Sunday, January 22, 2012

THE EARNEST BAKER (VEGAN FOR A NIGHT)



Every time I run out of eggs or butter I become a vegan. (Until, of course the next day when I buy more eggs and butter!) I know some great bakers and some great Vegan bakers...I am neither under any circumstance. I am an earnest baker at best and a lazy half-*#ssed baker otherwise. Tonight was an earnest attempt to conjure up some peanut butter cookies for a dear friend who deserves a decent vegan treat!


Recipe follows....

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

HUNTER: GRADUATE THESIS SHOW


Jonn Alex Gonzalez 

Top 3 (In no particular order): 

John Alex Gonzalez and his radio-style illustrated cartoon drama with excellent soundtrack. This modest and engaging multi-projection film noir had me from the first sax notes, but it was the attempts to light a cigarette a flip zippo lighter and the timing of the images and text that clinched it. That scrolling sound of the finger on the hinge, the calm speaking voice: it was filmic and it was not a film. It was my favorite surprise and I could imagine it bigger or smaller. 

Jay Gaskill presented two major paintings striking and flawlessly executed. One (I did not measure) must have been 16 feet long and 6 feet high and the other with a golden metallic ochre ground was also large in scale. Both works were smooth emblematic abstractions. I imagine the one pictured here as a complicated pictograph in a UFO exit row really small or in a giant gallery with white walls. Here I am!

Amanda Valdez had a whole slew of paintings presented. A bit of editing might have helped, but never mind, because a few of these were so strong one ignored the rest. The sewn together fabric, canvas, embroidery and paint was a real discovery that could have happened in a LES gallery somewhere. It happened to be at a college graduate show but they are ready to be anywhere and shined.


Jay Gaskill

Amanda Valdez

Thursday, January 12, 2012

REINHARD BERNSTEINER: 1963-2011



Bernie (Reinhard Bernsteiner) was born in Villach, Austria in 1963 and would prove to have more style and quiet charisma than any man deserves. He was a very distinctive figure in a Vienna art scene which does not lack in distinctive figures. Bernie and the artwork he made always stood out. 

Bernie's art iconography was simultaneously self-depricating and celebratory. He was a brazen self-chronicler - warts and all - as they say. One of the last works I saw he sardonically lassoed his body parts, including the tumor inside him and took them for a stroll or a dance. It would break my heart to see it hanging in my house except that it was so damn alive! 



Friday, January 6, 2012

PANDA BREAD

People only see what they are prepared to see.
                                    - Ralph Waldo Emerson


It seemed so Panda-Like before it was a Panda. As three lumps of dough rising in a round it was the very essence of the reclusive, polygamous, bamboo-munching black and white beast. 

Thursday, January 5, 2012

HELLO CASIO!

I am prone to keeping an eye on the ground in case a fateful trinket be left in my path. But recently because of the paw problems I am more pragmatic with my downward gaze, scanning the sidewalk for pitfalls, old tires or a piles of chicken innards which happens on occasion in my neighborhood.



Monday, January 2, 2012

STARBANKS

 I had never seen this before: a combo Capital One Bank and a Starbucks in the bank!? A Starbanks. Ha. But really what a crazy hybrid.