Newsletter, Nov 27, 2023
Exhibition news, a quintessential day in New York visiting other artists' studios, an apartment Thanksgiving, portable sculpture, multitasking, and more.
Here’s a bit of unexpected news: I’ve been invited to do a solo show of paintings and sculptures at a big southern university gallery in 2024. I’m generally not considered a sculptor, but I‘ve always been drawn to geometric urban structures and things on wheels -- like the empty Christmas tree rack I saw on Sixth Ave and Carmine Street the other night when I was on my way to the Blind Tiger for an afterhours pint with my editor. Or the standard duty tilt truck trash bins on every floor at 20 Jay Street. The items I’m interested in aren’t sculpture as much as sculpture-ish — found assemblages and constructions related to the geometric form teased out in paintings. My stubborn commitment to two dimensions has to do with a need to keep things light, to stay nimble, to limit the accumulation of more. The urge to simplify also translates into an affinity for portable things that serve multiple purposes.
For example, my surplus flatware with the bamboo pattern serves both as a souvenir of childhood sailing trips and as extra utensils for big Thanksgiving dinners like the one we had in our apartment this year. Could we have used another set of glasses, a bigger table, and a few more chairs? Sure, but no one seemed to mind taking a turn standing at the counter, sitting on the shag carpet, or drinking out of mismatched tumblers and high ball glasses. The farmer’s market turkey, served on an old, spiked family platter (weapon and heirloom), tasted good, and, most importantly, it wasn’t undercooked. Once I get down south for the show, maybe I’ll assemble some sculpture-ish structures using objects found around campus — packing materials, discarded plastics, cardboard boxes, a few rolling racks. When the show is over, I can just take the pieces apart, return them to their original owners, and say goodbye. Perfect.
This month’s adventures included a quintessential NYC day that began with a trip downtown where I met Mary Shah at “Wildswim,” the Hunter MFA thesis show on Canal Street. I hope each of these talented MFA students has some early success – no one ever plans to leave their massive grad school canvases out on the curb and head to law school, but it happens. Artists make excellent social workers and librarians, too. You just never know who’s still going to be in the cult ten years down the road. Is the Art World the Hierophant?
During our roundabout route to my Dumbo studio, Mary and I talked about best practices for packing and shipping. I’m between galleries right now and since Mary has a lot of gallery experience (first as gallery director at Lennon Weinberg and then at Alexandre when they had the space at 291 Grand), I asked her to help select the work and organize everything for the upcoming show. She has good ideas and a good eye -- I’m grateful she said yes. We eventually ended up in Greenpoint because I wanted to see Mary’s latest paintings (on view in an upcoming show at Rick Wester, dates TBD), and, while we were there, we made a quick stop downstairs for some art publishing and academia gossip with Greg Lindquist, who had some blazing new fire paintings in his studio.
Later in the week, I knocked off work early to visit Chris Joy in his LIC gallery-studio. Chris, one of the founders of the brilliant Gorky’s Granddaughter interview series, has a playful process in which he traces images from one painting onto the next canvas and then continues the image on the new surface. Instead of having a few thick paintings with multiple layers, he has boxes of paintings that tell a story of all the decisions he has made during an ongoing painting adventure, kind of like one long strand of colorful DNA.
I’ll end the inaugural newsletter, which I honestly enjoyed putting together and appreciate you taking the time to read it, with a couple of invitations. In the coming months I have two pieces in community-minded winter shows. A digital drawing of a weedwhacker is on view through February 11 in “Holiday” at LABspace. At Tappeto Volante Projects, a small painting will be included in “La Banda 2024,” a big group show opening on January 18 with a reception on January 30. Please go support these important artist-run galleries — places like this are where so many talented young and under-recognized artists get their first exhibitions. I hope to see you there.
Look for more stories and studio notes in the next newsletter, which will arrive in your inbox on December 26. Thanks for reading.
Please check out the studio website for more images of paintings, links to writing, exhibition history, and other information.