January 28, 2008

This gouache painting is about my recently increased appetite for books, ideas, answers, questions, concepts, etc. You know...everything. The stars are my cereal.



This one might not make any sense to anyone else but me, but I really like it. It's about how my initial ideas are like floaters. You see them in your peripheral vision, but but you can't look directly at them. They exist there, almost clear out of your view. That's what my ideas look like.

January 26, 2008

Really, who doesn't like comics that highlight my romantic clumsiness? I figured it had been a while, so there you go. The next morning I woke up wondering how my lip was swollen...


The composition of this drawing with the thought bubbles is just like a drawing I made last month...but the message completely different. It's about how sometimes when I'm around people I simply long to be alone at my desk in my visual world...and then sometimes when I'm alone at my desk I long to be out in the real world. I painted it in green because it's a very "the grass is greener..." sort of logic. I drew and painted it out super fast for a change...


Sooo the other night at a bar my wallet was stolen. But luckily I don't carry much in my wallet...and by the time I realized it was gone I already had a message from Wachovia about suspicious charges on my debit card. Wow!! (They knew I wouldn't spend $300 at The Gap!) I imagined my wallet hanging out with all the other things that have been stolen or lost over the years...like their own land of misfit toys. (A mysterious island of misfits...LOST? Sounds familiar...doesn't that show come back next week?) I found the notion amusing.

January 24, 2008

Besides making the art you've seen in my blog here, this is what else I've been up to....

GROUP SHOW...
One of my drawings will be featured in a group art show at Ad Hoc Art next month! The opening reception for "Pop Subversion" is Friday Feb. 8th 7-9:00pm and the show will be up through March 2nd. Come on out!!

Ad Hoc Gallery @ 49 Bogart Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206
Hours: Weds-Sun 1-8pm
[L train to Morgan Avenue, exit on Bogart Street, it's one block South on the right.]

SELLING MYSELF...

I am proud to announce that Laura Lee and the Seven Doors is now on the shelves of these fine retailers here in New York! Hooray!
McNally Robinson Booksellers
52 Prince Street (between Lafayette and Mulberry) ....In the heart of SOHO
Forbidden Planet
840 Broadway....Just South of Union Square
Jim Hanley's Universe
4 West 33rd Street....At base of Empire State building (Officially the nicest staff anywhere!)
Midtown Comics
200 W 40th Street (Corner of 7th Avenue) .....South side of Times Square
Spoonbill & Sugartown Booksellers
218 Bedford Avenue (between N 4th & N 5th St).....Over in Williamsburg (Hipsterville, Brooklyn)
St. Marks Bookshop
31 Third Avenue (at 9th)....In the Lower East Side
St. Marks Comics
11 St. Marks Place...Around the corner from St. Marks Bookshop
Cosmic Comics
10 east 23rd St. (2nd floor)....below Madison Square Park

I've also joined Etsy which is a cool site that sells all things handmade. Everything on it is simply cool and unique...I highly recommend it for fun artist-supportive gift-giving. I'm using it to sell copies of my Seven Doors .

ART ADOPTION...
I've joined the Fine Art Adoption Network which is a nifty online network where artworks are available for adoption! This means acquiring an artwork without purchasing it, through an arrangement between the artist and collector. Fellow artists should check it out! I put some older drawings up for adoption, and one was has already been adopted by a woman in Colorado!

COVER ART...

One of my pieces is on the current cover of Meridian, the semi-annual literary journal from the University of Virginia. (I was on another issue a couple years ago, in case this sounds familiar)


A CLOSING OBSERVATION...
Have you seen the new New Yorker cover? Does it look familiar?! Hmmm...

January 22, 2008

When I'm focused on something, like a work of art or some other task, I'm quite patient and driven. But anyone who has seen me in my natural habitat knows how easily distracted I am and my inability to stop moving. I was pondering this possible personality flaw, and decided that I simply have too much GO in my system. It's like it is embedded in me at the cellular level. (Perhaps that's the Bill Bryson book talking...)

For anyone who doubts my natural compulsiveness, here's a close up...



I wanted to draw something about this dog-coat observation...and thought it'd be a good chance to try on Maria Kalman's style for size. (You can see her work and hear her speak right here...if you check her out you'll see quickly why I like her.)

