METEORITE IN WISCONSIN

I feel emotional after seeing this meteorite footage. The video I found online is so pixellated and yet so lovely. Why is seeing this impactful to me?

Perhaps because it was a relatively small and peaceful meteorite cascading across rural Iowa. Randomly it was caught on some lonely security camera. Here is an historic event, soon forgotten, quietly punctuating or perhaps bringing-in a startling series of earth changes world wide. Lot's of people witnessed it. Yet, no one was hurt. It is a sign of wonder and hope, a mini wake-up call or warning. I'll take it as a message to pay attention to the sky.

Just since the new year, there have been a hand full of major earthquakes around the world, and now a volcanic eruption in Iceland, which put European flights out of commission for days.

Just this winter we were in Florida. Unusally, it was too cold to sunbath. . .the local media responded: we read humorous interviews on local media asking Floridians if they believe in global warming? of course, all of them--freezing their asses off--said it's all a load of crap. . .long live capitalism, etc, etc.

Ho hum, many around me are in a daze. I'll go back to Georgia soon, where it is so sleepy and out of touch, hiding under the magnificent dark trees and spirit of Southern denial. There's really so very little analysis on the news at all. . .

GOODBYE GREEN

the neighborhood association of Cabbagetown (intown Atlanta), who refused to allow graffitti to continue on it's lengthy public wall, established a dictatorship of green paint from 2008 to 2010. and now that reign is over. the paint-out color of choice is now back to light gray, to match the wall itself.

ironically, the new color calls attention to the walls' gallery-like quality. . .tantalizing those who would prefer that it allow the tradition of unofficial art. for what is an urban environment without graffiti ? it's a controlled environment, not an organic one. there is a sense of order and authority; its cleanliness broadcasts a message: only approved expressions of aesthetics allowed here. it's funny because Cabbagetown was a place for poor people for many decades. it's squalor and geographical isolation due to the wall actually allowed it's residents the freedom to keep their houses and yards any way they pleased. . .and this led to a certain quirkiness, gave it's New Orleanian shotgun architecture character and ultimately made it desirable as real estate. . .alas, so it is with gentrification.

For two years now, residents who had enjoyed the urban flavor of the ever-morphing graffitic expression, had to endure a sort of oppressive presence of cheerful green paint and gung-ho gentrifiers, smug to win an aesthetic battle over shared space. the 1/2 mile stretch of wall, previously famous for its art, was guarded daily by an aggressive former homeless man; he never let a mark stay for more than a day or two and physically attacked anyone he caught attempting. it is not entirely clear whether neighborhood funds were spent on his employment.

the hallmark green paint-outs migrated to abandoned buildings and even dumpsters nearby. the pollyannas marked the neighborhood in an imperialistic manner not unlike the graffiti they wished to erase. meanwhile, down the street in the next neighborhood over, Reynoldstown encouraged graffiti and now has a most incredible wall of public art. thankfully, that graffiti is not too tight, not overproduced as a lot of prescribed graffiti can be. (some urban places have taken a similar permissive approach to graffiti. . .see article in the New York Times on Caracas, Venuzuela & graffiti.)


(The Renoldstown wall)

(an abanonded house in Reynoldstown that is covered by graffiti. . .pretty awesome public art, if you ask me.)

I do like the whitish gray better than the green. it disappears more. but I also can't wait to see what appears on the fresh walls.

MINERS online curation 4-4-2010

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1. Krysten Cunningham, "RGB fetish" 2. Peggy Honeywell 3. Peggy Honeywell
4. Chris Marker 5. Simon Frost 6. the Underground Coal Miners
7. John Beech "coated drawing" 8. Superstudio (!)

