More on Ryan, north star & existential flashlight, here. Hat-tip This Isn’t Happiness
Table of Contents: > Sketchbook
Some Things I Recently Saw In Greece
A Sequenz
Burnt
Rusty
Philadelphia Navy Yard, Mid-May, 2020
Some Things I Recently Saw In France
The pulpit beneath a carved depiction of the daily ecstasy and rapture of Mary Magdalene, The Basilica of St Maximin, Aix-en-Provence • the pulls of a small organ in the same Basilica • a standard roadside boulangerie, the A52 at Roquevaire, Aix-en-Provence • Some opulence in the Palace of Versailles • some unruly triffids spilling out in the 7th arrondissement • a mannequin on the Rue de la Fontaine au Roi • I spy you up there, above the frieze, amidst yet more opulence in the Palace of Versailles • Welcome to the opulence of the Palace of Versailles! • a folio at Les Puces • Dior Barbie • A horn of plenty amidst the opulence of the Palace of Versailles • An antique pair amongst antiques, St Maximin, Aix-en-Provence • Caryatids by Pierre Lescot in the Louvre • Marianne above the Place de la République
Normal Models
From top: Milford, Pa; Philadelphia; Madison, CT, and the last two from Georgian Lanes, Parry Sound, Canada
Three Portuguese Vignettes
Bebe’s corduroy voice,
a Chesterfield burr —
unspools & old ropes give way
and the drawbridge drops
across the sunken court.She stayed behind,
to man the parapet
while the movable feast’s last course
played out
a styrofoam farce.We slept in the old chapel
littered with espionage scripture.
Stations of the jet set,
gilded frames ajar —Every Tuk-tuk driver in Lisbon will tell you
a bout the earthquake on All Saint’s Day
that leveled the churches
but spared the brothels.So — Cast your fishnets
and collect billets in the chapel of bones.
Vacuum the apse —
AstroTurf the courtyard —
Hoist that orange extension cord high!
Draw the current —
Scaffold the nave —
Drop the cloth —
Nail it across walls
whose scored stones
give history
familiar grip —
while the plaster dust remains
as timeless as the air
that forms the changeless notes
she pumps through the old organ.
Texture
From top: Point Reyes Lighthouse; Lambertville, New Jersey; Point Reyes Lighthouse; Point Reyes Lighthouse: Lambertville, New Jersey; Allentown, Penna; Ballston Spa, New York
Mesh & Lace
Mesh & Lace, 2016, 11″x13″
Collage, paper, acetate
Blacksmith Garage Lewes, MD
This place was open & unmanned, magical —a blacksmith’s garage —behind a parking lot in Lewes, Maryland. 2015.
An Indiscreet Barouche
Ursula Andress in TODD-AO
Here’s a quick one — a sketch portrait of Ursula Andress as Vesper Lynd in the technicolor carnival that was the original Casino Royale. The one where Peter Sellars seduces her behind the fish tank. When I cut the painting I had accidentally done it in almost the exact aspect ratio of TODD-AO, hence the title. Best to click, it’s a long one, so it shrinks tiny. Cheers
Local Pop
Some recent moments of pop happenstance wandering around Philadelphia — Ellsworth & Broad, and shop buy vicodin 10mg windows on Bainbridge and 4th street respectively. Topmost iPhone, the others digital SLR — Enjoy.
Nicola
Was poking around the internet looking for a hi-res cover for this Bert Jansch double album I was digitizing. On the original twofer CD it was the size of a postage stamp. Gorgeous piece of work when you can really take it all in, no?
Seeing Clearly
Ocean, 1975 Vija Celmins / drypoint on paper
What we call seeing a thing clearly, is only seeing enough of it to make out what it is; this point of intelligibility varying in distance for different magnitudes and kinds of things, while the appointed quality of mystery remains nearly the same for all. Thus: throwing an open book and an embroidered handkerchief on a lawn, at a distance of a half a mile, we cannot tell which is which: that is the point of mystery for the whole of those things. They are merely white spots of indistinct shape. We approach them, and perceive that one is a book, the other a handkerchief but cannot read the one or trace the embroidery of the other. The mystery has ceased to be in the whole things, and has gone into their details. We go nearer; and can now read the text and trace the embroidery, but cannot see the fibers of the paper or the tread. The mystery has gone into a fourth place, where it must stay until we take a microscope, which will send it into a fifty, sixth, hundredth or thousandth place. —John Ruskin on the picturesque sublime
Juxtaposition by Dave Hickey / 25 Women: ESSAYS ON THEIR ART, 2016 / Univ. of Chicago Press
Regency
Regency / Digital /
Coxsackie Antique Center, Rt, 9, Coxsackie, New York
It goes la, la, la…
