Brooklyn GO-ing!

My Brooklyn GO experience begins with a walk through Prospect Park, where

my favorite panther gazes longingly into the western sunset.

The sun lingers over the park on this warm late August day.

I'm on my way to the Brooklyn Museum to pick up my materials for 

their "Brooklyn GO" open-studio project.

I have 20 minutes before the GO gathering begins so I check out the BMA's

 "Connecting Cultures:  A World in Brooklyn"

where I pursue my burgeoning fascination with Hindu deities.

This is Varaha, the Boar Avatar of Vishnu, who holds the world on his shoulder in the shape of a goddess.

Varaha "plunged to the bottom of the primordial ocean to retrieve the drowning earth."  

(BMA wall plaque.)

Soon we may need Varaha to act again:

This is a seated Shakyamuni Buddha.

While he is elegant with his subtle "mudra" hand gestures,

 I am currently favoring the multi-armed action heroes over the navel-starers. 

Speaking of action-heroes, here is Elvis as translated by a Chewa mask-artist of the Nyau Society,

from Central or Southern Malawi, circa 1977.

Elvis may not have plunged to the bottom of the ocean (not quite, anyway),

but he did shake shake shake the world with his crazy hips.

Perhaps he had a goddess on his shoulder, too.

The GO get together is outside the museum in the waning sun,

a beautiful setting,

but, alas, there are no refreshments!

 I wander back through the sun-dappled park,

westward towards home where sustenance awaits.

The morning of Brooklyn GO dawns dark and dreary with driving rain and tornado warnings.  

The F and G trains aren't running and my shuttle bus encounters flooded streets

(see picture above)

and actually has to back up at one point during the snail's pace ride to the studio. 

There are two tornado touchdowns, one in Queens and one in Brooklyn.

They used to be rare in the city, but are more common now -

 new patterns of weather forming in our new climate.

(Photo by David Fein, posted on the NYTimes website.) 

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/09/09/nyregion/20120909_STORM.html

Nevertheless, none of the above can stop Brooklyn from GO-ing!

Our studio is number 73, out of 1800 total artist sign-ups for this event.

We live about a half-hour from the studio, bus or train.

On normal days.  Today it takes an hour.

Here's the same map showing the level of inundation when the sea rises, say 7 meters.

The dark area is under water.  http://geology.com/sea-level-rise/new-york.shtml 

("Time and Tide" by Frank Lind)

This is a theme Frank has explored in his "Sea Level" series - the ocean

moving up into the city, in this case beginning at Ft. Tilden, the abandoned WW2 Army Barracks

off of Rockaway Point, not far from where the tornado hit today.

("Army House" by Frank Lind)

Frank, who is very exacting in his mathematics, uses a 5 meter sea rise for his paintings.

But I digress.  Back to GO!  When I finally arrive at the studio, I find Sierra waiting for me.  

She and Leslie are from LaGuardia Community College, 

and they choose three favorite works of mine to write about for their class!

Jackson, Keith, Jennifer and Cara, my current and former Pratt students,

drop in to commune with the Painted People.

They also go on the "Voyage of the Panther"

exploring the tunnel created between two translucent scrims, 

and two projectors.

This piece was inspired by the Prospect Park panthers, whom I always picture rising off of their pedestals and heading west.  I was also inspired by the tale of a panther who left the Dakotas in 2011 and trekked eastward until getting killed on a Pennsylvania highway. 

In my piece, he travels through city, suburb, country and finally wilderness -

it's set up to be a continuing loop, showing an ever-changing journey.

See more at my website:

http://jeannewilkinson.com/voyage-of-the-panther

New friends Marc and Killa take the Panther trip also, and Marc's arm burns with digital fire.

Below, they ponder Frank's work,

noting the red underpainting still showing in his unfinished piece on the right.

Later,

Christopher Stackhouse has an intense conversation with Frank about painting 

and the myriad of deeper issues involved - historical, aesthetic, mathematical.

This is how the painting above, "Ft. Tilden," began, as a warm-colored underpainting.

Frank uses a twelve color palette (with no greens), based on the techniques of James Perry Wilson, famed diorama painter (see Yale's Peabody and the NY Museum of Natural History).  

The next day, Sunday, wonderful painter Manuel Hughes is our first visitor.

 Here he waves from the Panther tunnel 

to his wife in Paris.

Jack Sal chills with the People before his next trip to Rome.

He has work worldwide, including his profound sculptural installation "White Wash II," 

a Memorial for the Victims of the 1946 Pogrom in Keilce, Poland.

