pack rat

i am a pack rat. i have so much stuff, it's getting hard to walk around my room, and the back yard, and the other room. i get sentimentally attached to everything. eeek.

Walkin' in LA

down the street from a place "gallery buddy" took me to is a used furniture shop called nick metropolis.



i stumbled around the place a few years ago, and lately have just been driving past it. so, i dragged gallery buddy to it. there is so much cool stuff in there. i wanted to buy so many things, but i wouldn't have a place to put it. maybe when i get a warehouse or something.

the reviews about the place online say that nick is con artist who doesn't pay the people he gets stuff from on consignment, so i'm torn. do i want to deal with a guy who screws people over? that's messed up, but the furniture is so cute!

Bees and Meat

my gallery buddy took me to see bees and meat at ace gallery in los angeles. lauren bon's new work is something difficult to describe and excellent when experienced. yes, i said experienced. this is not one of those exhibits you go to look at the pieces and try to figure out the deeper meaning or artist's intent, it's just bizar and fabulous.

i didn't even bother trying to find the meaning behind the different pieces, they were just weird and wonderful, even better when you can go with a friend and just laugh at how insane this stuff is.

i thought the stuff jerry did was weird.

where do i begin? how about the random piece of transplanted earth? this just amuses me because it's grass and it's "art".



hmmm, how about the dried lamb carcass fountain? i'm really not sure what the ooze dripping from the carcass was. i'm not sure i want to know. interestingly, it didn't smell bad.





when i first walked in, i saw a pile of irrigation stipping on the ground. it's another one of those things i was amused at because it's art. really, it's all about context. had it been me doing this and not lauren bon, this would just be crap and my teachers would just wonder what i'm trying to bullshit into art. very duchamp. me likes.



next stop, large room filled with 21 cornstalk bales shaped like hives standing 9' tall. it was just neat being in there.



walking down the hall, we came upon this seemingly random gold animal head hanging from a rope and pulley. my first thought was that it was some sort of dinosaur head, but it's supposed to be bronze casting of the lamb's head she stuffed the bee hive into (long story).



somewhere in there was a room full of totems. did i know what they were at the time? no. it looked like old planks of wood with mattress stuffing tied to it. yes, it too is art.



the chandeliers room was very cool. frankly, it was a bunch of honey jars tied on twine with lights. you had to be there. much more impressive in person.





oh! oh! and then there were the scary light bulb rooms (actually a series of 6 rooms with dim light bulbs suspended from the ceiling and the artist uttering 1000 fears from little children in a eerie voice). creepy. i wouldn't go in alone (chicken), i made gallery buddy go in with me. he laughed at me. he usually laughs at me.



did i mention the 24-hour, streaming audio of living bees in the gallery? the "library of honey? the desk dipped in tar? the floor to ceiling sized photos?

i wanted to see the corn room but the guy from the gallery said it was closed because they had "a little infestation". i wouldn't have cared, it still would have been cool to see. so what if little critters would be jumping all over my legs. i wonder how they got the 33,000 pounds of corn in there. who was carrying that up to the gallery?

if bees and meat is ever shown anywhere else, it's a must see.

One Orange Balloon

a while back, i went out with some friends to help light paint a giant orange balloon at el toro, a marine corps air station decommissioned in 1999 in irvine, CA. the base is being developed as a residential and commercial area as well as a great park. the balloon is the first major attraction of the orange county great park and is free to ride. you can soar from 250 - 400 feet into the air to get a bird's eye view of the air station's transformation into the great park.



these friends, members of the legacy project, are the same ones behind the great picture, the world's largest contiguous photograph.



the guys are a hoot to be with and i look forward to any time i can tag along and help them work.





there is a semi usual crew that helps out with these wild endeavors. of course, everyone is put to work.





you'll have to wait to see the results of the light painting. i can't wait to see it too.

as a side note, el toro translates to "the bull" and since it's an air station, the insignia is a flying bull. the insignia was designed by walt disney studios. isn't that just so california?

Orange County Fair

this year, i finally entered some pictures in the contest at the OC Fair. i got all three in! yeah!