MAYBE BABY

new jewelry

2011-01-28T17:37:00.000-08:00

HI

2011-01-28T17:36:00.000-08:00

its been a while. how about weekly updates?

Weekly Artist 3/1 -- Matt Furie

2010-03-30T23:04:00.000-07:00

aaahhh love it

MATT FURIE
check out website HERE

Weekly Artist 2/22 -- Henry Gunderson

2010-03-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

CRAZY GOOD
check out the interview with Henry Gunderson on Fecal Face.
and check out more of his work HERE on flickr

Etsy is here!

2010-03-29T01:20:00.001-07:00

Etsy!

2010-03-28T21:50:00.000-07:00

here is a preview of what will be up for sale:

Nick Dewar

2010-03-25T00:27:00.000-07:00

I just found out that Nick Dewar (weekly artist Dec. 21) died on February 1st 2010.

HERE is the link back to the original post.

and a link to his website is HERE.

its spring!

2010-03-19T15:46:00.001-07:00

What not to wear to a Seminary

2010-03-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

Check out my new-ish blog, a collaboration with Haley:

(click here to go to the blog)

Van Der Glas

2010-03-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

(thanks to rachel for showing this to me!)
this work is by Polly van der Glas. check out the website H E R E

also take a look back at Anna Schwamborn's Mourning Objects because they are along the same lines.

Richard Brautigan: You Departure Versus the Hindenburg

2010-03-14T21:46:00.000-07:00

here is a poem by my favorite author, Richard Brautigan from the book The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster.

Marcel Dzama (for Kate)

2010-03-14T21:25:00.000-07:00

Marcel Dzama:

new work

2010-02-28T22:22:00.000-08:00

Im starting a series of applique drawings that express fictitious crushes on jewish men through mystical landscapes.

jewelry

2010-02-19T23:51:00.000-08:00

I made some jewelry all day:

BONUS Artist - Robert Nicol

2010-02-14T20:38:00.000-08:00

because I got so behind, here is an EXTRA artist for you to seeeee
oh, and my new favorite.

ROBER NICOL
website HERE

Weekly Artist (2/15) - Chris Tosic

2010-02-14T20:31:00.000-08:00

(This little series of weekly artist were all found in a magazine witch I cannot remember the name of, but will find out and post here)

and on that note, this is CHRIS TOSIC
and THIS is his website

Weekly Artist (2/8) - Mike Perry

2010-02-14T20:20:00.000-08:00

Mike Perry Mike Perry Mike Perry
check out his website HERREEEEE

Weekly Artist (2/1) -- Bruno Dicolla

2010-02-14T19:14:00.000-08:00

Check out his website HERE

Return as an Animal from Bruno Dicolla on Vimeo.

Weekly Artist (1/25) - Sue De Beer

2010-02-08T21:09:00.000-08:00

videos, photos, writing, installations.
I am quite fond of the Photographs

Check out more of her work on her website HERE

Oh no

2010-02-05T19:17:00.000-08:00

Dear anyone who reads my blog,
SORRY! I owe you 3 weekly artists. I'll get around to it one day, really, I will.

-Kellyn

The Marvelettes: Please Mr. Postman

2010-01-30T19:56:00.001-08:00

haiku

2010-01-25T00:41:00.000-08:00

Weekly Artist 1/18: Trevor Reese

2010-01-18T16:08:00.000-08:00

you know how it is when you see the most adorable puppy ever, or have the best day ever and you feel like your chest is going to explode? that's how I feel about this week's artist. I love it. (thanks Robin for showing it to me!)

See his website H E R E

bag bag bag

2010-01-14T20:19:00.001-08:00

I WANT THIS BAG!

want! want! want! want! want!
p.s its from HERE

picnic box

2010-01-14T20:03:00.000-08:00

this is amazing! I want one!

flowers!

2010-01-13T19:45:00.000-08:00

Anthro Jewelry

2010-01-09T00:24:00.000-08:00

It seems I only blog about art and jewelry anymore.
so here is another post about jewelry!

