jump to navigation

Dezso not Deszo March 29, 2006

AHHHHHHH!!!

I just got an email from Andrea Dezso who will be in the first opening at Normal Space; I have a small (6×7.5 cm) colour inkjet print mounted on card by her. So she just informed me:

I noticed that my name is misspelled on the invitation you sent me a link to. The correct spelling is Dezso (the z comes first then teh [sic] s). I know it’s totally counterintuitive, it’s only used this way in Hungraian [sic] as far as I know.

I sware, it’s impossible, something always goes wrong!! No matter how long one spends proofing everything, reading and re-reading, checking grammar, spelling, names, etc., you always miss at least one thing somewhere! Fortunately, it actually made me laugh to realize this! I’m sorry Andrea, I’ll get it correct next time!

workday March 27, 2006

it was a great day in the studio. did a lot of maintenance for Normal Space, including sanding, painting, electrical and art-gathering. the paint is upthe paint is outi came to a realization today about working with particular elements of this gallery: above the drop-ceiling line the drywall was mostly neglected and abused. not a total surprise there, obviously the drop-ceiling wasn’t intended to be removed for the space to be converted into an exhibition space! but the maintenance required to smooth out certain elements of the space require more than i expected, and will have to be dealt with at another time.

wet paintenough layers of paint over time will solve some of these issues. so i threw down some paint!

mopeven did a mopping of the space. man what a difference that made! dust is a phenomenon because you can sweep and sweep and vacuum and do all of that, but some of it always remains; you need a proper mopping to really remove it.

ze workthen for the first time i got out most of the work for the show and pooled it all together along the gallery wall. the accompanying photo shows about 2/3 of the work for the show. still a few others in storage elsewhere and 3 pieces yet to acquire off-site. but laying it all out made me realize just how much i like all of this work. i’m really excited to see it fill the space, to be a living gallery.

the other maintenance for the space/show i did included installing one overhead lamp, a 4ft. fluorescent. i’m unsure yet if i’ll be using fluorescents or incandescents for the exhibition. i need to do more electrical work to really solve that concern. i also compiled the initial slideshow that will be playing on my computer monitor (19″ ViewSonic G90fb) during the opening. right now it’s 70 photos. a few more to add and i’ll likely re-compile them for the web after the opening.

all in all a fun day’s work!

cards arrived March 23, 2006

the postcards for the opening show arrived today! they look GREAT, and were super cheap! they’re completely blank on the backside which i really love, none of that small-font informational crap, just blank. so i can scribble notes all over them. yay!

cards printed March 16, 2006

I remade the postcard for the show. Actually, I never had a card made, just that other image (which I was distributing photocopies of by hand because I don’t have enough ink to print these en masse), which is very similar to the one used for the card. But I found a great printer online with a discount going on for this month for regular 4″x6″ postcards and thought I should test their quality, and what better opportunity than for my first studio show! And this way I can send actual cards to the artists involved so they can show everybody else how important they must be because I collect their work.

I mean, that is why we make work right? So other people can collect it. Right?

It’s nearly 1:30am, the file has been uploaded to the printer, the cards are scheduled to arrive on the 23rd. If you want one and aren’t sure if I have your postal address, then send me an email and I’ll send you a postcard! Pretty cool huh?

this weekend March 9, 2006

i’ve set aside all of my tools, and bought some new ones. not sure i’ll be able to get to re-rig the lighting, but i’ll definitely have time to tackle some of the physical aspects of the space, including some sanding, spackling and painting. then i’ll be able to start laying out all of the work, and seeing it in the space as a collective body for the first time. i really do have a lot of work to negotiate, but you never know until you see it in the space.

as always, i’ll be sure to take some photos this weekend to document my progress, and will likely post some pictures here to show my progress. another thing i plan on developing this weekend is a small maquette to quickly reposition all of my works and consider their salonesque display. this approach has overlaps with a piece i’m currently working on for Lance Wakeling’s artMarket Mini 2005 2006 (as well with other works i’ve developed in the past).

34 days to launch!

transatlantic studio moves March 5, 2006

a little cross-blogging sensation going on here! i just got an email from Karen D’Amico who in case you haven’t already noticed will be in the inaugural Normal Space opening. Karen is a fellow American whom i met in London (she lives there still) while attending Central St. Martin’s. These days she’s big into two forms of communication that i absolutely adore: zines and blogs; she’s part of the inspiration behind this blog even! And she recently put up a post which includes an interview-exchange she had with fellow artist Carol Es about their near-simultaneous studio moves. Pretty interesting, and since the interviews are different you find yourself clicking back and forth between them reading the text like a mesh (I read them both on one screen and literally scrolled down them together weaving back and forth between them!)

