Exquisite Corpse AFSA Fundraiser

Patricia Prachett of the ASFA and PBL in Bettie Ward's studio with the framed corpses


PBL in Gallery 118


Justin Parr of Flight Gallery


Justin with flowers


We invited 37 artists to draw with us at our home in small groups during a 4-month time span, hosting shifts of draw-ers during day-long "banquets" in their honor. Its true that the outcome was an exhibition-fundraiser for the Artist Foundation of San Antonio, but the real meat of the project is in the energy of the artists kicking back over waffles, sandwiches, and whatnot, then expanding into a liminal zone of creative energy together.

Over the course of the project, which, by the way, is an activity that Jason and I have been doing with artist friends for about a decade now, we learned that San Antonio has seen another exquisite corpse project that featured drawing activity as solo practice, in which each artist worked on their part of the drawing alone, on their own time.

For me the beauty of the game is in its communal and social nature. Engaging as a group creates a dynamic unparalleled by solitary drawing. Inexplicable connections turn up among the parts of the drawings. For those not familiar with the game, it goes like this: everyone draws a head on a piece of paper then folds the paper so that the head can not be seen-- only some small cues that indicate where to attach the mid-section of the body. The papers are redistributed and everyone then draws mid-sections, and so-on. Nobody looks at what anyone else has drawn until all of the drawings are finished.

Inevitably, the whole becomes much greater than the sum of the parts. When time permits, we play round after round. The coincidences tend to become more prevalent. Similarities may be in shape, color, mark-making technique, subject, etc. I don't have a scientific explanation for this, but quantum physics might be the right field to look to for elucidation.


death and time



color



theme (words in the mid-section spell "Middle Earth")



color/shapes in upper right and lower left, history/time motif



spirals


Big big thanks to all of the participating artists:

Oscar Alvarado
Ricky Armendariz
Kimberly Aubuchon
Nate Cassie
Judith Cottrell
Margaret Craig
Meredith Dean
Joan Fabian
Rick Frederick
Christopher French
Beto Gonzales
Mark Hogensen
Mimi Kato
Jimmy Kuehnle
Rhonda Kuhlman
Claire Little
Ken Little
Mark Little
Connie Lowe
Karen Mahaffey
Rick Martinez
John Mason
Jon Mata
Franco Mondini-Ruiz
Michele Monseau
Janette Morales
Dennis Olsen
Justin Parr
Chuck Ramirez
Leslie Raymond
David Rubin
Chris Sauter
S. T. Shimi
Ethel Shipton
Jason Jay Stevens
Michelle Valdez
Anne Wallace
Bettie Ward
George Zupp

We truly enjoyed the honor of your company!

Jason won the bowling trophy!

Rick Fredrick, official announcer

The Sala Bowl/Sala Diaz fundraiser was a very fun evening at Hermann and Sons. The place was fully activated with artists and art-lovers having a great time bowling. Wish I had shot some pictures of the bowling pins up for silent auction--
some notables:
Chris Sauter built a mini-satellite dish out of plastic pieces carved from the surface of the pin, then re-attached it on the side of the pin. Precious and clever.
Jesse Amado's pin wore a few layers of beaded fringe-- very sexy.
And Riley Robinson embedded a video i-pod inside his pin, displaying an image of a bowling ball rolling down the lane. There were two pages of bids on his piece by the end of the night-- Video art is selling in San Antonio.

All bowling-pin artists were given half the proceeds of the sale, with the rest going to Sala Diaz. (YAY)


Check out the award-winning style that stole the Sala Bowl bowling prize!

In The Garden - opening

A huge thank you to Leigh Anne Lester & Jane Lawrence for giving me the opportunity to show this new work in San Antonino!
And to Jason Jay Stevens for his expert and professional assistance in installing the show!

The show runs through November 21 and will be open for viewing at these times:
Friday 9 November, 2-5pm
Saturday 17 November, 2-5pm
You may also see it by appointment by calling Cactus Bra 210-226-6688

The Fly of Ken Little

photo: the fly of Ken Little and the worn knee of Hills Snyder



The work of Yoko Ono has been in the spotlight around here lately with her recent exhibition at the UTSA Art Gallery, and some satellite events have unfolded since the show opened on September 26. Imagine Peace (in Espanol) billboards have appeared around town; curator Kevin Concannon lectured on the collaborative work of Yoko and John, identifying the deep roots of Yoko's conceptual work with Fluxus; I screened the FluxFilm Program compiled by George Macunias himself for the Filmmakeers Co-op in NYC; and last Friday night Ken Little performed Yoko Ono's Cut Piece.

