(Also, because I want to make some extra bank as one of my courses at SVA was cancelled this semester due to low enrollment. While I wasn’t thrilled, I must say its nice to get a break from lecturing six hours in a row, which has been my Thursdays for a long time now. Not a big deal, but being free at 3PM and in the city is rare for me and I’m enjoying it.)

Something so engaging and real about being on the sidewalk meeting and talking to all kinds of people, eye to eye…SO glad i did it:) And was so happy to have my neighbor-longtime friend hang with me all day, from beginning to end, helping me set up and take down! How fucking sweet is that?! AM SO GRATEFUL. Of course I kept trying to foist stuff on her, lol, in gratitude – and I had great stuff out there, from Gunne Sax to Leslie Fay to Ungaro, with lots of great 1960s-70s stuff, which she loves. But she only took a couple things. I also think she enjoyed it too, the human side of it reminding her of her retail/record store days in San Francisco in the early 1990s.

I was surprised how little people knew about what they were looking at. I thought with all the young blood in Greenpoint and the popularity of all things “vintage” there’d be more cultivated tastes out there. My biggest sale, who also has an Etsy shop, being an exception. Regardless, the fact that people just bought things because they liked them was also cool!

I do though wonder if I’ve just acquired more expertise than I realize (to justify my endless thrifting, no doubt), or if there’s no desire for expertise anymore as “vintage” simply means “second-hand” now. Ie, its just all “old”. I’ve always taken it quite seriously thanks to gay male friends who schooled me back in the day (some cliches are true), but that’s when very few did the vintage thing, and everyone had a niche.

Anyway, I’ll be uploading new stuff on romanlovesgigi (my Etsy shop again soon), and perhaps doing more street sales (next time with biz cards for my shop), so stay tuned!

(Btw, if you didn’t catch my show, From the Ruins…, it got great reviews, meaty thoughtful ones, in the New Yorker, artforum.com, Time Out New York, the Brooklyn Rail, PAPER, and observer.com so Google that shit! Pretty damn grateful for that still too!!! And I’m excited to be working on some other projects! this amazing Fall weather on the east coast, and look out for the giant red moon Sunday nite!!)

some super quick pics from the iphone…(I am laughing that I threw in curlers I never used and nail polish: classy, lol!)

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Clearly, true capitalists know better than to alienate or judge consumers, and keep morals out of the transaction. Its the ideologues who’ve got an agenda, and usually a righteous mission to justify it, one with an absolutist vision – insert bible thumpers here – that bring morality into the equation – insert corporate right-wingers, religious zealots, and all the other wealthy nutjobs whose strings are being played by a cold-calculating capitalist here. So believe me, I’m very cynical and kind of ick-ed out by how mainstream so many gay and straight folks I know have become, in large part as they chose to participate in that get married, buy a house/apartment, bear offspring, bourgeois nuclear family thing.

BUT there’s a spectrum of POVs, and its always taken those working from within and without the system to change it, I think. Ever heard of the Trojan Horse? Celebrating the supreme court’s ruling – a victory for civil rights!!!! – that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right, and on the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, is a beautiful thing!!! Its one damn weekend, and we can still continue to advocate for #blacklivesmatter, #abortionrights, etc. because in no way should what happened in Charleston, SC, be forgotten, nor should the protests, of which i’ve been part of, stop.

And maybe there’s an unexamined bias in some of these anti-pride critiques that stems from an Amerocentric (not a word, but should be) perspective that forecloses what Pride parades and rainbow flags mean to the rest of the world? Its easy to forget the utter bravery, the warrior-like resolve, required to carry that flag in places where homosexuality is still a crime.  Punishable by death. Places where people boldly and heroically risk their LIVES to be out and proud. As those at Stonewall once did. I was so touched, for example,  to see a friend, a longterm survivor of AIDS march today with veterans of the latter, though it was a pic of a Ugandan man striding down a dirt road, wrapped in a long rainbow cloth tied at his waist, that brought me to tears. Don’t forget Uganda just passed the most draconian anti-gay legislation, and despite the state sanctioned violence this man’s action could provoke, he marched anyway. So its important to remember rainbow flags aren’t just co-opted signs of capitalist-assimilation for everyone on the planet. For some, it represents solidarity with an identity so radical its met with murderous hatred. In Istanbul, parade goers were attacked by police with rubber bullets for fuck’s sake.