Click here for Karen’s interview of Carol.
Click here for Carol’s interview of Karen.

Jessica Cannon writes in February 25, 2006

Jessica Cannon, another artist who will be participating in the inaugural Normal Space exhibition, wrote to Flux Factory today, as she later expressed “half excited half confused”. Now I find this whole curve pretty interesting, so here’s the story:

This past November (me thinks) I went to the Parsons MFA Open Studios in support of my friend Ashley Kesling whom I met while working on the Novel project at Flux Factory. While there I did a round of most of the studios, obviously. Later in the eve, after enjoying a few Newcastle Browns which were gallantly being offered from an empty, abandoned studio, Ashley asked if there was any work I was particularly fond of. While I couldn’t remember her name then, I said yes and I could take Ashley to the studio, perhaps she could tell me more about the person.

After a drunken tour we stumbled into Jessica’s studio and Ashley burst into a laugh – I knew I had made a good choice!

cannon_dreamcatcherI already liked Jessica’s work, especially her drawings, of which I remember things such as skyscrapers and an iceberg adorned with scenes of play. Ashley explained they are public work proposals, and they exist in several places: in drawings, photomontages, and actual works (the type of work my old friend Elaine Arkell from London would really love!). Then I appreciated the works even more! I really wanted to meet Jessica, and Ashley assured me we would someday.cannon_winterwaterland

Then, just a few weeks later, there was the 2005 Night of 1,000 Drawings at Artists Space. A deluge of drawings and other works on paper hung from wire with bulldog clips, I spotted three pieces that I was considering buying. I paced back and forth between the three pieces, contemplating which one to buy (even though they were each only $50, I could only afford one). I wasn’t really interested in who the artist was, because I wanted to focus more on the drawing and its inclusion into my collection. But then I broke down and inspected the rear of each work to see who the artist was, and wouldn’t you know one of them was by Jessica Cannon!

!SNAP!

I bought it. Well chuffed with that purchase! What a great piece. A drawing of a slab of sidewalk concrete that has grass growing out of it, which Jessica has also made into an installation.

So several months go by, I start planning out Normal Space, and include Jessica’s name onto my original flyer-image posted on the Flux Factory website to start spreading the word about the exhibition. Anyhow somehow Jessica caught wind of her inclusion in the show, wrote to Flux, Flux forwarded her email to me, I replied, and she says:

…now I’m just excited. I think its really interesting to reactivate a space by installing different artists’ work in it… especially since its a studio and there already exists so much potential there

Jessica really understands the impulse behind this show, and I can’t wait to meet her!

visit Jessica’s website

George Romanation visits February 20, 2006

George is a photographer and a great guy! I met him today finally. We’ve been exchanging emails (and playing phone tag) now for around maybe 6 weeks, on and off (busy schedules for the both of us), and he swung by Flux Factory today for us to meet, talk, and for me to purchase a piece of his which I’m also looking to include in the inaugural Normal Space exhibition.

George lives nearby in Woodside, so it was just a short skip for him from home to Flux. He mentioned he works in the travel industry which allows him the opportunities sometimes to go to places he wouldn’t be able to get to otherwise (he does live in QUEENS after all!) and to take photos on his journeys.

The piece I bought from George is a black and white RC print, 5×7 inches, and is an inscription from a wall in Russia (Moscow, Petrograd? can you remind me George!) which has an excerpt from the defunct Soviet Constitution which translates to “All Power in the USSR belongs to the People” – of course the original text is in cyrillic.

This photo is only the second wet-based photograph in my collection, and will be an excellent piece to exhibit at Normal Space. The exact piece I bought can be found on George’s new website. Click through his links to explore more of his work.

inaugural exhibition February 13, 2006

normalspace_title

This page, indeed this site and this project, no doubt every aspect of this Space will be developed over the course of the next weeks in preparation for the inaugural exhibition at Normal Space, featuring artworks from my own personal collection.

The first exhibition will feature approximately 26 artworks by 23 artists (perhaps more, the collection is always open to additions) including:
normalspace500x

The first opening will be two months from the date of this post, on 13 April 2006, the second Thursday of the month, to coincide with the Flux Thursday dinner and salon event at Flux Factory.

« newer posts