ONLINE CURATION#3: "Chandeliers of Spring"

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1. Sean Abrahams (local) 2. Teresita Ferdandez ("Drawn Waters") 3. Lee Bul
4 &5. Bruno Taut (!) 6. Gregory Euclide
7. amazing italian-science fiction installation 8. Paper Twins (local)

"USA" 1-20-2010 (first online curation)

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1.)NICHOLAS VENAGLIA 2.) COLIN MONTGOMERY 3.)CHRIS ENGMAN 4.suburban bombing (SORRY--DIDN'T GET THE ARTIST NAME!!) 5.) BRENDAN FOWLER

"NEON INDIANS"online curation 2-14-2010

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1) MARI EASTMAN, 2) CHRIS JOHANSON from KATHY GRAYSON's site, 3) CLARE ROJAS, 4) DANA DART-MCLEAN, 5) DAVID SHRIGLEY

SMALL TOWN GAMBLING

went to a family wedding in january, which was bizarre enough on its own. . .( I contend that artists don't have to get married. . .because everytime you have a solo show, you are the bride! . . .plus you don't have to wear that stupid white dress : ) anyhow, adjacent to the hotel was a really strange casino. . .open 24 hours. all day and night interesting characters trailed in and out through a side elevator. finally my husband, a few cousins and I went to check it out. it was dark with funny corporate lighting. it was a labrinth of bar stools that sat in front of flashing graphics. not a lot of talk.

I kind of fixated on a particular elderly woman shown in this photo. . . decked in pearls and her hair swept up, she unceremoniously gambled at a game called "diamonds."

EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH

I love this clipping. it would make such a great billboard. . .or otherwise large graphic. . .the wooden frame and gold plate is just so classic. . .so corporate. . .



here's the original clipping. . . I like this crop the best, which is an unfortunately unreadable size on this blog.

I often notice those depressing employee-of-the-month photos at the grocery store. . . at Publix they tone the images with an interesting nostalgic brown tint, same wooden frame. . . does anyone ever really feel good about these kind of empty tropes of recognition? compared to celebrity success posted on all the racks at the check-out, these real life success stories seem like a cruel joke. . .

PAINTBALL - ACCIDENTALLY ARTISTIC

a lot of my friends know I get excited by spaces that are in the process of disappearing. I'll get random calls from people as they drive by a particularly wonderful abaondoned mansion, or mystical disaster site. in a sense they are registering a report with someone who cares.

(on a side tangent: I recently entered a juried show at emory U. it was called something really vague like HOME. . . one of the jurors was high museum curator of photography Julian Cox and I'm sure they made a lot of money in submission fees and all, everybody wanting influencial JC to have a look at their work. at the opening, the jurors bemused how many of the hundreds of submissions were of abandoned houses, and otherwise dystopic architectural spaces. but, they decided not to show any of those. . .too obvious, too cliché. and I thought to myself, well actually these curators have missed an opportunity. maybe they should be listening more carefully to what the majority of image makers were presenting, repetitive and un-original as it may be. what's significant is that the response to a show called "home" was to show photos of foreclosures and abandoned mcmansions. this could have been a way to honor a message from a group of artists, and not just a competition to prize individual vision, as is the 20th cent art tradition. ok tangent over. . .)

so I get a call from Eggtooth (Jeff Dalgren) in the middle of a recent week day, saying that he could see a most amazing flooded field of cars just off the highway in Austell, GA. and, did I want to go back and photograph it? well, this occurred over a very sunny couple of days after a bunch of rain. I imagined the blue sky and fall leaves reflecting off the watery surface around angled old cars. . . I was experimenting with my medium format camera just then. . .so, the timing was just perfect for an art adventure.

we chose the next sunday, and went out to find this strangely aesthetic place just off the highway. as we got on a parallel side street, I recognized the area. . .it is a regular route I take to go to sweetwater (that polluted, wonderful river park just downstream from Atlanta).

when we arrived at the desired location, the water had submerged and the field of cars, now covered in a dry coat of georgia mud, turned out to be a war set for paintball players.


(caption: "lastcall" featuring Joe "Dirt" Schulten by Freda Jones )

Eggtooth, wearing a camouflage baseball cap and khaki millitary-esque jacket, had chosen the perfect dress code. we parked and walked right into the paintball complex. a multi-racial, friendly group hung out at the snack bar and picnic tables around which were several large fenced-in areas full of paint splattered objects. One area had giant stuffed X's, another was filled with numerous wooden spindle shapes. we went out to the farthest field where there were junk cars, fake buildings and the remnants of an old gas station. the environment, artistically unified in color by the beige layer of dirt and detritus of paintballs, was aesthetically interesting, especially underneath that blue sky. we set out to take a few photos, when an older woman with thick, large circular glasses and a ponytail came by to check us out. I asked to take her picture and we got to talking.