None of this is to suggest everyone who is gay, queer-identified, or allied with civil rights, should wave a rainbow flag around, but to say there’s no need to piss all over someone else’s celebration. Pride 2015, especially here in NYC, was momentous, and while I was not able to partake ( I’ve been hosting Turner-Prize nominated artists, Jane and Louise Wilson all weekend, in conjunction with a screening/talk they did for my show, From the Ruins…), I was there in spirit! Luckily, it seems the negative attitude didn’t register out in the streets.  But on Facebook I saw a LOT of it, and just felt the need to comment. As one friend counter-posted to all the ‘tude, and the implication that one can’t be Pro-Pride AND anti-assimilationist, “YES AND NO. We can feel both at once”, with the two following pics attached:

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She will go on and on incoherently, and its the same spiel all these years, always peppered by comments about her husband being Jewish and the Catholic Poles all hating her, and stories of being robbed. She never appears to recognize me despite our many interactions, and tonite I told her three times, “yes, I know, I remember you telling me that”. But whenever I try to carry on a conversation by replying, she gets confused, or just uninterested.  Sometimes it makes the desire to walk away stronger, but I never do.

Tonite I made sure she drank a lot of water because it was so dangerously hot, and I got her to eat some rice. I also helped her hide her $, which she keeps separate from her pocketbook, promising I’d look for a pink blouse and a size pair 10 shoes tomorrow at her request (she often doesn’t like the selections I make, though,  having once turned her nose up at a pocketbook I got for her).  When I started to leave, she got very upset when I didn’t give her my number (because I didn’t have a pen), even asking a passer-by if he had one. I felt so bad, but I didn’t want to even try to dig out her pocketbook, find her throwaway phone and type in my digits because I knew she won’t remember to call (I gave it to her once before)…Lots of people walk past, some take pictures…I took a picture of her once, recently actually, but when she told me she didn’t like being photographed,  I deleted it immediately so there’s no pics to lillustrate or dramatize this post.  And I should’ve asked her first. The idea that people on the street don’t have the dignity or the right to consent is just so wrong.

More importantly, this old lady, batty as she is, should have other options than living in the street, or being institutionalized. Tonite she talked about Woodward, a mental hospital, and I couldn’t tell if she was referring to herself having stayed there or her husband. As mentioned, she’s very difficult to follow, though I try. She does know the difference – when I’m really listening and not, and clearly likes that I try to follow. No doubt she’s endured a lot of  patronizing, which upsets me almost as much as the young hipsters – who dominate the hood now – who treat her like the trash she often sits propped up near.

Its easy to convince yourself that because you can’t ultimately change a homeless person’s situation, and they’re everywhere, there’s no point in bothering, you won’t make a difference. Or to console yourself with donations made to orgs that help the homeless, which of course is great to do.  I sometimes am one of these people. But when I do stop and take the time, I’m reminded that you can help alleviate the desolation and isolation so many on the street suffer from – in silence – by acknowledging their humanity, and reaching out. I remain in awe of this woman’s ability to survive, and take solace in knowing there are some who take the time to show her the kindness she deserves.

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Here’s the NYT obit. Not sure why Robert D. McFadden, a 30-yr veteran and political reporter wrote it, but I guess they wanted a jump start on the sad news. It starts with some flubby beauty metaphors that would’ve made Joan kvetch, but it gets better. Sometimes I think The Gray Lady has become The Gray Crone (and not in a good way), but that’s another matter.

Here’s Joan on the Ed Sullivan Show, 1967. Brilliant!! , and some of her best jokes:

I have no sex appeal. If my husband didn’t toss and turn, we’d never have had the kid.

