Edouard Vuillard At The Jewish Museum

I really enjoyed the Edouard Vuillard exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York City this summer.  His paintings, to me, are a quiet window into a busy world.  

Trip to the Dia

I snapped a secret photo on my last trip to the Dia in Beacon, NY.  I know photos aren't allowed, but it was so beautiful I couldn't help myself. Shhhhhh....

Richard Serra Drawing: A Retrospective

I went to see the Richard Serra Drawing exhibit at the Met last week.  Really really interesting work.  Most of the drawings shown were done using a melted paint stick on large sheets of paper.  He also created a few site specific drawings for this show, and those were my favorite.  Here are my sketches of those drawings.

Its amazing to me that with just a subtle change in his interventions in each of these corners, the result was a huge difference in one's experience of the corner.  All the more interesting by the fact that each one is the same size and height.

As an architect, Richard Serra's work is very relevant in that he has a unique ability to play with our perceptions of a space without us even noticing that he's doing so. This was the first time I have seen his drawings, and they were almost more powerful to me than the sculptures, because they provided a window into his thought process and his ideas about form, gravity, force, and weight.  

Back To School: Probe #1

Well, that's enough of Africa for now... (there will be more though. I can assure you)

Its time to get back to reality and back to school here in New York in the Gritty City.  We have been given the assignment to design an Urban Agrarian Center on the Harlem River in the Bronx (near Fordham University).  Our site is really beautiful, by the water, and has been taken over by wild plants and trash that have been growing there over the last few years.  It seems to be out of use for now. But we are going to take it over and make it into something where people can grow food, learn about urban farming, eat good local organic food, and hang out in a nice new public park on the river.

Here's an aerial photo of the site:

See that strange looping ramp off the bridge? The site is just north of that.

This is a model of the ramp and bridge done in Rhino.

But first, our professor has asked us to conduct a probe, or rather an analysis (if you don't like the word probe, which I don't) of the site's properties, from a purely geometric and architectonic standpoint.

So here you have it...some photos from the first probe.

Here's the boring explanation...

4 major vectors were established on the site based on existing infrastructure.  These were offset at equal intervals to create a strange new grid, completely derived from the site's own properties. Then points were marked at any place where an element of the site intersected with a line of the grid. These points were suspended over the model of the site (tiny silver bells hung from white thread, hung from a piece of plexi). That's what the photos above are. These are all the images I have at the moment. Process photos perhaps to follow. 

Resources:

Wassily Kandinsky's Point and Line To Plan
Paul Klee's Pedagogical Sketchbook
And these Paul Klee drawings and paintings:

Old Man Counting
1929
Etching

Highway and by-ways
1929
Oil on Canvas

Mourning
1934
Water-color and gouache on paper on cardboard

And of course let's not forget our sun study.  Done in Google SketchUp.

Found This While Going Through Some Old Files

This is a painting I made 5 years ago.

Acrylic on Canvas
16"x12"
Spring 2005

Armory Show 2010

Susan Collis, Call the Show Off (Detail), 2007; Sapphires, topaz, black diamonds, 18-carat yellow gold, citrine

via Armory show homepage

My stupid camera's broken so I can't share any photos with you from the Armory Show!! Went there with Done Daisy...check there soon for some of the lovely photos she took. Or just go to the show. You've got one day left to check it out!

Tziporah's Gift

Look what I got! Tziporah gave me one of her paintings.





Note the piercing eyes.





...

Big Bird

Finally, I finished this painting! More here.

Its acrylic on clay board, each piece is 5"x7".

Xue Jiye

My new favorite artist, Xue Jiye.

R.I.P. Mural

I moved apartments last week, so my mural - which I worked on during the 1 1/2 years I lived there - had to be painted over. I'll miss you!