My Art Show at Slip!

Alas, I have no drawings to show you today...but that's because I was busy with my art show at Slip this week! Thank you to everyone who came by the gallery, and those who were simply there in spirit!

I hung little artworks in bottles between the two trees in front of the gallery...It's my Message-In-A-Bottle-Tree! (It only lasted 24 hours because it kept getting picked clean too fast) I hung out on the stoop and drew in the evenings...
My show contained all self portraits from since I moved to New York, and I encouraged people to add their own captions to the drawings!

Opening reception...Aylon Samouha played jazz quitar and great people turned out!

One night the guys from Charlottesvile's Will Thomas Band were playing next door, so they hung out on the stoop with me. Then a random passerby (Nathan) asked if he could draw with me...here's what he made!

Collaborative Drawing Night! Aylon played some more music for us, and we entertained a couple Swedish visitors with a penis mold from an art event a couple weeks ago at Slip.

Here are people doing nonverbal drawings (based on an old lesson of mine) along with the drawings they created!




Closing Night! Tonight Matt Bailey performed his music in public for the first time ever!


BYOD: Bring Your Own Diary! In the spirit of my very personal artworks and Matt's bold gesture, Christina and I read from our middle/ high school diaries! And Christina very bravely let Abner read aloud from her adult journal...

Indulging our nosiness, Christina actually call the ex-boyfriend she wrote about in her journal from years before! We had to be quiet so he didn't know he was on speakerphone...

And then the evening came to a close...

August 26th, 2008

I've been researching how to help my friend Evangeline immigrate to America from Ghana...so I'm a bit overwhelmed by a system that is complex and daunting. I feel useless, I feel like I'm unqualified, I feel like this drawing! We have a long way to build. (If you have any advice, I'd love to hear it!)


I love the combination of orange and violet, so I decided to simply play with them. (I did a drawing similar to this last year, which you can see here. Then I decided to do a curly version since I was killing time drawing on the stoop of Slip...

Here's the last drawing...

That's just the view of the building across the street from Slip, where my art show is going on. I've been hanging out drawing on the steps and pretending I live in the Lower East Side.

Thanks to the folks who have visited and supported my art show this week...but it's not over yet! Tonight and tomorrow night I'll be there drawing and playing records. Thursday night is collaborative drawing and Aylon plays jazz guitar. Then Friday night Christina and I do diary readings and Matt plays some songs!


Currently Listening: Ratatat...LP3

August 18th, 2008

Both these drawings are about psychological quirks of mine, so please take them in gently.

Sometimes in social situations I become overwhelmed with anxiety...known to my friends as "Laura Lee's even more awkward and quiet than usual." Something will trigger this intense feeling of panic and self-doubt, and normally I'm able to combat it. I withdraw but have learned how to bounce myself back. Other times, when the panic latches on I can't stop it. It feels like a big c-clamp, tightening on my chest harder and harder.

The other night my friend Matt called me out...about my inability to fully focus on someone in a conversation. (At least in a bustling distracting sort of setting...) My eyes and my mind are always wandering, and when I think about it I now realize its an unfortunate quirk of my personality. Because it must imply that I'm bored or disinterested, but I can't help it.

Sooo, this drawing captures how I feel when taking in a busy place, which pretty much includes everything outside the door of my apartment. (This is specifically karaoke last night at Galapagos) So I'm watching everything, because it all seems interesting for some stupid reason. And yes, Veidt's television wall in Watchmen helped me conceptualize this phenomenon.

(Speaking of psychological mumbo-jumbo, I found this Carl Jung and Isabel Myers-Briggs personality test pretty damn spot on. I'm a INFJ {intoverted Intuitive Feeling Judging} which is the idealist counselor. Spot on!)

Currently Listening: Del Amitri...Can You Do Me Good?

August 14th, 2008

I've been exploring lateley...emotionally, culturally, physically. But it's a different type of exploration than when I was younger, when I'd branch out so erratically I'd lose my balance. Now I know that branching out goes hand in hand with keeping grounded...if I don't pay proper attention to both halves, I'll just topple over. When I was sitting under a tree the other day, it just summed up this very notion perfectly to me! The strong external growth linked to the healthy internal life. Trees always offer the best advice...

