Aerospace

Glaze

Image by D. F. Duck

Briefly Contented

We ended up at Casimir. 1 Stoli O and tonic, 1 Dewars and soda, 1 espresso.

Almost Alphabet City

While stumbling around the East Village yesterday afternoon, vainly attempting to decide between coffee and more booze, we stopped on the Northeast corner of 2nd and 12th for a cigarette while we mulled our options. Heather and Jon sucked in smoke, debating the merits of one lounge over another, identical down the block. While trying to refrain, I shot pictures in the sun.

The image above, a hand-lettered alphabet, asks questions. Did the writer hope I'd trace it, producing another canned graff font? That Fi5e'd analyze it, publishing his findings on the web? Was it put up to loosen the marker? To practice an adolescent hand-style? To inspire vaguely punny and ultimately self-referential weblog posts?

Related: Michael De Feo's Alphabet City

Absent Containers

Since we moved in, nearly 7 months ago now, the empty lot across the street (usually populated by corrugated steel shipping containers, ancient tractors and heaps of scrap metal) has sat absolutely untouched. Static. No one went in, came out, nor minded its perimeter. The objects within (those visible above the fence, at least) never moved. And in general, up until Saturday morning, the yard appeared to be abandoned.

It was the sound of what I thought must have been a car accident (seemingly worse than any I had witnessed living on one of the most accident-prone corners in Baltimore) that first alerted me to the work commencing within the lot's confines. Deafening even to my ears, through the drone of falling shower water, the crash was loud and brief, sounding distinctly of collapsing metal. As I learned after shutting off the water, and still soapy, bouncing like a Fraggle towards the window, the noise had been a symptom of one of the containers falling the height of another to the gravel below, freed by a handful of men working the plot.

The noise continued from that point forward, ending at a reasonable mid-afternoon. When they were done, 4 shipping containers, and 2 tractor-trailers stuffed with rusting wire and plate-steel had been removed, presumably driven to another lot with similar specs, permanently altering our portion of the Bushwick skyline. We've speculated that the owners of the adjacent yard might have been prepping it for sale, or perhaps that a period of work that I had been unaware of had just ended, but ultimately we knew little. Not that we needed to, the lot had little practical impact on our lives in the days prior.

I'll admit to feeling relieved though. This small shift in my visual environment has left our view less cluttered, a few pounds lighter. It feels as though with all that debris, they trucked away a heaviness that burdened the block, and now, looking through our wide and dirty glass, I feel the levity as well.

Fig. 3

Sunsets

Yesterday, Christopher between Bleecker and Hudson.

Artstar

Reaction to Artstar.

Via NEWSgrist and Forward Retreat

Sleeping Birds

Like Grace of Design Sponge, I too have been dying to know who made these beautiful Sleeping Birds/Sleeping Bird Lamps. I first saw a white one in the window at Future Perfect after an evening hiding from the cold within Miyako, lusting for it thereafter.

Made by Esque, a duo of world-class glass blowers, each hand-blown piece is a uniquely imperfect, functional artwork. In addition to the birds to which I am so partial, they also produce the elegant Antler Candelabra, and an assortment of simple bowls and vases.

Re-Action

Out of Stockholm, Re-Action is a new web-based art/graff magazine (a lot like Blood Wars) that I stumbled upon while reading Wooster Collective. With a considered selection of photos (most documenting Swedish and global graffiti) and a couple of rare interviews with Swoon and Ben Long (both really talented), it's definitely worth a look.

Heart

In the Abbey.

Found

Spotted on 9th between 14th and 15th.

Scrambled Signal

Simulation

For months I walked by this wall on the way to work, consistently tricked by the illusion of brick.

Balloons

Image by Big Tanky

State of the Art

Upon exiting the Delancy Street F Station.

Images by Gillian

Related: Pretty Girls Don't Ride the Subway

Discrimination, Isolation

Growing up, my family vacationed in suburban Maryland, where two of my mother's sisters live. On these trips, which happened often, the combined families would invariably split into two factions. The adults would socialize in the kitchen, drinking beer and preparing late lunches, while the kids, usually 6 or 7 strong once you counted neighborhood children tagging along, were left on their own, usually playing outside within view of the kitchen window.