The Aula Canaria lecture hall at the UTSA downtown campus was awash with the anticipation of a group of students, artists, professors, and a couple kids. Eventually, UTSA's gallery director and art history professor Scott Sherer introduced the piece and Ken, with the instructions for us to come up one at a time to cut off a piece of Ken's clothing. "The piece is over when Ken says it is." Ken came out in a pin-striped wool suit and sat down on a tiny chair in front of us.

We hesitated, but soon got into full swing. Fairly early on in the cutting was a tribute to Nam June Paik, who cut the necktie of John Cage just below the knot the first time the two met. The fifth cutter, notably the first female cutter, was the first to expose some flesh. UTSA professor of art Meredith Dean cut out the piece of shirt behind where Ken's tie had been. Cut after cut, Ken remained stoic and unperturbed-- it turned out to be a rather solemn event.

On my first cut I made sure to take a fairly decent-sized piece, with intentions to embroider a diagram on it (check it out in my show at Cactus Bra, opening tomorrow night). At one point, Hills Snyder cut off the leg of his own pants and placed it onto Ken's naked thigh. Being next in the cutting line, I naturally cut a piece of Hills' denim. The cuts continued. Ken's clothing disappeared little by little. Eventually, one man retreated from his cutting stance before making the cut, saying he just couldn't. Ken's clothes continued to shrink as people snipped smaller and smaller pieces away.

Who knew how long this could go on? I jumped up and cut off what was left of Ken's suit, leaving him sitting in his briefs. The next cutter paid homage to Yayoi Kusama by dotting Ken's shoulders and head with circles cut from the suit. Then Ken said thank you and it was over.

When I first heard that Ken was going to do the piece, I wondered how the gender dynamic would play out. During the performance, it actually didn't seem relevant. People responded to the human being with reverence for his vulnerability. The next day, however, we were doing exquisite corpse drawings with Ken, Justin Parr, and Bettie Ward (upcoming AFSA fundraiser). When asked about how the piece ended, Ken said "They pussied out." In other words, nobody had the balls to cut off his underwear. I was kinda' surprised by his attitude, but not really, and just couldn't imagine Yoko saying such a thing.

I will take this moment to get on my soapbox to say: PUSSY IS POWERFUL. Let me know if I need to expound on this.

Thank you x 10,000 to Ken Little for performing the Cut Piece, and to Scott Sherer for bringing the energy of Yoko Ono to San Antonio! And remember, as Yoko says, you are either in the business of war or in the business of peace. It's that simple.


11/6/07 - I would like to extend my apology to Ken Little for misquoting him, as he is fairly certain that he used the term 'wussed out' instead of the P-word. Sorry Ken!

Sandy Loam Rides Again

Artpace invited me to participate in their annual "Chalk It Up" street fair event. Time for me to reveal some of my secret identity in a community where everyone knows me as the New Media Gal. How I enjoyed the attention of passers-by! Regular ol' people able to relate to a regular ol' drawing... well, it's not stricly representational, but it sure ain't abstract. It didn't just catch peoples' eye, but made them wonder what was up with this crazy eye here in the midst of this 'normal' face!? Whenever that funny question "What is the meaning?" came up, I'd just turn it back on the asker... and it turns out that its not really that complicated to uncover a metaphor upon which to extrapolate.

Well, I'm just happy to draw. To be inside of drawing with no advanced technological equipment standing between me and the process, no explanations to a perplexed audience necessary... that is a beautiful freedom.

A few years ago... well, actually over a dacade ago, there was the Speedboat art gallery on Selby Avenue in St. Paul, MN. Paul Dickensen who ran the joint claimed that it was a cover for the the basement rock club... or maybe vice-versa. Its been so long now that I forget the real story. But needless to say, Paul D was a very down-to-earth kind of guy, the opposite of the type of folks you run into over in the Chelsea scene, for example.

He had a regular "Cheap Art Sale" and one time I put up a bunch of "Sandy Loam's" drawings for $10 apiece-- they were all in these cheap gold-colored frames, but framed nonetheless. A regular ol' guy from the Selby neighborhood came on in and ended up walking out of there with one of my/Sandy's drawings! That was the greatest! I think I earned a lot of respect from Paul that day.

