Sunday, February 21, 2010

The Paper Bride at McNally Jackson Books and Window display at Muriel Guepin Gallery

Esther Smith of Purgatory Pie Press, a collaborative book-making venture with her husband, Dikko Faust, invited me to be a guest artist at a promotional event for her new book, The Paper Bride, which shares step-by-step instructions for using paper left over from our daily lives to create invitations, decorations, and gifts for a wedding. Esther and Dikko teach at numerous New York City arts and crafts venues and universities. Their spirit of creating through collaboration is present in everything they do. 

Last Sunday, on Valentine's day evening at McNally Jackson Books, a lovely bookstore in Nolita, Esther led audience participants in a group project to make a paper garland out of recycled bridal magazine clippings. Later on, I shared my narrative embroidery. I had brought with me fabric, thread, needles, scissors, as well as a framed example of my work. I invited audience members to share with me stories of love and broken hearts. I asked participants to share with me the one sentiment they had wanted to tell a loved one but hadn't. Several young women approached me. As we talked, I shaped their stories into a sentence or two to embroider onto fabric. Working quickly, I made sure to hand each woman her finished piece before the end of the event. 

Thank you, Esther, for inviting me to participate in your event. And thanks to audience members for making it successful by trusting me with your stories.

To purchase The Paper Bride, click here.

Also on Valentine's Day, Muriel Guepin of Muriel Guepin Gallery kindly installed about a dozen of my post-it note pieces in the gallery window. The picture above shows part of the installation. Thanks, Muriel, for creating this display.


Friday, February 19, 2010

Brooklyn neighborhoods I have traversed, lived in, and loved

This is the second piece in my Brooklyn series:
"Brooklyn neighborhoods I've traversed, lived in, and loved."

It includes places where I run or ran in high school, places I've lived, places where I've shown my art, places with legendary appeal (Bed Stuy "do or die"), and places I've merely passed through. 



I truly love Brooklyn.

Saturday, February 13, 2010

hot commodity

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wishing everyone a great year in love!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Embroidered love notes for VDay at Muriel Guepin Gallery

It's that time of year again: mid-February otherwise known as February 14th or Valentine's Day. 

I believe in honoring the people you love every day. What better way to do so than with an embroidered love note?

I am very pleased to have 13 new post-its, or embroidered notes about contemporary love and dating available at 
Muriel Guepin Gallery
47 Bergen Street, between Smith and Court Streets, Brooklyn. F/G to Bergen Street. 
Open Wednesday-Saturday, 11am-7pm and Sunday 12 noon-5pm.

My pieces are available now through the 14th, and potentially thereafter.

For more info about Muriel Guepin Gallery, click here.


An empty house

"Our love was an empty 
house I tried to furnish.
I got
two of every-   but you
            thing,
never moved in."

Or, 

Our love was an empty house I tried to furnish. I got two of everything, but you never moved in.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Come to Brooklyn

In preparation for this year's Affordable Art Fair, from May 6th-9th at 7 West New York (on 34th Street near 5th Ave), Muriel of Muriel Guepin Gallery has asked me to created some Brooklyn-related pieces. It's fun having an "assignment," and being able to create work on a different theme using some of my tell-tale techniques.

This piece, "Come to Brooklyn," is an homage, one of several to come, for the place where I was born and have lived about 30 of my 34+ years. Yay Brooklyn!

The text says:
Iconic NYC structure seeks runners, walkers, skaters, dreamers, bikers to play on my celebrated footpaths - 1.1 miles of fun, the clack clack of wooden slats.

To prepare for this piece, I have run over the Brooklyn Bridge numerous times in the past month, trying to feel the spirit of the bridge. The female figure represents this spirit. 

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Art review by dating coach, Dr. Paulette Kouffman Sherman

A big thanks to Dr. Paulette Kouffman Sherman for a review of my "Were I So Besotted" artwork on the the New York Love Examiner: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2473-NY-Love-Examiner~y2010m2d2-The-Art-of-Dating-Expressing-dating-lessons-through-art.

Paulette is a dating coach and author of "Dating from the Inside Out: How to Use the Law of Attraction in Matters of he Heart."

After seeing my work in Muriel Guepin Gallery in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, Paulette contacted me on Facebook, and we spoke briefly by phone. She then crafted this lovely review.