On one such trip, presumably in early spring, we were cursed with constant rain and the parents were left in a less than quiet kitchen. Banished to the bedroom of an older cousin who had better things to do than socialize with children, my brother, sister, another cousin and I, kept busy playing with Legos. They had been stored in a large bucket with a tight-fitting lid, one that took the strength of two to open and occasionally destroyed a fingernail. Once open, we spilled the blocks out upon a thinning blanket, and each began our own little creations. As with all kids sitting around a pile, a Lego market spontaneously emerged between us. My sister would offer, "trade six 12-dot grey thins for a pair of the big tires?" and from across the heap, my brother would reply, "don't need the thins, how bout a red crystal windshield?"

Of course all the Legos were shared, so we didn't really have any custody over the pieces that we considered ours. The value in each piece was not that of ownership, but rather that it had been found in the pile in the first place. Being able to find a particular piece in the sea of similar plastic is a very valuable skill, an area in which I naturally excelled.

I'd scan the entire pile, and with ease, reach down 30 seconds later, pulling the piece out from the clutter. More impressive however, was that while initially scanning the pile I'd usually notice dozens of the desired piece, able even 20 minutes later (if the pile had been left relatively still) to return and collect additional pieces. This talent was useful to all of my playmates (I happily isolated pieces for anyone who asked), and eventually if I built Legos with you, you knew I could do it; I had a reputation that preceeded me.

The cousin playing with us that day had heard that I could find Legos quickly, but had never had a chance to see for herself. She dared me to find a particular piece, one she thought would be difficult, a 1-dot crystal thin maybe. I reached down and picked up 3 or 4. Only mildly impressed, she was clearly deducing a way to stump me. She led me, brother and sister in tow, through the door that led out past the back porch, to the wet grass below.

"Find a four-leaf clover" she said.

Impressed by the time it took her to come up with the challenge, I accepted, and 20 minutes later came back into the kitchen with 3 wilting clovers stuck to my damp palm. All 3 had 4 leaves. I was ecstatic, bragging more than I should have, only quiet once my aunt took me to another room to show me how to seal them between two sheets of wax paper with an iron.

The talent and my joy in it has stayed with me, as many acquaintances can corroborate. I've found contacts on sandy beaches, stray socks within piles of laundry 10 loads large, and diamonds that have fallen from their rings to gravel grocery store parking lots.

Junkmart

I lived three floors above the corner of South 2nd and Driggs for just under a year. During that time, I sat in our sunny front windows for hours each and every Saturday, watching the man that lived two floors down on the corner opposite ours.

He seemed to rarely leave the neighborhood so we saw him a lot. We speculated that he must have been the super of the building across the street (that would explain the sweeping, the enforcement of loitering laws) and that he was single, in love only with his dog (a round and slow female rottweiler). The only thing we knew for sure, was that he ran a flea market of considerable size, specializing in items that he had found in the garbage and repaired with considerable skill.

Nicknamed Junkmart the first Saturday we awoke in that apartment, his operation was surprisingly well run. At around 10:00 AM he'd emerge, swinging his front door 180° until it was flush with the wall that supported it, pinning it behind a dry planter. After tying his dog to the fence that surrounded his storefront, he'd go back into his place and begin bringing out the merchandise. Mostly items that we had watched him repair, clean and paint at dusk throughout the week, he'd carry out bikes, window fans, air conditioners and stereo equipment. He also trafficked in items that could be sold as-is: shoes, video cassettes by the crate, records to attract the hipsters, and furniture to stop the couples driving by. Rare items included: scuba gear, street signs, Campari promotional beach umbrellas and exercise equipment originally desired in front of the television.

He worked hard all day, disassembling and reassembling impromptu displays made out of whatever he had. If he had dishes and a table, he'd set the table for four, pulling up crates of records to serve as seats. If he had plate glass and books, he made shelves, cinder-block style. He was resourceful, friendly, focused; all his shuffling and decorating and sweeping and hustling and flirting and yelling made for an awaited Saturday morning soap, one we jones for now that it's gone, and discuss in its absence.

He had highs and lows that year, I guess loosely tied to the season, seeming happiest and satisfied in the early summer when he had lots of customers and thus conversation. Most anxious in the late winter, when the predicted rain was just becoming visible.

