TLDR: just the highlights
Art, travels & news
Hello Friends!
You may notice that I changed the name of this newsletter to The Painted Stone. Same great art news, but a more literary title, like the cool kids. I have a lot to catch you up with, so please read on, and Subscribe!
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It’s been a busy Spring for me. I spent March, April and May in New Jersey helping my mother move into assisted living. This also involved “deaccessioning” her house. My mother is a vast and deep collector of books. Not collectible books, rare books, signed books or vintage books, just books. Lots. of. Books. Some were keepers, like an entire collection of George Herriman Krazy Kat books, ditto some Saul Steinbergs, and Chuck Jones’- she is an avid Coyote and Roadrunner fan.
On the “Go” list were a 20 volume art encyclopedia set, the full Time Life Science Library set (I loved those books) a 1943 dictionary heavy enough to anchor a Macy’s parade balloon, and numerous books about Vietnam era 1960s politics. I will probably regret re-homing the Time set.
Her house is an easy 5 minute walk to Donaldson Park and the Raritan River. A nesting bald eagle circled the water every evening in search of fish. I’ve never seen a bald eagle in NJ before, and we don’t have them in LA. I spent many enthralled dusk hours watching it (her?) go about the daily business of eagling.
Ok, unimpressive photo, I know, it was shot with my iphone 11 about 100 feet away. One makes do with the tools available.
My mother’s home town recently lost its only supermarket, so I went farther afield and found the Woodbridge Wegmans. I had heard of this store, but I live in LA. We have Gelson’s, Bristol Farms, Whole Foods… How could a supermarket possibly impress me? Haters, you can mock New Jersey all you want…”it’s all turnpikes! What exit are you?” but, if you don’t have a Wegmans, I’m sorry, you have a sad and pitiable existence. However, yes, we do all talk like The Real Housewives of NJ.
When back in my ancestral lands I make time to check in with the sacred touchstones, one of which is Asbury Park. This shore town beckons me with its siren song of saltwater taffy, Tillie tee shirts, eclectic vintage shops and colorful drag brunches. While there I dropped into The Antique Emporium where I found a Coney Island “Clam Bar” oil painting by NJ artist, John Reilly. I loved it the second I saw it, and now it’s mine.
Artists are often asked, “How do you know if you should buy a painting?” or “How do you know if a painting is any good?”
Well, everyone has their own opinion of what is good. I know some would question buying a painting of a Coney Island fast food joint by a relatively unknown artist. But when something speaks to you, if it makes you happy to look at it, then you know you should buy it. Simple as that. (Eat the brownie, buy the art!)
While there, I stopped at the very curious Paranormal Museum of Books and Curiosities. In the back of this shadowy shop is a curtained room housing an illuminated soothsayer. Pay your dollar to see him come to life, nodding, waving and speaking. When he’s done, a card pops out with a written fortune, something about “always look where you travel lest you arrive where you least want to be.”
Fortunes: Lol, pfft.
When I lived in NJ, I didn’t have a car, so I only visited locations I could get to by bus or train. I wore a groove between Manhattan, Princeton and Philadelphia. Now when I visit, happily bewheeled, I can explore the lesser traveled paths of New Jersey. There are a lot of beautiful towns in this state.
[Fun fact: New Jersey has the most horses per capita of any other state, with 96,000 acres dedicated to the equine industry, most of which is centered on posh sports.]
I recently watched (again) the film, Paterson by Jim Jarmush. I love this movie. Adam Driver plays a poet, working as a bus driver, with a frenetic but endearing artist girlfriend. It is such a quiet and understated movie, yet with so much story just under the surface. It made me want to visit the real Paterson and see the Passaic River Falls, shown often in the film.
The city of Paterson hasn’t been discovered yet by trendy galleries and gentrifying wheat grass eateries. It’s a bit rough (based on my very brief survey) and not nearly as charming as it seems in the movie. But the falls are spectacular. Not knowing where I was going, I followed the river through town and arrived at Mary Ellen Kaye Park, a location with scenic views but almost no parking. I stopped next to a rocky berm lined with building debris from an adjacent construction site. When I returned to my car, failing to look very carefully at what was behind me, I backed straight into a giant chunk of discarded concrete. Screeching metal, costly dent in the car.
Fortunes. Lol. pfft. Zoltar laughs.
Now back in LA, I have been preparing several artworks for inclusion in another soothsayer type event, “Divination,” an exhibit curated by artist Heather Lowe, at Keystone Art Space. This show will feature the works of 15 LA artists using esoteric visual imagery that incorporates ideas from tarot, tasseography, augury, geomancy, scrying, clairalience, chance, chiromancy, palmistry, cleromancy, ifá, pendulum dowsing, and astrology, with special guests. It will be enlightening at the very least, I hope you can make it. (Scroll down for details.)
Deep See…./….Night Vision
Divination, opening reception: July 20, 2024, 5pm- 9pm
Keystone Art Space, 338 S. Avenue 16 Los Angeles, CA 90031.
If you’re on Facebook you can read more about the show here.
Ample street parking, safe neighborhood.
👉 I also just completed a very exciting commission for LA Metro 👀 🚃 but I have been sworn to secrecy ⚔️ until it is officially unveiled. Hopefully I can tell you all about it next time….
Reading:
The Fox Wife author Yangsze Choo. Everything I love in a book: murder mystery, history, mythology, and spirit beings.
The Tainted Cup author Robert Jackson Bennett. World building fantasy fiction, two detectives search for a killer who uses strange and forbidden plants to execute their victims. An engrossing fantasy-detective yarn. I liked this book so much I went on to read another of his books, American Elsewhere, a possible love-child of Lovecraft, King and Gaiman. Not as good as The Tainted Cup, but good for a summer read.
Listening:
Podcasts a lot. This American Life, Ologies, Pivot, Art and Cocktails…and deep diving into the playlists of Nigerian/Tuareg rock/blues musician, Mdou Moctar. What podcasts/music are you listening to? I’m always on the hunt for new titles and artists.
Watching:
The BikeRiders did I love it? I think I did. I will have to see it again because I forgot to bring my regular glasses to the theater and watched the whole thing through grey lensed sunglasses which drained the warm, nostalgic Kodachrome palette to a sliver of the spectrum. Seeing this film in its full intended color is worth going back for.
Welp, once again it’s time to run! 👉 Do! Come to Keystone on the 20th! It will be fun, and I’d love to see you!