Trojanowski and Harris

Two Exhibitons
November 24, 2019

 This weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting two exhibitions in Brooklyn. The first was Ms. Jennifer Slavin Harris, a mixed media artist mainly known for printmaking, and Ms. Dorothy Trojanowski, an artist who doubles as an infographic designer by day. Slavin's show at Undercurrent Gallery in Dumbo is her first solo show. A shiny orange stairwell leading down to the exhibition space was lined with smaller works featuring pieces of wood --splinters, tailings, cross-sections, cabinet doors, and ax handles. One piece propped off the wall revealed an over-sized wooden clothespin to anyone who cared to see what was doing the propping. Another, a rigid geometric puzzle made of pieces that look like they had been dug up from the ground had an odd shim forcing it into some arrangement according to Harris’s visual logic. The exhibition room was full of similar pieces, but more complicated, and with recurring boat allusions. The weather beaten and abused pieces Harris uses look a lot like what fills your standard city dumpster. An assortment of fasteners keep the bits united, some of these loudly announce their purpose, and others, a pin-nailer I presume, are discreetly burrowed. Color is present, but natural wood hues dominate. Although the pieces are constructed from heavily distressed components, they are solidly arranged, allowing the eye to find its conclusion within the piece. The wood was splintered, but finished simultaneously. They were synthetic. Masculine.

Trojanowski’s exhibition took place in a studio warehouse building in Bedford Stuyvescent, Brooklyn, at a new space: Occhio Studios.   What guests attending this one night event did not realize was that they were about to become archaeologists. The imposing square pieces, each titled “Birth”, stood proudly off the wall by at least a foot and seemed to intrude into the room. What could possibly be so important to take up this much space? Drywall. The boxes housed sections of drywall laminated together into stacks, and guests were invited to use a hammer and a chisel to “excavate” into the “walls” where they found small artifacts- black and white photos of people from a bygone era in pretty silver frames--a man in uniform with a stiff mustache and a prideful smile, a wedding couple tentatively holding hands; there was a rosary, a set of dentures, a wooden toothbrush, a tiny New Testament. The rings of depth were layers of time, reminiscent of the way slate weathers into nested crescents. Crumbs and plaster dust fell to the ground creating a lovely white mess. Trojanowski found the photos and treasures in Detroit, where they had once belonged to a small erstwhile Polish community with which she felt a kinship. Looking closely at the faded photos, one could make out the Polish features of the subjects and it was impossible to not wonder what became of them.

     Both of these shows incorporate the idea demolition, rescue, and artifact. Harris’s work is evocative of Picasso’s assemblages from 1913-14 or the Russian neo-primitivists. The highly resolved pieces made of refuse and discardia proclaimed their identity as commodity. “Artists are entitled to get paid for their work.” a tipsy artist announced to me at the opening. I didn’t disagree. Trojanowski’s work was more like a “happening” from the 60’s in its anti-commercialism and ephemerality. Her art had only ever existed in a state of change. This was in contrast to Harris’s assemblages, which had been trapped in a moment, controlled, killed -- like Madame Tussaud’s preserved cadavers.

     What is it about the haphazard that is so attractive? Is randomness in of itself appealing when manifested by the chaos of erosion? The Japanese practice the art of wabi sabi, which is something that is felt from the soul, but is sometimes dimunized in the form of coffee table books, is, among other things, reverence for the old, seeing beauty in sincerity, and a peaceful relationship with change. Texture is a signifier of decay and we respond positively to the formal attributes of the old and weathered. Peeling paint, cracks, fissures. Perhaps it is the suggestion that there is a story behind the old thing. I can understand the allure of an antique patina or a cracked leather. These items were precious to begin with, and their age signifies their durability. “This is something worth holding on to”, they seem to say for themselves. The idea of taking something that is so obviously trash and presenting it as such, but not at all in a ready-made-kind-of-way, but using it the way some people use enamel tiles seems worth thinking about. The impulse to regard a piece of styrofoam as trash is stymied when the styrofoam is nestled so lovingly between shards of waterlogged particle board, and unsensual white plaster plaster particles challenges our definition of art.