Hotel Pupik

noising with the residents

biking on the mountain

animation stand and animating

the drama of snails, bees, and cows


made a new series of loops that premiered on my last night at Hotel Pupik,
accompaniment to Heimo Wallner on trumpet, Llewyn Máire on sampler, and Lisa Newman chiming in occasionally with spoken word

Passau Gigs

1. Josh Amrhein directs McSweeney's Readers Theater with students at the University of Passau
Images and sounds accompany short stories adapted for reader's theater in this production that is the brainchild of Josh Amrhein. I contributed a series of images for 'The Ceiling,' by Kevin Brockmeier.



Josh Amrhein at the door of the Ambulante Gallery

2. Freestate Freestyle: Texas meets Bavaria
an A/V performance improvisation by me and Albert Dambeck






Ambulante Gallery and Joshua Amrhein present an audio-visual evening with the electronic sounds of Albert Dambeck and video images of Leslie Raymond.

Imagine a DJ with a video mixer instead of two turntables. With two crates full of moving pictures instead of records.

What you get: moving tapestries.
And every musician Leslie Raymond works with adds a new soundrack.
And every performance is the first and last of its kind.

Albert Dambeck is a composer and musician. His main theme is music in Just Intonation. That is the creation of sounds and tones according to the overtone series. His instruments are contrabass, guitars, voice and electronics.

Leslie Raymond is an artist from San Antonio, Texas working in live cinema and video installation forms. She is one-half of the A-V group Potter-Belmar Labs, whose video work screened during Kunstnacht in Passau in 2005.


Ambulante Galerie
Große Messergasse 2/Residenzplatz, D - 94032 Passau
Tel.: 0851/85 164 165, Mobil: 0160/843 1662
ambulante gallery
4-in-1

Documenta FILMS

There is an excellent film program-- I saw work by Kubelka, Connor, an early Breer, Debord (I've been wanting to see for years now!) and a Burroughs-Gysin-Balch cut-up that had the audience super-charged. In another screening, I was able to take in the classic "The Sun Shines Bright" by John Ford--WOW.

DOCUMENTA

Documenta was really swell. The BBB hostel where I stayed made the experience really special. A hard-working young woman named Wina has creatd this just for Documenta this one time. She is using her father's house to host 20 people a night-- everyone there for the exhibition. 20 E per night includes a solid breakfast to get you off on the right foot each day.


my picks:

the beautifully shot and editied video from the Simon Wachsmuth installation "Where We Were Then, Where We Are Now," documenting what appears to be a trainnig session for the whirling dervishes

the placement of the Paul Klee painting "Angelus Novus" on the first landing of the main stairs into the main exhibition

Tanaka Atsuko's Electric Dress

the photograph of Dobromierz sitting in the toilet from the series "Activities with Dobromierz" by KwieKulik, Thseng Yu-Chin's "Who's Listening" video, and the dialogue created by situating these works across from each other

Guy Tilliam's "Congo Democratic" series

the Lu Hao scroll of Chang'An Street, which brough to mind Ruscha's "Every Building on the Sunset Strip"

Yang Fudong at the Venice BIENNALE

My favorite work by far came from China: "Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest" by Yang Fudong (Shanghai). Interspersed throughout the show curated by Robert Storr in the Arsenale exhibition hall were 5 small screening rooms, each showing one of five parts of the film. The series of black-and-white films were originally shot on 35mm film, but projected from DVD.

"Seven Intellectuals in Bamboo Forest" comes from a traditional theme in Chinese art about a group of seven Taoist sages taking respite in the forest as they pursue anti-Confucian ideals such as individualism and personal liberty. Yang substitutes the word 'intellectuals' for the traditional terms 'sages' and 'worthies,' perhaps a comment on the evolution of the idea of wisdom in China in the 20th century.

Each part of the film is situated in a different location, and each of these five visually rich backdrops has a complex relationship with the mental and emotional climate of the characters-- both impacting as well as reflecting their inner states. And, like Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle, Yang uses these settings to wordlessly transport the viewer into various aesthetically charged netherworlds. Unlike Barney, however, the work goes beyond an expression of the artist's ego, depicting a representation of the history of intellectualism in China in the 20th century.

Because of the way these films were presented at the exhibition, the viewer could enter and exit at any point. Although there were beginning and end titles, the structure of the films worked well with this presentation format. Time seemed endless, unchanging, and uniform throughout the film, imbued with a sense of waiting and drifting in a manner not unlike the films of Andrei Tarkovsky.



other picks from the Biennale:
Joshua Mosley's (NY) video "Dread" and the rapid-prototypes sculptures that inhabit the video as 3D-animated characters.

