Extreme appearances

COMPOSER

2012-02-10T17:23:00.000-08:00

John Collins McCormick is a multi-talented knucklehead and friend who makes tightly controlled compostions with simple materials in various visual mediums.

His drawing zine is available from Friends and Relatives Records.

He's interviewing me about being a "Woman in Noise Music" for Matthew Himes forthcoming magazine "Chortler." I am just relieved to be included. Results will be posted in the near future.

#FSDC

2012-02-06T17:12:00.000-08:00

This is where I go to cry/my online gang tattoo

Video Vignettes from a Korean Karaoke Bar

2012-01-02T18:54:00.000-08:00

1. Bus explodes. Bloodied woman screams in pain. Soundtrack: "In an Mm-bop they're gone/In Mm-bop they're not there..." ("Mm-bop" by Hanson)

2. Preppy Korean man scans an English dictionary for the word "lumpen." Locates definition with finger and crumples tearfully to the floor. Soundtrack: "Holidays in the Sun" by Sex Pistols

3-5. Stalker girl falls down provocatively. Sullen woman's teardrops rain gently on piano keys. Soldier puts barrel of shotgun in his mouth. Soundtrack for all: "Thong Song" by Sisqo. ("Dumps like a truck. truck. truck. Thighs like what." etc.)

****
The author of this blog strongly endorses Maru Studio's private karaoke rooms on Indianapolis's far east side at Pendleton Pike. Please note that earnest geo-political conversations with your patient waitstaff--especially intiated by reluctant singers-- may result in deep discounts for future room rentals. Avoid the hot/cold fish chunks and make an attempt at any of the extensive offerings from Nirvana's repertroire for me.

TOP 5 AUDIOVISUAL ENCOUNTERS IN INDIANAPOLIS OF 2011

2011-12-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

By Erin K. Drew
artist/promoter/blogger at Extreme Appearances

My friend Crafty from Everything, Now! asked me to write a top five end-of-the-year anything for his blog, Muscial Family Tree.
I chose to focus on Audiovisual Encounters-- with an emphasis on unexpected aesthetic convergences among art forms for all senses...In chronological order:

1. Paul Pelsue/Joey Molinaro/Sore Eros, March at MiCO (Midwest Museum of Contemporary Art)
In early 2011, Austin Reavis announced with transformative authority that his house was now a museum. Private turns public. The Midwest Museum of Art was an exercise in oppositions. Video projections of the fridge, beer in the bathtub,. Foot stomping percussion amidst densely packed ceramics. The bedroom gallery (Reavis' room, picked clean save for his futon) featured Paul B Pelsue's found pix of Tonka trucks, afghaned rec rooms, and ambiguous signage alongside a ziggurat of old TV's recording and broadcasting viewers in real time.

2. Jookabox last show and Know No Stranger, June at Earth House Collective
There was a lot to take in amidst Know No Stranger's multi-channel projections and the last chance to dance to the JB's creep-funk. The crowd could have turned sentimental had the tone not been set by tooth-grinding, grimy amphetamines ("I'm Slime!/And it's fine!"). Instead it was a Halloween party on a sweltering summer night with everyone in costume, make-up melting, ready to rage.

3. Ancient Aliens A/V Night with Castle Old Chair, Growth Spert, and Ligyro, August at Earth House
Dusk blooms into night over a mirror-like lake. Crickets scream as you lie on your back and scan the sky for UFO's. A perfect arc of energy piloted this show from Castle Old Chair's tape fuzz-laced bedtime tales through Growth Spert's frazzled vocals and frenzied aluminum percussion to the ambient electronic alchemy that transformed Ligyro's rainbow-colored tent into a spacecraft.

4. Mr. God's Galloping Mountain Variety Show, October, at Shared Heritage
A crew of Pittsburgh industrial hippies from the Cyber Punk Apocalypse brought their bare feet, bad tattoos, and bizarre conspiratorial writings to Shared Heritage. There were tales of police raids on high-tech lowlifes, lunatic ravings about post-consumer hotdogs, and noise interludes from an ominous emcee's box of contraptions. Gunner, awkward granddaughter of Dada, left the silence ringing in our ears with her costumed "stand-up comedy."