she said she also loves to take pictures and would we like to see them? she pins the best ones up (two of which she gave us). we learned that paintball is an organized sport, played in teams. and we also discovered an outsider artist.

ultimately we were disappointed to find that what we thought was a natural disaster, turned out to be a planned fiction: a mundane set for paintball. But, either way, it was not altogether unrelated to art. . . this is a place that flourishes adjacent to more refined city culture and here it was expressing itself unapologetically, artistically. for one, we both thought paintball as an activity has a lot of potential for painters. that all over this place, there were surfaces being violently decorated with paint. but the sets themselves were wonderful installations, so real and raw. . .so much a product of the hinterlands still chuggin' along outside the borders of a globalizing world civilization, where hunting and warfare are not yet politically incorrect.

we all live inside set designs. we call it architecture and interior design. among many things, intown atlanta is often a fictional suburb of upscale Disneyland, and what we found here was its particularly piquant counterpoint.

STAINED PLACES-- MY TRIP TO EASTERN EUROPE

I've been likening my trip to the scene in Dead Man (< "jim jarmusch 1995" >) where johnny depp takes a train ride from victorian civilization (cleveland 1850s) to the deep wild west. the people who share the cabin with depp, slowly change in attire and cleanliness, the landscape through the window shows an abandoned pioneer wagon in the forest, and then later, destroyed teepees on a plane. . .the women all disappear. . .until finally, near the end of the line, only gruff men in furry hats crowd over to one side of the cabin to shoot riffles at the roaming buffalo. "government says, killed a million of 'em this year alone. . ." (Crispin Glover).

I always think of American history as being recent and unsettled. (I mean, we removed an entire civilization of American Indians, used slaves and raped a most precious well-taken-care-of land to build our new nation! what have we done about that? ) I think of the american west as being wild, where things are still playing out in the hinterlands, where the seams of society are not so tightly put together.

but clearly, one can still travel east in Europe and find a similar rawness of history being processed in it's hinterlands. my trip from Berlin, Germany through Warsaw, Poland, and ending in Vilnius, Lithuania this fall. . . presented me with another much more recent place where the murder and destruction of the past is still being reconciled. "(see my flicker page )" such is the story of humanity on earth. . . I truly hope we will outgrow this mode of aggression. in the meanwhile, what occurred in eastern Europe in the 40s, is much fresher and just as unsettled as the strong ghosts that linger in our own west. what are the choices a place makes in how it deals with the aftermath of such events? as advances in media technology makes remote places and cloaked atrocities more transparent, perhaps we will eventually have to banish this sort of violence to fiction. . . .

the land in particular plays a role in healing. people must do their part to remember, forgive and move on. . . .(and there's is a danger in strict, swift erasure, which denies processes of remembrance, for it is when a memory is denied that it haunts like a ghost! ) the landscape, especially in more country places, also participates in the healing of past wounds. I believe it is the slow work of forests and open meadows that can disintegrate leftover negative energy signatures.

this reminds me of a forest I discovered in Lithuania, way out in the hinterlands above a very small village. this was a place where thousands were murdered. . .and yet the forest existed in a state of magical softness. clearly there was a sense of healing here.

-kt





beautiful, small mushrooms were abound.



the earth was like a welcoming green carpet. and the air was moist like a hug.

MEDIUM-FORMAT CAMERA my new series of disappeared

here's the polaroid proof of the building I cannot wait to disappear. . .a new innovation for me, in that I am figuring out how to use a real medium format camera. . .feelz so good and makes a superior image to paint over!

I just love this particular location (scott blvd at cumberland mall) . . .been watching it since spring! it's the perfect size commercial building, so beautiful and petite with it's glass windows and awesome leftover typology. a picturesque showroom in front of an accidental bamboo grove. I especially appreciate the empty car dealerships along our downtrodden highways! these spaces are so symbolic of our dematerializing times. I much prefer them empty. they make a great aesthetic for the future. . . imagine them as roller skating parks, gardened piazzas for outdoor cafes and life music : )

-kt

FRIEND ADMITS TO BAD PUBLIC ART

I love getting messages from old friends. moving around in childhood did its damage on me. I have tended to just leave the past and the people that populated it behind like some finite fiction. . . but of course, all this silly facebook activity in the last year and half has stirred up a lot of real people I once knew, who are still having their lives. it's really great.

