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I was warming my bum at our heater and I found myself staring at our bookshelf’s row of artist books.  Nestled in between was one of the first books I’ve ever made: The Painter. I think I was in 4th or 5th grade.

Here’s the story, spelling intact:

Once apon a time there was a little village inside a forest.  Inside the village everyone was always sad and dreary.

One day a painter came into the village to paint.  When he started to paint the people, he realized that they always had frowns on their faces.

The painter wanted to know why, so he would pick a dfferent spot each day, sit there, and watch the people.

Pretty soon he saw that there were no families, romances or friends.  The painter wanted to end this, so he got to work.

He painted beautiful pictures about love and some about friendship.

Then the next week he picked a day and gave away all the paintings on one condition.  The condition was that all the villagers had to give their paintings to someone else on the day after next.

He ran out of paintings that day, but that night he made some paintings.  Before the day that every one had to give their paintings, the painter made sure everyone in the village had a painting.

On the day that everyone gave their paintings to someone else, everyone was happy.  From then on they did this every year, except only with cards, and this was the begining of Valentine’s Day.

The End.

J. Carter Brown talking about his mentor Bernard Berenson:

According to Brown, the elder art historian “found, at the end of his life, that his great experiences came in his daily walk, which he did at the end of the day up behind I Tatti, where, he said, the fruits of a lifetime of looking at art objects allowed him to look at nature in a newly meaningful way.”

found in “Reciprocal Generosity” by Mary Jane Jacob in
What we want is free, generosity and exchange in recent art
edited by Ted Purves

TPG #11 artist Helena Keeffe has teamed up with Amber Cady to start Alula Editions, a new art subscription whose focus is to work with artists to create repeat patterns for textiles. They collaborate with individual artists and also organize participatory group drawing activities in order to create textiles that defy expectations and move beyond purely aesthetic considerations.

They have an Open Call for Submissions with a deadline of April 28th, and artists receive a $500 stipend.

Starting off with a bang, Alula Editions was a recipient of this year’s Southern Exposure Alternative Exposure Grant, will be collaborating with artists in Portland, Oregon to create the official tote bag for the Open Engagement Conference at Portland State University, and will be printing their first edition as part of a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts.

They haven’t figured out their pricing structure yet, so subscriptions are not yet on sale.  But you can get on a mailing list so you will be the first to know when they are.  The first work is projected to go out this summer.

Welcome Alula!

Sometimes it seems trite to say that you just have to keep working, even if what you’re making isn’t so great.   But part of the creative process, and those that ultimately “succeed” in creative fields are those who have the faith and perseverance to make it through the time when the only thing that seems to make sense is to give up.

Ira Glass gives us the faith and courage to keep going.

Last night we went to a screening and discussion of the film “Examined Life” as part of our Pickpocket Alamanack class.  The film is a philosophy discussion with thinkers across the country in an engaging and easy on the eyes format.

In the followup discussion, Astra Taylor, the director/filmaker, talked a bit about how much fear people had towards the idea of a movie about philosophy, how even her well educated friends would recoil at the idea, considering themselves much too uneducated to even approach or engage the subject matter.

I feel like I have been saying the same thing for years about art.  Where does this fear come from?  Why is our society so fearful of expressing their thoughts about a subject?  And why does so often this fear prevent us from experiencing or engaging at all?

The YBCA has started a free series to address it. Looks fun.

Yesterday Oliver and I spoke at CCA for a little bit about The Present Group.  The class is a really neat investigation of different systems of exchange co-taught by TPG#5 critic Scott Oliver and Rachel Robinette.

One of the underlying questions was whether our project, as commendable as it may be, is sustainable.  Can the desire to learn about art be a powerful enough tool in marketing?  Can people wrap their heads around collecting artwork for the sake of learning about it rather than it be an investment, or a chosen work to keep in your home?

We’re still not sure.  We are still a small project, and we haven’t had as much success financially as some of our competitors.  But we believe that the system already exists for people to support artists whose work they know and like and collect their artwork in particular.   We know that we are asking a lot of people when we ask them to think that what they are supporting is the creation of art in general, not just the result that they receive.

The funny thing to me is that it doesn’t seem foreign.    Museum memberships and Season Pass holders to theatres work under this same assumption, and for a similar price point.    The main difference is that they aren’t filling up their home with anything.   Perhaps what we need to focus on is a way for people to support us without having to keep the pieces once they’ve learned about them.

Just some musings…

sometimes things are just determined to grow.