      We respond to the old because partially because it gives us hope. Part of the reason it gives us hope is because it tells some kind of story, and it doesn’t matter what the story is, but the suggestion is significant. In Annie Proulx’s Accordion Crimes, the plight of a single instrument is tracked through generations--with all their love, tragedy and confusion. It is coveted and discarded on equal turns, and those who cherish it are rewarded. In the 1998 movie, The Red Violin, a similar tale is told. These are like the bottle washing on the shore with its contents being a tiny ribboned hand-written scroll...the intent is palpable. Perhaps inanimate objects permit us to love them more. If we take care of them, they will last forever. And who is to say what is precious and what is not? What is worth keeping, and what is not? This is why art is NOT a zero-sum game; there is no conceivable limit to what can be made when “the waste” is not wasted.



https://www.rosannascimeca.com/(Occhio Studios)
www.undercurrent70.org
https://www.jenniferslavinharris.com/

The Story of My Landlady Part I

    "Maaaaahlene!!"

     I have a few friends who do a decent impersonation of my landlady.  However, none of them have met her.  They only know how she sounds second-hand from stories of our skirmishes.  I have fewer stories now, but I used to have lots.

     It was October 2002 and I needed a place to live.  I was looking in Brooklyn, where I had lived for 9 years, and had endured the prerequisite sequence of troublesome  NYC apartment dramas.  Failed roommates.  Crazy landlords.  Needing storage units.  Living in storage units.  Julie answered the door and without spending time on niceties,  and lead me up the stairs as she took laboring breaths, and pausing at the landings.  She let out strong "WOOOH!!" at the top of the stairs which took me off guard with its volume.  The lights were out in the apartment and I could not tell what Julie looked like aside from being a big-statured black lady in a nightgown with closely shorn hair who was now wielding a flashlight to show me the the corners of the two rooms.  It was clean enough, had windows, and I could afford it on my own.  That's all i needed to know.  I got the feeling that my new landlady was just as relieved to be done with the chore of searching as me.  In the cool darkness of the evening, we shook hands on the deal, and this would mark the beginning of a new domestic epoch for both of us.

    I was delighted to find myself on the third floor of  a brownstone, on a street lined with flagstone and tiger lilies and overshadowed by great leafy canopies.  Neighboring homes existed in various states of decay, which endowed them with a wise grandeur.   Some of the houses, such as the one I now called home, had accrued additions to the top floor, which meant the short eyebrow windows traditionally found at the top floor had been replaced by a whole unit.  Since these homes are conjoined, one can easily travel from one house to another, roof to roof.  I asked Julie if I was permitted to go up to the roof.  The ladder was right outside my door.  She replied, with great finality, "NO!"

    I paid my rent each month by bringing Julie cash in an envelope down to her garden-level apartment.  She would count the money, and then declare boldly, "OK!!"   And that was that.
About a month after moving in, I was boiling some potatoes, and as I steamed my face over the roiling water,  the hood of the stove fell out off the wall, clocking me on my head.    I called Julie next day, and I could hear her breathing hard as she climbed the three flights of stairs, her heavy footfalls approaching.  She saw the fallen stove hood and then fixed her eyes on me.  "WHAT WERE YOU DOING TO IT??  in a booming voice that I would later learn is just her normal inside voice.  

       

"I was steaming my face over my potatoes."

"STEAMING YOUR FACE OVER POTATOES!  WHY WERE YOU DOING THAT?"  

"I was boiling potatoes and it fell on my head."

    Julie said she would have someone up the next day, and mumbled as she descended the stairs, "steaming her face in her potatoes..."  Julie was not happy about  having to fix stuff.... and was no fan of the stairs.

