Archive | March, 2009![]()
Shit We’re Diggin’: The Art of Charming Baker
Charming Baker at the Carmichael Gallery Of Contemporary Art:
You can see more of Charming Baker’s work here.
How are you shaped by your tools?
Sometimes when I am painting with brushes that are a bit worn out, I have the feeling that it doesn’t matter so much if the tips are worn away. But then if I take a brand new brush and start using it, my whole perception of what is possible, what …
Catchin’ Up With Swoon
“Last year, with a team of about 75 friends, crew, and collaborators, I built a flotilla of rafts out of salvaged bits of New York City. Our precarious floating home traveled 140 miles south along the Hudson River. What left as the refuse of the city’s mega construction returned as six vessels trying to encompass a whole world (the seventh died along the way).
This year, with some of those same vessels, and some new, we begin the second leg of our journey. Our destination? It’s the city whose outrageous countenance, rising straight up out of the ocean like that was a fine sort of thing for a city to do, was our original inspiration. Yes ma’am, we’re headed across the Adriatic Sea toward our first love, Venice.
This year we are a crew of 35, all artists, musicians, crackerjack mechanics, and folks who specialize in big, impossible, ridiculous dreams. We will put on a performance and cobble together a cabinet of wonders. We will, in our form, be working on themes of recycling and reuse, considering the footprint of a human community on the planet, and on issues of climate change. We have not found a solution to floods and sinking cities or where to go next, but we know that it’s important to us to create art and community at the same time as we seek a different relationship to our world.
We are starting in the Karst region of Slovenia (a former forest barren to this day after its large trees were cut for pilings in Venice), and skirting the northern coast of the Adriatic. For fun and a little mischief, we will be crashing the Venice Biennale.
Since we are doing all of this in an otherwise collapsed economy we need lots of help. It’s a big project that we are trying to fund with the help of many small contributions from people who would like to be involved and help us get these crafts afloat — even if you just think we’re cheeky and want to see if we’ll sink. This raffle is just one of the many ways we’re trying to get back on the water.”… Swoon
To find out about the SWOON raffle, contact info@swimmingcities.org or click here.
TXTual Healing’s thrity foot talking skeleton
The Only Certainty, Death and TXT’s from paul notzold on Vimeo.
A 30 foot projection of an animated skeleton triggered by received text messages. The installation was at the Leonardo in Salt Lake City for the Body Worlds exhibit
Gone Walkabout
I have been on the road for the past week exploring a few places that I thought I might like to move to (see earlier post), which has slowed posting down. Friends were renting a massive holiday apartment on the Gold Coast so I invited myself around to stay. It was on the 70th floor of a building which claims to be the tallest residential building in the world. It was like living on a plane without all the turbulence and flight attendants offering coffee and bad food.
Here’s some storm clouds rolling in..
Here’s a painting that I couldn’t stand looking at in the apartment, so I turned it around as it would have ruined my week. Friends thought I was crazy but I didn’t want it to influence me in any way.
People looked like ants on the beach.
I have a few more places to explore, but I’m starting to think I will just travel around Europe and America for the next year or two.
Truth
This painting, I think, is done – I went by my studio space and decided to finish it – if anything can really be finished. Orginally, I named it “The Uprising” but I think it ought to really be named “Truth” because that’s what I feel when I look at the painting.