Travel writer par excellence Clint Brownfield impresses Chelsea Stewart and Gerald Siciliano

with tales of exotic hotels, far off pristine beaches and nearby Junior Restaurant's 

pastrami sandwiches. 

And cheesecake.

Good friends Sims, Mada and Bob commune on Frank's side.

A new friend contemplates the voyages of the People, 

and they extend an invitation to her to visit again with her Pop-Up Circus.

Rick Klauber and Ryn Maartens steal a kiss at the door, in front of the 

 Macy's poetry-covered parking ramp.

(It's okay, they're married.)

Rick currently has a show of new shim paintings up at Howard Scott Gallery in Chelsea

529 W. 20th Street.  http://www.howardscottgallery.com/

(I wrote the "Rick" part of the press release.)

Here's Thomas, one of my Pratt students contemplating the show last Thursday 

during our first field trip of the semester.

Rick and Kye Carbone talk shop, above...

...Sally Novak and Maria Cornejo get down with the Painted People, below.

Patricia Einstein transits from Frank's world into mine.

During the event, I also show one of my works in progress which incorporates abstract imagery by Caitlin Martin with footage from my Duluth Aquarium trip.

For some reason the camera gets less focused as the evening wears on...

...but I shake it out of its stupor, and catch a great pic of Mary McBride, Suzanna Simor and 

Mary's husband Richard Green.

Mada Blanton and daughter Lara take the last Voyage of the day...

...thus, my Brooklyn GO experience begins and end with the Panther.

And with the evening view of Macy's parking ramp 

as we wait for the bus...

...which never comes, so we hail a random gypsy cab

which gets us home in no time flat,

whereupon we basically collapse.

It was a full weekend!

We had a great time and talked with lots of cool people:  old friends and new.

Thanks to all of you who came, and

thanks to the Brooklyn Museum and all the GO staff who have worked

incredibly hard to get this complicated project off the ground!

August Again

I fly into Madison, a day late.  

Storms that never happen cause Delta to cancel my first flight.

Only the first of my travel woes this trip!

Now I know I'm in Wisconsin.  The t-shirt says:  

"The whole blaze orange thing kills me - they must think we're color blind."

Spoken by a deer.

  

Research reveals mucho-macho internet debate about state laws requiring blaze orange outfits

so hunters don't mistake a man for a deer.  

Much outrage that the gov't cares about hunters shooting each other.

Some gun-toters think that wearing full "camo" is best because then then your good buddies 

can't see you to kill you if you shoot the stag they've been stalking.

(Also, turns out deer are color blind in the sense that they see greens and blues but not reds.)

Safely in Madison, I see a self-propelled trolley chug up State Street, traveling from bar to bar.

Much jollity while people pedal furiously while knocking a few back.

I'm here to visit my family.  Aaron and Andrew are very happy to see me!

I found the sunglasses Andrew is wearing in the waves of the Atlantic ocean, 

Armani Express, only mildly scuffed - 

a gift from the sea to replace the ones he lost recently in Wakefield Pond.

(Andrew will later reject them as not worthy.)

The Campbells come over from Milwaukee for a day in Tenney Park,

to continue the Campbell-Yonda playground rivalry.  

Who will rule the playground, Aaron or Kellen?

Andrew!  

Arya takes on a merry band of Tenney Park wedding guests.

Kellen, Jennifer and Arya.  Cute to the third power.

Next I travel to Winding Road Farm near Boyceville, WI, where Paul and Judy Helgeson have planted

a prairie on the high field.  The entire expanse vibrates with the hum of bees.

Wow.

Paul and Judy recently went to Cuba - you can read about their trip at

http://www.farmertofarmer.org/files/june12.pdf

The garden above, the old Case tractor and even older road grader below.

Judy and I do some antiquing in Menomonie.  Above, Jesus suffers on velvet, and

below, two exotic ladies look askance at a third.

My favorite find:  a vintage 1972 bag from when George McGovern and Sargent Shriver

ran against Nixon/Agnew.  What a disaster that was! 

Although, arguably, the Nixon/Agnew ticket was a lesser evil than Romney/Ryan - Nixon, when he wasn't being a paranoid psycho, ended the draft, ended segregated classes in the south, and began a large environmental program which included implementing the Environmental Protection Agency,

the same EPA that Wisconsonite (sad to say) Paul Ryan would like to destroy.

This bag was probably used by a door-to-door campaign volunteer - note the authentic ink stains.

Old friends gather at Paul and Judy's Menomonie house, and Helen Quinn

brings old slides from 1977 when our women's discussion group put on a play,

starring Helen as John Revolta in our version of Saturday Night Fever.