    A week later, my toilet became badly clogged.  I tried plunging it, to know avail.  I had to call Julie.  Julie heaved herself up the stairs stopping at the top to breathe heavily and let out loud wooshing exclamations about the un-believability of the stairs, and peering at them incriminatingly.   "YOUR TOILET IS CLOGGED???" "Yes", I say, meekly.  "WELL WHAT WERE YOU PUTTING IN IT????  She caught her breath and looked at me with big eyes awaiting a response.  I replied, "What do you put in your toilet?" 

 "WHAT!?! She boomed.  

    I had to call a plumber and Julie wanted me to pay the bill.  I felt that the problem was the old plumbing and not my deposits into the toilet, but before I could make my case, Julie silenced me with a knowing look that said, "shut up, and give me my money".  So I gave her the money.

    Six months after I moved in, I found a mewing grey kitten on the street and brought it home.  It was the night of the second round  of debates between Obama and Mitch Romney.  I was going through a breakup, and the addition of kitten energy was a timely temptation, so I took a chance that Julie would grant permission to keep it.  I called Julie the next day from work.  "Can I have a cat?"  I asked.  "NO!!"  She boomed with a short descriptor of her reasons which left zero room for argument, and my one attempt at protest was met with a click of the phone.  However, before dejection could set in, the phone rang, and it was Julie saying, "YOU CAN KEEP THE CAT."

      I named the kitten "Romeo" because of his way holding my head between his front paws and nuzzling, which were a lot like a make-out session with fur instead of saliva.  Romeo seemed anxious when left alone for too long, and I was spending less and less time home.  I found myself at a dinner party a few weeks later where a woman showed me a video of her foster kitten batting about a rattling ball.  She was trying to find it a home for the kitten which she called "Crowley".  He was all black, except for white patches where a humans pubic hair normally is located.  Three white triangles, that were either an improbable mimicry, or a rogue genetic marker making its way down the wrong taxonomical branch.  I told her I would take the kitten.

     About a month later, Julie called me at work to say a worker had to come into my apartment to look at my outlets.  I said, "no problem," thinking nothing of the presence of a second cat, which to my thinking, was not much different from one cat.  The phone rang a few hours later, and it was Julie's name on my phone. 
          "MAH-LEEENE!?  YOU asked.... for permission.... for A CAT.  Why..... are there TWO CATS..... in your apartment?"
       I panicked.  "Its not mine.  Its belongs to my sick friend.  She is in the hospital."
      There was a long pause on the other line.  "That cat better better be gone soon."
   
      Nothing more was said about Crowley for some time, and I was too busy with work to think much more of it.  Plus, Romeo and Crowley had formed a brotherhood that I felt prepared to defend in some sort of way, when the time came.  I ran into Julie while getting my mail from the bank of metal boxes by her garden level door. 
    "Did you get rid of that black cat?" she asked.
     I panicked again.  "My friend in the hospital..." I shook my head and assumed an aggrieved expression. 
    Julie's eyes became big with rage.  "I am NOT TRYING to have a house FULL OF CATS!!" she thundered, slamming her door behind her. 

I climbed the stairs to my apartment the following week and while passing the apartment below me, I saw that the door was open and boxes were stacked inside.  A young woman with thick black twists of hair shyly showed herself and lit up with a large warm smile.  We introduced ourselves, and I learned her name was Katherine.  While we chatted, a small black kitten came to stand underneath us. 
    "Does Julie know you have a cat?"
    "She knows, but she wasn't happy about it."

We later learned from the longer-standing tenants that the house had a mouse problem, but neither of us ever saw any sign of a mouse, thanks to Julie's forbearance.

Katherine and I sometimes convened in the hallway where she would tell me about her modeling aspirations, and the nanny jobs which kept her afloat.  As an aspiring artist working a punishing job in construction, there was enough common ground for us to become friends, and eventually she came to spend time in my apartment where we would talk for hours about our lives and families, and would commiserate at length about Julie's dislike for spending money on building maintenance. Katherine never missed a day of work, was consistent, sober, ...

