Friday, January 16, 2009

portrait of the artist

Wilson Cat is potentially the next great art phenomenon. He has several projects in progress around the house, including "Toilet Paper", a series of innovative installations. One of his more controversial pieces, "Toilet Paper in Toilet Bowl", is pictured below as the artist is at work, and again as the artist confronts the photographer for the interruption. He prefers to work in isolation. 


Thursday, January 08, 2009

what I want

A couple months ago Wilson broke one of my favorite glasses, one from a set of four with phrases by Jenny Holzer that I have always adored, long before I even knew the coolness of Jenny Holzer who projects words on cities, like in Providence a while back. 

The four are:
the most profound things are inexpressible
boredom makes you do crazy things
you are guileless in your dreams
protect me from what I want

It was "protect me..." that Wilson decided to knock over. 

The glass is still sitting dangerously sharp and fragile on my studio windowsill. I stare at it for long periods each day from my desk. 

Thursday, January 01, 2009

silver linings

Anxiety about many things has kept me from being able to sleep through the night for several months. Since I cannot change the circumstances, I've become determined to adjust. One of these adjustments is reading books I've always wanted to read at 4am until I can fall asleep again. This has been kind of wonderful, as I've lamented not having the time to read for a very long time. I just finished The Hearing Trumpet, by Leonora Carrington, an English surrealist painter who hung out with Remedios Varo and Frida Kahlo in Mexico and thought a lot about alchemy and art and animal-headed people. Some of my favorite bits:

"'There is nothing wrong about painting,' she told me. 'I paint boxes myself for jumble sales. There is a difference though in being artistic and in actually being an artist.... Artists are immoral, they live together in attics.'"

"' There is nobody that can make you happy, you must take care of this matter yourself.'"

"The rest of that ill-omened night was spent burying the Prince in the kitchen garden."

It's fantastic.