I was in Anthropologie the other day and was really into their necklaces. They have put fabric, beads, and metal all together and its awesome.

here are some of the favs:
(those are cloth covered beads, and then those are sequins in the flowers. yeah!)
more fabric flowers -- also comes in grey

My birthday is in 3 weeks...

Weekly Artist 1/4 -- Allison Schulnik

2010-01-05T13:27:00.000-08:00

this is the first of TWO weekly artists this week, so be sure to scroll down and see the other one!

This stuff is just incredible. See Allison Schilnik's website HERE (its a really nice website too)

Click H E R E to watch her AMAZING video

(as always, click on the image to view full size)

Weekly Artist 1/4 -- Elisabeth Higgins O'Connor

2010-01-05T13:15:00.000-08:00

This is the second of TWO weekly artists this week, Elisabeth Higgins O'Connor + Allison Schulnik.
I just recently discovered both of these artist and thought their work needed to be seen together.

so here is Elisabeth Higgins O'Connor!
amazing amazing amazing
see her website HERE

Rainbows + Art + Matt Relkin

2010-01-03T20:37:00.000-08:00

okay, so I have some new favorite art works. They are by Matt Relkin and absolutely fantastic. Check out his website HERE

Weekly Artist 12/28 -- Richie Budd

2009-12-28T22:42:00.000-08:00

Richie Budd!!!
check out more of his work HERE

Hisano Takei

2009-12-28T22:37:00.000-08:00

FELT JEWELRY by Hisano Takei!
website -- HERE

Kate Cusack -- Zipper Jewelry

2009-12-28T22:16:00.000-08:00

crazy, amazing, beautiful zipper jewelry by Kate Cusack.
see more on her website HERE

Weekly Artist 12/21 -- Nick Dewar

2009-12-19T21:27:00.000-08:00

This week's weekly artrist is illustrator Nick Dewar.

See more of his work on his website HERE!

Gender Bender

2009-12-19T21:10:00.000-08:00

I thought this was pretty interesting:

In the photo, "Illusion of Sex," two faces are perceived as male and female. However, both faces are actually versions of the same androgynous face. One face was created by increasing the contrast of the androgynous face, while the other face was created by decreasing the contrast. The face with more contrast is perceived as female, while the face with less contrast is perceived as male. This demonstrates that contrast is an important cue for perceiving the sex of a face, with greater contrast appearing feminine, and lesser contrast appearing masculine. (Credit: Image courtesy of Gettysburg College)

(found at sciencedaily.com see full article HERE)

meatpaper

2009-12-17T21:39:00.000-08:00

MEATPAPER:

"Meatpaper is a print magazine of art and ideas about meat. We like metaphors more than marinating tips. We are your journal of meat culture."
(http://www.meatpaper.com/)

Meatpaper is an absurdly odd and fantastically illustrated publication about MEAT. I always find it slid somewhere in between the Art and Design magazines and am lured in by the beautiful covers, then repulsed when I open the pages to find pictures of raw meat and animals, sliced open, then I'm drawn back in by more wonderful images.

more images from this issue to follow. I hope.

see the meatpaper website HERE

Closet

2009-12-15T20:35:00.000-08:00

I spent all day today re-organizing my closet:

okay, this isn't my closet, but it is my favorite part of my room

found and refinished dresser + log light

log light! (now also a headband holder)

Art by Austin Eddy and Claire B. Cotts

Birds

2009-12-15T20:33:00.000-08:00

Last week I made a bunch of these felt birds...

Rockets

2009-12-14T16:21:00.000-08:00

Last night I watched the movie Rocket Science. It was great. So I thought I'd post the trailers of movies with "rocket" in the title:

ROCKET SCIENCE

BOTTLE ROCKET

Western Spaghetti

2009-12-14T00:58:00.000-08:00

Thank you Kate for showing this to me!

