My proudest achievement

As opposed to the bacward roll.

La Nana

This is an excellent movie. It kind of knocked me out.



It's smart, funny, fascinating, moving, multi-layered, a brilliant character study.... I mean, part of my excitement over this, I'm sure, has to do with being shocked and relieved it's not the formulaic, simplistic piece of crap I kind of expect recently made movies to be these days. See it if you're interested, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Instant holiday de-stressor

Another pastel

Here's Adam, who was trying hard not to fall asleep while he sat for us. He'd been posing for different artists since 9:30 in the morning and had been up most of the night before with his 3-year-old, watching the first snow and playing with dinosaurs. So the intensity you see above is him saying to himself, "Must. Keep. Eyes. Open!"

Blue

I've been sitting in on a pastel class at the National Arts Club lately. Pastels? What? I know, that's what I said to myself, too, but there was an opening in a class and an invitation and in the midst of the strange trip the last six months of 2010 have been for me, saying yes was the path of least resistance. Yes to chalky, hard-to-control pastels! Why not! And the surprise is, they're fun. You get to make a big mess. The colors are all very intense and don't only offer up sherbet-y pinks, blues, and greens. It's also the closest thing to painting without using paint, and that's really weird...and fun.



This is Tania, the woman who sat for us on Tuesday night. Tania was awesome. She sat very still for three hours (with a few breaks, of course) and then disappeared downstairs, to the second floor, where there's always some kind of party going on (last week it was a big to-do for Jules Feiffer). She started playing incredibly intense music on the grand piano near the bar down there; it turned out, she's a kick-ass pianist. "Of course," she said, when some of my fellow students expressed surprise. That's what I thought, too, after I listened to her play for awhile: "Of course."

What's your name again?

NYC rite of passage

Staring out the window of a subway's last car and watching the station you just left disappear from sight.

Teamwork

When Henry's friends heard he was going to be an exclamation point this year for Halloween, they decided to be the letters B, O and O, so they could all spell out

Seeing double

Early this week I sat a couple times for the talented painter and all-around great guy Mark Milroy, who'd asked if I'd like to have my portrait painted. "WHY, YES!" I replied. But then I faced the conundrum of deciding what to wear. I finally chose my crazy, old Marimekko t-shirt, which I thought could easily stand up to posterity and would also be fun for Mark to paint.

I'll post a picture of the finished portrait when it's done.

The post that almost got away

I went to LA at the very end of the summer to visit Frank and almost forgot to post about it. O. M. G.

When you get to Frank and Patrick's radically cool house-on-stilts in Eagle Rock, it's hard to focus on just one of the many compelling things they have in this corner or on that shelf or up on that wall.



We were only there for a few days, and then Frank and I drove out to Susan's house in Palm Springs. We stopped at a supermarket on the way for supplies and came across this rather fine bottle of wine.



Don't overlook that Ralph's sticker or the "discontinued" label below it.



Frank couldn't wait to show off some of the many pool tricks he's taught himself, such as being able to stand on a noodle in deep water.



I can't remember exactly why Paul McCartney's stage preamble before performing this summer at Coachella annoyed him so much, but here he is saying "F*** you [Paul McCartney]!" about it.

I was also enamored of this crazy made-out-of-a-car-muffler bird that was behind the house. He stands there under the hot (HOT) sun every day.



You can see him through the house when you're out hanging out around the pool. See the red arrow?



We also spent a day out in Joshua Tree, visiting some of Frank's desert-loving friends. I used to think Joshua Tree was a single tree in a Sahara-like expanse of desert that people would drive long distances to see. I think I was getting it confused with Burning Man. Duh.



I'm standing next to one of the best swimming pools ever: a dark, cool, non-chlorinated pool of water in a huge recycled canister of some sort. THAT'S how you work it out in the desert.



When I got home, Olive was like, "Wow, tell me all about your tr-zzzzzzz."

Aw. It's sad summer is so long gone!

The Snake House is open

Phew, finally! I opened my Etsy shop today.

P had the great idea last weekend to photograph the snakes outside, so on Sunday afternoon we found ourselves in the Liz Christy garden on Houston street, peacefully conducting our business amongst the lovely greenery while cars screeched and honked hysterically just feet away on the other side of the gate.

Snakes love attention.

