Musings from the God of Cities

i'd spent the last week photoshopping pictures i took at marshfield fair last weekend, but then realized that howl festival

takes place this week.

so, instead of posting up pictures of cute fuzzy bunnies and the like...

(here's a preview:

the rest are coming next week)

...i went on down to the east village to check out my favorite part of howl, the art around the park


during howl, they cover most of the fence surrounding tompkins square park with a white canvas, and have artists paint individual sections of it.


i went both saturday and sunday 'cause i wanted to take pictures of how the artists progressed over the course the weekend. here's what i saw:

some paintings of animals...










some portraits...






like these, which are pictures of people who had gotten lobotomies,




this painting of joan "mommie dearest" crawford,




and the piece that this dude was drawing of the artist next to him.


some people made some pretty abstract stuff


















like new york press artist fly




and this pair, who attracted quite a crowd with their open-air body-painting








this being new york, there was some graffiti,



some of which was being supervised by a very sweet looking pooch




as well as a bit of of politically-minded art








besides the art around tompkins square park, there was other fun stuff going on in the area, like

semi-nude figure drawing,


these installations inside the park,




and sunday's japanese fair just outside the park on st. mark's. that's where i saw
people in ethnic garb...


baby-penguin-grade-cute kids...


and a martial arts demonstration that was pretty kick-ass, despite the lack of real weapons






that's all for now kids. next week... bunnies!!!

for a variety of reasons, i haven't been able to post much lately, but now i'm back-ish, and ready to show some more fun art pictures. if all goes according to plan, there should be tons of stuff going up in the coming weeks. today it's pictures i took of sol lewitt's splotches, whirls and twirls pieces at the metropolitan museum of art here in new york. i apologize if i got a little... overzealous with the photoshopping, but what can i say, i like my beer cold, my t.v. loud, and my colors BRIGHT!

like jim anchower says, "i know it's been a while since i rapped at ya..." but work, a manpanion who is living in another state until december, and lack of a photoshop have all conspired against me posting anything. it'll probably be a while until i post anything substantial, so i figured i should at least pop in to say hello and point you to some good, good stuff that you can can exchange for money. two of my coworkers/workfriends own a company called contemporary press, through which they sell their books. while i haven't read the books, i have it on good authority from a variety of sources that their books are thoroughly enjoyable. they are available through the c.p. website, but it's preferable if you buy them through amazon. check out the books here and here.

and if you're more of the illiterate sort, there's always the art from mad man mike, whose work i can personally vouch for, as i own two pieces of his... which reminds me that i really ought to post a picture of the other piece of his i own... anywho, mike is selling some of his stencil pieces on ebay. you can (and will, if you know what's good for you) check out his auctions here. they're pretty rad, and definitely worth checking out.