Caila

2009-12-13T23:51:00.000-08:00

I found this animation by Caila Lipovsky on THIS blog.
This video is so strange, but really sort of wonderful.

p.s you can see more of her videos on her YOUTUBE channel

Weekly Artist 12/13 -- Ben Jones

2009-12-13T21:22:00.000-08:00

THIS WEEK: BEN JONES
check out his website HERE for lots more awesome work.

Ted Noten -- Guns, Bags, and a Pig

2009-12-13T20:37:00.000-08:00

These are beautiful.

See Ted Noten's website for more

Jordan Wolfson -- Nostalgia is Fear

2009-12-13T20:26:00.000-08:00

This is one of my favorite pieces of art:

(see a video of the installation H E R E )

car, artificial snow, artificial snow fall machine

See more of Jordan Wolfson's work HERE

A Jedi Christmas

2009-12-13T00:29:00.000-08:00

o.k so I am not at all a Star Wars fan, in fact, I have never even see star wars, but these are AWESOME.

(and yeah, totally found it on Apartment Therapy)

Apartment Therapy

2009-12-12T23:24:00.000-08:00

Apartment Therapy (<-- link)

oooohh, this is my FAVORITE website

I love/want all of it!!!

Keepon

2009-12-11T01:02:00.001-08:00

learn more about Keepon HERE
and watch this super cute video:

David Bowie -- Andy Warhol

2009-12-09T17:17:00.000-08:00

here you go, just for funnnn:

LOG LIGHT

2009-12-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

winter bigfoot

2009-12-06T23:12:00.000-08:00

the first finished plastic bigfoot:

Carly Hunter

2009-12-06T19:23:00.000-08:00

Carly Hunter is a designer from Australia. After what may have been a sort of half-assed google search I still have no clue what her clothes really look like. but I DO know that I love these photos from her website.

UPDATE: I now know what her clothes look like, and they are great. see HERE

Weekly Artist 12/7 -- Hironori Umeki

2009-12-06T18:45:00.000-08:00

I found this artist in a magazine called Blue Canvas
Check out more of Hironori's work HERE

FLY GUY

2009-12-06T16:21:00.000-08:00

Check out this website, it's SUPER cute:

FLY GUY

bigfoot--light

2009-12-03T17:39:00.000-08:00

this terrible picture doesn't do him any justice, but in real life, he is beautiful.

K N I T 2

2009-12-02T22:37:00.000-08:00

oh my god! another scarf?!

Y E S!

Love Stories

2009-12-02T19:00:00.000-08:00

recently I've been stumbling upon some good love movies.
here are the good ones:

Hannah Takes the Stairs:

Broken English:

New Moon:

bigfeet

2009-12-01T12:40:00.000-08:00

The mold worked! Now I have two bigfoots:

N E W K N I T

2009-11-30T21:18:00.000-08:00

I finished my scarf today!!

it is about 12 ft. long and wraps around 4-5 times

I looooove it!

Color Me Timbers

2009-11-30T14:47:00.000-08:00

Color Me Timbers was a art/music event put on by The Great Mundane + 18andCounting in Portland OR
about 28 artists (including me!) contributed drawings that were then colored in by anyone and everyone on November 20th.

click HERE to see a list of artists that participated
and if you're facebooking, go HERE to see photos from the event and some of the colored drawings, which are all really great.

before:

after:

braided

2009-11-29T22:57:00.000-08:00

pretty pretty braids and pretty pretty scarves
and one headband

DAN FUNDERBURGH

2009-11-29T22:33:00.000-08:00

Wallpaper by DAN FUNDERBURGH
see his website HERE
awsome amazing stuff

N E W -- complex geometries

2009-11-27T22:55:00.000-08:00

oh! oh! oh!
Complex Geometries spring/summer 10

bigfoot-mold-making: Part 1

2009-11-27T21:31:00.001-08:00

Weekly Artist 11/30 -- Ryan McGinley

2009-11-27T21:03:00.000-08:00

check out his website H E R E
and click on the images to view the full size version

Thanksgiving

2009-11-27T20:27:00.000-08:00

I spent thanksgiving in Loomis this year, and this is what it looked like:

Weekly Artist 11/22 -- Gelitin

2009-11-22T21:34:00.000-08:00

this week: G E L I T I N

website --> here

it just doesn't get much better than giant rabbits...