January 19th, 2008

This is a drawing of my path of paths...how in New York you start down one path and discover that it leads to multiple possibilities. So many options and opportunities and little worlds to explore! I like its tree shape...but m most of the sky got cut off by my scanner. (boo!) While drawing this, was I thinking of the Seurat drawings I saw at the MOMA a few weeks ago? Definitely.



This painting was about spending all last weekend walking around Williamsburg* visiting all the different art spaces. All the quiet warehouses and abandoned streets...I figured I'd try on this industrial aethetic.

*For you Virginia folks, the Williamsburg I refer to is the hipster part of Brooklyn...not the Colonial candle-making one.

January 15, 2008

Yesterday while walking through the neutral-garbed crowds on 7th Avenue, I passed by a girl who was wearing a bright orange coat and a purple scarf. I was wearing a bright orange bag and a purple coat. Our eyes met when we walked by each other...I'd like to think she, like me, recognized how we mirrored each other. And to think, that people say you're alone in New York...



I wish I could simply play prerecorded answers for complicated questions. Because surviving the repetitive gauntlet of small talk and back-stories when you meet new people is simply exhausting. (Between interviews, visiting galleries and bookstores, and being uncharacteristically sociable this past week, I have truly pushed my limits for introducing myself...)

January 12, 2007

I've been busy "planting seeds" this week, so there's been less art time! But here's the latest stuff...


I spend so much time in my own little world, that I feel like this is really where my passport should say I'm from. (I really wanted to have it say something about solitude instead, but no matter how you phrase that is sounded really depressing. So I went in the optimistic direction.)


This is just a quote from an article I read that I found SO amusing I just had to document it. As an artist who feels completely disillusioned (and a bit frustrated) with the contemporary art world, it was a nice reminder for me to not be so dramatic about it.

January 8, 2008

I admit it...sometimes I envy the applause that performers receive. Because as an artist, it's a private sort of celebration at the completion of each new creation.


A lot of this painting couldn't fit on my scanner, so it got chopped off. But it reads at the bottom, "Most [bitter] sweet smelling trash day ever." Oh, Christmas tree!


The other day someone was flirting with me...and once I realized it (I'm slow with that sort of thing) I literally thought to myself, "Really?? Me?! Why?!" I was baffled because I feel like I'm emoting as much romantic enticement as a swizzle stick. Because I've been so wrapped up in my own mental twitterings and various projects. I suddenly saw my heart as a pile of wet kindling...unignitable. That's what this drawing portrays, but it's a bit abstracted. But don't worry about me, I'm sure the kindling will be dry and flammable again sometime soon...

January 6, 2008

Here's a pair of pairs...


This was my view at a bar while I sat there waiting for my friends to get out of a comedy show that wouldn't let me in because I arrived when it already started...after waiting over an hour and a half I finally gave up and left. (Grumble grumble)


In this one I imagined the opposite view point of view, showing me looking out.


This drawing is about how my greatest fear and my greatest inspiration are perhaps the same thing...simply interpreted differently according to my perception. Horizontally, the inkblot to me looks like bars or a fence. It's entrapment. It's a lack of control or freedom. But vertically, the inkblot becomes a ladder. It's escape, transcendence. The promise of something more than this.


This drawing continues exploring this metaphor...Here, the ropes (panic) and the ladder (elation) show that the two opposites are essentially made of the same damn stuff. Does this all make sense? I thought it was perhaps sorta insightful...

January 3, 2008

Here's my first new art of 2008:


This drawing is based on a lyric from the Josh Ritter song Rumors that goes, "...and the strings section's screamin' like horses in a barn burnin' up..." I just love the imagery in his lyrics, and this is what I saw in my head when I heard this particular line. I initially tried to incorporate violins into the flames as well, but it just got too confusing so I stuck with the horses.


That's a photo of it since it's way too big for my scanner. What is it? I'd like you to enjoy it as an abstract piece. But the caption at the bottom reveals what it really is, "Green beans served in one soup kitchen shift 12-30-07." It represents 750 plates I served up (along with a lot of other volunteers) at St. Francis Xavier mission last Sunday. And to me, each pile represents one person. I had so much fun that I'm going back this weekend! Here's a close up of it...