Waiting for us

"A great love is waiting for us."

I spent most of Thanksgiving weekend working on this piece. The fabric is a lace handkerchief, a gift from my friend, Lynn, an artist who makes paper pulp sculptures, and ink drawings. 

I plan to stretch this fabric onto a backing, or possibly attach it to something stiffer to help shape it. 

Maybe there is something to the irregularity, though?

BECA Benefit Art Auction

My friends, Melissa and Kurt, spearheaded an important new art space in New Orleans several years ago, BECA, or Bridge for Emerging Contemporary Art.

Right now, Kurt and Melissa are expanding their programming to offer even more opportunities for exposure to young artists. They are also facing a challenge: they need to raise funds to save their original gallery space in New Orleans.

I am participating, along with a number of other artists, in BECA's Benefit Art Auction. The piece at top is what I have donated. 

If you have the time and would like to check out some interesting work, and even make a bid, please visit BECA and the art auction online.

Mapping My Run, Hoyt Street and Atlantic

I noticed yesterday that the map I attached to the bulletin board on the corner of Hoyt Street and Atlantic Avenue has remained. Yay!

I have decided to continue to post my maps, one on top of one another, so that I will create a public diary of my runs. 

I will probably collect the maps within a few months, and bind them into a book, which I may try to exhibit. 

If you live in the neighborhood, keep an eye out for this bulletin board!

You Make Everything Sweeter...

There's just something about stitching on bananas that seems to interest me right now...

This one says, 

"You make everything sweeter."

Yesterday's banana stitchery is now being sold as a greeting card on my Etsy shop. Check it out here!

OMG You are Sooo Sweet

"OMG you are so sweet"

Please send this image to someone you love. 

The banana's skin was perfectly soft and resilient, easy to stitch on, yet sticky and somewhat wet. Yes, it was gross to hold onto this sticky banana peel, but I thought this was a funny idea.

Our Fire

I miss how it feels to get chills when you walk into the room...I miss how I used to burn for you.

Hoyt Street and Atlantic Avenue

This map is on a bulletin board on the corner of Hoyt Street and Atlantic Avenue. 

Before posting it, I got into a conversation with a neighbor, who was prying old staples off the bulletin boards.

I described my project to him, and as a former runner, he seemed sympathetic. He also told me that an artist is planning to plant corn on a patch of land in the neighborhood. The corn is a native strain. That should be interesting to keep an eye out for.

Left Behind on My Run, installment 2, Bergen-Court Sts

I decided to approach my "Left Behind on My Run" project from a slightly different angle. I am now selecting and searching for publicly-accessible bulletin boards along my running route. 

The picture at left is a map I placed at the intersection of Bergen and Court Streets. I wonder how long it will live in this space, and if it will generate interest?

Love Stains

Last night was my gallery talk at Shop Art Gallery. We had a great turnout, and an engaging audience. Many thanks to friends, neighbors, fellow artists, and new faces who came out in the rain, and stood and listened to me share about why and how I make my work.

I had the opportunity to share some new pieces, including the one at left, "Love Carpet." It reads:

"It can be hard to remove the stain of an old love. No matter how many miles I run, or men I meet, your memory stays, carpeting my apartment."

Artist Talk Thursday night at Shop Art

For those of you in the New York area, I am giving a gallery talk this Thursday night at Shop Art Gallery in Brooklyn. My work is on exhibit there in a 4-person show, "Visual Vernacular," through November 29th. The gallerist, Muriel Guepin, kindly invited me to talk about the process and inspiration behind my work.

My brief talk will be followed by Q and A, so get your questions ready! I like a challenge.

Thursday, 11/19, 7-8pm at Shop Art.

51 Bergen Street, F/G train to Bergen Street station.

Refreshments will be served.

Mapping my runs

Since initiating "Left Behind on My Run," I have realized how much I enjoy hand-stitching a map. I get to re-experience the run, and to share it with others.

After installing the first round, I was happy to see that my pieces lived on for nearly a week.

They were taken down, probably not by pedestrians, but by the Department of Sanitation. I called 311 to try to find out if I could obtain a permit to post art publicly without the risk of a fine or having it taken down.

Neither the person I spoke with at the hotline, nor the internet research I did led me to the precise information I want.

