet, when I decided to call my friend Brian instead. He and some friends were at an opening in SoHo at Deitch Projects. The show was by an artist named Kehinde Wiley, which can best be described as hip hop history painting. That's right, giant realistic paintings of guys on horses, except rather than Napoleon on a horse, there were guys that look like rappers on horses. One of Brian's friends was one of his assistants. After that we went out to eat. I headed home kind of early, a little after ten. When I came up out of the subway I noticed that there were police cars and trucks, ambulances, and fire trucks blocking the road in front of the St. George, the dorm I live in. I was able to walk in the front door and I asked the security guard in the lobby (who wasn't one of the normal ones, and who was wearing an American flag pin) what was going on. He seemed very chipper and fake, replying that he didn't know. I went up to my room and looked out my window down on to Pineapple Street, one of the streets that was closed off. At the intersection I could see a crowd of cops standing outside of a police van. One cop was being helped into full bomb squad gear, presumably to check out something on Pineapple Street, six stories directly below me. I thought, "I don't want to be here anymore." I decided to go back into Manhattan and go to the NYCAMS studio, from there I could check in on the news and see what was going on and maybe sleep there. About halfway there I realized that I had forgotten my key, which theoretically should not have been a problem because you only need a key to get into the building on weekends, because there is no security guard at the door then. When I arrived, about 11:30, which was still Friday, there was a security guard there, but the door was locked. My "I forgot my key" mouth motion was met with a slow shaking head. Crap. I decided to call Brian. He had said that he was also heading home when I was, so he should have been home by now, I could go stay with him. Just after reaching his voicemail the battery of my cell phone died. Crap again. I had been praying this whole time, for safety and peace, but also that I wouldn't become overly paranoid, which I have a tendency to do. When the phone died I didn't panic, instead I became very calm and just a little mad. I said to myself, "look, St. George is my home right now and I'm not going to run away. I'm going to go back there and join the crowd that's gathered beyond the police tape and wait it out while trying to get some info." The whole subway ride back I was praying that when I would come out of the subway all the cops and fire trucks would be gone and it would be like nothing happened. I got to my stop, walked up the stairs and around the corner only to see that everything was back to normal! No cops, no ambulances, no blocked roads. Wow. I was very relieved, but instead of rushing back to my room I decided to have a drink at a pub about a block from the dorm. Talking to some people there I learned that someone had reported a suspicious package on Pineapple Street so they had to check it out. The NYPD tends to take these things very seriously, and while that freaked me out, I'm glad they take it seriously. It is relieving to know that it was probably just some weird suitcase and not a CIA-intercepted Al Qaida message to blow up the St. George dorm for some unkown reason.

Saturday was much more fun. I went to my friend Brian Dulaney's opening at Rare Gallery. It was lots of fun, the show looks great. I hung out with him and a bunch of people afterward, first at a restaurant in Chelsea, then at a cool bar in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. I ended up taking a cab home which was worth the money just to hear the rantings of the pissed off cab driver going on about how the people before me kept telling him to make lefts, to the point where they were going in circles.
Here are some images from the show:

Brian with one of his freaky but somehow humorous paintings.

This one is my favorite.

Sunday and Monday were pretty mellow. Today after my internship I went to a bunch of galleries in Chelsea to see the shows that just opened. I enjoyed a show at Stellan Holm Gallery called The Painted Word: Text and Context in Painting (1981-1992). One piece that made me chuckle was a text painting by Christopher Wool that read "FUCK 'EM IF THEY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE" in awkwardly scrolled block letters on a large vertical canvas. A text painting is kind of a joke, but it can also be a very serious affront to what a painting is supposed to be (it helped that it hung in a room with one of Richard Prince's joke paintings). I continued on and as I was exiting a nearby gallery I heard someone outside yelling. I realized it was a somewhat crazy guy I saw early who had a golf club, he was yelling the words, "Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!" really loud. I was freaked out, so I quickly walked into another gallery and waited for him to go away. I've been thinking ever since then about the very different ways that single phrase can convey power, shape actions, cause fear, amusement, or disgust, or all of them at once. Because while I was scared at the time, it is now, hours later, nothing more than an amusing story.

This painting by On Kawara was also at the Painted Word show. The painting's 24th birthday is exactly four days away, and it was created exactly forty days before I was born. If you're confused, click the link on his name above.

Oh, I almost forgot: Before the bomb scare fiasco on Friday Sufjan Stevens came to NYCAMS and gave a talk. He contrasted footage I shot of a band called Slavic Soul Parade (written about below in the post "Strange Adventures") with a DVD of Bjork live at the Royal Opera House in London. Thankfully he didn't dwell on the vastly different production quality, but rather on the different way the musicians approach performance. It was great. Later he looked at my work, which wasn't really a critique as much as it was him saying, "this is cool." But that's fine with me.