He began to change independently of the weather though, gradually becoming more solitary and on edge. Sweeping for hours each day and smoking more than ever, he gave up selling anything but bicycles, which he only did sporadically at best. We guessed that he might have gone into a manic period, dropped his meds, that maybe he had lost someone, but we never knew. We could only gauge his life on the items he was able to turn over, less each week.

Still Morning

Breeze

The Mountain Dew was 88 cents, so I gave in to old habits. Since bringing the jug home a few hours ago, I've easily had 3 glasses, all in my red, plastic Pizza-Hut cup. So now with the buzz only barely tempered by the blaze, I'm lying awake next to this thin, punctured, patchwork of glass.

I can feel cold air and the chill of the occasional snowflake on my arms (they're outside the heavy blankets) whenever the wind whistles into our house. The strong drafts come with the strong gusts of blowing snow discernible through the grating (welded across our view). And with each of the strong ones, the plants bounce and wiggle on the breeze.

Above/Below

Image by Morbo

Cast + Cleft

Hungry

I live in New York City and haven't seen The Gates.

I'm not even sure I want to. Maybe it's that I feel like I already have. Having been crushed under the weight of orange coverage, I'm tempted to avoid them altogether. To spite all the people talking. Talking in simple, ineffective terms I might add. Maybe I'm just a brat, spoiled by years of Critical Theory and years of conversation dissecting and understanding pieces a hundred times more complicated, more nuanced, better. Or maybe it's that the principle effect they have on people, to encourage an augmented awareness of their surroundings and to encourage the discussion of context, is simply not enough. It's an issue that was addressed much more thoroughly, and poignantly decades ago. The entire 70s in fact. Sure, I'm happy that folks who usually don't think about art are doing it, but should I really be satisfied by that? They're thinking about them, but only in the most superficial terms. Good art asks the viewer to work a little, and The Gates don't, which is of course, why folks love them. Should I be impressed because the lazy are?

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the interaction with their surroundings, their site-specificity, I can even appreciate the formal qualities, the color, the materials, the repetition, the scale, and all that those qualities access. It's just that The Gates don't do anything new, they don't ask any real questions, they don't feel like a product of our time.

I've got 10 days. I'll see them. And I won't rule out abandoning my presumptions for fond memories. I don't anticipate I will however. I'll be going to acquire ammunition. To be loaded when they come up in conversation, yet again. To be motherfucking bulletproof as I tear The Gates down.

Daily Fires

Nearly every day, my eye is drawn up from my laptop or out of deep sleep to find red and yellow lights dashing through the metal mesh that surrounds our windows. Occasionally it's the cops, but generally it's safe to assume that it's the Fire Department and that they've sent a few scouts into the building, a few guys to tap the hydrant, and dozens more to stand, heads leaning back, in the street.

Either way, it puts me on edge. I scurry about the house hiding anything illicit, and then spy out of our dirty glass until they pack up and the strobes round the corner. My response is irrational and I know it. Twice the firemen have come through our building on non-emergency business, assessing what kind of people live there, what the risks the ex-sweatshop presents, and doing other kinds of professional reconnaissance. Twice, they knocked and I let them in, and twice I was greeted by an appreciative, friendly and considerate tone.

In the end I'm happy that I live amongst a bunch of creative delinquents. Their daily calls to 911, for reasons I have yet to comprehend, have made the FDNY very familiar with our corner of Bushwick. In a timber-frame building (with only drywall, aluminum studs and hardwood floors separating each unit) filled with kids smoking cigarettes over open jars of turpentine, you want to know they've got your back.

Passing Trees

Image by Newneonunion

Aerospace

Passing Messages

It's not uncommon to see people panhandling on the subway. Some go the classic route, straight-up asking for money. Others try to work for it. The technique that has gained the most ground in recent years is the in-car breakdancing show (when I first moved here, I knew of only one crew who did it; now, there are dozens of duos). It usually consists of one large fellow, and one small, a boom box and an empty fitted cap. They wait for the longest stretches between stops, turn on the beats, introduce themselves, and do a few coordinated moves of varying quality. They garner applause from all the passengers without the protection of an iPod, and then make their rounds accepting coins and crumpled dollars from tourists and those that invest in karma.

