Adam Blue

There are many wonderful facets to my ongoing tradition of knitting the kids a new hat every winter. The experience of sitting in the early-season warmth of the wood stove, hands working productively while a video shows, recharging with a sip of tea as the form comes together… It’s a labor of love, for sure.

This year was especially delightful as both kids are now old enough to choose their preferred yarn and could also help by braiding their own tassels.

Of course, knowing that their ears will be covered, heads toasty-warm and looking crazy-cute makes the project all the better, too…

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Always curious about the aesthetics of our contemporary condition, I’ve come across these articles that aspire to describe where we are in relationship to everybody’s new favorite closed door, the postmodern era (call it late ’60s-late ’90s).

Nicholas Bourriaud’s Altermodernism, from the 2009 Tate exhibition, is hard for me to get my head around—this mini-essay reads like a curator who considers himself an artist with a manifesto that’s a marketing tool… pretty blurry to me…

Alan Kirby’s Pseudomodernism read to me as novel in its attempt to differentiate the current from the previous in the viewer’s / reader’s perceived role as integral to the production of works / texts.  Not sure how well this model scales across disciplines, but it’s new and constructive, which I appreciated. I’m looking forward to more propositions like this one.

Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker’s Metamodernism read to me as pragmatic, though dissatisfying, since I suppose I carry the hope we are  transitioning into something new…  Their argument that the metamodern, as the synthesis of the modern and postmodern, has that end-of-history feel to it… The-future-is-basically-the-present-but-with-more-of-it,-isn’t-that-great notion doesn’t really inspire me to try to push it along…  Admittedly, some days it doesn’t feel like it’s worth the effort to argue against this position, but it can’t be yesterday forever… can it?

If anyone has other essays to recommend – please send them my way!  I’d appreciate it.

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I’m happy to announce that another AVA Gallery and Art Center public art project has launched!

Please click here for complete details.

As with previous, AVA public art projects, I am delighted to have both helped coordinate the session and to have participated as well.  Enjoy!

Sculpturefest 2009

The opening for Sculpturefest in Woodstock, VT is one of my favorite evenings of the year.  Great friends, family, fabulous art, a picnic dinner among the fall foliage…  what could be better?

I was fortunate to carve out the time to participate in the 2009 Exhibition. It was a blast!

This wall-hanging batch of modernist arcs double as hula hoops of varying diameters for attendees of all ages. It was awesome fun seeing people shake it to the steel drum band, have big belly laughs, and then rehang the colored loops in new patterns on the barn.

Here’s a link to more images of works from the 2009 Sculpturefest Exhibition taken by photographer David Hearne.  The page loads to a shot of the hoops, though do click around to check out the other work.

Additionally – though I can’t find any photo-documentation at the moment, I also partnered with all-stars Paulette Werger and Eric Schaller to install two interactive camera obscuras in the barn as well.

We’ll see if I can be part of the show again in 2012…  Fingers crossed…

This Friday night at 6pm, I’ll be making dinner from our organic garden and offering it as part of the Main Street Museum’s Box Social fundraiser.

The MSM was heavily impacted by the flooding during Irene.  So – if you’re looking for a delicious way to support this phenomenal White River Junction, VT art space – please come out and join us!

Yum!

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