Something's Going on Here

2009-11-20T17:57:00.000-08:00

N E W work

www.kellynplanteen.com

N E W bigfoot

2009-11-17T12:01:00.001-08:00

Weekly Artist 11/16 -- Scott Hewicker

2009-11-16T15:42:00.000-08:00

Scott Hewicker was also in the group show at David Cunningham Projects.
Check out his website H E R E

Sonja Nilsson

2009-11-16T15:29:00.000-08:00

Last week I saw this piece by Sonja Nilsson in the group show, JIGSAWMENTALLAMA at David Cunningham Projects , and it blew my mind.
If you are in San Francisco GO SEE IT!

the show is up until 12/19/09
1928 Folsom st.
thursday - saturday
noon - 6

Here is a description of the installation (in a different show) from on the artist's website:

In the exhibition Rotes Haus there was a hole smashed into the wall. If you were about to put your head into the hole, you would see a copy from the room from the scene in "The Silence of the Lambs" built in a dollhouse size. In the space between the walls in the middle of the dollhouse room there was a video sequence of me where I danced as the serial killer Buffalo Bill is doing in the scene. The way, in which it was built, the room and the video sequence looked completely three-dimensional. After about a half-minute, you became heavily blinded by a flash. Afterwards you had a still picture of me on your retina that stayed with you in about 10 minutes. The picture didn’t go away even when you closed your eyes.

Pregnant Doll

2009-11-15T17:04:00.000-08:00

Sean sent me a link to this website, where I found this amazing thing:

Tiger Eyed

2009-11-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

I've got a new blog!

its called TIGER EYED

The plan is for it to become a blog about all things text based, and intended to go sort of hand in hand with this blog, which has become so visual.
its brand new! so go check it out!

weekly artist's Weekly Artist

2009-11-11T16:52:00.000-08:00

Something a little surreal but totally inevitable happened today, I got an e-mail from a previous weekly artist, Rhys Coren! (Check out the blog post HERE, or go right to his website HERE)
He was nice enough to tell me his favorite artist of the week: Chris Poolman (website HERE(if anything you should check out the "Pizza Apple Color Wheel" its pretty great)

I am quite fond of the "Jeff Koons Car Boot Sale"

Thanks Rhys!

Kacie Lees

2009-11-11T11:36:00.000-08:00

Kacie is in California!
and because I get to see her face, you should get to see her art.
go to her website H E R E to see more!

BONUS Weekly Artist -- Heather Goodchild

2009-11-08T18:39:00.000-08:00

This artist's work is somewhat similar to the other artist this week so I thought I would just give them both to you all at once.
See more of Heather's work H E R E

Weekly Artist 11/9 -- Sarah Anne Johnson

2009-11-08T18:29:00.000-08:00

Sarah Anne Johnson!
Check out her more of her work H E R E

Jojo Planteen

2009-11-07T11:31:00.000-08:00

These are letters written by Charles Bukowski to my aunt Jojo Planteen:
(click on the image for full-size readable version)

Halloween

2009-11-02T23:58:00.001-08:00

halloween came and went.
I was a dead girl scout.

Weekly Artist 11/2 -- Rachel Cattle

2009-11-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

This week: Rachel Cattle
I really really like the holes in the ground drawings.
check out her website H E R E

Glaciers of Nice

2009-10-30T21:26:00.000-07:00

Glaciers of Nice makes these beautiful bird pins and pendants. Check out all the other pretty things they have on their website.

The Birth of Bigfoot

2009-10-26T20:10:00.001-07:00

(click on image for enlarged view)

Original Rainbow

2009-10-26T20:08:00.000-07:00

Found this today:
The first rainbow vom drawing I did was of Lindsay Lo.