 In the Winters, my apartment was brutally cold. I doubted there was a stitch of insulation behind my thin walls.  In the Spring and Fall, it could be a perfect day outside, and my rooms felt oppressive.  In the Summers, I had to run two air-conditioners if I wanted to put a dent in the heat.   This eventually took its toll on the antiquated electrical wiring.

 On those hot nights, I would stare longingly at the ladder outside my front door.  Eventually, I could no longer resist and began to spend time on my roof, which was easily accessible by lifting a wooden hatch.  There, the pitched glass skylight covers glowed sea green and orangy yellow. She had resisted but I cajoled her up with promises of beautiful Summer skies with cool breezes. We climbed up the janky wrought iron ladder, lifting up the hatch which was heavy with moisture and groaned.  The sky was starry bright and we traversed the rooftops, giddy with mischief. I could smell Katherine's Victoria Secret perfume...

       

Pinata

     I recently made a pinata for a party.  The way this came about is I was observing someone else making a pinata, and I wished to have this experience.  Not like on a genie lamp or a wishing well, but a niggling desire.  When an annual event approached which regularly features a pinata, I requested permission to make it, and was granted the go-ahead.  The host requested a submarine for these reasons:

                                      https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/confirm-nor-deny

     It so happens there were journalists present who had a vested interest in the topic.

     For four days, I gathered material and set about its construction.  I delighted in the idea of making something knowing its demise was implicit within its creation.  There was the  engineering challenge of controlling when and where it should fail as opposed to where we did not want it to fail, which is the where it hangs from the string.   I watched a Youtube in which a teenage girl capably made an ice cream cone pinata, and applied her techniques.  As it turns out, a submarine is more involved than an ice cream cone and arguably, has deeper implications.  I have never worked in paper mache before, and became enamored of the possiblity.  It's cheap, flexible, non-toxic, and a lot tougher than I had expected.  I layered the newspaper in a criss-crossing fashion that toughened it further, and as this skin became more substantial, I removed little by little, the cardboard armature which was adding unwanted weight, and taking up room that could be used for stuffings. I made the outer layer with less glue and more dry newspaper in hopes of creating air bubbles which would soften the blows, and lengthen its lifespan.  I painted in with glow in the dark paint, to commemorate the interesting connection between its name, "Glomar" (Global Marine), and its connection to Russian weapons technology, which this 80's child connects with glowing radioactivity.  I fervently hoped the pricey glow in the dark paint would be effective.

 

 
      When the event came round, I was delighted to present Glomar to the guests.   A few hours after sundown, the host and her retinue lead the small throng of  guests to the ceremonial pinata tree with a boom box which loudly played Eye of the Tiger by Survivor, which was a clever and effective  touch.    A fellow stepped up and capably threw the string over a tree branch, and Glomar was raised up.   I loved the sound of the hollow thunk produced by the walloping attacks made with a mop handle, which broke early on.  Well before Glomar heaved forth its contents, it came crashing to the ground, but I was relieved to see that it fell because the string broke, and not because of it ripping out completely.  Someone fetched stronger rope, and Glomar hung again, and made it through another 10 or so beatings, before its contents spilled out.  Some of us hunted the ground for treasures, and then we burned up Glomar with tiki torches.

  

     Among the contents were condoms, shooters, trophies, masks, dog toys, and hilariously, a bathing suit.  I am looking forward to working in paper mache again soon, in a less destructive application.  

   

Animal Consciousness

   

Snake Bat  2019

       It was beastly hot last night, but I was happy to bike over Redhook to see a talk at  Pioneer Works.   While waiting for the talk to begin,  I enjoyed looking over the impressive space.  The building  was built in 1835 and rebuilt in 1881 after a fire, and was in heavy use as a machine factory until after WWII.   A formidable gantry crane spanned the ceiling, and appeared to have the lighting fixture, the size of two grand pianos rigged to it with diry old tattered straps, which gave the event an air of suspense.  The talk, which took place on a stage set up in the rear behind an acre of folding chairs was attended by a phalanx of sexy nerds, many of whom seemed to be on dates.  I bought a $10 bowl boiled garden vegetables that was so good, I almost abandoned my seat to go shake down the over-healthy-looking youths who sold it to me for the recipe. 

