Meet Van Gogh the Robbins Woodshop kitty. He likes loud noises, sawdust, pencils, and measuring tape.
Van Gogh assisted me with all stages of the stretcher building process.
His bed is on one of the work benches so he also did some sleeping.
I made good use of his skilz in the quality control department because he can fit into small places.
Progress for two days in the Robbins Woodshop and a sneak peek of my upcoming exhibit at Firecat Projects this January. In eight months some of these blanks will be paintings. The wood actually came from trees on my family's farm in South West Michigan. Many of you probably don't know that I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, which is just across the state line from this farm. As a child, I spent time running around the fields and hiding in the corn stalks. It's been in our family for 180 years and there is a lot of history on Robbins Lake Road. You can still see remnants of the original homestead built by Moses Robbins in 1833 down by the lake. He worked on building the Sauk Trail Road between Chicago and Detroit and ended up settling in Michigan. He loved the area so much that they named Robbins Lake and Robbins Lake Road after him. My Grandmother, Frances Robbins wrote a book about the history. My middle name was named after her but I unfortunately never had a chance to meet her as she died before I was born. The skeletons of these paintings are handmade and have a history.
Robins will build their nests just about anywhere.
Karl planted the corn while I worked on stretchers.
8- cylinder engines are quite beautiful
lots of seeds
watering the corn seeds
The turtles were laying their eggs early this year due to the warm weather. They usually lay their eggs on June 7 as that's my wedding anniversary.
My weekend trip to NYC was amazing and started with Thursday
night art openings - no cheese, lots of wine, and great people-watching.
Kimberly Hart at Mixed Greens was lovely and I really enjoyed the Jason
Yarmosky opening. Surprisingly,
Gagosian doesn’t serve wine or cheese. :P So many types of people dressed up
fancy, lots of artists, art lovers, and friendly folks. For dinner we enjoyed sausage coalfire pizza and smelling all the flower shops in the neighborhood. The next morning I enjoyed a delicious bagel Murray's. I think we visited over 200 galleries this
weekend with outstanding shows by Karin Waskiewicz (the best work I
saw over the weekend - blew my mind), Sarah Bednarek, Julie Oppermann, David
Opdyke, Jedediah Caesar, Ernesto Neto, and a Sheila Hicks five-decade survey. For lunch we had burgers and curry fries at Bareburger. Then it was off to free Friday night at the
MOMA with Diego Rivera portable murals from his 1931 show, the contemporary galleries, and 'Printin’, Print/Out exhibit. It was so
amazing, and there was not nearly enough time to see everything as I unfortunately didn't have time to see the Exquisite Corpses exhibit and I was so sad about this. For dinner we had glass noodles with
shrimp and fried noodle curry with chicken followed by 2 Wodkas, 2 Aprihops, 1 Saki,
and a galaxy of prawns with Jodi. Walking home we saw three hookers get into one car amongst the foggy starlight. At sunrise we walked on the High Line Elevated Rail Park. More
galleries and some powerful shows included Irfan Onurmen, Oliver Arms, Joseph
Nechvatal, Valerie Hegarty, Hunter Reynolds, Nigel Cooke, & Asad Faulwell. They wouldn’t let me in to see the
Kehinde Wiley exhibit, which opened that evening. It seemed like there weren't many women showing in the
galleries. I tried to include photos of the exhibits that moved me to the core. There were so many and I think that I'm forgetting a few. For lunch I had a Turkey club at Eisenberg's Sandwich Shop and enjoyed walking around Union Square and the Flat Iron building. We only saw one rat in the subway. In Central
Park amongst the ramble we saw 2 butterflies, 25 birds, 5 squirrels and heard
just about every language known to man and walked around the reservoir. We checked out some Upper East Side poodles and tiny dogs before moving on to free night at the
Guggenheim which was showing a John Chamberlain retrospective. I missed getting the throw down waffles with whipped
cream - sad face so I had a slice of pie with broccoli instead. We planned to go to a show at Don
Pedro’s in Brooklyn but unfortunately our legs turned into jello. This was the night of the Super Moon so in to bed very early. Foggy sunrise woke me up
at 4:30 am so I needed a Sockeye smoked salmon with scallion cream cheese on everything bagel. We had a second walk on High Line Rail Park down to West Village along the Hudson River then on
to Washington Square, SoHo, and finally Union Park again. We took a train to Upper East and split a cannoli before the Whitney Biennial. Honestly, I wasn’t really engaged by much that I saw in the exhibit and this was the
only art we paid to see and the only time that both of us were underwhelmed during the weekend. The circus sculptures by Alexandar Calder were really great so it wasn't a total loss but these were not part of the biennial. Whitney has a free night but it was at the same time as
the MOMA free night so we couldn't make it. I decided to
avoid the Frieze and NADA Art Fairs. For lunch we split an Italian sub and chicken parmigiana panini on our way to the airport. Our plane was delayed 3 hours due to the bad storms at home in Chicago. When we got home we had little food in the house so we made faux chili dogs with no buns and enjoyed some wine. We had such a great time and were happy to return home to the kitties. I
can’t wait until the Bloomingdale elevated trail opens in Chicago two blocks south of our apartment.
