Bushwick Night with Montauk Chaser

Halfway through our Montauk trip I am compelled to come back

to the city for the Bushwick Open Studios.  My videos are showing

at the Paper Box, courtesy of the fabulous organization

Art For Progress, led by Frank Jackson and Allyson Jacobs.
http://www.artforprogress.org/

The band "Redheadphone" plays June 1 at the Paper Box, kind of jazzy, edgy, folky, funky.

The BOS sponsors put out a humongous publication

with maps for six separate "zones" where art will be happening.

My event is in Zone 01, the best zone of all.

The Paper Box is number 18, situated at 17 Meadow Street.

I am accompanied by my artist friend Susan Luss, seen above on the left in front of my projection

of "Animated Abstraction 1:  The Movie" with our new friend, 

a medical student here to catch up with the "scene."  

On the street we see a very responsible Bushwicker cleaning up after his dog.

The Bushwick streets are not only amazingly clean but also full of art.

It seems like another city altogether, a strange fantasy world outside of time.

Artists have been colonizing the former warehouses of the area for a while now - 

it's maybe NYC's final frontier for artists, until developers follow on their heels

and price them out.  But maybe since there's a glut of empty condos and rentals in Brooklyn

already, it'll take a while.

We drop by AMO Studios

where we see hanging hair sculptures.

I didn't get the name of the artist who did these, and their website doesn't help me find it.

The website does say this, however:

"Through use of their own material vernacular, the artists in this exhibition aim to capture the range of mutability of the contemporary world, informed by physical surroundings, their fragments and remnants, their journey into a new kind of world, and back again."

Translation:  the artists make stuff where and when they feel like making it.

We also visit the studio of Craig Foisy who takes Super 8 films and

manipulates them in various ways.  This image originates from one second's worth of film.

He also makes cute earrings from the Super 8 film.

http://looper8.com/

photo from looper8 website

Back at the Paper Box, the first band, El Pueblo, is on

with their reggae/soul sound.  I'm not a fan of reggae, but this

particular fusion really rocks.

Their mist machine makes me envious - I want one, too! 

Rain threatens in the outside garden area, so a plastic ceiling is raised

over my "Animated Abstraction 2:  The Movie."

Rain wouldn't be good, but spirals of mist would be awesome.

Speaking of mist, when I get back to Montauk on Saturday, the waves are huge...

...the beach is shrouded,

and where is Frank?  Did he travel through the mist to Avalon?

Here he is, appearing out of the fog...

...messing with his beach cigar.

Last semester my Pratt seminar class and I went to see the work of artist Doug Wheeler

showing at David Zwirner in Chelsea. 

 Using a particular kind of light, Wheeler creates

an misty-looking arena that appears to go on forever.

During our class discussion, I wondered if nature couldn't do it better -

I think we decided it was apples and oranges, sort of.

A good 'compare/contrast' problem, anyway:  

beach-in-mist vs. Wheeler's "Infinity Environment."

The next day is sunny and warm, the waves still big, probably the remnants of a tropical

storm that has recently hit the southern US coastline.

Frank and I visit Montauk Point again...

...where he'd made a painting on Thursday.

Frank's paintings from this trip were supported by a 

Faculty Development Grant from Pratt Institute.

On the high side of the point we notice that the hoodoos

(the eroded outcroppings of the shoreline)
had been walking, too, just like the Dunes.
Or maybe stumbling and falling would be more accurate.

The following is a photo Frank took one year ago, May,

of Andrew, Jennifer and I in 1890's garb for his Sorolla painting project.

Here is a photo taken this summer, June.

Here are the two overlapped:

Massive chunks of dirt and rocks have fallen off the hoodoos in the past year.

The area above is between the two arrows which mark

the remnants of an old tarmac road. 

You can still see a fragment of it hanging precariously on the far side.

Up in the grass we discover a faerie ring of mushrooms,

so I make a big wish.

Speaking of round things, we get about an hour of the full moon before clouds take over.

So much for planning the vacation around the waxing moon.

The next day, our last, is gray and cold, and I didn't bring the right clothes!

We spend an hour shopping for another sweatshirt for me, but everything has

"Montauk" and other fun stuff written all over it.  I'm not big on message-bearing clothes, 

and I refuse to pay $40 for something I'll only wear once!