     The talk explored the question of animal consciousness.  The presenters, Diana Reiss, a professor of psychology at Hunter College and in the graduate program of animal behavior and comparative psychology at the City University of New York .....whose research has focused on cognition and communication of dolphins and other cetaceans.  She is known to be one of the world's leading authorities on dolphin intelligence.  (Woosh)  She and her associates on stage addressed the sticky issue of defining consciousness as a word humans devised to describe what makes them other than animals.  Therefore, it is tough to define it.

     Frans B.M. de Waal  is a professor of primate behavior at Emory University, joined Reiss on stage.  They presented on some key studies:  The cooperation study, the fairness study, the self-identification (recognition of one's self in a mirror), and male vs. female dominance.  These studies are based on performance standards reflective of human capability.  They explained that humans use standards of human intelligence to judge that of animals, and fail to observe the unhuman forms of intelligence that animals possess.  An octopus was sited as an example with its nine brains, and layers of specialized neurons enabling mimicry.  This is not emotional intelligence, which would be the rub.

    Dr. Waal explained that the study of animal behavior has given way to animal cognition, particularly in the areas of higher functioning animals such as dolphins and monkeys.  He went on to say that the word "instinct" is barely ever used anymore by animal biologists. 

    Check out the link for the fairness study conducted with Capuchin monkeys. The crowd laughing undermines the gravity of the issue.  (face creased in laughter emoticon)

   
   Also:

Scientists are still discovering new creatures.  Are these evolved creatures or just really good at hiding?

Cat Fox

The following is the first I have heard of a this hybrid....

Raccoon Dog

new york (part I)

3/17/19


    Today, I brought a ring to a friend so that she could fix it for me.  Rebekah Harris, a gifted jeweler, met me in her normally immaculately kept showcase studio in deep Lower East Side, where Grand Street sideswipes East Broadway yielding a rows of scrolling concrete building fronts. I found her sitting among boxes, and looking a little dumbfounded.  She was caught in the transitional feeling of closure and regret roiling inextricably. After 20 years of fighting the good fight, she is packing up everything and setting up shop in Montauk where her vacation home will be her full time home, and her jewelry, often based on pirate ships, will find its ends on fine fingers indeed.
     We fell into conversation about the decision to move here, the accompanying expectations, the insane mosaic of experience that ensues and how it changes you, and how it becomes time to move on even though you'd never thought it was possible.  I wonder about the tunnel vision with which I conceived of a future life insofar as picking a spot on a map and steering myself there doggedly as if it were a homecoming not from New Jersey, but from Colorado, where I didn't want to be.   I can admit after these years, that it has a lot to do with Karen Bender.

Lost Jester (2007)

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Excerpt from life notes:

New Jersey (1992) I had to admit, I was very surprised that she did not become a literary celebrity.  Just about everyone was up on a pedestal back then, but some more than others.  I remember watching her take notes in English. Her handwriting looped elegantly and she always used the same black gel pens.  When she spoke, her low-pitched voice emerged warmly, musically, and her voice cracked when she laughed which was often.  Karen oozed poise and was possessed of an exotic but wholesome beauty and a womanly shapeliness.  She played the harp and had easy casual friendships with the elite and  lowly alike- there was no denying the rigid confines of the Cherry Hill West Caste System.

   We fell into a friendship which originally was based on our mutual appreciation of Mrs. Obreeza, our honors English teacher, as the most appropriate protagonist in any sort of fantastic scenario we felt like inventing.  When she  referred to "unrequited love" and "courtly love", two favorite topics, she would shiver a little and roll her eyes.     Once she used the word "titillating" while referred to Petrarch's letters to Laura  which we found funny, as the idea of someone so ostensibly old talking about the realm of the sexual did not compute.  Karen had obtained her drivers permit, and countless hours of mirth were created for us driving around in her Volvo pretending that Mrs. Obreeza, whose creamy arch of hair was so much like  a mushroom that the comparison was impossible to avoid, was following us in her Benz.