Yesterday, while riding uptown on the express, I emerged from my post-work daze twice to see sweaty kids attempting spins in the crowded car. Both times they went through the motions and collected their earnings. And both times a large, masculine woman next to me raised her hand as the smaller performer (invariably the collection man) came past our bench. She gestured as though they should wait a moment, and each time they did, standing patiently in front of me, presumably waiting for her to find a stray quarter or two. And each time, she offered no cash, instead digging a ball-point pen from her purse and then scrawling nearly illegibly in the open space atop her free Metro paper. Still silent, she ripped the long and jagged shreds of paper free, and dropped them into the extended hats, clearly satisfied that she had given the dancers a valuable contribution. They graciously accepted each scrap as though they understood what she was silently saying, and with maybe $2.00 and their secret messages, they left the car to wait on the platform for their next rolling stage.

15 Minutes

Warhol would be proud:

Deitch Projects is casting a reality show.
It will be called Artstar.

Inevitable? Yes.
Disaster? Maybe.

Span

The GWB (which I learned is the busiest bridge in the world last night) from Aaron's block in Washington Heights.

Valentine's Day Artifacts

Batteries

After I finished my brass animals, I gave them to Heather (she had been hovering and hinting that she wanted them for her studio shelves). I explained that I was of course happy for her to have them, not because she's welcome to anything of mine (which she is), but because they came from the same metal as her lights, and thus would absorb more energy if they were within close range of their golden sisters. She called me a hippy, and asked me to explain.

I countered by asking her to look at one of the smaller animals and at the mass-produced ceramic duck that sat next to it. "Which one has more energy and why?" I asked. She quickly chose the brass animal, but hesitantly said "because it's handmade?" She was right, but it's more than that.

I think of objects as batteries, capable of absorbing, storing and releasing energy. My animals for example, even when still strips of unbent scrap brass, contained two energies. The first of which is the energy inherent in the material itself. Brass, by nature of it's purity (it is composed only of the elements Copper and Zinc) has considerably more initial energy than many other materials, mass-produced plastic for example. The second energy the brass scraps stored was the artistic energy that Tord Boontje supplied as he directed the manufacture of his Garland Lights, from which the scraps came.

Before I even picked up that scrap, it was already storing a significant amount of energy. In fact, I'd argue that's precisely the reason I was attracted to the material in the first place (I sense auras better than the average person;I can sense them radiating, the way heat looks on infrared film).

I then supplied artistic energy of my own, bending and manipulating the material into forms, adding further to their capacity. And like a magnet attracting other magnets, the more energy an object is imbued with, the more it is able to attract. A charged object in a space full of other charged objects, will invariably absorb some of the proximate energies, thus all the objects grow stronger.

My animals are behaving in precisely this way. They sit on her shelf, next to the ducks and paper houses, in dialog with all the other objects in the room. And because of the material they share, the animals talk to the lamps often, exchanging their energies and forging a common history. In several years time, should my animals survive in their present location, they will have absorbed not only the spirit of their neighboring objects, but also energy from the space itself. Heather writes in her studio. And with each sentence composed, and each sentence discarded, the room fills with artistic energy, much of which will be stored in our little batteries, for her use each time she looks upon them for inspiration.

On art objects in particular:

Some objects, are capable of absorbing small amounts of energy and in response, release much greater quantities, effectively magnifying such energy. Art objects fall into this category. If properly crafted and carefully charged by their creator, good pieces, be they paintings, sculptures, songs or ideas, have the ability to respond to the small inquisitive energies of the public by releasing a wave of complex creative energy within the viewers themselves. The public must give to art, however if they do, they will be given exponentially more in return.

It is this ability to magnify creative energy through the production of art objects and their interaction with the public that keeps me making work.

Related: The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction by Walter Benjamin

Visitor

Images by Pogeybait

Quotations

"The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions." - Susan Sontag

Transfer

For the last 4 years, lengths of the L Train have been shut down periodically so that the MTA can make repairs and additions to the system (we hear that they are computerizing the line). I'm particularly aware of the construction now that I live past Myrtle Avenue. Nearly every weekend for the last six months, the train has run only to Myrtle, leaving all of us that live on one of the 10 stops (out of 25) past Myrtle to ride shuttle buses the rest of the way.