Disconnected

2005-11-14T20:24:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, the internet has been down at the dorm. Hopefully it will be fixed soon. Things have been going pretty well. I had a fun weekend which included going to my friend Brian Delaney's opening at Rare Gallery in Chelsea. It was a big deal, and lots of fun--two after parties. I've been doing more in the studio and I'll post more pictures as soon as the internet is fixed in the dorm. To make up for the lack of new content on this sight, check out this movie of a performance that my dad and brother did if you haven't already seen it:

Epix and Chard "chair dancing"

Top Dollar

2005-11-07T21:21:00.000-05:00

After class today I went with some of the other students to check out the Post-War and Contemporary Art soon to be auctioned at Christie's. Ever wanted to buy a Mark Rothko for six million dollars? Now's your chance. There was some really great stuff to see, but it was also weird. There's something about seeing the price estimates listed next to the work that changed my perception a bit. Richard Prince's appropriation of images and text doesn't seem as avant-garde when you realize how much money he's probably making. Also, it was strange to be looking at the work with people who are actually considering buying it, something you don't usually think about in a museum.

Here are some shots of the big piece I finished last week:

Here's the whole thing, but it's hard to see so small. It's 7'6" long.

A consortium of birds.

Sorry if this grosses you out. The grubs just seemed to fit.

Strange Adventures

2005-11-02T22:48:00.000-05:00

I had a memorable experience last night. John Silvis, who runs NYCAMS, wanted me to go to a small club in Brooklyn to video tape a brass band called Slavic Soul Party. He needed it taped as a favor to a guest lecturer who's coming next week, who happens to be none other than singer/song writer Sufjan Stevens. John said he'd pay me a little bit, so I went down to shoot the performance. I called the club a few hours earlier to ask if taping was ok, and the guy couldn't say for sure, but he figured it would be ok. The club was really just a bar with a performance space in the back which may or may not be bigger than your living room. So it was hard to blend in. The band started and the recording was going well despite low light. They played for about 45 minutes then took a break. I took this time to step outside and call Kelly, telling her that everything was going well. When I went back in and stood by the camera two guys from the band approached me and said, "Hey, have you been taping us?"
I said yes, and they said, seemingly as a joke, "Where are the release forms?" After laughing that off they said, "No, seriously, why are you taping us?"
I figured I had better through around some names, so I said, "Have you guys heard of Sufjan Stevens?" One of them had, the other one hadn't. "Well," I said, "he really wanted to check out the show but he couldn't be here, so I'm taping it for him." I figured that this would settle things, as they'd be honored that someone like Sufjan would want to check them out. I was wrong.
They launched into a tirade of questions and complaints: "He and I have a few mutual friends, why couldn't he have contacted me directly?" "If he wanted to check us out he can buy one of our CDs at the bar for ten bucks like everyone else!" "I don't really want him hearing our set tonight, we were playing new stuff and stuff we hadn't played in a long time!" They seemed a little drunk, which added to their passion on the subject.
Seeing that things weren't going well, I decided to play the don't-shoot-the-messenger card, "I don't even know Sufjan Stevens, he's coming to speak at my school as a favor, so my professor wanted this taped as a favor to him." I also mentioned that John was paying me to tape the show, which was a huge mistake. As the plot thickened, they got even more confused and upset: "Wait, you don't even know this guy? Why are you taping things for him?!" "You're getting paid for this? We're not getting paid for this!" To other band members not involved in the conversation they announced, "This guy's got a check in his pocket to be here!" Not true.
I volunteered to leave, telling them that I'd taped enough, and I didn't need to stay for the second half. To that they replied, "It's not a matter of whether or not we let you tape the second half, it's a matter of whether of not we let you leave with what you already taped." At that point it had gotten pretty awkward. They decided that I couldn't tape anymore, and that they were going to e-mail Sufjan and ask him what was going on. Of course they were even more annoyed when they found out that I didn't have his e-mail address. The strange thing is that they began to loose steam at that point. I think it was a combination of how much they had drank and that the whole thing had gotten pretty complicated. There was a few moments of silence, then they got distracted and I managed to slip out, with the camera and tape! I'm really looking forward to meeting Sufjan, to give him the tape and find out why I was actually there.
The funny thing is that the guys in the band were probably making a huge mistake. It's my guess that Sufjan might want to collaborate with them, or use his record industry connections in some other positive way. At one point one of the guys actually said, "Look, we're not playing here to end up in some dude's boot-leg collection!" I'm guessing here, but I don't think that's what Sufjan had in mind. Maybe I should just throw the tape away and tell Sufjan that they didn't want him to hear their band! No, I won't do that, even if they do deserve it.

Anyway, I've been in the studio a lot lately, working on a very big piece, here's a small teaser:

Oliver Herring's Studio

2005-10-28T00:15:00.000-04:00

Instead of going to my internship at Max Protetch today, I went with Melissa, a girl in the program, to her internship with Oliver Herring. Oliver is an artist who's represented by Max Protetch. I've written about him before, he was featured on the PBS show Art:21, which you can read about here. Like many artists these days, his craft tends to be dictated by where he's going conceptually, so for a while he'll make videos, then then knit mylar strips, then ask strangers to spit food dye on themselves. Lately he's been making sculptures covered with collaged photos of the subject. First he takes hundreds of photos of every inch of the surface of the subject, then he sculpts it out of styrofoam, then glues cut out pieces of the photos to it. It's an incredibly tedious process, so it helps to have some assistants. He recently finished one of a sitting soldier, and now he's working on one of an eagle. He's trying to get the eagle done before he goes to California next month, because it and the soldier will be shown at Art Basel Miami in early December. Here are some pictures from the studio:

Oliver and Melissa in the studio.