The subject of urgency keeps coming up. This impulse in me that keeps me from sitting still, urging me to keep going doing seeing trying. Nagging me that it's important I keep always pressing forward. I see it like this little neon light in the back of my head.

Speaking of urgent...I have an art show next week here in New York! It's at a cool art space called Slip in the Lower East Side. Here's the info:

Saturday, August 23rd 9-11pm
Opening reception!
Come post your own captions on Laura Lee's artwork and pick a bottle from our message-in-a-bottle tree...newly planted outside!

Sunday, August 24th through Wednesday, August 27th 8-11pm
Open Studio!
Come by and hang out over art-making and snacks!

Thursday, August 28th 9-11pm
Let your hand do the talking!
Don't know what to say? That's okay! Come get paired up with someone new and make nonverbal collaborative drawings!

Friday, August 29th 9-11pm
BYOD: Bring your own diary!
Come hear Laura Lee and Christina read from their school diaries, and help us pop the music-performance-cherry of the talented Matt Bailey!

$5 suggested donation for events
Door prize every night!! Come and win copies of Laura Lee and the Seven Doors!

Currently Reading: Watchmen by Alan Moore

August 11th, 2008

Here is a drawing I made while sitting in Roosevelt Park on Saturday afternoon...we've had the most amazing weather! It was rather fun to draw.


And next, here are some drawings I did at Michael Alan's Draw-A-Thon figure drawing session! It was held on his rooftop, so we had some amazing early evening lighting. Last time I went to one of his sessions the theme was stacked bodies, but this time the theme was all kinky-sexy. Complete with whipped cream and leather floggers.

I decided to continue playing with this technique of drawing where I don't let myself erase, I just draw hard confident continuous lines. The results are perhaps disproportionate, but the energy is loose and spontaneous.


In this next one the male model stood still while the girl smacked him from different sides. (He was quite a trooper!) So that's the same girl just in two different positions...

I don't know if I like this last one or not, but I thought I'd share it anyway! These two models were in constant motion for 15 minutes, so that's why it's all random body parts. The models are dating in real life, so to me it felt very voyeuristic...


Currently Listening: Francis and the Lights...A Modern Promise
(This guy put on the best live performance I've seen in a very long time! He looks like a Tim Burton character, sings like Prince, and performs with two-count-em-two drummers. I totally endorse him!)

August 8th, 2008

Lately I've been out in the sun a lot, therefore and my face has sprouted a lot of new freckles. To me they look like the belt of the Milky Way stretched across my nose and cheeks...tiny constellations made of freckles.

I've always been in love with line. It's simplicity and fluidity and range of expression...it's how my brain has aways conceptualized. (You know, rather than in color or shape or sound.) Yesterday I was reminded of that simple thrill of starting a line without knowing where it will end up. We all did this as kids, we trusted whatever that line would become. That line is on its way somewhere. It might suck, it might be great, but either way it'll be interesting! So this painting is about my nostalgia for fearless meandering lines.


Currently Reading: What It Is...by Lynda Barry

August 5th, 2008

So, I dissolved. I got the look of a stranger from the eyes of a lover...for a few blocks I was fine, but then my solitude and my alcohol-intake caught up with me and I simply dissolved. I quietly became a puddle by some other stranger's stoop...

On a happier note, here's the next drawing!

This is my undressing room. It's about some recent experiences where I found myself loosening up my preconceptions about my body, especially around other people, and in public. I used paper doll's clothes because I feel that it should be all innocent and liberating...less serious and self-conscious. Apparently yes, I am a big hippie.

Speaking of exposing body parts, this is a mold made of my chest at an event at Slip! (Slip is an art space where I'm having a show in a few weeks) Christina's hand is on the left (look, a nipple!), and Fritz's hand on the right. It goes all the way around my back so I can actual wear it like some sort of bizarre bra. I sure got some looks carrying it home on the subway...

Here are the artists who were making the molds in the first place, Amy Uzi and Patrick Bucklew (AKA: Mangina)...


Well, I'm off...to ride MY BIKE! Yes, it's my first bike! It's used and blue just like my beloved little car that sits unused in my parents' driveway. The bike I was going to buy initially was sold by the time I made up my mind...but it turns out the girl who bought it was hit by a car!! Hmm, I don't want to read into whatever THAT means...

Currently Listening: Mates of State...Re-Arrange Us