El Anatsui's (Ghana) magnificant and gigantic tapestries crafted from the foil on wine bottles.

Also noteworthy: David Altmejd in the Canadian Pavilion (installation) and Emily Prince (SF) in the Arsenale

The Loop FAIR

The quality of the work in the fair was excellent, with overall production values very high, and the work generally strong even if I didn't particularly like it myself. The fair took place in the Hotel Catalonia Ramblas over a three-day period, and featured over 40 international galleries, each representing one (or two) video artist(s). It was a great atmosphere in which to see the work, with projection screens and projectors, flat-panel monitors and dvd players in the hotel rooms. The batallion of presenters and organizers became chummier, and more relaxed over the course of the fair. I won't name any names, but on the last "morning" (noon) that the rooms opend up as exhibition spaces, there was one that needed a real airing out-- an overwhelming hormonal scent of sex lingered there, causing me to cut short my viewing time.

My picks for Loop FAIR:

Janet Biggs (USA) "Airs Above the Ground" and Stephanie Lempert "Read My Lips" - represented by Claire Oliver Gallery (NYC)

Javier Téllez (Venezuela) "Oedipus Marshall" - represented by Figge Von Rosen Galerie (Cologne)

McCallum & Tarry (USA) "Exchange" - represented by Caren Golden Fine Art (NYC)



Now that video art has been accepted as a valid medium in the privledged world of the art market and museum, issues of ownership are being sorted out. One newer convention is that of the edition. Like printmakers, many videomakers are now creating editions of their works for sale. This raises the issue of the copy in the digital age. Copying a digital file is a very different enterprise than being able to make an infinite number of exact copies of a lithograph or an oil painting. MOMA curator Barbara London spoke of the sale of a video artwork as embodying the sale of a bundle of rights-- the right to own, exhibit, copy, archive, etc., each contract specific to that particular artist &/or video.

Also of longstanding interest to me is the history of moving-image art, with its rich tradition of screening-room and theater-based exhibtions. The type of social dynamic that grows out of this context makes it more than a simple back-drop for the viewing of art-film and art-video. There is also a political premise that runs through the history of (especially) video art, in that it has been used as a means to take control of the dominant storytelling medium in order to tell the stories not told by the establishment (whether they be network news or Hollywood). How these issues do or do not jive with the current developments of video in the art world is telling.

The Loop FESTIVAL

Loop Barcelona was divided into two sections: the festival and the fair.

The FESTIVAL was a massive, sprawling, chaotic organism.

Time and time again, I set out with high hopes, but low expectations. Oftentimes the venue was closed, other times it was open but had no video art, and when the advertised time and place came together in an actual event, the presentation was mediocre to poor. I kept dreaming about Peter Kubelka's Invisible Cinema.



Nevertheless, there were jewels to be had:

1. Monserrat Soto "Lugar de Silencios"(Barcelona) at Centre D'Art Santa Mónica:
The exterior setting of several rooms of an old concrete structure going to ruin is rear-projected onto an array of 7 or 8 large screens. This is a place being reclaimed by the foliage, a place receeding from the physical upkeep, and thus consciousness, of mankind. The poet Dionisio Cañas is heard and/or seen wandering from room to room, screen to screen, depicted in a process of ruminating and composing outloud, to himself.
This ground-floor installation by Barcelona artist Monserrat Soto blew away the other work on view at the art center-- other work brought in from the states and the UK. This is an interesting phenomenon I have noticed back at San Antonio's Art Pace, where cycles of three residents create new work for exhibition. One is always regional (from Texas), one national (from the States), and one international. Whenever the regional artist is from San Antonio, you can be sure that they are going to labor 10 times harder than anyone else, creating work that will give the work of the visitors a run for its money.

2. A Breif History of the Video Data Bank (Chicago) at the MACBA auditorium:
Brigid Reagan, VDB distribution manager, presented an overview of the history of the Video Data Bank with a focus on the main themes and genres in the collection. The VDB is a resource close to my heart. I took great advantage of my privledge to browse and screen work at the VDB when I was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, home to the collection. This program positively affirmed the foundations of my education in experimental moving image practice.

