Setback

Now that my laptop has been stolen and my camera, I will have to go through a lot more trouble to access my pictures to post on this blog. No, I didn't back up everything. I'll have to manually search for material that is boxed up in the "art" room. But some things like saved emails are gone for good. Years ago, around 1990, a similar thing happened, when a friend's trailer I had stored art in was vandalized. One day after work at the factory, I walked through the overgrown grass and towards the tree where the trailer was. Leading up tp the trailer were balled up pieces of paper. My heart dropped when upon closer examination, they proved to be my drawings. This discovery was a hint of things to come - a trailer where my works where scattered everywhere, varnish and paint splashed here and there, and the windows busted out on all sides of the trailer. Perhaps, the most disturbing finding was a few early drawings of human forms imprisioned by box-like framen - they were found stuffed in the bottom of the trailers non-working toilet. I tried my best to salvage them, but it appeared useless. I never found out who did it.

Blank Canvass Benefit Visual Arts Center of New Jersey

"Lunch with a Curator" II is my submission to the 2008 Blank Canvass Benefit at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. The event is by invitation and helps support education & art programming at the center. Last year I did an oil painting for the same event. This year, I created a mixed media piece, complete with fork, brush, plate, clay sculpted into a "ship coming in," as the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey logo is expanded to have an artist with cap joined with a curator wearing a crown. I accented the regal moment as something very special and transcendental, fantasy-like. The piece asks - Can a meeting with a curator lead to something? Can an artist be catapulted out of his financial misery by a single win in a juried art show? It also says something about believing in the power of art. Visualize it and concretize it to actualize it. Believe in the power of art.

LUNCH WITH A CURATOR

Last year, my donation to the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey's Annual Blank Canvass Benefit, was a painting depicting an alter ego of myself having lunch with the juror for the 2008 International Show. This was the "Best in Show" award - to sit down for lunch at the Whitney and have the ears and eyes of the juror, which in this case was the Whitney's curator of drawings. Did I resort to some ancient voodoo tactic to try my luck? No, I merely used art to express my hope for a certain outcome before it was decided to not happen - I wasn't even juried into the show. But in 2007, I won a Merit Award, one of the top 6 awards selected from about 1800 entries. So, my hopes are high and probably not too far-fetched. But, who's to say when hope is misplaced. I can think of many other things more misplaced.

This year I am submitting for the auction, a logo for the "Lunch with a Curator" Best in Show award in the upcoming 23rd International Show at Summit. It will consist of a plate, a fork, a 1" brush, an approaching ship made of clay, stick on letters, and a re-structuring of the VACNJ logo. I'll spray it chrome and call it "Lunch with Curator II."