People say that money is not the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made.

My best birth control now is just to leave the lights on.

I’ve had so much plastic surgery, when I die, they will donate my body to Tupperware.

My vagina is like Newark. Men know it’s there, but they don’t want to visit.

A man can sleep around, no questions asked. But if a woman makes 19 or 20 mistakes, she’s a tramp.

I hate housework. You make the beds, you do the dishes, and six months later, you have to start all over again.

My husband killed himself. And it was my fault. We were making love and I took the bag off my head.

When I was born, my mother asked the doctor, “Will she live?” He said, “Only if you take your foot off her throat.”

My earliest childhood memory was watching my parents loosen the wheels on my stroller.

My breasts are so low, now I can have a mammogram and a pedicure at the same time.

I was the only Jewish kid in a Catholic neighborhood. They all did Hail Marys, I did Hail Murrays.

I blame my mother for my poor sex life. All she told me was, “The man goes on top and the woman underneath.” For three years my husband and I slept in bunk beds.

Princess Diana and the Queen are driving down the lane when their car is forced off the road by masked thieves. “Out of the car and hand over your jewels.” After the thieves rob them and steal their car, Diana begins to put her earrings, necklace, and rings back on. “Wherever did you hide those,” demanded the Queen. “Where do you think?” asked Diana. “Pity Margaret wasn’t here,” said the Queen. “We could have saved the Bentley.”

I was so ugly that they sent my picture to Ripley’s Believe It or Not and he sent it back and said, “I don’t believe it.”

When the rabbi said, “Do you take this man,” 14 guys said, “She has.” My husband bought the horseback-riding story, thank God.

You want to get Cindy Crawford confused? Ask her to spell mom backwards.

I was so flat, I used to put Xs on my chest and write, “You are here.” I wore angora sweaters just so the guys would have something to pet.

I blame myself for David Gest. It was me who told Liza Minnelli to find herself a man who wouldn’t sleep with other women.

The whole Michael Jackson thing was my fault. I told him to date only 28-year-olds. Who knew he would find 20 of them?

I finally found out how priests get holy water. They boil the hell out of it.

And since we’re all adults here, let’s be brutally honest — most babies are not actually attractive. In fact, they’re weird and freakish-looking. A large percentage of them are squinty-eyed and bald and their faces are all mushed together, kind of like Renée Zellweger pushed up against a glass window.

I was dating a transvestite, and my mother said, “Marry him, you’ll double your wardrobe.”

Did you hear Tom Cruise just had a baby? He was there when it was born … He should have been there when it was conceived.

My sex life is so bad, my G-spot has been declared a historical landmark.

I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw that my bath toys were a toaster and a radio.

I saw my first porno film recently. It was a Jewish porno film — one minute of sex and nine minutes of guilt.

Not all plastic surgeons are good. My cousin went to one and told him she wanted to turn back the hands of time. Now she has a face that could stop a clock.

Everybody talks about multiple orgasm. Multiple orgasm — I’m lucky if both sides of my toaster pop.

On the Vanna White diet, you only eat what you can spell.

I got a waterbed, but my husband stocked it with trout.

Want to know why women don’t blink during foreplay? Not enough time.

“You know I love you, Joan. Goodbye, through tears, Tiny Giant. Heaven just got meaner and way funnier.” PeeWee Herman

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When it stops for a while, say 45 minutes to an hour, I wonder if I’m being cunty as I do try to just absorb life as its lived ala the bar next door which never controls its patrons. Every summer at least a handful of times I have to yell out the window, but I never call and complain,wanting to avoid getting invested or upset as I know it could be SO much worse. I’ve known people who’ve had to move because of intolerable life-wrecking noise, and worse those who couldn’t get away and had to endure it for months – dogs that won’t quit barking, construction work, loud bass music, etc. I count my blessings. One must in this town.