Gluing photos to the base of the eagle.

Those aren't feathers, they're cut out photos of feathers.

"Haven't you ever wanted to put your foot through your television?"

2005-10-25T22:06:00.000-04:00

Today, after class, my internship, and a four-block walk in cold rain, I went to an appointment at a place called Electronic Arts Intermix. EAI is a non-profit organization that has a large collection of video art. You can make an appointment to watch whatever you want in a private viewing room for free. This was really great for me. Video art is something I've been interested in for while, but it's difficult to know what's going on without actually seeing it. Books can be bland or confusing, and the web tends to only show very small, short samples. And we all know that Grand Rapids galleries are not exactly steeped in contemporary media art. So I finally got to see some stuff today, which was long overdue (I once wrote a paper at Calvin about Swiss video artist Pippilotti Rist without having seen anything but still frames in books! That's just not right!). I only had two hours, so I couldn't see everything I wanted to. Some of my favorites that I did see were works by a collective called Ant Farm.

These guys did a great job a critiquing the media THROUGH the media. They staged an event where they crashed a modified Cadillac through a wall of burning TVs, where they invited the local news media. Before the stunt, the "Artist President", one of the members dressed as JFK, gave a speech in which he condemned the mass media, among other things.

It was also good to see Nam June Paik's legendary video "Global Groove."

It is really mesmerizing. It's great to see the way he really broke down the medium in order to explore it. There's a finality to it, like looking at a Jackson Pollock painting. It almost makes you say, "Wow, he just ripped the guts out of that medium and put them on display, I guess we'd all better move on to something else." While I don't think that Pollock ultimately ended painting and I don't think that Paik ended video art, they definitely changed the playing field in major ways.

Good times...

2005-10-24T20:21:00.000-04:00

Well, Kelly came and went. We had a great time, went to a lot of museums and galleries, did some shopping, and had some great food. Here's a sampling:

On the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, with the East River and the skyline of Manhattan.

This is a painting by Tim Bavington at Jack Shainman Gallery, it was a great show.

Dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum! Aaahhh!

Here's Kelly at Siggy's, about to eat the incredible egg sandwich. Siggy's is a restaurant, coffee shop, and juice bar where everything is organic, and it's about 100 ft. from where I live. Kelly said that it's now her favorite restaurant, hands down. We ate there every day she was here except 2, sometimes more than once a day.

Kelly's Here!

2005-10-15T11:28:00.000-04:00

The title says it all. She got in last night. At first her flight was delayed, then she got on an earlier flight. It was so good to see her! We had to wait for a few hours at the airport for her bags, which were on her original flight. We just woke up, and we're about to go explore. It has finally stopped raining, it had rained here for three days or so without stopping. We think we'll start out the day with an organic breakfast as Siggys, just down the road, then head to Manhattan to go to the studio and maybe shopping. Woo-hoo!

Getting Close

2005-10-12T23:40:00.000-04:00

Kelly comes in only 2 days! I can't wait. Soon I'll be postin' for two! Actually I'm not sure how much I'll post while she's here, at least a few times, I hope.
Friday is the day of my mid-term critique, so I'm trying to finish up the snake boy series. Here are the new ones:

It bugs me that these photos don't look very good. They're all hand held in available light. I'll be taking better pictures soon, and I'll probably put them on my Flickr page so you can see them big if you want. (You can already look at my Flickr photo page by clicking on any of the above pictures. Don't know what Flickr is? It's cool, check it out.)

The Snake Boy Saga

2005-10-08T11:22:00.000-04:00

Pretty much all I did today was work in the studio. I've decided to pursue a series based on a character (or group of characters) called Snake Boy for my mid-term critique. I've got some display methods in mind, and now I'm just trying to bang out a few more pieces before Friday. Here's two new ones:

Any response/criticism is welcome, just please don't post a reply about debt consolidation, as some of my readers have chosen to do.

Architects and Alcohol

2005-10-07T23:59:00.000-04:00

After class this morning I went to work at the gallery. There was a lot to be done, last minute art hanging and party preparations for the opening of a show of architecture drawings by Daniel Libeskind. The first part of the opening was a private affair, where guests had to RSVP. After that anyone could come. A month ago I went gallery hopping on a night when almost every gallery in Chelsea was having an opening and it was crazy. While I'm not sure if it was like this other places, our gallery was absolutely packed tonight. We served an incredible amount of alcohol, all free. At the end of the night I had to lug many huge garbage bags full of bottles to the curb. It was a fun night and a lot of work. I was glad that I got to meet two artists that Max Protetch represents that I really like, Oliver Herring and Tobias Putrih. If you click on the Oliver Herring link it will take you to a page about a PBS show called Art:21, which Oliver happened to be on tonight. If you haven't seen Art:21 I highly recommend it. Even though the 3rd season is still airing for the first time NYCAMS already has a copy on DVD, so I'm going to watch Oliver's part, and the rest of it soon.