Kate

2009-10-26T20:07:00.000-07:00

Kate Moss Pillow

2008

Bunny

2009-10-26T20:06:00.001-07:00

Jacquard

2009-10-26T19:58:00.000-07:00

Jacquard weaving from 2008.

Girl 1

2009-10-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

While unpacking some boxes today I found some pieces I had forgotten about.
Here is one of them:

burnt wood + paint

Chee-Me-No

2009-10-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

Jewelry designer Chee-Me-No (website) makes these beautifull earings that I wish I had.

Halloween -- Amelia's

2009-10-25T15:07:00.000-07:00

Halloween is a week away! Here are a few pages from Amelia's Magazine (issue #8, fall 2007)

Weekly Artist 10/26 -- Sarah Gamble

2009-10-25T14:41:00.000-07:00

I get really excited about all the weekly artists but this one might be my favorite so far.
Check out her website H E R E

Baby, What's The Plan?

2009-10-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

The quilt is back, ready to be finished, maybe.

Weekly Artist 10/19 -- Alex Da Corte

2009-10-24T18:04:00.000-07:00

I am still about a week behind in Weekly Artists. eek!
So for last weeks artist we have Alex Da Corte.
go look at his website H E R E

Lying

2009-10-18T01:55:00.000-07:00

I am dying to see this movie!

NEW NAME + NEW URL

2009-10-15T18:30:00.000-07:00

the blog is getting a make-over.
the new name is MAYBE BABY
and the new URL is maybebabybaby.blogspot.com -- its awful I know but everything else is taken.

more changes to come!

Book List

2009-10-15T14:07:00.000-07:00

NEW BLOG FEATURE!
I keep mentioning books, telling you to go find them, look at them, buy them.
Well now if you will look to the right of your screen you will find (below the weekly artist links) a new list of links called the BOOK LIST.
This is where I will keep track of all the books mentioned in the blog + any and all books / publications that I think are worth checking out.

Weekly Artist 10/12 -- Rhys Coren

2009-10-15T13:46:00.000-07:00

Did I totally space out on this weeks weekly artist? yes.
This week I've got Rhys Coren. Found him in the book Younger Than Jesus (still one of my favorite books)
Check out his website HERE
I really suggest you go to his website and check out his writing, pretty cool.

I just can't get over those shoes. TOO good

objectophilia

2009-10-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

I first read this article a year ago, sitting on the red line going to school, and it blew my mind. It is found in the spring/summer 2008 issue of a publication called BIDOUN, which is always pretty incredible. That article is rather long, but if you want to invest the time to read it, it is well worth it.

OBJECTUM-LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

Dr. H is a sexologist specializing in fetishism and neo-sexuality. In recent years, he has done extensive studies of objectum-sexuality, or objectophilia, in which someone’s attraction to certain objects completely displaces the desire for romantic relations with other people.
Here, Dr. H considers the origins and significance of this phenomenon, reflecting on interviews with objectophiliacs, self-identifying and otherwise, across the world.