Still, there is something so immature and stupidly selfish about people on purposefully loud machines roaming pack-like around the streets of a residential area blasting what must exceed 80 decibels, the limit set by the city. Regardless, this club is certainly breaking the law, as “highlighted” in the  NYC Noise code: “The Noise Code prohibits excessive sound from the muffler or exhaust of motor vehicles operating on a public right-of-way where the speed limit is 35 mph or less.” 

I wonder, would it be reasonable to complain, or even productive? For the sake of bikers who do get hassled more than automobile drivers/owners, should I just let it go, suck it up along with the occasional bunch of assholes screaming outside the bar next door. I asked a biker friend who more or less told me to complain, making clear it was noise not anything else that was bothering me. Always hard to know how to handle these things…

How sexy is this electric bike by Johammer,an Austrian brand, though? I bet it doesn’t sound like a car without a muffler!

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I’m on a cooking binge these days, grilling and stove. Made this tasty mushroom, lentil, quinoa, carrot, celery dish, close to this Martha Stewart recipe but with rosemary and some of Trader Joe’s garlic and eggplant dip mixed in.  Improv-style. Delish! A bit heavy for summer I suppose but it can be eaten cold (or must mushrooms always be served warm?), and its vegan (I added no butter). I also made a hearts of palm, avocado, artichoke, cucumber, celery, and mint salad, which I’ve made before, and always change up a bit. Its based on this recipe.
 

Tomorrow night I hope to grill more than I can consume, or at least that’s the plan:)) Happy Summer!  Enjoy the fresh food, and in the spirit of company, I’ll leave you with some choice words on food by Lydia Lunch discussing her cookbook, The Need to Feed:  “(Plus), cooking is one of the most intimate things this side of sex—cooking leads to good sex. You are touching something that someone else is digesting. Your DNA is on the food they eat. It’s a form of impregnation—which is basically what my entire artistic motive is, anyway. The whole goal of why I create is to either allow people who have been poisoned or contaminated to feel some relief. So cooking is just natural. Plus, cookbooks are so awful and boring. Except for Coolio’s, who measures the spices with nickel and dimebags. ” The interview is with VICE, namely Brad Cohan, who calls her ” the iconoclastic no wave skank goddess” recalls  this great issue of RE/Search devoted to her). Okay. He wrote preview/ Village Voice listing for her Retrovirus show, which I should’ve seen:((((((, earlier this month, so he’s sincere. I’m just not sure what I think about him calling her a skank, or later, whorish.  The  interview did inspire me to cook, which is always good, and I loved hearing LL trash New York, so I still recommend it. NITE!

(pics represent recipes given in links)

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While in the past, I’ve had guest speakers (curators, artists, gallerists), the writing and editing process has always engaged participants the most, so this year its all about the STATEMENT. My intern created this Tumblr blog, which will be updated with more testimonials over time, so you can go there for more info, or read below. SIGN UP NOW while there’s room, and there’s a 10% discount if you mention janestown.net in your email!

CONQUERING THE ARTIST STATEMENT (AND OTHER INSIDER TIPS): A 4-WEEK
WORKSHOP FOR VISUAL ARTISTS/DESIGNERS

Do you know what constitutes an effective Artist Statement – what tone to take, how much detail is needed, what work to focus on – or just struggle with actually writing one?

Conquering The Artist Statement will teach you how to write and edit a strong, concise Artist Statement through in-class exercises, group critiques, and individual edits geared toward concrete results.
OPEN TO ALL!

TAUGHT BY MOI, JANE HARRIS, PUBLISHED ART CRITIC, INDEPENDENT CURATOR, SVA FACULTY MEMBER, AND FORMER GALLERY DIRECTOR (see ** below for more bio info.)