I haven't done all that much in the studio this week because the gallery has kept me very busy. But here are a few new things:

These are both detail shots of new pieces.

Light and Noise

2005-10-06T23:13:00.000-04:00

After my internship today I went to the studio, but didn't stay long. There was a poetry reading happening in the NYCAMS gallery, but I decided to check out this other thing I heard about called Text of Light at a venue/art gallery called The Kitchen. It was really great, and would probably classify as what my dad calls "difficult music." Basically what they did was project an abstract experimental film by the late filmmaker Stan Brakhage called Text of Light and played improvised music with it. The music wasn't meant to be a sound track as much as a companion. It ended up seeming to me like Brakhage was another member of the band. The real band had five people, including a drummer, a saxophone player, two guitarists (one of whom was Lee Ranaldo from the band Sonic Youth), and a turntablist, who is one of my favorite artists, Christian Marclay. Also, I think I saw David Byrne, former lead singer of the Talking Heads, in the audience, but I'm not really sure if it was him. Anyway, the performance was great, it fluctuated between being ambient, overwhelming, and mezmerizing, while remaining rather dark. While the performers were "playing," both in the sense of playing instruments and exploring them like toys, it didn't feel very "playful." I think that was because of the key it was in, and intentional dissonance. It's pretty amazing how different chords or keys can affect mood in such a direct way*. Now if you're an avid reader of this blog, you've probably already read the post that appears below this that I wrote two days ago, and you will have said, "Hey, Christian Marclay is represented by Paul Cooper Gallery, the same gallery that randomly called Kevin the other day, wanting him to be their intern, only it was too late. Which was unfortunate, because he wanted to meet him." Good observation. Well, tonight I did meet him. We had a nice little chat, I told him I liked the show, and I more or less invited him to come speak as a guest lecturer at NYCAMS, which he neither accepted nor declined. I think more than anything it was good that I proved to myself that meeting people really isn't that hard. I'm really bad at walking up to people I don't know and talking to them. But they say that it's not what you know but who you know, and I've found that to be very true in the art world. For example: I once asked Stewart, the assistant director at Max Protetch, what he does when an artist comes in off the street and gives him slides or a CD of images. He said that he sometimes looks at them, but mostly just throws them away. I asked if anyone they've ever shown got in that way and he said, "No, never." So what will talking to Christian Marclay for two minutes do for me? Probably nothing, but it's good practice.

I was a little distracted during the performance because I had just received word that there has been a specific terrorist threat on the New York City subway system, which I ride at least twice a day. I'm going to try to be cautious, not ride when I don't need to, and try to avoid rush hour. I'd like to ask you all to pray for me and this city. Worrying about this kind of thing just ends up making me sick thinking about the cycle of violence we're in. I'm praying that God will bring peace into peoples' hearts, and open minds to constructive conflict resolution.

*Another story about musical keys: I remember taking a music appreciation class in high school where we had to write an incredibly simple melody to show that we understood how music was written on paper. My friend John Zania, who was a very accomplished musician, tried to get me to turn in a piece that he had written which was simply that little scale-like ditty they play on an organ at baseball games, only in a different key, which changed it from being upbeat and energetic to somber and a little creepy.

"You've already got YOUR album."

2005-10-04T19:30:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was hard because I got almost no sleep the night before. After class in the morning I did some extra grunt work for the gallery (for which I'll get paid!). After that I did a minute amount of work in the studio before deciding to go home and take a nap. As I arrived Ben was just leaving for a Katrina benefit concert featuring Sufjan Stevens at the Bowery Ballroom. I had thought about going, but I really needed to sleep. But since Sufjan was the headliner and there were many opening bands, I told Ben to call me when he was down there, to say if it was sold out. After a little nap Ben called and convinced me to come down. Before I got there he was alone and had met some other people. When I told one of the guys that I was from Michigan he said, "Oh, you've already got your album." At first this really confused me, because I don't own any Sufjan Stevens albums, but then I realized that he was referring to the album called Greetings From Michigan. Sufjan, a Michigan native and Hope College graduate, has undertaken a project to do an album about all 50 states. The Michigan album was the first one, followed by the recently released Come On Feel the Illinoise. While we were talking about this someone said, "I think New York is next," which sounded pretty optimistic.
I'm not a huge Sufjan Stevens fan, as I said, I don't own any of his stuff. But for some reason the concert really affected me. It was an acoustic set, just him and a guitar, so none of the show stopping theatrics that a friend told me about in a September show at Calvin. What really moved me was all the heart-rending songs about love, longing, and the Great Lakes region. Ben and I were talking about how his lyrics are a nice balance between specific and open-ended narrative, where he transports you to a time a place, but still lets you insert your own experience. And since the place he takes you is often Michigan, I was pretty well transported.