So there! I say with chattering teeth.

But I do get a cool visor out of it.

Frank is happy to walk the beach - rain, snow, sleet or hail...

...but the cold gray weather makes it easier to leave Montauk...

...and head back into the cold gray city Tuesday morning.

Until next time!

Montauk Redux

Another June, another trip to Montauk

where we amble down this path...

 to see this...

...so Frank can do this.

In our room at the Beach Plum, we find these:

...five pleated displays altogether in our room.  My point:  Some individual,

obviously one of the maids, is really into this particular craft.

Frank's counterpoint:  It's just management wanting those extra touches - all the maids do it.

Maybe, I say, but this person is definitely taking it over the top.

Would management mandate the intricate twelve-pleat kleenex design?

I don't think so!

Frank and I argue on. 

(Later in the blog I win the debate - watch for it.)

The locals are allowed to drive on the beach at dusk, a point of contention 

for many - the old townie vs. tourist thing.  It's led in the past to invading convoys of SUVs

vs. deep holes dug in the sand to bury them up to their axles.

But now it seems calmer, just a few SUVs a night, driven by dogs.

And now, let the Zen beach pics begin!

Wow!

The metaphorical implications are infinite.

Frank ambles off as I make profound abstract art in the sand.

Up the beach, people have formed a shelter/sculpture/shrine

from driftwood...

...and scallop shells.

The next day we go to a place called "The Walking Dunes"

meaning that the dunes themselves travel each year.

An innocent-looking path leads into them, but Frank and I get five feet in and turn around,

fleeing for our lives.  The path is narrow and on each side

are thousands of ticks waiting to devour our flesh and give us Lyme Disease,

and also vast stands of poison ivy flank the path.

A kind man, a teacher from the local middle school, directs us to another

entrance down the beach, note the green area between the darker foliage below.

(Frank made a painting of this scene the next day.)

We pass by fabulous sea weeds, but sadly note the un-sealike addition of

dog poo on the lower right. 

Obviously dogs drive on this beach, too.

These are the walking dunes. 

At first I thought they were called that because we're allowed to walk on them, unlike most

protected dunes near the beaches.

But it's not about us, it's about them, about the dunes

strutting their stuff, as it were.

Step by step, inch by inch they are burying an entire forest of trees.

Remember that nasty tick-ridden path?  On our way out of the Walking Dunes, we see

another teacher, this one with a nasty smug smile,
leading a group of middle-schoolers down that very poison-ivied path, 

telling them to watch for interactions between living things (like ticks and flesh?)

and warning them to stay in the middle, students!
Like it will be their fault when they come down with Lyme disease because they didn't
stay in the middle.

OMG!

internet photo

Which won't help anyway because the tick-laden grasses reach well into the path, 

and not only that, what happens when one of the students falls (or gets pushed)

 into the poison ivy?  (Not that any twelve-year-old would do such a thing, of course.)

This is a recipe for disaster, one that

the nice teacher wasn't able to prevent - 

he watches the group disappear with obvious dismay.

Middle school politics and one-upmanship at work here, it appears.

Wait until the rashes begin and the parents begin to call - 

the lesson in interactions between life forms will be well learned then!

And yes, the metaphorical Pied Piper implications resonate

with the recent win by Scott Walker in his recall election in Wisconsin where, funded by some of the most filthy rich men on the planet, he has run for dictator, oh, sorry, governor, and 

succeeded by a small margin.  

He will now feel empowered to lead everyone directly into disaster.

(Fortunately the Dems took one of the senate seats away from the Republicans, 

now giving them a majority in the Wisconsin senate.)

Back in our room, Frank is finally convinced of the

rightness of my views on obsessive pleating as our paper towels 

take the art to a new level.

Even the gulls are bemused.

Or just wanting food.

Later we visit Montauk Point where Frank scopes out a

place to paint.

while I look for the perfect egg-rock to continue with my dozen-egg-rock project.

This one is excellent.

Frank finds these, but I'm not doing speckled eggs, so they stay at the beach.

The heart rock comes with me, however.  I ask it if it wants to leave the beach, which

I hiave read is proper rock-picking etiquette, and it says yes.

The second day comes to a close with faint moonlight on the big waters.

We have come during the waxing moon, so have high hopes for some great moon shots.