i never really understood the physics of your eye turing the world upside down. [single lens relflex.]

my grandfather, who i called bop pop, passed away this summer. he was many things i will never be- a doctor, a republican, a captain on the water, a hunter, a frequent flyer on the concorde, a kinda mean person, +a member to many clubs ....but he was two things that i can so deeply relate to on a daily basis..: he was a dapper dan and a shopaholic.

as a dapper dan-he taught me about-the delights of unexpected bright colored socks, the fit of hand made saville row suits, the appeal of thick round rimmed glasses, the idea of accessories or print as an accent that pulls it all into the next level, the class (+point) of a delicious gin martini....

as a shopaholic...well, he didn't actually teach me this. (he wasn't really generous actually.) but i believe that, like martini's, the shopaholic blood runs through me. i collect and want so many things-clothes, trinkets, jewelry, +well-as those who really know-pretty much everything..

i mention this because of this tiny alligator in a hand made sailor suit, a real one, in a jar.
i just found this old iphone as i was cleaning out my iphoto (i'm up to july 2009 finally! i love my 4 terabyte drive by the way) taken at his house in georgia a year and a half ago.
mostly you might think..wait, wtf?! why on earth would you buy this? why would you make this? where do you get such a tiny well dressed alligator? and wow, that's ridiculous.

i'll tell you why, he bought this because he was a shopaholic and a compulsive collector.
i can relate to that.
the point of this story is to let you know that i reallyreallyreally hope to inherit this teensy taxidermied alligator....
+guess what!? i might just get to cause as my mom says, "nobody but you would want that but you."

so RIP bop pop i hope you have your martini, hinkley+huntsman suits up there.
in honor of your passing, i'm going to start getting rid of things this fall. cause frankly, i don't need this much stuff+c'mon, i need to make room for this mini gator sailor.
p.s. taz, i'm going to try to start channeling your minimalist ways more, i swear...at least when it comes to packing..

RIP dash snow

oD'd at a downtown hotel..fucking heroin takes another at 28.

robert RAUSCHENBERG, my favorite painter, died yesterday

i was blessed enough to meet and greet my hero at his last nyc opening in january, where his wished me the best of luck with my work. it remains the most amazing-albeit short lived- conversation i have ever had (hell, possibly will ever have).

rauschenberg's work from the late 50's and early 60's is by far my greatest influence as a painter. his combines are incredible; the layering, the color palette, the freedom and slight of hand, the use of pop culture and of found objects, are combined to create an entirely unique and genuinely exciting piece of visual art. he managed to establish a remarkably individualistic impression on the art world by colliding the sculptural and found object ideals of duchamp and joseph cornell with the slap happy drips of pollock, while establishing a pop foundation for the likes of warhol and kruger to follow.

i am unendingly thankful for his life and his works. they will continue to inspire and encourage my growth as a visual artist. as, it is my new goal in life to make work that could be curated aside his own...no uncertain task for sure. i understand that i have a long way to go. but in his legacy i hope to follow. given my gender and generation, i am inherently investigating different themes and issues from his own, yet honestly, i feel more aligned with mr. rauschenberg, the older gay man, than i do with my contemporary peers. [as noted after viewing the whitney biennial here]

in honor of his passing i'd like to share some excerpts from this mornings ny times article :

Apropos of Mr. Rauschenberg, Cage once said, “Beauty is now underfoot wherever we take the trouble to look.”

Cage meant that people had come to see, through Mr. Rauschenberg’s efforts, not just that anything, including junk on the street, could be the stuff of art (this wasn’t itself new), but that it could be the stuff of an art aspiring to be beautiful — that there was a potential poetics even in consumer glut, which Mr. Rauschenberg celebrated. “I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly,” he once said, “because they’re surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable.”
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The process — an improvisatory, counterintuitive way of doing things — was always what mattered most to him. “Screwing things up is a virtue,” he said when he was 74. “Being correct is never the point. I have an almost fanatically correct assistant, and by the time she re-spells my words and corrects my punctuation, I can’t read what I wrote. Being right can stop all the momentum of a very interesting idea.”
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John Cage said that fear in life is the fear of change. If I may add to that: nothing can avoid changing. It’s the only thing you can count on. Because life doesn’t have any other possibility, everyone can be measured by his adaptability to change.”

“I usually work in a direction until I know how to do it, then I stop,” he said in an interview in the giant studio on Captiva in 2000. “At the time that I am bored or understand — I use those words interchangeably — another appetite has formed. A lot of people try to think up ideas. I’m not one. I’d rather accept the irresistible possibilities of what I can’t ignore.”

He added: “Anything you do will be an abuse of somebody else’s aesthetics. I think you’re born an artist or not. I couldn’t have learned it. And I hope I never do because knowing more only encourages your limitations.”

R.i.P. heath leger

at age 28, my age. only one year more than janis or jimi.
he was discovered, facedown and naked by his cleaning lady and masseuse this afternoon at 3:35pm, after he did not answer his bedroom door.. they say sleeping pills were found, in the vicinity of/strew on, the bed in his broome st. apartment. thus it is suspected that he died from an overdose.. [apparently he had pneumonia and on top of that he had had trouble sleeping since playing the joker in the highly anticipated new batman movie.]

he is survived by his ex-lady michelle williams and his cute baby matilda, 2yrs.

truely tragic. he was one of the only actors, in our generation who, i had so looked forward to watching grow, mature, and develop. like johnny depp, jack nicholson or ed norton. just saying, this sucks. he was really talented and had a promising future...
i guess i will finally get around to watching brokeback mountain.

the mtv report and a nice interview: http://www.mtv.com/movies/news/articles/1580051/20080122/story.jhtml