Today at my internship I helped prepare for the new show that opens on Friday. The show features drawings and models by architect Daniel Libeskind, whose job is nothing less the creating the master plan for the memorial/rebuilding of the World Trade Center site. After that I got a call from a New York number that I didn't recognize which turned out to be Paula Cooper Gallery. No, they didn't want to represent me, but it was close: they wanted me to be their intern. I had sent them a resume and cover letter, oh about 3 months ago, they were my first choice. When I called to follow up the girl said, "We don't need anybody right now, and if we did, we'd call you." With the way she said it I took this as being rather snooty, but I guess she was just explaining the procedure, because sure enough, now they need someone and they called me. But I had to decline. I think the relationships I'm building at Max Protetch are vaulable and the idea of working for both, while tempting, would probably be a mistake. It is a bummer though, as Paula Cooper represents some amazing artists that I'd love to meet, among them are Sherrie Levine, Sol LeWitt, Christian Marclay, and Claes Oldenburg. I'm sure those guys aren't hanging around the office every day, but still, it's one step closer.

The Natural Order

2005-10-02T23:32:00.000-04:00

Today Ben and I went to a great restaurant just down the street from us called Siggy's. The brunch was cheap, good, and all organic! After that I checked out a big junk shop in Brooklyn, then went to church. Church was really great because I talked to people I knew there and met lots of new people. I even went over to some peoples' apartment and hung out for a while. Brian, one of the guys I was with, is also and artist and is feverishly preparing for a show right now. We had a good talk and he's going to come by the studio soon to talk about my work.

Yesterday Ben and I went to the American Museum of Natural History. I found it inspiring, here are some pictures:

This is the Hall of Biodiversity... amazing.

I think this model of a blue whale is life size, it was hard to get it all in one picture.

This is a real t-rex skeleton (most museums have casts) and the first one ever displayed. Up until 1992 they had him displayed standing upright (pictured below). They came to realize that if he stood that way several of his vertebrae would have popped out of socket, and they've never found t-rex tracks that show a tail mark.

Another interesting factoid: They believe that t-rex's hunting was quite violent, or they fought each other, because this one has evidence of broken ribs that eventually healed, as well as a few fused vertebrae, either from injury or disease.

An ancestor of the armadillo. You can't tell me you don't want to ride that thing.

After the museum I went to the studio and finished this:

My work, their work

2005-09-30T22:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was a good day. I found a 4x4 ft. canvas set out by the trash on my way from my internship to the studio. It has the beginning of a really bad painting on it, but I think I can just gesso over it. Although my work is not really leading in the direction of medium to large canvas stuff. After that I decided to go to a Mexican restaurant called Chipotle, which is almost exactly like Qdoba in Grand Rapids. As I entered two guys at the door told me that they were training that night, I thought, ok... the point being? Then they told me that whatever I ordered was free. It was so weird, like a prank or minor miracle. But it was true, I got a big delicious burrito and a Coke, totally for free.
Anyway, here's some stuff I've been working on, followed by some really good stuff from the metropolitan Museum of Art.

Studio view that includes a new piece.

Detail of the new one with whales and moles.

In progress.

Here's some stuff from I saw at the museum:

Rothko.

A great Roy Liechtenstein where he painted a picture of the back of a canvas stretcher in his trademark style. And it's painted on canvas, clever!

Some people in front of a Chuck Close painting (yes, painting, not photograph).

An installation view of some Ellsworth Kelly paintings, which reminded me of this picture from Calvin professor Kasarian Dane's web site:

Last but not least, Agnes Martin, Sol Lewitt, and an old man.

Crit-O-Rama

2005-09-27T22:55:00.000-04:00

Well I've been here over a month now, and things are going pretty well. The studio class is broken up into two halves, each with its own vague assignment. The assignment for this first have is "public and private space." despite how broad that is, I haven't really done things that fit. But either way I need to bring things to a somewhat resolved series by October 14. As usual, my work has been going off on quite a few tangents, so I've been collecting opinions about what's working and what's not. This has been good, but also a little frustrating, because I'm being given conflicting reports. A great example is the triptych I did of the porcupine, armadillo, and beaver with stripes (you can see the porcupine one below under "Nice Little Porcupine"). The professors' opinions range from "a so-so preparatory sketch for other works" to "by far the most interesting thing you're doing." So I'm not really sure where to go from there. What I'm trying to do is define the terms by which I want to work, what I want the work to ultimately do, and pursue those things through techniques and subjects that seem both appropriate and interesting to me. But... that doesn't exactly narrow things down. Anyway, here's some of what I've been up to:

snake boy

oil enamel and collage on board

detail

And this has nothing to do with my work, it's just a picture I took out my studio window at dusk using the new tripod I bought:

MoMA!

2005-09-21T22:06:00.000-04:00

Wednesday normally consists of all our lecture classes packed into one day, six hours in all. But today things were broken up by a trip to the Museum of Modern Art! Closely examining Jackson Pollock's Full Fathom Five I noticed that there were nails and bolts and cigarettes embedded in the paint. I remarked to professor Romaine that that's not something you see in a three by four inch reproduction in a text book. He said, "That's why we're here." This is what art history class is supposed to be.

Bethany and Barnett Newman's Vir Heroicus Sublimis.

Part of Jackson Pollock's One: Number 31.

