Kingston, where Art is King

This past weekend, P. and I ventured upstate to Kingston to see one of my favorite artists in the whole wide world's latest show, which was a super cool father-son collaboration at the Kingston Museum of Contemporary Arts, aka KMOCA. Here's the postcard for it.



Neil VanderVloed and his son Jake are SILLY, FUN, MAD-TALENTED ARTISTS, PEOPLE!

Wayyyy back in the early 90s, when the internet was still just a rumor to the common people, some people still used telephones with actual cords attached to them, and urban taxi cabs were generally horse-and-buggy affairs, Neil had a show in the gallery above Flamingo East, in the East Village. This is where I first set eyes on his painting Big Guy Stepping Forward — the one that's been hanging ever so gloriously over my desk for the past 15-odd years.

It was the first real piece of art I'd ever bought, and the first time I'd ever experienced that weird, passionate art buyer feeling of "I want to LIVE with this!", "I must have it!" I even snuck back up to the darkened, empty gallery during restaurant hours a couple times while the show was still up to show it to people, I was (and am still) that nuts about it. And the plane — this plane:

— even made it into a birthday card I made for an ex-boyfriend, below. I have no idea what's really supposed to be going on in this illustration, but you can't mistake that VanderVloed-inspired flying machine. It's the same one!

It was super fun to see it on a shirt Neil made that his cousin and my former flame Neil Nash was wearing at the opening. See it, right under the collar, flying across Neil's back, this time encountering a sudden, one-cloud rainstorm?

Of course, the weekend wasn't only about Neil's brilliant work. I got to see old friends like Dawn VanderVloed and Adam Snyder and meet Dawn's preposterously cute son Dutch, and daughter and heartbreaker-in-the-making Joliet, and warm and wonderful husband Kent, and hang out with the whole awesome VanderVloed clan. And by awesome I don't just mean run-of-the-mill great. Growing up, I always had a kind of chip on my shoulder about being one of four siblings who were close, I was all like, damn, I have a cool family. Then I met the VanderVloeds and, I mean, they're even close with their cousins. They're close as siblings AND cousins. Damn! That's impressive. There was something so satisfying about seeing these guys with all their beautiful and beautifully named kids running around, in and out the art gallery, the backyard, the house....Viva la VanderVloed, is all I gots to say.

P. and I also swam in the pool at the Sky Top Motel, took a delicious nap, visited Fleisher's Grass Fed and Organic Meats and ogled the sausages, swam in the motel pool again, and went to Storm King, which I'd never been to. Not a bad way to wave farewell to the summer. Better than stumbling along a hotdog wrapper strewn beach with an empty liquor bottle crying and muttering to myself about the end of warm sunny days and swimming opportunities, which is what I'd imagined I'd be doing.