“Why go on? I believe in art and artist as perhaps society’s last free agents.  Artists and children augur change, and no one listens to children.”

from “Personal Economy #11” by Anonymous
included in “Art Work: A National Conversation about Art, Labor, and Economics“

NOMA GALLERY is proud to present its first solo show by TPG #3 artist Christine Kesler. “in a world where you are possible” features an installation where the artist intersects and collides paintings, drawings and sculptures as well as a new video piece.  TONIGHT there is a closing reception (though the show has been extended a week so you can still see it!) and it should be a good time.

An evening of Sounds and Words:

Drawing on the influence of poetry in Christine’s work the gallery put together an evening of readings and music. Kevin Killian will read from his new book ‘Impossible Princess’ (City Lights), Christine Choi will be reading portions from her work ‘Swollen Animals Dream: Fifteen Love Letters’ accompanied by projections and a hacked “lyre”, Christine Kesler will be reading some recent poetry and there will be a music performance by James Devane.

TPG #5 artist Davin Youngs shows a new collection of photos in Chicago in February.  Davin’s photos are wonderfully romantic, tactile, and beautiful. Should be a good show.

Photographs signify participation. They are visual representations of the ways in which space and relationships are navigated and/or participated in. WE is artist Davin Young’s expression of desire for thorough, deep and unique participation in the world and with those around him. This participation can span from isolation to intimacy.

Created without special lenses or digital editing, these images were achieved by somewhat simple (or complicated?) participation. Davin was close enough to capture and removed enough to observe. They are meant to share unique moments, but also serve as an invitation for you to participate, too. The hope is that together WE can collectively observe, enjoy and create.

DETAILS:
February 5 – February 27 2010
Opening Reception: February 5  7-11pm

Fill in the Blank Gallery
5038 N. Lincoln Ave.
Chicago, IL 60625
773.878.1750
info@fillintheblankgallery.com

I feel like the 2000′s were one big identity crisis.  No one even knew what to call these years.  Sure, we all settled into two thousand and .. but I think we’re going feel much better now that we’ve got 90 years of twenty-whatevers. It was all a bit of a roller coaster ride.  Bubble upon bubble were destined to pop, the towers fell, we felt waves of fear and unity and division, our country engaged in two wars, and even our (over)confidence in the planet was shaken.  Yet now somehow it seems like things are slowing down. I don’t doubt we’ll climb our way out of our current economy, but I think it’s going to be slow and steady.  We’ve just been biding our time, waiting for this sense of settling down.

My newphew on Christmas morning, patiently waiting for his one last present (a bike!) to be brought out.  I love the patience and pleasurable anticipation on his face.  That’s what the 2000′s sort of felt like to me.

Maybe it’s just personal. Oliver and I turn a decade older just before the turn of each decade.  We spent the 2000′s in our 20′s: finishing school, lots of different jobs, figuring out what we want to do with ourselves.  Turning thirty this year felt big.  But now we’ve at least got a sense of what we’re going to pursue.  We’re trying to become real adults and buy a house.  Last year nothing worked out on that front.  This year the first house we’ve put an offer on – it’s address is 2010! Good omen?  Maybe.  I’ll tell you in three days.

The Present Group in the 2000′s was young.  Though our idea was novel, we struggled to be noticed.  Now we’ve got three years of works behind us, we’ve met and worked with lots of really amazing people.  And we’re very happy to report that this past year, for the first time, we broke even.  We’ve had a steady rate of growth, though our subscriber numbers don’t fully show it.  We’ve also gotten better at running the business: creating projects we can afford without sacrificing integrity, creativity, or ingenuity.  So, our big goal for this year is to continue on the same trend that we’ve been on.  Because if we do, this year we’ll be in the black enough to give one of us a very small paycheck.  That means that this project might just work out in the end.  That’s what we’ve been waiting for.

I was listening to the Phases of the Moon interview and heard about your project about the value of art.  Although I don’t know anything about the nature of the project I didn’t want that to stop me from offering a few lines:

One of my favorite novels tells of a man who stopped believing in the world and disappeared.  Art is that vanishing.  A new space testifying to the unseen, and an invitation.

Back when we did the E|AB fair in New York, our next door table neighbors were Purgatory Pie Press. After the show was over, we traded a set of State of the Arts posters for a subscription to their postcards. They work with different artists and poets and letterpress an edition of postcards each month. We just received another in the mail yesterday, and it is one of my favorites. Here are the highlights:

Nice =New by Dikko Faust (one of the owners of PPP)

PORNTOUM by Marc Nasdor: the lastest installment.  Click on the image to see the whole card.

While working on this post, I started thinking about how postcards are a great little medium, especially for poets or artists who sortof work like poets.  Here are two examples of artists who send out postcards as part of their practice. You can sign up for free postcards on either site.

Andrew Venell sends out postcards irregularly.

Buck Downs has been sending out poems on postcards since 1993.