I included the mice in the indoor photo shoot, figuring that if I ever actually do get a buyer, they'll want to know what that rattling mouse-shaped thing in the tail looks like.

I didn't notice the one that toppled over.

I'm a lousy photographer. I can take amusing pictures sometimes, sure, but this experience made me realize how tricky it can be to photograph something. It's all about controlling the light! And understanding your camera! I'm not good at either!

If I'd really thought ahead I would have brought these faux serpents out to California when I visited Frank earlier this month. We spent a day out in Joshua Tree; I could have taken action shots of real snakes beating up on the stuffed ones or something.

Big old rat on 2nd street

Grr-meow

Embroidery by Erica Wilson. Photo: Todd Selby

Snake invasion

I made a couple snakes for the lovely Cat Stat last week and when I woke up the next morning I was shocked to see they'd multiplied. During the day they multiplied further, particularly during the U.S. Open tennis matches.



Some are corduroy and others are cotton velvet. Some have red vinyl tongues and others have pink felt ones. They all have embroidered eyes and none of them are the same. It's kind of freaky.



What recourse do I have but to try to sell them on Etsy? I must warn some of my dear readers, though: if they don't sell, you might find yourselves opening boxes this Christmas containing these mighty slitherers, and have to listen to me explaining how they function wonderfully as neck wear.

Two hands

I came across two compelling hand-related things at around the same time. 

The first was this image from Neilwaukee's blog:

I've never seriously thought about getting a tattoo, and I'm still not, but if I was shackled to a chair in a tattoo parlor and forced to make a decision about what to ink and where, I'd get the word "ART" on the tip of my pointer finger, like it is on the sign Neil made for one of his super cool outdoor art shows.

I just like the idea. But see, in a year's time, maybe sooner, I'd probably change my mind about the wisdom of this decision. Which is one of several reasons I don't have a tattoo.

The other item was this ambitious sight, a woman's entry in a nail painting contest from The Daily Nail. I'm not really sure what I was doing over at The Daily Nail, a blog kept by a woman in Las Vegas who changes the designs on her nails every day, but it's sometimes not useful to ask why.

Amazing, right? I bet those are good caricatures of her family, too!

The Cardboard Queen

My crazy talented sister Brook has long been illustrating her heart out, and this week launched her new website. I've been tapping my foot waiting for this moment like the annoying little sister I am. I'm so glad it's finally here. Homey is even blogging. Congratulations, Brook!

Back in the day, she went through a serious cardboard phase. I think it started after she found a huge bunch of it around the corner from her dorm at Parson's, on 17th Street and Union Square West. Correct me if I'm wrong about this, B.

Around then we had some make art/hang out sessions in her dorm. Here are a couple evidential photographs of one such evening.



The (other) foxy blond is the lovely Julia.



I think we probably drank more cheap beer (Budweisers, shocking), smoked cigarettes, and chatted with our artsy friends than made art, but whatever. It was fun.

A few years later, Brook and I were sharing a room back at home when she was hired to do figures for the window of the old Patricia Field store. You can tell how big the figures are by comparing them to the two mannequins in the far right corner.



Those suckers were big! She got them all back when the window was taken down, and I remember often waking up with the redheaded vixen in black in the middle giving me the eyeball.



She did cardboard pieces for magazines, too, like these of Clint and Whatserface. Whatserface's hair is truly a tour de force, especially when you see it in person.



I really dug the whole era, obviously. But much like hmm, say, Picasso's Blue Period, Brook's work with heavy wood-based paper was destined to end. And you know what? This post is making me feel really old. That cardboard era was a hella long time ago!

Check out Brook's more current work at brookmeinhardt.com.

Another snake

I made another snake toy this week. He went into a box last night and I sent him off this morning. Goodbye, snake number 2!

We had a teary-eyed photo shoot before he left.



He's for a little man named Van, the baby of a friend of Evany's. I hope he likes it. Moreso, I hope Van and Desi get together and have snake wars or snake coffee klatches together long into the future.

Although I suppose if this guy just ends up stopping a draft, that's not so bad.

Gasp

I've tried to keep P shielded from what goes on in my apartment when he's not around, but then he found this image on the web.


Photo found here.

Bookworms

I thought it was funny when I went to the library to pick up books this week, how revealing my current stack is. It's like, duh, I wonder what kinds of things this person is thinking about, and what time of year it is?