one million breathing paintings

Your long awaited video footage. Don't worry, I know It's too long and you will only watch a few seconds of this five minute piece - it won't hurt my feelings* - it was made to loop on a gallery wall and not intended to rudely take-up your internet time.

* to learn what did hurt my feelings last night you will have to read to the end of this post

As was wishfully thinking planned, I was able to chinatownbus back to New York a third time with the main goal of getting the video footage (above) and the side goal of holding a reception.

I went straight from Chinatown the first morning to my Bedford stop.
The first thing I noticed was the startling absence of every single pvc pipe in the back of the piece.
As I walked to the empty back of the fence the second new thing was someone named "Moss" signed every single object stuck in the fence. He signed about one hundred and thirty objects.

I guess I just got served.


It was hard to believe that I had really pushed the levels of grossness to its limits during my first two trips by collecting wet bags and bottles of alcoholic beverages in the swampy dump heaps of the riverfront.

So I proved my commitment to revolting trash by collecting every article of clothing dumped on this dead-end lane.

It might be the third grossest thing you could collect there...

After awhile I had exctrated all the clothes and hauled them in my big tupperware box to my outdoor studio/gallery.

To emphasize my feat of hideousness I carefully folded each stinky, wet piece of laundry and laid them on a raised plywood board.

I displayed my favourites on the fence: a pair of pants skinnny enough for a girl but long enough for Tim Duncan, A pair of white jeans stuck with rows of giant safety pins and feathers, and - yes - an AC/DC jean jacket vest.


Enough said.

I thought it serendipitous, or at least appropriate, that I found a Michigan sweatshirt - not only because I used to live there - but because it was the day of the big game between OSU and UofM, arch rivals battling for the #1 spot in football.


As afternoon waxed I finally turned to building my wooden gallery floor out of the discarded pallettes in my junkyard street.

And made some extra objects. I needed a table for the reception goodies.




I bought the treats, put a chair in front of the third incarnation of the Brooklyn Bild and broke-out the harmonica while I waited for my public.
Jeffrey Butler showed-up first with Haley and filmed me.
Come Come Ye Saints, No Toil Nor Labor Fear.


People braved the cold windy evening in the name of Art.

Monica, who is a fellow VCU painting student, and her sister, Mariana, visiting from Mexico City.


I got to hang-out with Monica on both chinatownbus trips and get rides from her husband, Calvin, which was nice. (Calvin graduated last year and his great paintings are linked over there >)

Brigham and Francesco successfully looked really tough and protected us from the hoodlums.

Emily Hall, another VCU painting grad, brought her childhood friend and made some good jokes. I need to find if she has a website because her work rocks and rolls.

A sublime moment of the Bild, unforseen and unexpected, repeated in the video.


So, I actually do have other breathing paintings on this post, and a story about how my feelings were hurt last night. We had a curator for the Corcoran come through our studios yesterday. Very quick runthroughs, sort of devouring us with her notepad. She quickly got what I was doing and said something to the tune of, "Huh, so you're collecting everyday objects and making minimalist sculptures with them that talk about painting - do you know Dan Steinhilber? No? Well he's this young D.C. artist who had a Hirshhorn show. He does what you do but ten times better." This is not an exact quote. But then i googled him and spent an hour of that kind of excitement that breeds jealousy.

Meet Dan Steinhilber, my new arch enemy.


Dan Steinhilber's breathing painting. The trashbags are held together by only ties. They collapse and are re-filled by a shopvac. I actually have plans to fake the Brooklyn Bild indoors with fans.

This one broke my heart. I wish I had made it so bad.

I didn't think much of it until I read that the red in this plastic spoons stack is a red liquid, balanced in the cavity of the spoons. Genius, Dan, genius. I can't bear to show you anymore, you can google him yourselves.
I am coming up with a strategy to meet and befriend Dan, keeping my enemies close...Maybe that's why I somehow ended up in the same grad program that Tara Donovan went to...