For the last two years of High School, we were often together, and every so oftten, I would end up at Karen's house on the East Side. She was one of the kids from the eastside that wound up at West, which was less affluent.   Her parents were divorced but were warmest of friends.  Her father, a Jewish physician 18 years her mom's senior, would take Karen shopping in Philadelphia and buy her any book she even breathed on.  Her Mom, a nurse, loved talking about books, and I remember here suggesting I read Mary Karr. I was probably expounding on the hellish years at Saint Peter Celestine which in public school-colored glasses revealed itself in hindsight to be just the as much of a stone-cold nepotistic wasteland I'd suspected.   Karen had two older brothers, both living in NYC.  One of these, Lawrence Bender, produced Reservoir Dogs.  I danced with him at a wedding once and thought of nothing else for the next 8 years.


As Karen's future bore out in a predictable path to New York University, I formulated my own plan to land there (here) eventually.  I found out shortly after enrolling in Rutgers Camden that we were to move to Colorado.   I stayed with Karen and her dorm mates one weekend, and one of them, a waify girl with large round eyes, returned  wearing a pair of boots that a man had bought for her in exchange for modeling them.  It was something that could happen back then, as craigslist had not become the breeding ground for menace that it is today.

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Shortly after I landed here in 2002, about 10 years later than when I visited Karen at the  NYU dorms,  I ran into her randomly on the streets of Soho where she walked arm in arm with a red-cheeked giant of a man.  She looked plump and jolly as hell, and they were rubbing each other's bellies.  We met up for coffee the next day, and she told me she was moving to Ireland to marry the fellow and to "maybe teach".  Her time in NYC was something that had been smoothly paved, and her plans for leaving were free from remorse or regret.  When we went our seperate ways, I was left to wonder, "why would anyone leave?" when I didn't really know why I'd come.  To this day I feel a piece of me die when someone who has survived here for years decides its time to go. At least now, I can understand a little better.  This shit is not for the feint of heart!

The Lounge (2018)

Jan 26, 2019

  January 26, 2019


  Is Google Making Us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr

            I am reading this per Mary, who is teaching freshman "Critical Thinking" at University of Southern California.  How brilliant that must be to foster conversation about important issues with young adults.  My work continues to lead me down increasingly interesting paths; I am gaining an understanding of what Eto's "research" meant.  I understand also why it was not clear at first.  Its a personal quest that only I can shape.

       I continue to have complicated feelings about the last article I read, per Mary.  The Ecological Thought by Timothy Morton.  He goes on about reinventing the word "ecology" by referencing Blade Runner and Wall-E.  Supposedly it is a preface to a book about landscape painting, but it comes across as a grim white flag in the fight against saving nature. I would be lying, however, if I did not say that it made me think. A lot, about choice, fight,  acceptance, outlook. It seemed to cast fateful surrender with a spiritual patina.  Resignation.

         Mary and I are planning a trip to Space X so I can try to seduce Elon Musk into marriage.  The first step is figuring out what hours he keeps at the office.  I have listened to him chat with Joe Rogan on his podcast, and he seemed cavalier and vacuous. Just my speed.  Whether or not Mr. Musk is free to chat, I would relish the chance to visit this burgeoning venture: a launching pad for perhaps the same group of people in California who are advocating for immortality  Silicone Valley's Quest to Live Forever  While listening to him casually mentioning producing 500 flame throwers, and selling them each for $2000 each overnight,

       Mark Triant, a hardcore Buddhist cyber gypsy I know through the venerable Deb Y., sent me a link for a free on-line course about the principles of Artificial Intelligence offered by The University of Helsinki (offered in English and Finnish). I am trying to say something about revolutions and how they do not all turn out so great. So more on that later!