so, the in-flow of old friends continue. . .the latest communication I received was so bizarre, I just have to share it:

I received a random email from an old high school buddy, who is now living in south texas. . .he filled me in on the pertinent details. . .yes, he's balding, has 4 children, two of which are adopted from china. . .and is an artist, too. it all seemed kind of interesting and my heart was warmed that he thought to write, that he remembered my old artistic pranks. I responded immediately. then found another second email from him with just a single line or two, saying he felt like a sell-out artist. I thought that was odd, but was nice and replied, " well, aren't we all sell-outs, as artists, when the market is so unavoidable. . ."

then he wrote to me again. . .to confess, I guess. I uncovered the real reason he emailed: to say that
he was commissioned to do a statue of Laura bush for a library. (!) he rather enjoyed hanging with the bushes. . .nice people and all. I think he remembered my opinionated nature and was fishing. . .or was he being antagonistic. . .how cruel? he and his friends in high school were masters at a sarcastic brand of humor. . .so I do have to wonder.

here was my response:

" 'I was commissioned by a library to produce a statue of Laura Bush '

. . .wow, it took me a moment to recover from reading that. (I see what you mean about selling out. . .WOW. . .) (are you joking?)

. . .today, my boss at my main freelance gig was distressed to discover her sister going to washington to protest obama with a despicable, ignorant group called "americans for prosperity". . .we looked up the website to find obama being compared to hitler . . . (http://www.americansforprosperity.org/national-site). and not that I'm totally happy with obama, but I'm thinking that's totally unfair. just 6 years ago, an fbi agent would haul you away to a prison camp if you published such a thing about old W. . . .no, I have no sympathy for bush, regardless of how complicated a person he is or was, no matter what a friendly guy he is in person. . .he is a criminal! he lied about war. he cheated in the polls. he was a goddamn cowboy puppet for terrible despots who greedily controlled our country. . .and wrecked it pretty damn good. and, he's going to get away with it. . .I remember days when it seemed as if his regime was not going to end but just get more nightmarish, even the new york times was complicit. . . hardly any political protest was heard from the people. we just all shut up and watched more television. . . so much complacency, and ignorance. . .and laura b, seems very much the good ole-fashioned co-dependent, trophie wife. sure, maybe they are nice people . . . but look what they are responsible for. the worst kind of assholes, indeed are the nice ones.

anyhow, what an art resume builder . . .maybe, I hope, you made a double and can place it somewhere remarkable, in a decade or so. . .like at the top of a steaming landfill mountain or something.

ok, I just had to say that. sometimes I cannot even believe we lived through that bullshit right here in america!"



. . . I went on the say nice, sincere things about his family and place of residence. he has not written back. not a peep.

was I too harsh?

would I have taken such a commission? (well, I HATE bronze sculptures! I can barely think of a more despicable kind of middle class public art!, so hopefully the answer is no. . .) but I sell out all the time as a graphic designer. for me the art is where I try not to compromise my creative integrity. but some people I guess don't think they can take that luxury.

very strange encounter. what did I get out of it? a good story, I suppose. . . also I took a chance to articulate my feelings about that old administration. funny, it was only a few years ago, now. how soon we forget!


-kt

GOODBYE MORELAND AVENUE

4 boarded-up craftsman style cottages have sat lame across from the suburban style shopping center called Edgewood, just south of Little 5pts on Moreland avenue. It's been at least 2 years this way. The only graffiti on the cement bridge nearby is a wheatpaste by local artist R.Land. . . a large graphic of clasp hands which says, "pray for ATL." but plenty of graffiti had accumulated on these 4 houses. . .that is until july 4 th 2009, when they took the first three, leaving one orphaned in public for another 4 days. Until their ultimate point of disappearance, they stood as a large scale unofficial artistic display, a symbol of our ever-changing city.




For now what remains is this staircase. And this is the quintessential (& totally unconscious) public art for atlanta--cement staircases leading to empty lots where a house was removed. Our city is absolutely littered with these particular remnants. Take notice sometime. I think they should all be painted pink or striped yellow, so that they are better marked. . .We should try not lose these wonderful, unobtrusive monuments to the invisible. They are precious breadcrumbs to our recent past.






Here is a house further south on Moreland Ave. . .You can see it's reaching a climax of decoration. Will it be the next to go?