I played a male character - a cross between Annie Hall and Charlie Chaplin.

Here we are dancing to "More Than a Woman," John Revolta in the background.

In my second travel nightmare, I wait almost two hours for a Jefferson Lines bus

that finally comes, but instead of stopping, 

the bus deftly skirts the designated pick-up spot on the UW-Stout campus.

Note the map below where we watch in horror as the bus speeds out of Menomonie!  

My co-waiter says a variant of this has happened to her before - 

only that time it drove right by her as she ran after it screaming and waving her hands.

 The Jefferson Line rep later says that the errant busman is "one of their seasoned drivers." 

Anyone need twenty Jefferson Bus Bucks, their generous gift to me for all my trouble? 

I take an airport shuttle van to the Mpls. airport instead, 

and my sister Sherry and I take off for Duluth, our favorite city!

The beach at Park Point on Lake Superior.

The view from our hotel deck.

Duluth is a bit of a mecca for tourists.

These young women are lacrosse players from Hopkins, Minnesota, the sporting enemies of

my old high school, Minnetonka.  Is it a team rule that their hair be long, straight and oh-so-touchable?

Here's a couple of the locals...

...and some local wisdom.

Actually, I disagree.  I think the way is the sky.

We eat at our favorite restaurant, the Lake Cafe.

And go to the aquarium where we see some fish...

...and turtles...

...and displays.  The three blue buckets signify earth's fresh water compared to salt water.

A model of the great lakes show how they descend eastward to the sea across the continent.

Niagara Falls!

And finally, the lowly Atlantic.

The wave machine rocks!  With levers we manipulate the underwater shoreline, making the waves change shape and cresting angle.  Fun!

When we leave the aquarium, the sky has gone through a major metamorphosis.

We run back to our hotel, just in time to miss the driving rain.

We see huge lightning strikes off in the distance.

At it turns out, one of them killed a young boy and injured seven others

off of Minnesota Point, where they were trying to flee in their sailboat.

This may have been the strike that did the damage, traveling over 2 miles across the sky.

(Source: Daniel Thralow via You Tube)

Shortly after the big lightning strikes, we see two Coast Guard boats speed out of the bay.

About an hour later, the Coast Guard boat escorts two sailboats into the harbor.

Big storms can come up in a flash over the lake, as this day proves.

It can change from this...

...to this in a New York minute.

The next day is calm and sunny...

...and Sherry meditates on the beauty of Duluth...

...as we explore Lester River.

We leave reluctantly on the most beautiful day of the year...

...and go to New Richmond to visit my mom and brother Dan.

Dan and Angie are getting married in two weeks!

Here they are "reflecting" on their future.  

New Richmond antiquing reveals a true find:  DDT!

The bottle is still about a quarter full - time to stock up!

Dan brings me into Minneapolis where I reunite with Sherry, and

Dan climbs, his favorite activity.   

The climbing structures remind of Richard Serra sculptures.

(Serra at MoMA, 2007)

Dan usually tries to climb the real thing.

(Dan ice-climbing, 2007)

Another huge electric storm, this one over Lake Minnetonka...

...close to Sherry's house.
Lightning flashes reveals two beings of light at the end of the dock.

We shop at the local grocery store that features a Warholian display...

...and on the way home Sherry rescues a turtle from sure death.

Later she leads Kellen and Arya into the wild woods.

Sherry and Brett host a spider lair on the wall of their deck...

...and we host a party on the spider-deck:  my mom, Shirley, is the champion bubble blower.

Or is Lily, daughter of my cousin Carla, the champion?

Later, the deck party continues.

Derek and Alicia relax while the kids sleep...

Aaron observes from a higher plateau...

Morning brings us to Shannon and Michael's for brunch.

Michael has cooked up a storm, including biscuits and gravy!

Ali is on her way to the Minnesota Renaissance Fair where she will be a 

dazzling Renaissance wench.

The Orange Guy makes an appearance.

He keeps making the family rounds, popping up in unexpected places

because of devious, underhanded machinations.

We place him quietly in Shirley's suitcase.

Kellen and Arya bravely play with the dog.

Fun family pics!

Kellen is disturbed to see the end of the fun.

My last travel nightmare is the flight home where we cool our heels on the tarmac

for two hours, waiting for the weather in New York to let us take off from Minneapolis.

All I have to eat is a bag of the worst granola ever, stale and nasty, but gluten-free.

Finally we leave Minneapolis...

...and circle New York for a while, fending off the cloud-fists.

Finally home again, back to my favorite corner where there are no storm delays.

Usually.