the view from our hotel room- 22nd floor
hotel view- 22nd floor
flower smells and these flowers were cheap!
The lottery scratch off wall was so fun- the best kind of art
Breathtaking and sensational work by David Opdyke. The flowers are actually tiny pink toilets - Holy crap!
David Opdyke and silly me with bright eyes.
Ernesto Neto gave me a back and foot massage
Ernesto Neto
Charles Mary Kubricht
in the High Line Park Rail- 'dazzle' based on the dazzle warship camoflage- stunning
High Line
SARAH SZE sculpture with fruit for the birds
happy angel cat makes me miss my kitties
high line zoo- no smells or poop :)
curves
dork artist hipster taking tourist photos
I forgot to write down this artist's name that made this- art swoon. It's not listed on the high line website. As I was looking through the photos I saw that this sculpture sort of looks like Jim and I or at least we are wearing similar clothes.
husband hipster with laser cat eyes
This is a Jason Yarmosky painting. I got to meet the artist and his wife who is the subject of the paintings- art swoon. They were sitting in the corner of the gallery and you couldn't miss them. She commented on Jim's curly locks and added another layer to the exhibit about the old yearning to be young. Powerful and strong exhibit.
Kimberly Hart
Kimberly Hart was phenomenal
Jenna Spevack
Karin Waskiewicz-This was the best show I saw over
the weekend and the work TOTALLY blew my mind. This amazing young painter is just finishing up her MFA in IOWA this spring.
Karin Waskiewicz, Sarah Bednarek, & Julie Oppermann was one of the best group shows I have ever seen. They go together perfectly.
Karin Waskiewicz
Jedediah Caesar- this was not the work they were showing but it is similar as I couldn't find any images of the current show.
Jedediah Caesar
Shelia Hicks- art swoon
Shelia Hicks
Shelia Hicks
Shelia Hicks
The small pieces by Shelia Hicks were extraordinary.
Joseph Nechvatal made these computer robotic computer assisted work. They did not really seem digital as I thought they were paintings while enjoying the show. I was talking to someone about artist statements and how I usually always read them at exhibits. I look at the work first and then I like to read about it and check out the materials. For me it's another way to connect to the artist if they are not there to talk about their work. The artist statment Joseph really cracked me up and brought a greater insight into the work.
All I can say about Oliver Arms is wow. The texture was so beautiful in these large scale paintings.
Oliver Arms
Irfan Onurmen made this by layering and hanging different colored tulle- WHAAAAT! The work was so beautiful and soft.
Irfan Onurmen made out of layers of hanging layers of tulle
Hunter Renyolds show some striking paint, paper, and string collages.
Nigel Cooke was just lovely.
Nigel Cooke was so great
Asad Faulwell- the texture in these works was incredible and the obsessive pattering was such a delight.
Asad Faulwell
Ryan Cusp
Ryan Cusp
Valerie Hegarty
Alexandar Calder Circus sculptures
Alexander Calder performs his circus
This was as close as we got to the statue of liberty. Actually I've never seen it as there is always too much art to see in such little time. I think you can see where my priorities are.
