art shows, meetings, a kite, iced coffee, lack of sleep

I'm in L.A. for meetings and I've been dropping by the group show GR is curating. This is a very late night post so forgive coherency. Some of the best days I've had in recent years have been simply hanging around GR while art comes together. There is a lot of physical labor involved in setting up a show, or last minute inspiration seizes an artist and something wholly new occurs. Last summer I helped bang nails into Souther's work and paper maiche final touches with Saelee's mom. One time I was in L.A. on work I came by GR2 and hung around with Martin and Eric as a group show came together. It's really heartening to see how excited those two get, infectious even.

After a full day of meetings in stuffy, coporate record company offices it was a much better kick to come down to the space and help paint wood walls and play with dogs and chat with everyone and try to ollie, which sadly in my advanced age and with a laptop hunchback I just can't do any longer. Please, please come by if you're in L.A. What I've seen go up on the walls is really amazing and to have so many artists from around the world converging is especially cool. All lovely people, even Eishi Takaoka despite the fact we can't communicate in language. Feric's pieces are insanely beautiful and have texture I think needs to be seen in person. French I just liked straight away as a person and wish I had his graphics on a deck. Brian is good cheer and there's a particular piece in this show of his that's priceless. I am not leaving L.A. without grabbing a t shirt with Kohei's design work. I've championed Dan-ah Kim here before and she never fails to amaze me. I stand in front of her stuff and invoke entire stories around each image in my head, or I fill in the empty faces with my own life and stories. Some of the others I haven't seen up.



And I want to give a shout out to Kenton and Edith who are helping out and making the artists feel at home. Good people.

I've taken a sabbatical from blogging as there was a tornado in Brooklyn that flooded my apartment again. And I've also been writing something long form, which seems to be inherently mutually exclusive from blogging. The things I'd blog about I need to scramble in my brain for something else right now.

Despite some people thinking it's funny, I went and flew a kite on a whim down on the beach while I'm here at sunset. When I was a kid I was obsessed with paper airplanes and balsa gliders and flying apparatuses. I had my brother bike down a local hill with me tied to the back on a plastic sled and a kite tied to my back. All I got for that was scabs and a mild thrill. But I still long to be so weightless.





I also did something oh so modern but oh so useful: I used an incredible blog all about Tacos in California to track down an authentic taqueria and hit up my favorite food west coast style. Here's what I got for less than ten bucks. Want more. I can haz.

Some quick notes:
Martin, your hair looks great.
Claudine, I've actually been listening to that Alice Smith album. The lead track is a fuckin minor masterpiece that deserves airplay and summertime slow jam status.
Eric has a sick hat right now.
Superbad is the only teen comedy I've ever been full tilt in love with. I think someone ought to curate a dick drawing exhibition now.
Border Collies and rescued dogs from the street are loverlies.

Come check out the show...