The increasingly common occurrence of objectophilia is most often attributed to the decline in human intimacy: people isolate themselves from others, favoring communion with their desired objects. Objectophilia is not to be confused with mere fetishism, in which the subject’s relation to a class of objects—wigs or diapers, stockings or shoes—becomes eroticized. In any case, such behavior has become socially acceptable, as the injection of libidinal value into the world of objects is increasingly seen as an essential characteristic of our age.
The original love-object is, of course, the mother. Upon separation from the mother, one begins to seek out the ideal other to incorporate into one’s self—this is the immature object-love of the narcissistic self. As children develop, they learn to accept their failings and imperfections as well as those of others. They learn to perceive themselves as human and direct their love toward other imperfect humans, identifying with them. In love, the self is ceded; another self overwhelms it.
When this process of psychological maturation fails to occur or is not completed, when the conditions for identification are not met, when the adolescent stage is prolonged in perpetuity, a person may direct his or her love toward those things that have no failings or imperfections: ideal objects. The subject here is not concerned with reciprocity, so the object need not exhibit consciousness. Traditionally, Thomas Mann wrote, “He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer.” In objectum-love, this is not so; the subject stipulates the terms of interaction and controls the environment, extinguishing the possibility for such suffering. The object will never want to “just be friends.” Conversely, the subject is rarely ambivalent as to the object of his or her desire; most objectophiliacs describe their objects as spouses, and infidelity seems to be rare.
But what to make of objectum-love beyond this narrow observation? Is it the result of proliferating asexual tendencies? The hyper-liberalization of social mores? Or is it simply the logic, made suddenly visible, of a consumer culture so advanced that objects are no longer fetishized for their supernatural powers, but loved for their mundane qualities?
It remains uncertain. More research needs to be done, more patients analyzed. One thing is clear: We are witnessing a breakdown of the apartheid between people and things, which has consequences for both sides. I am reminded of the broomsticks in Fantasia, which quit the dust-covered floors, refusing to submit any longer to the oppressive regime of utility. Then as now, the objects have become the protagonists of our story; or, we now tell their story. Perhaps it is not the human who is in crisis, but the object. As Rainer Maria Rilke noted, “Relations of men and things have created confusion in the latter.”

The Rocket Man: M, Libya, 2003
Colonel Muammar al-Qadddafi announced his design for the Jamahiriya Rocket in 1999, to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of his rise to power. (Jamahiriya, Qaddafi’s own coinage, evokes “the nation or state of the masses.”) A few years later I found myself in Tripoli visiting an acquaintance who works at Al-Fateh University. It was not a work trip, but after my friend, a folklorist, told me the story of M, I became determined to investigate. Luckily, she knew where to find him, having employed his services as an auto mechanic in the past, and offered to come along and serve as translator.
M worked in a body shop in the suburbs east of the city and had fallen in love with the Jamahiriya Rocket. He was tentative when I first approached, but when I explained to him that I simply wanted to know more about his beloved and knew many others who loved similar objects, he became cross. “There is no object like this one,” he exclaimed. Then he took a deep breath, apologized, and invited us to sit with him for tea in the garage. “I heard on the radio it would be the safest car on earth,” he recounted, “that the leader himself had said we must have the air bags, the built-in electronic defense system, the collapsible bumper. Most of the cars here are junk,” he complained, surveying the rusted skeletons strewn about the shop’s yard. “The cars I normally work on, they are scraps of metal hung like a gypsy tent over an engine that burns you alive if your brakes fail, and they usually do.”
During the years after sanctions were imposed, Qaddafi said he had been “thinking of ways to preserve human life all over the world.” The “State of the Masses” car reflected his desire to make rockets for the safety and well-being of ordinary Libyans, while other countries continued making rockets to kill. But for whatever reason, the cars never went into full production. M had obtained his, a prototype, out of luck and conniving. “There is a government official who comes to me to fix his car,” he recalled. “One day he is waiting here with the car. It is the most beautiful and powerful thing I have ever seen—a thing that challenges you, a thing that makes you powerless.” According to the official, the Rocket looked like “a James Bond car.” M disagreed. “I told him the leader would not design a car to look like a British killer of our Soviet allies. To me the car looks a little like Nancy Ajram—but she is Lebanese, and this car is more Libyan, with that metallic green color, the front and back looking like a very nice Saturn V or a space shuttle.”
The official needed a full inspection of the vehicle, and M obliged. Once he had inspected it, though, he vowed never to part with it. “I just felt the contours, put my hand on the steering wheel, examined the chassis, looked under the hood—I knew I was in love. I know what a beautiful car looks like, and how it performs. But this wasn’t just beauty, it was perfection.”
When the official returned for the Rocket, M stalled. “I told him there was something wrong with the transmission and also the tinted windows, something like that, and that I had to wait for the parts,” M recalls. “We cursed the engineers together.” He came back again, and M said he was still waiting. “Then there was a miracle,” M says. The man disappeared. Another customer told M that the official had been taken away for saying bad things about the leader’s car. M expressed regret at the man’s misfortune, but then smiled and said that he and the Jamahiriya Rocket have been together ever since, and he is happier than he’s ever been. Once a year, on their anniversary, he takes the Rocket out for a ride along the Mediterranean coast. But mostly he keeps her under wraps in his garage, obsessively fine-tuning her components, safe from prying, covetous eyes.