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF ARTIST STATEMENTS:
“Artist Statements are the foundation for press releases, grant proposals, cover letters, and catalogues. They are essential to your career. Just as your work, life, ideas, etc. change over time, so too should your Statement. An Artist Statement should be updated as often as a resume.” Jane Harris

“A poorly written statement has turned me off an artist’s work. Being a literary person, I am influenced by the way people speak and write. A badly written or poorly conceived statement pushes me in the wrong direction.” Edward Sozanski, art critic, Philadelphia Inquirer

TWO EVENING SESSIONS AVAILABLE: $275. per session.
MAY 20 – JUNE 12, THURSDAYS, 7-9PM/JUNE 4 – JUNE 25, WEDNESDAYS 7-9PM
(LOCATION: PARTICIPANT INC., 235 E. HOUSTON ST. NEW YORK, NY)

TO SIGN UP, OR RECEIVE MORE INFORMATION, EMAIL
janeharr@bway.net (subject heading: ARTIST WORKSHOP).

Testimonials:

“The workshop taught by Jane Harris was very informative and helpful on many levels, particularly, our focus on the often dreaded “artist statement.” As a group we dissected and discussed each statement as a stand alone entity, only later to see it in tandem with the actual artwork of each participant. I recognized how an obvious function of the statement can easily fail. Does the artwork actually connect in vision and theme to the writing. Creating continuity and focus between the work and statement continues to be a vital process guiding me whenever I revisit my statement and/or assist a peer/ colleague.” Jessica Stoller, MFA Cranbrook Art Academy, PPOW Gallery, reviewed in Hyperallergic and Artforum

“I recently took Jane Harris’ workshop and got so much out of it on so many levels. First of all it helped me organize my ideas about my art work in a personal manner with engaging language. I already had a statement but in the class I rewrote it with the help of Jane and with the feedback of the students. The end result was much more authentic, current, punchy, visual and effective.

Shortly after Harris’ workshop, I curated a group exhibition in Chelsea featuring my work and that of others, and my perfected Artist Statement from Harris’ workshop was very instrumental in the planning of this show, its press release, etc. I also made great contacts and friends in this course, which attracted high caliber artists with whom I was pleased to engage.”
Rebecca Haskins, MFA St. Martins, London

“At this point in my painting career I have been feeling an ever growing need to communicate with others and your workshop hits the spot. I genuinely appreciate what you are doing and this has been a very refreshing experience for me. Believe or not, it took a quite a lot of courage for me to come out of my studio and talk about my paintings. I am glad I did, and it means a lot to me. Thank you.” Suhee Wooh, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant recipient, Pierogi 2000 gallery

**Jane Harris is a Brooklyn-based writer whose writings have appeared in publications from Art in America and Artforum to Time Out New York, and the Village Voice. She is a regular Huffington Post columnist, and has also contributed essays to various catalogues and monographs such as Hatje Cantz’s Examples to Follow: Expeditions in Aesthetics and Sustainability (2010); Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art Carla Gannis (2008); Phaidon’s Vitamin P: New Perspectives in Painting (2004) and Vitamin D: New Perspectives in Drawing (2005), Universe-Rizzoli’s Curve: The Female Nude Now (2004), and Twin Palms’ Anthony Goicolea (2003). Ms. Harris is a member of the art history faculty at School of Visual Arts, and has curated exhibitions reviewed in Art Forum, New York Magazine, the Village Voice and Time Out, New York. She is the founder of the blog(zine), janestown.net, and has been the director of two long-term NYC non-profit art spaces.

(private consultations also available)

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― Jean Genet, The Thief’s Journal, 1948

The Thief’s Journal is one of my favorite books. The kind you can deeply commune with, and reread for the poetry and wisdom and offering of art and pain. Its been on my nightstand for years. Among the ever-shifting pile of books that have bored me, and wait for me to resurrect interest.

My friend Lee Gordon, who died 5 years ago this coming Memorial Day, once told me he thought Genet was too hung up on Catholic guilt. As a gay Jew and PLHIV, who had a truly sadistic father, his perspective halted me. His opinion about things was always well informed. I reasoned that for its time it was revolutionary, and he conceded it was. We were both right.

I miss Lee, and was sad to see there’s no work of his online. Somewhere in an old computer are a few jpegs, but I want everyone to see them. It renewed my desire to organize a memorial show here in NYC for him (preferably not on Memorial Day, I can hear him say, lol).

