May this year be full of finding ways to build your own world.

xoxoxooxoxoxooxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo!

Here’s what we’ve been thinking about and wrote to our subscribers:

We’re used to seeing View Masters in antique stores depicting scenes for children constructed from toys or showing majestic travel destinations like Paris’ Eiffel Tower or Notre Dame.  But David Horvitz, in the piece he created for you, re-purposes and reinvigorates this forgotten medium.  Like so much of his work, here the focus is on something simple, mundane, but the result is grand.  We’re transported to another place as observers; turning inward, we become participants in this quiet moment.  Like a conch shell that can return you to the sounds of the sea, “Hermosa Beach, CA” transports you not only to this beautiful place but to that serene state of mind that comes from watching it.  This is not an accident, as the resulting emotions are enhanced by the structure through which you experience it.  In his proposal he wrote, “Since the slide reel is circular, one can get “lost” in viewing it, having forgotten where they have begun since there is no set start or end.  This relates to ideas of romanticism that I am drawn to, of looking out into the distance (giving that view to others), of being immersed in a moment.”

As you may know, earlier this month we organized a Visual Arts Town hall focused on the current situation for artists where we live in Oakland.  It was an extension of our last piece “State of the Arts” and it brought together many of the artists who participated in those original discussions along with representatives from the broader art community (local non-profits, private gallery owners and city government officials). Part of the discussion centered around the idea of creating an awareness campaign to impress the value of the arts on elected officials and the public at large.  This caused many of the artists in attendance to recoil.  Not only do they already know the importance of art, they also understand that art’s power lies in its resistance to definition. The value of art is the experience of it.

This is not to say there aren’t real, tangible benefits to supporting the arts.  There are.  Arts industries account for 5.7 million jobs in this country and generate $166.2 billion in economic activity.  Children who enjoy arts education perform better in all subjects.  Neighborhoods that house artists frequently “turn,” becoming some of the most desirable places to live.  But at the end of the day that isn’t why we make or appreciate art.  It’s to be afforded the opportunity to get lost, to experience a moment, like we do in “Hermosa Beach, CA.”

Best,
Oliver and Eleanor

And now it is a new year!
Here are some of the things we’re looking forward to:

*Another year of making great projects happen!  TPG9 already in the works!
*We’re taking the car crash as a cue and testing out life without owning a car.
*We’re gonna work from home in a different place: 1 month in Utah
*We are going to let more people know about TPG. One way or another. We love this project- it needs to be able to sustain.
*Exercise and healthy living.
*Finish some projects and organize our life.
*Perhaps we will unveil our next level of TPG projects.  TBD.

It’s gonna be a good one.

I woke up to Christmas music this morning and it seems to have gotten me in the spirit.  I don’t think it will ever stop being funny to me to dress up and make little scenes for our avatar bobbleheads.

Have a wonderful, warm, and fun holiday season.  Thank you to all of you whom have stuck with us, read our blog, sent us encouraging notes, proposed interesting projects, and made everything in our life just a little bit better.  To another year!  May it be a whole lot better than most people are predicting!  If nothing else, let it be filled with art.

Warm wishes,

Eleanor and Oliver

We felt very proud to be able to share these works and honored at the turnout. It was also so heartwarming to know that the show was made possible by contributions from so many people. And so..

Thanks to:

Old Oakland PSAI Associates for the space, Illinois Arts Council for partial funding of Maggie’s project, Vino! and Ally and Justin Trigg for their generous donations of wine, Southern Exposure and the Alternative Exposure Grant for much needed funds, Tim and Lydia for the projector, Steve, Paul, Elissa, Christine, Ally, and Andy and Lauren for the loans of mp3 players and headphones, Lauren and Andy for day of tasks, Verse and 510 for welcoming us so kindly to the little strip, all of our subscribers, artists, critics, friends, and all those who made the trip.

We are so honored and grateful for your help, support, and enthusiasm.

First off, Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone’s was wonderful and looked as good as this. Scrumdillyumptious.

As most of you know, or are finding out any day now, #4 is out!! We are very happy to have ended an eventful year with Brian’s work. Here’s a peak at me doing a late night final edit of our letter to our lovely subscribers.

In our travels and travails around, we have come across a few things that I think are worth sharing.

Guerilla Sculpture spotted in Walnut Creek, CA- Sunday, November 18th

We just happened to come across this at the exact right moment, it’s peak. For a moment we didn’t understand or comprehend what was going on- it almost looked like snow, but it was advancing slowly towards us. For a moment while my brain was adjusting, I had a fleeting fear-unknowing, but then I was sooo happy. The bubbles were just billowing out and the wall of foam (at least a foot and a half tall) was slowly creeping across and covering the street. Pretty soon thereafter cars started whizzing through it, sending up huge blasts of “confetti” into the air, and trailing it all down the street.

This reminded me of an article I had been meaning to read for a while in Art Review Digital (Issue 16), entitled “What is Art for?” Here are a couple of quotes from it:

“[Artworks] help contruct my notions of what is possible, open new vistas of interest and have the potential to change who I am and what I think….What they do share is that there is a consequence to looking and thinking about them – a consequence that generates a possibility that was not there before, or was, at least, not available as a possibility to me…and has the potential to affect our social relations – how we choose to behave and what we choose to value.” -Charles Esche

“Art is the best tool we have when it comes to shattering our environment into an infinite number of imaginary tales, forms and space-times….What does seem clear is that art occupies a specific position in the city, and that this position is thus political: it incites its subjects to become active, to refuse the passive position the world of entertainment tries to foist on them. Entertainment places us in front of images to be looked at, while social formatting provides us with frameworks in which we must live. If artistic activity consists of putting these instruments and products back into play, then the observer’s task is, as in tennis, to knock the ball back into the other court.” – Niclolas Bourriaud

I found it interesting that both authors found the ulitmate purpose of art to be social, political. I’ve always liked art, and considered “good” art, anything that has had an affect, one way or another, on me. It is the challenge. A game. Bourriaud insinuates that it is the viewer that absorbs the new world and boundaries that the artist proposes by using that information to define and restrict that very world with new boundaries. Think of all the advertisements showing things floating in glass cubes floating in liquid years after Damien Hirst showed his first floating shark. So what is art for? It keeps the game going, keeps us moving forward.