Sexual Concrete: A, Israel and the Occupied Territories, 2007
Animism is the fundamental condition of objectum-sexuality. As A put it, when I met her near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, “I look at things as living beings, like you or me. And how are they different? I can communicate with them like with people. For me, this is normal. My partner is a wall.”
The border wall, or separation barrier, or racial segregation wall, or security fence—by whatever name, it has symbolized occupation and oppression and the flouting of international law to many people since its construction began in 2002. But not to A. “I am not interested in politics,” she asserts. “The wall is my spouse—it is as simple as that.” These days she mostly keeps an eye on her beloved with the aid of Google Maps, but she still visits once a week, leaving flowers and dates at the wall’s base, even reciting poetry to it. The soldiers stationed there look down on her and make disparaging remarks, but she seems not to mind. When I ask her why they find her love strange, however, she shudders indignantly. “Who says that man is the Crown of Creation?” she spits. “We share this planet with all sorts of other things. We all have the same worth, no matter what we are—beast, human, plant, or poured concrete.”
She is not quite sure why she loves the wall; in fact, she finds the question preposterous. “What attracts me physically is that the wall is rectangular, has parallel lines,” she explains. “But other walls have those, too. Why do I love this wall in particular? I cannot put it into words; there are no words. Why do you love your wife? Your child? What reason can you have? One can only tell stories.”
I mention to her that there exists in the literature a story of a man in Silesia who became enamored of the gallows near his home, not because of its grim purpose, but because of its singular geometric form. She nods. “He was not interested in executions, and I am not interested in divisions. The purpose of the object for both of us is beside the point. It is the essence we are after.”

The Bibliophile: K, London, 2005
A friend of mine, an English gentleman with excellent connections among dealers in antiquarian maps, prints, and books, sent word that a rare tome bound in human skin had recently been sold to a previously unknown collector. He had seen her after the auction caressing the book’s mottled cover and inhaling its perfume, and thought of me. He had done a little digging and was able to provide me with her name and address. The next time I came to London, I wrote ahead to K, circumspectly inquiring whether I might talk to her about the book.
As it happened, she was eager to be interviewed. She had always been a bibliophile, she said. Her father had been a minister and a student of theology, and in the family home books were given pride of place. But she had only become a bona fide objectophiliac recently—at the auction house where my friend had noticed her.
“It was the smell,” she said. Before the bidding began she examined the items for sale, and was stopped short by “the scent of that volume, the bouquet of ancient pages pressed together by human leather.” Telling me this, she looked slightly flush. She explained that new books have the smell of pulverized organic matter, paste, and infant ink, while old books, so long as they are carefully preserved, develop their own distinctive odors. “Being in that auction house, I felt like I was in a master vintner’s cellar or the library of a medieval monastery. I bid in a sort of blind frenzy, and nearly fainted from pleasure when I won it.” The final price was in the five figures.
The book is an early seventeenth-century edition of A True and Perfect Relation of the Whole Proceedings Against the Late Most Barbarous Traitors, Garnet a Jesuit and His Confederates. It chronicles the trial of Father Henry Garnet, who was tried and hanged for his alleged role in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, a Catholic conspiracy to kill the Protestant King James I by exploding the British Parliament building. It is bound with Garnet’s skin and is one of the finest remaining examples of anthropodermic bibliopegy. The creased skin on the book’s cover bears an uncanny resemblance to Garnet’s bearded face, frozen in an expression of open-mouthed grief.
I wondered whether Garnet’s story was part of the attraction, or whether his having been a Catholic priest posed any difficulties for a daughter of the Church of England. She laughed away the thought. “The man, Garnet, is simply the occasion for the book. It’s the object that I love.” She whispers that each night she takes it to bed, holds it in her arms, and inhales the antique aroma of its pages, strokes the astonishingly sensitive surface of its cover, donning a plastic glove “so that the oil from my hands does not taint his skin.”

