"Tolerance is another word for indifference" - W. Somerset Maugham

A small lesion was found on my brain recently. I'm still unsure what it means. The radiologist decided it's an abnormality or scarring of the tissue, a trauma. When I told a friend of mine she said "yeah, an abnormality that makes you incredibly intelligent and creative." It meant a lot to me and I want to continue working with this idea.

Winner!

Last Thursday (First Thursday) some friends and I went out to see a couple art shows. We first stopped at PNCA to see first year MFA candidate Daniel Glendening's show which included open-fired clay, and resin sculptures resembling rocks and a 20 minute video of what appear to be stars (not celebrities) dancing. The most exciting part of the night was our time at IGLOOgallery. My good friends Lori Gilbert, Miles Sprietsma, and Ralph Pugay were auctioning artwork along with lots of other local visual artists. To enter in the auction, you had to purchase a ticket for $5, write your name on it, and put it in the cup next to the artwork you wanted. At 9:00, a name was drawn from each cup and the winner got to take home the artwork that night. I bid on Ralph's painting and won. I'm really stoked! Pardon the bad lighting.

Hospital with Hotdogs, 2009, 14"x 18", acrylic on masonite

A sort of free flowing mission statement for a project i'm starting about feeling neutral.

Nationale Birthday

Last week, I went on a search to find cool birthday gifts for my boyfriend. I took a walk to the strip of shops and studios on lower east Burnside. To my disappointment 3 or 4 shops I had planned to peruse were closed, early. The store that was open, however, was not a disappointment at all. Nationale was just the thing I was looking for. Interesting artwork, imported French goods, and a great selection of art books. I picked this up, signed and all!

Illustrated by Chris Johanson and Jo Jackson.

Dr. Kevorkian, the painter

Last night a friend of mine informed me that Dr. Kevorkian is not only a promoter of assisted suicide but also an artist. His stuff is eerie, bizarre, or in other words, Kevorkianish. In my opinion, he's pretty smart to exploit his creepy reputation to make it as an artist.

Here are some bunny puppeteers pulling strings at some guys mind.

Currently, at the Heist Gallery in NYC, an exhibition called Cake Mixx is showing. The artist, Dustin Wayne Harris photographs cakes (built by the women he's dating) which he thinks are metaphors for his relationship with the people who made them. Like a crystal ball, he uses them to see into the future of the relationship.

I've been thinking about how inanimate objects relate to people and can have some of the same "personality" traits as a human being. People are complex, but no matter how complex the object, whether it be constructed out of many objects or a single item, cannot compare to all the baggage of a person. However, I do believe that because what we know of people is mostly on the surface, there isn't as much to relate. Relationships are even more complex, involving two people, so why didn't Harris participate in the making of the cakes photographed? He's relying entirely on the other person to determine how the relationship will end up, as if the single failed cake maker is faulted for the demise of the team. Try following a recipe with another person, or traveling with your new girl/boyfriend and having to navigate a new place, than you might have a better idea of how the relationship will turn out.