ROADTRIPPIN: KIDS TODAY and TOMORROW

Do you ever wonder what will become of the kids today when tomorrow comes? I'm speaking of many, many tomorrows from now, but still...

My kid and I took a road trip for spring break, 850 miles, 6 cities/towns in seven days and as soon as we packed ourselves into the rental car he presented his itouch with a playlist for our drive and started taking pictures. He ended up with over 300 pics by trips end with an additional 20 or so movies and yes a lot of them have already been emptied into the trash, but to my surprise quite a few had merit for a ten year old.

This isn't unusual for kids today. There's an ease to produce content if they have the tools to do so, be it vacation pics or a school project, information and answers are as easy to find as their own or a parent's ipad, laptop or computer and they are madly proficient with these gadgets.

I question though, if we're doing a disservice to kids today? It's so easy to find answers, write a paper, produce a photograph or make a movie that I wonder if they know how to break a sweat doing anything other than sports? Maybe this ease leaves room for some other benefit that I'm missing, but I can't help think that progress should be earned to be appreciated. My Papa in his later years telling me he walked up hill both to and from school with cardboard in his shoes is making a lot of sense to me now. 

I want my kid to realize the gifts he has and how to use them appropriately for the future.

Here are a few of his photographs from our trip.

 

Just the other night the kid and I had a conversation that gives me reason to think, yes, he gets it.

 "I wish I had seen technology grow the way you did, that must have been exciting to have played the first ever video game" and I answered, "but it will advance for you in the same way, we just don't know what those advances are they're unfolding as we speak, you may experience the same growth in technology." he responded, "What if an alien is looking down at us right now saying, look at those cave men?"

COPS PLAY and I ♥ NYC

I always reply the same, "I love New York City!" Every time I speak on the phone with my Dad he mentions what a better quality of life I could have if I moved back down south. Last night he added, "in a few more years when the "Party" is over you'll want a quieter life and you'll realize. I laughed and asked what party? I'm not attending any "Parties"! Then what is it? he asked. "It's the art galleries, the museums, fashion, that we actually have four distinct seasons and bands always come to NYC unlike smaller cities...it's almost certain your favorite bands will stop here on tour." These were the first things that popped into my mind.

But there's so much more than that...just walking down the street to get to work in this city is engaging and visual. I wouldn't get this type stimulation commuting down a highway in the cocoon of my car if I lived in my former city. I'm here in NYC because I love the visual, all of it, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Here is a selection of what I've seen on the way to work...

Adorable children on their way to school

57th and Lexington Avenue

57th street window shopping (LV)

Strangers M50 Bus

59th and Park Avenue

Mr. Bill Cunningham almost every morning on 57th and 5th Ave, but never on Friday's.

Last summer walking down 57th street, on my way to work, I noticed the traffic cop in the video link above directing traffic with such style. I had to get a closer look. I pulled out my phone and made a super8 app film of her. I was running late and had to get moving. I thought, I'll see her some other morning and get better footage, but I've yet to see her again.

So, Dad, this post is dedicated to you and this is one more reason I can't quit New York City, my commute to work in the morning.

OPTICAL CONCLUSIONS: Rafael Barrios on the Park Avenue Mall

Rafael Barrios' Sculpture at 57th street, three different views

Venezuelan artist Rafael Barrios explains that his sculptures are about “dislocating our perception in such a way that our mind’s eye will insist that you are seeing something that you are not.”

In early March 2012 when I first saw Barrios' sculpture pictured above I was walking towards 57th street from a few blocks away. At a distance it was almost disappointing to see these new sculptures on the Park Avenue Mall as I was reflecting on the previous year's Will Ryman sculptures with flowers and insects and how they reminded us that spring was on the way. These new sculptures were just shapes that seemed to be floating, ho hum. 

Side view looking west

Side view looking uptown

What works here though is that Barrios' sculptures are optically spectacular. They appear dimensional, but when viewed from all angles you'll realize the sculptures are actually very slim with hardly any volume at all. It seems every day I pass one the light has caught the shapes differently or an angle not realized before has been revealed. 

Looking west

Looking east

If you haven't walked down Park Avenue between 51st street and 67th street lately, you have until June 30th to see the sculptures in person. Highly recommended.

HIP HIP HOORAY: Pae White's Professional at The Independent

Up these glowing stairs, 4 sets of them, at the former DIA space on 22nd street the hipster scene at The Independent (art fair) was much more entertaining than the art on view, but the piece below Pae White's Professional took me back to the moment that we considered a mobile for our son's crib. The Stim-Mobile was the only choice at the time that seemed modern and graphic enough to be approved by my art directing husband. How many hours are spent by babies gazing at mobiles in those early months? I thought quite a bit about being an infant, looking up at the shapes constantly moving, caressing the air above. 

When I came across Pae White's piece at The Independent I wanted to lie down underneath it and be mesmerized by the color, movement and overload of reflection, but security surely would have escorted me off the premises. An adult size mobile. It's trippy fantastic to look at. I could have gazed at it for a very long time.

Pae White's Professional The Independent, March 8-11 2012

Because a still image of Professional doesn't give you the sense of motion and reflection needed to truly appreciate it, I shot a short video in hopes that you too could take it in as if you were in it's presence.

LAST NIGHT A DJ SAVED MY LIFE WITH A SONG

Music is the one thing that has always been a loyal friend and an inspiration to me. So I wanted to share what's been on heavy rotation these past few months... 
Jack White, Love Interruption, featuring Ruby Amanfu I heard this for the first time on Valentine's day, fitting huh? His new solo record Blunderbuss is out April 23 and he was brilliant on SNL last night.

best lyrics:the entire song


Nicolas Jaar, And I Say, vocals contributed by Scout LaRue (daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis)

best lyrics: Whoo


Lower Dens Brains New Album Nootropics out May 1

best lyrics: a bunch of mumbling and repeating don't be afraid, but it's really all about the snare drum


Fell Sound (which is Liz Harris/Grouper and Jesy Fortino/Tiny Vipers), Mirroring, Foreign Body is out 3/19...something about this reminds me of Twin Peaks

best lyrics: Humph?