The Pipeline Lover: X, Lagos, 2006
For this one, I have few words. During an NGO-funded trip to study the sexual relations of slum dwellers, I drove through a village on the outskirts of Lagos that is bisected by an oil pipeline. As we rode past, a man wearing a Dallas Cowboys jersey large enough to shelter a small family threw himself in front of our car, then scampered to my window, asking for a donation to “protect the pipeline.” This was not the first time I had been asked for a “donation” during my visit, but it was the first time the solicitor appeared to be asking without a trace of contempt. He seemed desperate but not dangerous, so, through my translator, I asked him to explain himself.
This was perhaps the most extraordinary accident in a lifetime of sexological encounters. The man was a poet—he had studied at Ibadan, but was down on his luck—and he was in love. “She stretches from Warri to Kaduna to Lagos, voiding herself upon reaching the tankers of the Seven Sisters,” he told me. “In Nigeria, Olorun owns the sky, the government owns the land, and the Seven Sisters own whatever lies beneath it.” But the pipeline, this stretch in particular, belonged to him.
I asked how long he had been protecting the pipeline, and from whom, or what. “I have loved her since I first laid eyes on her,” he responded matter-of-factly, “she the pneumatic tube in infancy, skin like virgin silver.” But she was vulnerable, he went on, “beholden to her course, sapping the oil fields in the interior and gurgling their black nectar all the way to the Niger Delta.”
“But you cannot protect her all by yourself,” I said.
“You see that she has not perished,” he replied with bluster. “Though she is now rusted, burned. Everywhere Nigerians are drilling into her, siphoning her oil, collecting it in pails, buckets, Dixie cups even. Oftentimes the pipeline erupts, and the fires have charred her skin and killed many waiting patiently to fill their empty buckets.”
I remind him that Soyinka explained these incidents as “reflections of the general social malaise.”
Smiling at me, he held out his hand. “And that, my friend, is what I am protecting her from.” I asked him for his name, an address, some way of contacting him again, but he demurred, still flashing his toothy grin. “This is where you will find me, never far from my love.”
A few months later the BBC reported that fuel from a vandalized pipeline had ignited in Lagos, killing two hundred slum-dwellers. I wondered about the poet, and whether he had been spared. I pictured him draped in his oil-stained Cowboys jersey, scrambling toward the pool of glossy sediment, dashing to defend his pipeline from the predations of the crowd.

new studio

2009-10-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

sweating pine -- figurine

2009-10-12T00:03:00.001-07:00

based on the sweating pine drawing
it is about 4 inches tall.
(sculpty, aluminum foil, acrylic paint)

Weekly Artist 10/5 -- Charles Krafft

2009-10-08T17:12:00.000-07:00

"The oldest promising young artist in the Pacific Northwest."

I mentioned this artist earlier in this blog and thought I should re-visit and elaborate with a weekly artist post.
You cant check out his website HERE (though its pretty terrible, you are better off just googling him)
or, if so inclined, you could add Mr Kafft on Myspace

For some reason the internet does not do his work justice. If you can get your hands on the book Villa Delirium I highly recommend it.

mexico treasures

2009-09-29T14:15:00.001-07:00

Today I went to my FAVORITE store here in mexico. (or maybe anywhere?) It is a little hole in the wall that is completely full, floor to ceiling, wall to wall, with JUNK. wonderful, dusty, old, useless junk. I love it.

Here is what I bought: