new york pictures

can you tell that the holiday season bowled me over with busyness? i am just now getting to these...

brooklyn. The 'deck' of my friend's warehouse space. they live right next to a bridge, but i forget which one.










coney island at night, a few days after thanksgiving:

on christmas i went sailing

(and on the way to sailing i poured hot coffee square in the eyes of a princessy little pug dog, but that's another story)

Christmas was eerie, quiet, calm and grey. we saw one other sailboat. the dog threw his tennis ball overboard and we did drills to get it.


eerie silent floating tanker, water blending into sky. Reminded us both of Mieville's The Scar.




the only sounds we could hear were the twin faint roars of 101 and 80, and the water lapping at the boat. Well, that and the dog's frantic panting as he gently tossed a tennis ball to antron over and over and over and over. We drank raspberry lambic and nattered and fell silent, over and over again. I untwisted a block and tackle.


the city faded into the background and the sky and bay enclosed us. You can see a faint Bay Bridge to the right in this photo.




everything we could see was battened down nice and snug. everyone but us was at home. (we did see one other sailboat, with two boaters in it. they had the right idea too.)


dusk fell without a defining moment; the sun set invisibly somewhere behind a wall of clouds.

for christmas, i want a slackmaster 2000

Everyone I interact with in the retail world has been bowled over by Christmas, myself included. I have already set my sights beyond, though, and after being asked to hang some paintings at Anon Salon NYE (pricey burning-man-style annual event) had to put my nose to the grindstone. Pictures forthcoming of the work that will hang there - I am working up a pair of diptychs simultaneously so we will see if 2 or 4 pieces will hang. New paintbrushes and strategic new supplies are making this a little bit less painful - I recently discovered Acrylic Flow Release and have been able to apply the colors I have only in cheap leftover theatre latex as if they were ink - as well as mixing water-soluble inks with acrylic medium and flow release to waterproof them as they are applied. Praise Be!

Meanwhile, I got tagged a while ago, and since I have been too busy to post at all Chris has had to wait. Wait no longer!

Five Things You Might Never Have Found Out About Me Otherwise

1. Once, when I was a kid, I was at a tertiary sort of extended-family Christmas and I threw a tantrum because I hadn't gotten enough presents.

2. I used to have a pet guinea pig. My older brother talked me into giving it 'carousel rides' in an old umbrella, and it threw up. Guinea pigs throw up white.

hmm, this is turning into 'embarassing things about my childhood'. Let's regroup.

3. I may be a cynic and at least partially Jewish as well as an atheist but there is something about Christmas that I really love. And no, it's not just presents. I like the goofy optimism that manages to percolate up even through ungodly gobs of gaudy crap.

4. I'm not a very good painter. No, seriously. I'm good at seeing and I'm stubborn but I'm only now, that I'm making a living at it, learning how to actually manipulate brushes and mix color. It's really hard.

5. I was a vegetarian for 8 years or so, and am not anymore. The first meat I ate on re-entry was raw tuna in Hawaii.

a few more pics of Pandora's Trunk

Worry not, fearless readers. I've already engaged a proper photographer for the February event. This is a little silly. That said, here are some photographs that Alexandre (the mobile sculptor) was kind enough tosend me from his little pocket camera from that day. I think they were taken very early in the day. Believe it or not, in retrospect, these photos look peaceful.

Amazing Success!

Pandora's Trunk this Saturday was a tremendous success - the place was packed and there were lots of smiling new faces. A heavy rainstorm came up midshow and people kept arriving! Everything was a blast and several people have promised me pictures but all I can show you so far are these two, taken by my friend Chris ; the Santa outing you can see in that link took place at the same time as Pandora's Trunk and we definitely had more than a few Santified guests throughout the day. Santa and robots go well together, don't you think?The Chipper
This is the monster that chews up the curb. He has a pedal that you press and he chomps at you, ka-pthunk! ka-think! Dogs hate him. He has stainless steel teeth and giant beady eyes.


These are poured plastic mini-creatures that Aharon had to go along with her actual robots. You can see two orange & 1 purple miniatures here of her larger Happy Robot piece, the creepiest Happy Robot ever.

Pandora's Trunk Chronicle Writeup!

Chronicle Article about holiday sample sales


The article had this to say about us:

Pandora's Trunk: This bimonthly fashion arts party -- half performance art, half sample sale -- is hosted by a collective of Bay Area indie artists, masseurs, performers and hipsters. It's putting on a special holiday party/sale with a robot theme. T-shirts, jewelry, hats -- and robots doing tricks -- are in the mix. Live music and free drinks.

1-7 p.m. Sat. at 916 Natoma St., San Francisco. Free. www.pandorastrunk.com.

I also sent off an image for an ad in The Onion. I remember back before I knew cool kids to hang out with newsweeklies were a rich source of fun events for me - and I am supporting an awesomely hilarious institution! I feel good about helping to pay for the Onion's biting content.

Pittsburgh nighttime photo essay

Stomping around with all my siblings in the frosty cold at midnight. It sure is quiet here.


This is the back porch of my childhood home. It looks creepy here but I have a lot of happy memories. The following image is a little low wall that ran in between the house and the road. I remember tiny red bugs that ran in it.

A Full Deck

I am cut off - absolutely no more people allowed to participate in Pandora's Trunk. There are about 25 people working to make this show happen! I just added the latest addition to the website - Alexandre Koulouris, a mobile artist.
His work is like that of Calder and Lee Bontecou.
I am really excited to see this piece in person - it'll be hanging at the show, along with Sailer and possibly a third piece - the artist told me he is working feverishly right now to finish it so hopefully this will be an inspiratory nudge.

A Whole Lotta Paintings

...but so few of them for me!

These two are hanging on Haight St in Ruby Gallery:

This one may have already been purchased:
And this one, which photographed poorly because it is under glass, will stay at home with me for the time being.It's always a great feeling to write the name on and sign the back, packaging up a batch of paintings to pass on to the outside world.

I'm leaving in a few days to go to the east coast for a little over a week. While there I will enjoy family togetherness for Thanksgiving, a visit with my grandmother on Long Island, and a whirlwind trip through NYC (haven't been back in years!) to pimp my hats at boutiques. I sent out a round of mailers last week, and have an appointment already at Serimony. Hopefully more to come! I'm doing a round of emails tomorrow as well.

I Think It's Done

I say those words a lot. The hardest part of working on a painting intensely, towards a deadline, is the inability to gain any sort of perspective. I get too buried in it.



I think it's done...

The HTML Adventure Continues

Every time I have to work on any of the websites I feel like I'm in some sort of comical movie where I am hiding behind a bush at a fancy party, trying to pretend I'm something that I'm not. I've got an array of pretty powerful software tools at my disposal, though, cobbled together of freeware and greymarket commercial software. I'm starting to get good at this, and that's the part that scares me most of all.

Pandora's Trunk Artists page just got a facelift. I think it looks pretty good. Hopefully over Thanksgiving I will be adding a level of profile pages that you can click to from the page that you are seeing.

What else have I been up to? The Bicycle Cloche is available at Miranda Caroligne, as are some collaborative pieces with her crazy-cool stitching and patches of my paintings. I painted the set for 12 Days of Cochina, a raunchy queer-themed comedy with a Dr Seuss kind of look to it.

What haven't I been up to? sleeping. That'll come one of these days. Stay tuned for breaking news on how I am working hard to get famous in Japan.

The large and the small

Pandora's Trunk, my eclectic San Francisco arts event series, just landed a sponsorship from Craft: Magazine! This will really give the event a kick in the pants. If you were thinking of going, now you've got another reason: Craft:zine goodies. I'm also expecting a package of handmade pieces from New Zealand soon, from Ami-Ana Crochet - these will be for sale at the December 9th Pandora. Lots and lots of robots at that show, and plenty more surprises up my sleeve. Sign up for the mailing list to stay in the loop about the show - you don't want to miss a thing!

Blog-love recently from:
The Social Customer Manifesto
The Fabulist

I just got 150 copies of my winter line sheet printed(this is a document displaying the Medium Reality wares with prices and wholesale purchase information) and am ready to launch my three-phase retail attack.
Step one:
take over Japan
Step two:
take over NYC
Step three:
profit.

Finally, as per viewer request, here is the bicycle that you can see in the bicycle cloche:

I'm ready for my close-up!

What a whirlwind! There were only four of them, two cameras, the sound guy, and the director - the producer ran the B camera. I built a little set in the middle of my living room and pretended to make a hat on it.



It was really fun, although for the first time in my life I was The Talent.







This was a strange experience - right when they showed up, I directed them around a little, Showing them where to put stuff and where to park, but then very quickly & clearly my role was to get out of their way until they were ready for me.



We spent the first part of the day with me and the dog doing laps of the alley on my bike - I can only imagine how ridiculous that part will look. It got tense at the end as we went into overtime but what fun! I can't wait to see it, but I'll have to - spring at the earliest. I'll know in January when it airs.

Our Trusty Hero

The HGTV film crew is coming this week, and I have been preparing for them like mad. I've been a little trepidatious about my ability to produce all of the hats in various stages of completion identical enough to please them. I think it will go well, though - looking at this picture of them all arrayed it almost makes sense.



The one totally finished product is referred to as the hero.



One of these finished hats will be up for auction at SFBC's Winterfest event on December third. I'm not sure of the fate of the other four.