Massive Attack's Hymn of the Big Wheel, from Blue Lines, over 20 years have passed and this album still feels fresh to me...to commemorate the 20 year anniversary producer Egyptrixx released the remix. This is by far the Kid's favorite track and on heaviest rotation 2 months running. The wheel keeps turning.

best lyrics:There's a hole in my soul like a cavity
Seems like the world is out to gather just by gravity
The wheel keeps turning the sky's rearranging
Look my son the weather is changing


Sharon Van Etten's entire record Tramp, No wonder I like this girl, Etten has been associated with some of my favorite bands.  After a controlling relationship with a man in Tennessee who told Etten her song writing was worthless, she eventually packed her bags and found her way back to her home in New Jersey where she found support in friend Kyp Malone (Tv on the Radio). Kyp and others encouraged Etten to pursue a career in music. Etten now resides in Brooklyn when not on tour. She has sung back up with The Antlers on Thirteen and The National on "Think You Can Wait" from the Win Win sound track. The National's Aaron Dessner produced Tramp in his garage/studio last year. 

best lyrics: 
...It's not that I don't cry,
It's that I have to hide,
So I won't be there to ask.
No, I won't be the one to ask.
and it hurts too much to laugh about it.
...You're the reason why I'll move to the city
You're why I'll need to leave
...Wanting to love as new as I can


Below are two things you should know about


CROSSING BROOKLYN FERRY MAY 3-5 (Produced by BAM)
The Walkmen, St. Vincent, Beirut, Sharon Van Etten, The Antlers and Atlas Sound all at the Howard Gilman Opera House

And if you love live music you should check out NYCTAPER's blog one of his latest post is Sharon Van Etten's show last week at Bowery Ballroom. NYCTAPER records almost every indie show in NYC and Brooklyn and puts it on his blog, with permission of the artists of course, for you to download with only the request that if you download the music for your listening pleasure to please support the artist in other ways.

Happy listening!

WEIWEI WHY

Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds at Mary Boone Gallery February 2012

"I always think art is a tool to really set up new questions...I want people who don't understand art to understand what I am doing" Weiwei

Got it Weiwei and here's my question. Why? Why couldn't the 1600 people in the town of Jingdezhen (the porcelain capital of China), that you paid to work on the Sunflower Seed Sculpture, produce something more usable? Yes the town needed the work. Many who lived there were going bankrupt, but could they have been put to work producing something more beneficial to themselves, common man and our planet? Do we need 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds for any other reason except to look at them taking up space. You can't walk on them because they produce a toxic dust and rumor has it the paint used on them has lead in it, so it's hands off too. I'm all for meticulous process and boldness in producing something exaggerated in size, but I just keep asking myself why so many seeds?


Well to counter myself, the seeds don't just take up space, there's money to be made. In February 2011 a mere 100,000 of the over 100 million hand painted seeds were sold at Sotheby's in London. The anonymous bidder, competing against three others, ended up paying $ 559,334 for 220 pounds of seeds. 

Interestingly, when the kid walked into the gallery he could have cared less about the 4 million sunflower seeds on the floor of Mary Boone's gallery until someone who worked at the gallery intervened and gave him the full story. I dislike it when art has to be explained, I thought to myself. I feel art should stand on it's own with out explanation and then if there's more to learn, then even better for the education of it and knowing more might then enhance the pleasure of the viewing, however in this situation it worked. Now the kid was fascinated by these unbelievably real looking seeds, made of porcelain (an approx. 30 step traditional process) and learning that each one of the one million seeds were hand painted, it was absolutely mind blowing.  

The concept and process make this project remarkable to me not the total mass of it and that's why I have fallen in love and although this particular show has already closed in NYC I thought it was still worth mentioning, because even though Weiwei is Time's runner-up person of the year and in Art Review's annual Power 100 list he is named the art world's most powerful figure, many people still don't know who he is. 


So think of this as planting a seed and we're looking forward to the next time we see his work in NYC.

Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds at Mary Boone Gallery February 2012

Please watch the video link below, it's beautifully shot and shows Weiwei overseeing the production of his sculpture project. 

TAKES A YEAR TO REMEMBER A DAY

This time last year I was unexpectedly hospitalized, fighting off an infection that within just a few hours was capable of shutting my system down. Unable to walk myself, a friend carried me in to an emergency room. I ended up being admitted and stayed for almost a week. I remember watching the snow fall out the window during my recovery, a window which was overlooking a park on 2nd ave, from a $ 500 dollar a night 'out of pocket' room that I had begged for in order to insure my escape from what I feel is one of the worst hospitals in NYC, Beth Israel. You've been warned.

This was a timely week to remember that life is too short...

Window with a view, January 23, 2011

and so a year has past...

Watching a pristine blanket of snow cover the city this past Friday night I thought to myself everything is exactly how it's supposed to be, at least for now. Seeing, learning, unlearning and remembering that the responsibility of my 'gardening' will last more than my lifetime and there's work to do.


I come back to the below passage over and over again, it always sets me back on the right path...

...from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury 

“When I was a boy my grandfather died. He was a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world. He made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for all the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world? The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.

Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, a child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched in some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die. So when people look at that tree or the flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts the lawns and a real gardener is in the touching. The lawn cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”

My favorite window with a view January 2012, Photosynth App