This is a monochrome painting by Yves Klein. What's important is not so much the painting as the color itself, which Klein developed and copyrighted as "International Yves Klein Blue." This is the second time I've seen one of these paintings, and the color is so rich and intense that I don't think any reproduction process can capture it. That's why I like seeing that guy taking a picture of it (like I was), because you can't really capture it, but you've got to try.

They even let you walk on the Carl Andre.

Donald Judd's wall boxes.

Studiotime!

2005-09-19T22:11:00.000-04:00

With the exception of yesterday's walk in Central Park, I've been hittin' the studio pretty hard lately. Today we had a critique, and I even squeezed in an extra one from Brent, the professor of the other section. They were both good, in the sense that I was both encouraged and challenged. Brent and I figured out that although my work is funny and intriguing, it's playing it pretty safe, and is quite fashionable right now (in kind of a bad way). But he did say that it has the potential to "get weird." So that's good. Without further ado, here's what I've been up to:

A new collage.

A section of my work table.

A piece I did on Saturday that's still drying called "All the coffee I can fit in my mouth"

New collage characters that I call "The Snake Boys," coming to a diptych near you!

Nice little porcupine

2005-09-17T19:04:00.000-04:00

Here's one of three pieces I just finished. The other two have a beaver and an armadillo.

A plastic shark in pretend formaldehyde

2005-09-16T23:33:00.000-04:00

Hey everyone. Sorry I haven't posted in a little while. I've been pretty busy and I haven't taken a lot of pictures lately. This weekend has been the big grand opening for NYCAMS, so there have been lots of visitors, many of them Bethel administrators. It's been ok, but I haven't been in a very social mood lately, so having two receptions in a row (one for the show in the NYCAMS gallery, and the other for the program itself) has been tiring. I've been putting in a number of hours in the studio, and I'll have some pictures of what I've been up to soon.

Today we all visited a bunch of galleries in the Chelsea district, which was fun. My favorite was a guy named Marcel Dzama. (Warning, some of the images are a little demented) Here's one of his drawings:

The other day I stumbled upon a webpage of famous contemporary art recreated in Legos. Here's one that I liked of Damien Hirst's dead shark in formaldehyde:

4 years

2005-09-11T22:13:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Ben and I went skateboarding at the Brooklyn Banks. It was fun, but I was pretty tired. We shot some video, here's a still of Ben doing a great wall ride:

After that we visited a guy who lives near there who taught a video class that Ben took in high school. He was a cool guy. We climbed his fire escape to the roof of his building. Here's the view we had:

He also told us about an event happening that night called Pichange. Which was a backyard screening of art videos and experimental films by Chilean artists. So we checked that out and it was pretty cool.

Today is the 4th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, so they've lit two huge spotlights at Ground Zero. It's interesting because the first time I was in New York was on the six month anniversary of the attacks, and that was the first time they lit the lights. It was the first real memorial, as far as I know. I'm glad to see that they're still doing it. After church (and a great potluck after that) Ben, Chris, and I walked down to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, near our dorm. Here's what the view looked like:

A print for the people, by the people.

2005-09-09T20:18:00.000-04:00

I made a piece today where I taped a large piece of paper on the sidewalk of a busy intersection and left it there for 15 minutes. People did walk on it and make marks, but not at first. It was so white and clean, I think they thought it was important, so they avoided it. Then it got a few footprints and more people started stepping on it. It worked pretty well, although it didn't get quite as dirty as I thought it would. The strange thing is that the whole thing got me kind of freaked out. At first I was nervous to do it, not knowing what I would say if someone (like a cop or a stranger) hassled me about it (I'm not as good with that kind of thing as my dad). Then I got the courage to tape it down. But when I was standing back a little ways watching it, I realized that I never really stand still out in the city, and seeing all the people and hearing what they were saying started freaking me out. A couple of guys almost got in a fight and other guys were saying all kinds of stuff about people, especially the girls walking by. The streets around NYCAMS, where I did it, have two things: flower shops and street vendors selling either knock-off or ripped-off designer goods. Both seem to do a lot of business during the day, so the street was packed with all sorts of characters. It was probably good for me.

Step on it!

Opening Day

2005-09-08T23:28:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week so far. Tuesday and today I worked at my internship at Max Protetch Gallery. It's going well. I've been doing mostly grunt work, running errands, updating data-bases, filing slides. Tonight the gallery had an opening of there new show. Today is the first big day of the season, so almost all the galleries in the Chelsea district were having openings. I overheard someone say there were something like 60 or 70 openings just in the several blocks that make up Chelsea. And these aren't small time places, many of them are big, and works tend to start around $1,000 (for a small piece by someone not too established) and goes WAY up from there. The other surprising thing was how many people were down there! It was like a concert at times, the sidewalks were litterally clogged with people, all there for the galleries. Apparently it will continue like that for the next few days. I think I'll go back down on Saturday and maybe I can get some pictures. I think there were also some good shows, but it was hard to tell, many of the galleries were too crowded to get a good look at the work.

Yesterday I spent some time in the studio, here's what I've been up to:

An unfinished piece and a reflection of me.

Cute!! A detail from above.

A detail from another piece.