Early Interviews with Underrepresented Female Artists visiting SAIC (Lee Krasner interview)
Early Video and the Womens' Movement (Martha Rossler - Semiotics of the Kitchen)
Video as Activism (Videofreex)
Filmmakers Who Made the Move to Video (John Smith - Girl Chewing Gum)
Mastering the Technology (Paul Garrin - Free Society)
the 1990's (Miranda July - The Amaturist)
Diary Video (George Kuchar - Weather Diary)
Scratch/Found-Footage (Animal Charm - Stuffing)
Tributes and Remakes of Earlier Video (Anne McGuire - After Wegman)
Remix of Classic Films (Nicholas Provost - Papillion d'Amour)
New Work from Europe & the Middle East (Hester Scheurwater - Mama)

Visit the VDB website to see samples of all of these videos, and more!

3. STRIP Film Festival (Paris) presentation
Though riddled with severe technical difficulties, the presentation by Marc Audí and Marianne of STRIP Film Festival featured some work that I was really happy to see: "Money" by Henry Hills (NYC), and "Descent" and "Mi Casa, Su Casa" by Pierre Reimer.

4. Jeremy Shaw "Best Minds" (Vancouver) at Galeria Dels Ángels
On exhibit were two sublime video projections of imagery shot at punk shows. The super slow-motion made it possible to observe each scene in great detail. The first was of group of young men in the mosh pit, thrashing their bodies around with facial expressions full of rage. The second documented an altercation between three young women which evolves into a fist fight. I was transported beyond simple observation, though the warp of time and into the projected psyches of the individuals in the work.

5. Interancia Videobrasil 2006-2007 at El Mercado Del Borne

6. Videotape Hong Kong at Red03

7. "Vive la Mort"at the Fundació Suñol, video art from the collection of Marc & Josée Gensollen.
The perspective of the private collector is what interested me most. The theme of the body is what distinguished this group of videos. Some of them were documents of the body in action, such as Carlos Amorales' (Mexico) "Interim," a tight close-up of two masked wrestlers head-to-head against a white backdrop, and João Onofre's (Portugal) "Sin Titulo" which used digital tools to reorient two falling bodies to work against gravity and fall against the sides of the frame, repetitively, making a strong rhythm.
Though not documentary in the traditional sense, there were some videos that could be categorized as documentary for their use of straight recordings of small events in the world. "Uomo Duomi" by Anri Sala (Albania) was recorded in a church frequented by tour groups and featured a tripod shot of an old man sitting in a pew, alternately praying and sleeping. "Coffee" by Hand Op de Beck (Belgium) used the same technique to observe and capture the scene of an elderly couple having coffee at a restaurant.

8. Johanna Billing at Galeria Joan Prats

9. China Vision - Yang Zhenshong at Holmes Place Balmes Fitness Club, and Miao Xiaochun at Keihl's Since 1851

LOOP Barcelona: Buried Treasure

The city has become the backdrop for a giant scavenger hunt. Each day I follow clues in search of precious booty. Somtimes the signs lead to genuine gold, sometimes to costume jewelry, and sometimes to a dead end. Three ingredients contribute to the enigmatic nature of this undertaking. First, major portions of Barcelona are simply inscrutable, such as the old city. Its a maze of small and crooked streets leading to even smaller and crooked-er ones, which are often depicted on the map with the wrong name or without any name at all. Second, the Spaniards are not known for punctuality, or for necessarily holding to any time-frame, published or otherwise. And finally, the printed LOOP program, besides being 60 pages long with no index or all-encompassing organizing principle, is all in Castilian, which I have studied for one semester only.

Moored in a state of disorderly pursuit, at least I have an anchor!

Tune in for more about the video art soon!

Films at Caíxa Forum, and an Excursion to the Hospital Sant Pau

Last Tuesday night, I took in a program of films at Caíxa Forum by the Montjuïc park "Documento y Ciudad," curated and presented by David Reznak. All in all a good selection of experimental documentary that anchored itself in images of "the city." For me, each piece presented a different vantage point from which to focus and process the visual information absorbed in various urban environments. For example, "Sea Change" by Joe King and Rosie Pedlow (2004) interwove various times of day into a very long tracking shot of a manicured trailer-home neighborhood. "Din 16538/39 (Paris)" by Augustin Gimel (1999) based the organization of its documents on color, beginning in reds, moving into oranges, and making its way through the rest of the rainbow. And "Blight" by John Smith (1994-6) hung itself on a structure of fragmented storis and rememberances relating to the destruction of homes in a particular neigborhood in East London.

