The Jeweled Spittoon

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Rats and Rats and Rats and Cupcakes

Did these cheery little circus rats a while back for a friend's housewarming party. Just distracting myself from my studies and figured I'd throw 'em up.

And here's some Mister Melt cupcakes I made for the band; also from a while ago. Yeah. Tasty.

What can I say? I'm a woman of many talents. If by talents you mean useless pseudo-artistic know-how... Booyah.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Oh, Google...

Pretty cool... Wish I had this tool while writing undergrad art class papers. Talk about "digital archives":

http://www.googleartproject.com/

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

This is Halloween, Halloween, Halloween!

Annual Village Voice Halloween Parade was a little glum this year. Not enough floats or glitter or drag queens. The general level of super creative freaks appeared to be a bit lower than usual. All apparently due to a lack of funding and sponsorship: including a newly enforced 15th street cutoff(?!) Wild. What is New York City coming to?

At least these lovely sisters were there.

Well, there were still some other awesome goings on. Reina Terror celebrated a Halloween birthday at Blue Ruin in Hell's Kitchen (@538 Ninth Ave.) by serving up some scary drinks and performing a pretty fantastic fire show.

The crowd at Blue Ruin was looking better than most parade-goers: a tediously constructed DIY gladiator costume (yes, that is a zillion and one red pipe cleaners) and a convincing Clockwork Orange Alex were among the best costumes of the night.

Michele @ Blue Ruin

Would've brought a tear to Kubrick's eye.

My lack of a costume was pretty disheartening, especially after last year's wicked Silent Hill Nurse getup. On the upside: there's always next year...

Saturday, September 11, 2010

Ground Zero Freedom Rally

So, Stan and I went to protest the building of a mosque at the site of the September 11th 2001 massacre. Geert Wilders was by far my favorite speaker. I was put off by a few obnoxious people who were busying themselves arguing over chairs and trying to get media cameramen to move out of the way... but overall it was a peaceful, organized rally.

(There's me in the lower right with glasses and half of my head cut off. Photos by El Marco.)

I wish the keynote speakers had included more people coming from an Atheist/secular perspective (there were a lot of "god bless America"s and "Amen"s; with the exception of Wilders, who steered clear of Christian rhetoric and stuck to the point). Regardless, the general sentiment was clear: that a mosque should not be built in such proximity to the place where so many victims were slaughtered in the name of religion.

Based on my firsthand experience of the event, it seems the media is having trouble getting an unbiased account of what happened. I did see some of the pro-mosque advocates after the rally was over: but most people were just walking home. Yes, there were some heated verbal confrontations (though I heard rather than saw most of them, or watched youtube clips after getting home) but I didn't witness any physical violence. More or less, your average New York City day. One excellent, albeit brief article I found online at International Business Times has perhaps the most accurate account that states facts rather than spin (pro- or anti- "spin" that is: there were definitely more than 1,000 anti-mosque advocates, but there is no way there were 40,000).

Please check out some clips I took of keynote speakers at the rally. Because of upload limits on blogspot, you'll have to follow these youtube links. I assure you, these are all worth watching.

Geert Wilders: Dutch Politician (Party for Freedom)

(You can watch his entire 15 minute speech on his official website.)

Joseph Nassralla: Egyptian Coptic Christian Activist

Ilario Pantano: US Marine and N.C. Congressional Candidate

Sam Khoshbaten: Muslim Iranian Activist

Friday, August 6, 2010

something to look at

Took a nice vacation this summer, and spent a lot of time with family and friends on Long Island. So while it's been wonderful, I haven't been taking advantage of all the summer happenings in Manhattan lately... There's always next year.

In the meantime/out of boredom: A few images from a Painting 1 class I took during my senior year at Hunter. Sorry about the quality (they've yet to be photographed with anything better than a Blackberry!)

This is based on a song by the brilliant Patti Smith: Birdland. And below are some details. Sadly, the color is quite as vivid as it is in person, although its a bit closer in the first detail. And the rectangular bar in the sky on the image above is a shadow. Had a lot of fun with this.

And the celebrated "Rats on Bicycles Painting" painting!! Looks fun: but drove me crazy. The background was painted... and then gessoed over... and then painted again... and then once more. Yeah. Crazy like that. I love it though. Also inspired by a song, although loosely enough that you'd never guess it: Rats and Rats and Rats for Candy by The Blood Brothers. They were originally going to be menacing rats, but instead they turned out to be perfectly civil gentlemen. Detail (plus flash glare) below.

Oh yes. That is a tiny rat monocle.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Bubble Dance

You just can't make this stuff up...

Payed a very pleasant visit to the Neue Galerie a few weeks back. Their Otto Dix exhibit is a.m.a.z.i.n.g. The permanent collection also features some brilliant pieces by Klimt and Schiele. If you're into Austrian and German art/history/culture, this is *the* museum to visit.

Plus the museum space itself, tiny as it is, is architecturally outstanding. Definitely doable in between other plans. You can make your way through two-and-a-half-ish floors of art, and their gift/book stores and then be off to lunch with friends, at say, Cafetasia. Yet *another* Asian Fusion type restaurant, and not the friendliest staff I've ever encountered... but the food is quite tasty and inexpensive. They also serve fresh, unfiltered ginger ale, by Bruce Cost, which is stupid good.

So, say you did go down to Cafetasia and were wandering around the East Village. You might just be as lucky as I was and come across one of Manhattan's wonderful oddities. Check out this dude who loves blowing bubbles near St. Marks Place. These things make me smile:

Monday, July 12, 2010

ArtHamptons 2010 Bonanza

Spent Sunday being wowed by ArtHamptons 2010 International Fine Arts Fair. Over 80+ galleries repping for a zillion artists. It's nice to know there are still *some* people who combine a mastery of the technical with an overly-peculiar imagination. Here's some of my highlighted favorites, although it's only a small sampling of some of the fantastic art that was there: