Pictures I Took Since August

I did not realize how long I had been working on my last art piece, until I posted the pictures to my blog.The last entry was in August. I have been taking pictures, but every time I was in front of the computer, I was working on that image.

These are some of the pictures I took.

I sometimes suspect that my phone camera increases the saturation on its images, but this silver fence really does throw some wild light and reflections around.

One morning in early October the rambling garden of the church arcross the street glimmered in the light.

Gentrification continues in Williamsburg. This brightly painted building facing the bridge is being eviscerated while its pretty shell remains.

I tried to photograph through the window to capture the sunlight filtering down through the roofless ceiling.

The graffiti monsters at the building's base looked forlorn behind the scaffolding, as if they were imprisoned. I wonder if they will be restored in the finished building.

This empty space will probably soon be filled in as well, the colorful tags hidden behind glass and steel.

A little November light

Virtual Street Art

Lost Mural Runs Free

On Cooper Square near 6th Street, I have placed a label with a QR code. It is right outside that shiny new silver Cooper Union building, on the lampost.

If you scan the QR code with your smart phone, you can see the image.

Nothing could console me after September 11^th, not the national day of prayer, or the Buddhist monks drumming in Union Square Park, the last spot before the streets were closed. We stood there in small groups talking in low voices, strangers at a funeral. The faces of the departed stared out at us from missing posters.

Weeks later, a mural appeared on the wall of a small old building on Bowery. It summed up everything I was feeling. It was a comfort to walk past it for a while.

The city recovered, the mural was painted over. The old 19th century building it was painted on was deemed unworthy of conserving and was torn down. Now a new building is rising up. It will be dormatories for the Cooper Union students who must now pay tuition for the first time since the university was founded over 150 years ago.

I wanted to let the mural loose on Cooper Square once again.

Virtual Street Art

If you go to Union Square East and 14th Street, across the street from the park, there is a label with a qr code. You can scan it with your smart phone and it will bring you to an image that I made of Union Square a few months ago.

This is a test run. I would really like to know how the image looks on your phones. I have to scroll to see the image, maybe it needs to be smaller. I would love some feedback on this. 

There were not any labels pasted around Union Square, so there may be a regular scraping of illegal labels. If the label is gone, you can see the image here.

Dream #1

The best way to view these is to click on the first image and go through them like a slide show. Or try to view them here.

France, lots of graffiti, a little JR

I was in Le Croisic for a wedding. My bedroom window offered a view of the ocean

The sky would melt into sunset.

Le Crosic graffiti

The wildest time on my trip was on my birthday when I was stranded in the walled city of Guerande with a lovely Spanish lady.

We wandered around the city and spent hours chatting on a cafe terrace about the importance of letting adventures happen. I tried to keep the spirit of the day throughout my trip.

Then to Paris, and this was the view from my window.

There was no light in the wc for a few days, which gave me a chance to take a picture by candlelight.

I went to see the JR installation at the Pantheon.

 The photos were printed on plastic that would sometimes reflect the light.

All of those faces looking straight at the viewer were very intense.

I visited the petite ceinture which is like the high line in New York, but left to run wild. It is unlike the French to let nature do its thing but they were very proud of protecting the abandoned railway's ecosystem. I thought it was far better than the fussy nyc park.

Here are some thistles behaving a lot like weeds.

On the parapet walls of the railway, the graffiti blended with the vines.

Sometimes a tagger would paint over the dead branches.

I had planned on taking photos for my dream project, but the light was never what I expected

There always seemed to be additional layers things were never as they appeared. It was like living in one of my dreams.

I wandered through the neighborhoods where I lived, remembering lost adventures and enjoying the colors.

My dream project will just have to fit with the images I have.

Kara Walker - A Sublety

I went to see Kara Walker's installation in the Domino Sugar refinery. On the web site it is described as:

an Homage to the unpaid and overworked Artisans who have refined our Sweet tastes from the cane fields to the Kitchens of the New World on the Occasion of the demolition of the Domino Sugar Refining Plant

There was a short wait outside. The sun was hot and the shift into the cool factory space was noticeable, as was the smell of molasses. The walls were painted in sugar.

Some of the boys made out of sugar have already melted, but others are still standing.

They leave pools of sugar on the floor.

The boys seemed to be watching the viewers.

The sphinx drew everyone towards her, massive even in the large space. It was a lot like a cathedral with the light filtering down from high windows.

Her head was held high in spite of the impossible position of her body. Her eyes were blank, certainly not engaging the viewers.

Some of my favorite details:

Her fist

Her thumb clenched between the fingers of her other hand

Her feet

The installation will be up until July 6