Woke up the next morning feverish with a sore throat and spent the next 3 days in bed, riding the dreamstate to regions father and farther from consciousness. Around the time my system should have been kicking the virus, I had a night of fitful sleep complicated by breathing difficulties. I thought: tomorrow is the day to go to the clinic, and while waiting for Dr. Sobre to rise on Saturday morning, decided to look up my symptoms on the internet-- the worst possible place to go for any kind of medical consultation. Googling "flu-like symptoms, difficulty breathing" brought up SARS!

Well, Dr. Sobre, fluent in both Catalan and Castillian, looked over the listing of Barcelona hospitals and clinics from the American Consulate webpage. Leave it to her to pick out the great Modernista Hospital de Sant Pau, designed by Domènech i Montaner! We hopped a cab by the bus station & were off.

Still fairly hazy from the illness, but not too out-of-it to notice the fantastic structures and tilework, we jumped out at the emergency entrance. Shortly after signing in we were led to a small office where a young and very kind doctor asked a few questions, then sent us up the block to the emergency room that handled lesser-emergencies, where I could be attended to rather quickly. He was practically beaming as he lead us to the street, pointing the way with directions in Catalan.

I recommend travelers' health insurance for anyone taking a trip out of the county-- I didn't get it, but since this incident have learned that is it really cheap-- like $30. Thinking that I'm still young and invincible along with a strong disdain for the traditional US health system factored into my "overlooking" this detail. All things considered, though, I fared well. The emergency room consultation, an x-ray, 3 medications and cab ride only set me back about $165 USD-- can you imagine what this would have co$t in the States without insurance?

Well, the infection had turned to bronchitis which in turn had triggered an asthmatic episode (not that I normally have asthma). All of the doctors and technicians who worked with me were were quite personable yet professional, seemed to have the time to hear about my illness, talk to me (one in fairly good english, another who slowed his Castillian w-a-y down, and the other spoke Catalan while Dr. Sobre was present), and examine or perform labwork (in this case an x-ray). The paperwork took almost more time than the one-on-one, and the waiting was about equivalent.

Medicine is socialized here in Spain, so eveyone has access to decent healthcare any time. One other thing I appreciated was not seeing any clocks with the name of a phamaceutical drug company on its face. We ambled back over to the Modernista complex for a look around. Dr. Sobre may be small, but is she fast! That woman can walk! In my condition, I couldn't keep up, and so we agreed to come back another day and caught the metro back home.



Dr. Sobre said gee, you could probably do a pretty cool video with x-rays!
This pleasantly brought to mind Barbara Hammer's 1990 16mm film "Sanctus."

Wandering the Barcelona Night

In this barely affordable apartment here in Barcelona, amidst the many dozen turtle nicknacks, lives a most unstable internet connection, non-functional since our arrival at the end of the business-week. Sit with the rental agency's pro-IT practitioner for 3 hours as he resets the settings a million times while Dr. Sobre tours the students around old Roman Barcelona-- a real shame to miss the first class session.

Spend the next 6 hours playing catch-up on my contribution for the class, honing in on all of the video-art coming down the pipeline due to Loop Barcelona. Dr. Sobre returns, and after a typical meal of salad, cheeses, meats, fresh bread, and wine, we put the finishing touches on the syllabus and I set out looking for a copy-shop, though it's really too late for such business.

Hoof it up Carres Ribes intending to walk it to a dead-end, but see the Sagrada Familia off to the west-- no way to get out from under its spell. It beckons. And after another little while it pops out from behind the many city blocks I had traversed. For reasons beyond mentioning in the scope of this blog, I was prepared for disappointment. But the Sagrada Familia IS glorious-- if you've ever seen it, you know. For me it is an outrageous display of the glory glory glory of a contemporary (20th c.) expression on a scale of immense grandeur. Why the world I generally live in doesn't seem interested in high craftsmanship infused with a deep articulation of the living moment is beyond me.

And so I meander back to Ribes 13, zigzagging through the Eixample, daring myself to get really lost. But then there's that old redbrick Arc de Triomf that Dr. Sobre practically spits at for its ugliness every time we pass it by. I cut around some sidestreets gambling on one last shot at dematerialization, see the 'copiteria' I had originally set out in search of, then 3 blocks later am back on Ribes, and "home."

It'll be an early one tomorrow, with a stop at the newfound copy-shop on the way to meet the students at their dorm on the other side of the Gothic Quarter.

Time has flown since the lightbox project.
Here is a link to the projecitons I have been up to since that time.

Last night Jay and I performed at the Current's Best of San San Antonio shin-dig at the San Antonio Museum of Art.







Hey, and guess who won Best Fresh Face!