The Department of Transportation has three programs to which non-profits can apply with an artist to do a specific project. This is not quite what I'm looking for.

What I really want is to be able to post my maps and emotional quips on the streets of the neighborhoods I traverse regularly. These streets and my runs are as much a part of my emotional landscape as the dates I've been on. When I run, all of these parts of my life seem to collide.

In the meantime, I plan to keep making maps, which I will assemble into a book. I have discovered that I really enjoy stitching on plastic. I like the semi-transparent quality, and the versatility and surprising strength of the material.

The first installment of Left Behind on My Run, Monday, 11/9/2009

At left: Boerum Place and Pacific Street, the start of my run. A bleak corner across from New York Sports Club Cobble Hill. Lots of construction on the block.

At right: Atlantic Ave and Boerum Place, turning the corner and ramping uphill.

The run continues...what I left behind, part II

Corner of Atlantic Avenue and Court...Lots of pedestrian traffic.

"In my mind, we're heading

towards marriage. He doesn't

know it yet, but he will."

Left Behind on My Run, heading down Court Street

"You tie me into knots,

and I'm not ready

to be tied down."

Intersection of Court Street and West 9th. Lots of bicycles road past as I posted this.

From Court and 9th to 3rd Avenue

Corner of 9th Street and 3rd Avenue. I posted this right next to a bus stop, hoping passengers waiting for the bus would be amused by it.

"When you're around, I want to crawl

inside you and never leave."

Left behind on my run: Third Avenue and Third Street

Third Street is a great block to run on. It's quite hilly, and also traverses the Gowanus Canal. I particularly like this part of Brooklyn.

"With each step,

I feel

our connection renew."

This is a map of another one of my running routes.

Left Behind on My Run - Smith Street and Third Street

This is where I left my final sign this evening. I had intended to leave more, but somehow lost my packing tape!! 

"I still hope he'll change."

If people do read these, and I very much hope they do, maybe these pieces will inspire more affection among couples, and a great leap forward towards secret crushes...

When You're Around

I don't actually have a cat, but some close friends of mine do, and he's sick. He's so proud that he continues to have a sleek, shiny, black coat, even though he is getting skinnier. 

I keep wondering if we can love the cat enough to talk it out of its illness?

I once fell for someone with several chronic injuries. Every time he talked about them I wished I could take away his pain. 

Just like I wish we could talk the cat into being healthy. And I wish I could have coaxed my grandmother out of her illness before she died.

"Food tastes better, trains run on time, even my cat's coat looks shinier when you're around."

Left behind on my run

As many of you know, I am an avid runner. While running, I think about all kinds of things. Sometimes I count the number of blocks left on my route, sometimes I make a mental list of everything I need to do at work that day, and, quite often, I have a realization about how I feel about someone in my life at that moment. 

The map at left is one of my running routes through Boerum Hill-Carroll Gardens-Gowanus-Park Slope. I tend to pick hillier paths so I can increase resistance. I seem to like slogging through the difficult parts to get to my running high.

Is the same true of my relationships?

My plan is to install some of my "post-its" along my running route. These will be stitched on pieces of plastic bags. I feel as though I have accumulated a lot of dating experiences, and it's time to let go of a lot of ideas and memories. Similarly, I seem to accumulate plastic shopping bags. I can reuse them if I want, but ultimately, they are disposable. In today's dating culture, I feel as if relationships are disposable. We are "shopping for perfection," and can always replace a current love interest with someone "better."

The piece at left says, "What I left behind on my run: thoughts of you and my relationships, current and swollen with memory."

Towards Bliss

Can desire for another person light us up from inside and give us a sense of purpose?

Does the desire need to be mutual to be so potent?

I realized on one of several train rides this weekend that many of my relationships have been a monologue. I think I held on to my sense of what could develop, rather than what was necessarily present. And in one relationship in particular, I felt an underlying anxiety that my boyfriend would disappear. Ultimately, he did leave in a way that felt like complete abandonment.

At this specific moment, I have no desire to date. I am bored by the dynamics of dating, and I am tired of being on uncertain ground. I am tired of waiting for something to develop.

I have always hoped I could become very good friends with a man and have the relationship transition to being romantic within a period of a few months of getting to know each other.

Readers, I will share this with you when it happens, I promise.