I'm going to do more stuff tomorrow, so I'll post pictures of the progress. Also, we have to present what we've been doing to the class tomorrow and we're supposed to be working with the theme "public and private space". So maybe I'll have a cute dream tonight about how to relate my stack of rodents to public and private space.

Lay-buh Day! Lay-buh Day! Lay-buh Day!

2005-09-05T21:44:00.000-04:00

Today is Labor Day, so no class. Ian (from the NYCAMS group) and I decided to go to the beach on Long Island. Ian had gone on Saturday so he knew the way. It was a long, long journey. First we had to take the subway way out to the end of the line in eastern Brooklyn (or was it Queens?) either way, it wasn't the place I wanted to spend my Labor Day. At that point we boarded the Long Island Rail Road. I noticed several gaurds on the train platform dressed in fatigues, with bullet-proof vests and M-16 machine guns. While this should have made me feel more safe from the threat of a terrorist attack, it somehow had the opposite effect. We rode the train for a while then got off and got some pizza. We walked to the bus stop that Ian knew of that would get us to the beach. He told me that last time he didn't have any change with him, so he didn't bother with the bus and decided to walk, which was a mistake because it took him an hour and a half each way. Also, we learned yesterday that our Metro cards will work on the bus, so no change was needed. So we waited for the bus. And waited, and waited. After about an hour, I decided to run into the deli across the street to ask them if they knew what was going on. Ian stayed at the stop, just in case. The kid in the deli knew nothing, but as I emerged I saw the bus pulling up. I made a mad dash across the busy intersection and we made it.

The beach was ok. It was very crowed, and I still have a hard time getting used to the salty taste the water leaves on your lips. The weather was wonderful, hardly a cloud and not too hot. Ian and I swam out a little way, then we noticed that in between us and the shore hundreds of jelly fish had somehow appeared. I was a little freaked out, having never seen one before. They were small, the biggest being only about 5 inches across. I carefully tried to dodge them and made my way back to shore. Then I noticed a little boy who was picking them up and poking them! After seeing other people touch them, including countless groups of young men who invariably throw them at one another, I decided to touch one with my toe. It did not sting.

The journey home went quicker, especially waiting for the bus.

The water.

The crowd.

The pacifist jelly fish.

Ben, my roommate, just got back from his weekend trip home to Boston. While there he got new hearing aids, which apparently he needed his whole life but had gotten by without. He told me he's hearing things he never has before, like rustling fabric and conversations from other tables at restraunts.

Imagine all the People

2005-09-03T21:13:00.000-04:00

I didn't see anyone I knew all day today, except for when I woke briefly to say goodbye to Ben as he left for a weekend trip home to Boston. I did laundry in the basement of the building and went shopping. My quest for Tsubo shoes took me all over Manhattan until I eventually ended up in the Upper West Side, near Central Park. I was successful, and purchased a pair that looks like this, if you care to know:

After buying the shoes I ate a slice of pizza and started walking over to Central Park, because I hadn't been there yet on this trip to New York. I walked along and what did I find sitting on the sidewalk? That's right! Two plastic bags full of old plant, animal, and insect guide books! I had been lamenting my lack of material from which to create collages, and I think these books will be great. I only took the better of the two bags, leaving the other for some other lucky soul.

On my way back to Brooklyn I had to transfer subways. When I got off the first train I noticed an old man signing and playing the guitar. I recognized him because I've already seen him twice! So that's three times in 8 days in New York, and all at different stations. Anyway, he's great and I was just enjoying his music when the relatively empty subway platform suddenly filled up with about 50 French tourists. Their guide was yelling instructions at them about which train to get on and how many stops to ride. The tourists all gathered around the singing man as he started to play "Imagine" by John Lennon. During the chorus they all sagn along. The wait was long so he kept playing and they kept giving him money and clapping after every song.

Also: the area of Manhattan that I was coming back from, the Upper West Side, is the area where John Lennon was shot. A small area of Central Park near there is called "Strawberry Fields" and features a mosiac of Lennon.

Workin'

2005-09-03T01:35:00.000-04:00

Today, apart from accidentally smacking a guy in the face on a subway platform, I pretty much just worked in the studio. Here are some pictures so you can see what I'm up to:

The Light and the Land

2005-08-31T19:46:00.000-04:00

Today was our first day of Contemporary Art History and Art, Faith, and Culture, both classes are tought by James Romaine. I think they will be good, but I suspect that Prof. Romaine and I have slightly different foundational ideas upon which we look at art. I don't think it will be a problem, if anything it will make things more interesting. For the first day of art history class we took a field trip! We were learning about land art of the late 60s and early 70s, cheifly James Turrell and Robert Smithson. So what was the field trip? First stop: a gallery showing the work of James Turrell, including two pieces from 1968, second stop: The Witney Museum, which was showing a retropective of Robert Smithson. Only in New York!
Here's a picture I took of one of James Turrell's projected light pieces:

I couldn't take photos of the Robert Smithson show, but click here for his website.

The big fun of the day was getting to see my wonderful fiance Kelly via video chat! Oh technology...