“Also worth a look are paintings by Lee Gordon. For several years Mr. Gordon has been producing exquisite, strange watercolor self-portraits in which he sometimes appears wearing women’s lingerie. In the new work in watercolor and oils, he assumes an infant’s body, which gives the several paternal encounters depicted a distinctly erotic cast…his watercolors are so good that he should be awarded a full-scale show soon.” HOLLAND COTTER, NYT, 1995

Lee never got that full-scale show. He kept on making art though, even while working a very demanding job. I’d like to at least give him some version of it, posthumously. So I contacted his best buddy, another great artist, Tony Feher, whose exquisitely gorgeous retrospective at the Bronx Museum of Arts, was so deserved, btw (I can at least post a couple of those), and will try to set that in motion. This post is in memory of Lee. RIP.

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Billed as the first art movement to steal the avant garde spotlight from Paris, and train it on New York, where it has – or so the myth goes – stayed ever since, I so enjoy introducing proof of the CIA’s use of Ab Ex as a a Cold War weapon, a Renaissance Prince, if you will as this great article brilliantly details via the declassified information. It certainly raises the possibility that some of AB-Ex’s historical significance may be linked to that peculiar form of propaganda. That in order to make the Soviet’s use of Social Realism look fascist, which it mostly was, the government hired ivy leaguers to promote the Ab-Exers internationally. In heavily funded exhibitions that became key to the movement’s rise.

Of course, at home, it was still a very hard sell. Americans wary of all art abstract, or too provincial to get it (again, so the story goes). Pretty damn interesting wrench to throw in there, esp. since my aim is to get students to question dominant cultural narratives, in this case the eurocentric diachronic model of art history. It’s a weird thing to actually explain though (that a bunch of lefties would be employed by a bunch of isolationists to foster an international reputation for cultural tolerance).

Another thing I really like to introduce is the related interest in American primitivism, our very own “others” to project and steal from, ala Jazz and Native American cultures, at that time. Some of it sincere, I’d imagine. Still, this photo of Eleanor Roosevelt, who deserves a lot more credit for advocating for federally funding the arts, says it all, and this wonderful essay reveals a very interesting convergence of interests as well. Regardless, the influence of this larger interest in Native American art is another overlooked aspect akin to the role of African art on cubism.

1943: First lady Eleanor Roosevelt greets Miss Spokane Catherine Betts, in Native American dress, at a War Bond Rally in Seattle.

Franz Kline’s series of magnified details rendered iconic through a chance experiment with a projector at de Koonings also wonderfully undermines the whole authentic spontaneous gesture thing. MoMA owns this one from 1950, and describes it on its website in carefully guarded terms:

“True to an alternate name for Abstract Expressionism, ‘action painting,’ Kline’s pictures often suggest broad, confident, quickly executed gestures reflecting the artist’s spontaneous impulses. Yet Kline seldom worked that way. In the late 1940s, chancing to project some of his many drawings on the wall, he found that their lines, when magnified, gained abstraction and sweeping force. This discovery inspired all of his subsequent painting; in fact many canvases reproduce a drawing on a much larger scale, fusing the improvised and the deliberate, the miniature and the monumental.

‘Chief’ was the name of a locomotive Kline remembered from his childhood, when he had loved the railway. Many viewers see machinery in Kline’s images, and there are lines in Chief that imply speed and power as they rush off the edge of the canvas, swelling tautly as they go. But Kline claimed to paint “not what I see but the feelings aroused in me by that looking,” and Chief is abstract, an uneven framework of horizontals and verticals broken by loops and curves. The cipherlike quality of Kline’s configurations, and his use of black and white, have provoked comparisons with Japanese calligraphy, but Kline did not see himself as painting black signs on a white ground; ‘I paint the white as well as the black,’ he said, ‘and the white is just as important.'”

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JELENA BEHREND:

ANDREA CORSON:

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