All of this downtime is annoying but not altogether horrible (I try to stay in Brooklyn on the weekends anyway), but it impacts my life every week, and is not something that I avoid thinking about for long. Which I was the other day; about who it fucks, and who might actually benefit from all the periods of empty tunnels, when it hit me.

Do graffiti writers live for the L Service Advisory? Do they take advantage of the relative safety of the quiet tracks? Have these years of hipster and working-class frustration resulted in more paint?

It would satisfy my sense of justice, so I hope so.

Brass Animals

Heather's studio is almost finished.

After one of the most arduous wiring jobs I've ever attempted (I nearly fried my self with house-current while balancing on one foot atop a 14-foot ladder), the lamps that Heather's folks gave her for her birthday are finally installed, the power tools are gone, and the space is ready to house creation.

The lamps turned out wonderfully:



The Garland Lights are by Tord Boontje for Artecnica, though I think they came to us through Moss. Each lamp consists of a single piece of laser-cut brass, etched with incredibly intricate (and non-repeating) silhouettes of happy vegetation, and a standard 60w bulb. The brass comes as a flat sheet, that the purchaser is meant to bend and knot around the bulb, breathing life into the static leaves. We bent ours for weeks, meticulously giving each vine the right twist and allowing each flower to bloom fully. Now that the room is electrified, we are done.

Happy with the malleability of the material, I didn't let a bit of metal go to waste. Here are some animals I made out of the scrap brass:

We Are Here

A couple of years ago Heather's mom, Beth was reading National Geographic, and was so inspired by their representation of The Milky Way, that she ordered one of their deluxe, laminated maps. It sat in her garage, sealed within it's original tube, for a while after that, free of a home within the house.

When Beth heard that I would finally have a studio in our new apartment, she sent the map along with softer housewarming gifts, knowing where it was meant to live.

I of course love it and have it hanging next to my desk, happiest when generosity comes covered in stars. What I perhaps love most is that instead of the mall-standard You Are Here, the designers were thoughtful enough to realize that the map wasn't leaving the hands of humanity for quite some time, and consequently it was safe to go with the much grander We Are Here.

We Are Blind

Distance

Riding home last night, I made a short movie.

File: Distance.mov
Format: QuickTime
Dimensions: 240 pixels by 170 pixels
Duration: 38 seconds

Enjoy.

Supply + Byproduct

The one new dirty dish. I had to let the water heater refill three times before its predecessors were clean.



Cigarettes and olive pits.



Heather's been making valentines.



Said valentines.



I tried to protect Heather's valentine supplies from Midi (who likes to sleep on paper) by covering them with a dirty washcloth. Which was stupid, because I basically made her a bed.



A valentine from her grandmother.



Student Work.

Currency

Image 1: One dollar, found in New York City a month after September 11th, 2001.
Image 2: One quarter punctured, found today.

Related: Hand stamped cash.

Valentine

I received the most beautiful valentine yesterday, from Susan and Gemma.

Balloons

Last night.
North 7th between Bedford and Driggs.

Challenger

On January 28th, 1986, I was 6 and in the 1st grade. Sitting at the front of the classroom, I remember staring at the integrated clock/intercom, and killing time analyzing the Simplex logo's black widow markings while I waited for the broadcast to begin.

Unusual for my school, my teacher had managed to procure a television on which to watch the launch of the Challenger, it came into the room slowly on a black cart with flat tires. Later, I'd learn that many gradeschool students and their instructors watched that day, more interested than ever in the space program knowing that a civilian and teacher had been allowed to go.

At about 11:30, the TV was plugged in and turned on, several minutes prior to the live coverage we were itching to see. I sat quietly through the introduction, countdown, removal of the red support structure and then through the launch, irritated at the oohs and aahs of my peers. 73 seconds later, they were just as silent as I was. The spaceship had exploded, instantly bookmarking that day in history and in our young lives. The silence remained unbroken by anything other than a mournful voiceover, as the broadcast went on and the single static camera never blinked. The television was left on and the teacher wordless until the principal activated the intercom. He explained what had happened to the kids without a live feed, and then asked us to return to our studies.