Also, I've noticed that no one seems to post replies. If you want to respond to anything on the site go ahead and add a comment, but if you don't really want everyone else seeing your funny spelling mistakes, you can always e-mail me at ksb6@calvin.edu

Dirty Brick

2005-08-29T19:13:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was our first Sunday. We went to two churches, one in the morning and one in the evening, so we could get an idea of some different kinds. While they were different, they were both Presbyterian. The morning one met in the auditorium of a high school. It was ok, I wasn't wild about it. The second one met in a traditional style Lutheran church. I liked it a lot. I thought the sermon was great and the people seem really nice. John Silvis, the NYCAMS director, attends there regularly. Apparently about 90% of the people who go are artists of some kind. I'm excited to become more involved there, especially by joining a small group, which are available.
In the evening some other folks from the program and I went to the East Village to try to catch a free concert but we were too late, so we ended up coming back to Brooklyn Heights (where we're staying) and going out near the dorm.

Today we met at the studio space and discussed the classes we'll be taking and our internships. We were also assigned our studio spaces. I've got a big window in from of my desk, the view looks like this:

I called and set up my interview for my internship at a gallery called Max Protetch. So I've got to get spiffed up tomorrow and go down there. I'm feeling pretty good about it.

After that Ben (roommate) and I decided to go skateboarding. We went to a legendary spot called the Brooklyn Banks. It turns out they are not actually in Brooklyn, they're in Manhattan, but they're under the Brooklyn Bridge. here's a picture from there that I didn't take:

The spot was great. Not only are the banks fun, but there's also a nice rail built into the ground (for skating) and some boxes and ramps. Skating there seems to be perfectly legal, as there were many cops around that didn't seem to care at all. I think it's been so heavily skated that it has just become a skate park. And I can't imagine what else that space would be used for. Ben and I had a blast. He's really good. We're going to video tape some stuff. I feel comfortable bringing a camera there (we saw three today), and that's one way the Police presence could prove to be a blessing.

Clean White Space

2005-08-27T21:33:00.000-04:00

We visited the NYCAMS studio today for the first time. It's really nice. It's exciting to see lots of space to work in and huge white walls and empty floors waiting for art projects. Here are some pics:

Sweet, sweet white space (the gallery)

Nice computers.

This is the student lounge/kitchen. Those two paintings are by Kasarian Dane from his Division on Division series. I was surprised to see them because I helped paint them last summer when I worked as Dane's studio assistant.

After that we went to a comtemporary art museum called PS1 (I'm sure some of you are familiar with it). They had a show up called Greater New York, featuring young artists from the city. There was also a huge party going on in the courtyard with food, drinks, and several DJs, something that happens every Saturday in the summer. It was a bonafide hipster parade.

Arrived

2005-08-26T23:17:00.000-04:00

Flying to New York was uneventful. The cab ride from the airport was expensive but very convenient. I met my roommate, Ben. He seems nice, I think we'll get along. He skateboards, and although I opted against bringing my board, he has two! So we'll do some skating. We met with the whole NYCAMS group, about 15 or 20 students, along with the 3 faculty. We took a walk and went out to dinner together. Later me, Ben and Chris (the only other Calvin student) went out for a drink. The area of Brooklyn we're in is really nice. John Silvis, the program director, thinks it's one of the nicest nieghborhoods in New York.

I've been having some trouble getting online, but it's working now!

Great Car

2005-08-22T15:52:00.000-04:00

This car was found here.

The Avalanches: Frontier Psychiatrist

2005-08-22T13:41:00.000-04:00

I found this music video online that I think is just brilliant. Follow this link.

Getting ready to go...

2005-08-22T13:14:00.000-04:00

So far this blog has been one of the many websites that absolutely no one looks at for any reason, ever. Hopefully that will change. I'd like to use this as an online journal of my experiences in New York over the next few months. I leave in four days!

Also, I've been pretty amused by this website lately called Screenhead.

cat blog

2005-07-11T11:32:00.000-04:00

I found a blog with nothing but pictures of one particular cat, all the text is in an Asian language (Chinese, I think). I like looking at pages I can't read, it's fun to guess what's going on.

Words and Images

2005-06-14T16:42:00.000-04:00

I like to do Google image searches with words that don't have obvious associations with images. I had fun with "nothing" a while back. Recently I tried "almost." Here is some of what I found.

Deleting the Subject

2005-03-27T16:02:00.000-05:00

These are some experiments I've been doing deleting the subjects from digital photos.

Meta-Legos

2005-03-27T15:03:00.000-05:00

bricks
Originally uploaded by ksb6.

A month or two ago I stumbled upon the website of a Lego sculptor named Eric Harshbarger (www.ericharshbarger.org/lego/). Although a lot of the work is rather predictable, I was drawn to the Lego enlargement sculptures he does. Here's a picture illustrating how he uses Legos to make larger Legos. There's something I really like about using a material to sculpt a representation of the material itself.

Welcome

2005-03-27T14:28:00.000-05:00

This blog is the first manifestation of the Porcupine School of Poetry in about 35 years. More on the history of the school will come later. The most important piece of information about the school is that it has very little to do with poetry. I hope this site will sevre as a sort of digital sketch book for me, and hopefully others as well. Enjoy!