5. Auroradoreyalice and Crystal Lynn Thomas, November, at Shared Heritage
The crowning jewel on a night of high-quality trash jazz (with DBH, Sky Thing, and more), was the serendipitous pairing of Crystal Lynn Thomas's video mandala of perpetually melting candles with the warm but witchy keyboard drones of Auroradoreyalice. This quiet fire was a cosmic surprise suitable for 11/11/11.

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Revenge Eternal/Drekka/Bad Eyes at Earth House, Orphan 16mm film by 3 TON CINEMA at Shared Heritage, Five Elements show curated by Kid Primitive, all goings-on at Jasona Beach during Cataracts, Sir Deja Doog and the Wasted Knights vs. ASCAP at the Vollrath, Marmoset playing "Record in Red" live at Radio Radio.
FAVORITE OUT OF TOWN BANDS SEEN IN INDY: Child Bite, Wishgift, Fielded, Tracey Trance, Phantom Family Halo

Hello My Little Monsters

2011-10-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

Submitted for your consideration, hand cut cardboard monsters made for the Shadow Zoo portion of the haunted house being hosted at my place of employment...

Free Trip to the School Psychologist, Pt. 1

Specimens

Johnny Ryan, jr.

The snake that bites your butt when you poop it

Free Trip to the School Psychologist Pt. 2

Summer Smilers

2011-10-16T12:10:00.000-07:00

It's fall now.

Frost is on the pumpkin and it's thyme for typin.

But I'm still harvesting a couple summer smells.

***
Sig transit gloria.
Blog reveille.

Visualize Me

2011-06-07T06:50:00.001-07:00

Extreme Appearances has been on summer vacation, (laying on the deck on its Budwesier beach towel) but is full of good ideas, some of which may possibly be executed.
1) Documentation of kids' room furniture studded with half-peeling sticker scabs.
My dude Mark Newgarden has commented that he loves finding furniture at thrift stores covered in yellowing Garbage Pail Kids stickers. Me too!
What does one do with a sticker collection anyway? I don't think it's overanalysis to call this a folk form.

2)Fireworks Names Powerpoint
Appropriately timed for July 4th, the theme of the upcoming Encyclopedia Show is EXPLOSIVES. Fireworks tend to have really great names, only vaguely indicative of what they look like (Moon Traveller with report, Tiger Shark, Southern Night). Gonna whip together a lil google-fueled powerpoint for the next show, heavy on the education.

3)Historical Reenactment Stand-up Comedy
Gonna try to debut this live, starting with an 80's era Paula Poundstone routine, note for note.

Roseanne is next on the docket.

If these ideas are not seized upon in the upcoming summer months, understand they are up for grabs. This is the nature of the internet. We share.

(I also plan to forget how to write html code through months of blog inactivity.)

Good Head, #3

2011-05-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

Keep those submissions for the Extreme Appearances masthead competition coming. This tacky little number comes from ExApp frequent contributor Austin Dicksuck from over at Ultimate Power. WTC typeface!

Scenes from a Plaster Shak

2011-05-18T15:33:00.000-07:00

A search for a lawn goose to treat with chrome paint for the upcoming sculpture park opening at MICO led me to this funky little shak (or shaq-ed.)
Where DO lawn ornaments come from?
Bill, the shak's proprietor makes them from molds.

Peaceable Kingdom

Choose your own Adventure

Paint your own RV

I returned home 80 lbs. richer in concrete and satisfied that shak business continues to thrive.

Good Head, #2

2011-05-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

Here's a masthead submission from the lovely and talented Alicia Obermeyer.
Sleazy neon + fresh cut flowers. she gets me.

Think you can slam some words on top of some images?
I'd like to see you try.
really!
Extreme Appearances revolving masthead competition continues...
Please include the tagline "art and visual culture on planet america" and email to extremeappearances@gmail.com
Danke,
EKD

Blogstars

2011-05-08T08:44:00.001-07:00

Mirrors of self-promotion. Extreme Appearances' auteur pictured swappin business cards at Austin Radcliffe, a big wheel in the blogosphere.
His blog Things Organized Neatly is handsome and popular.

Architecture Signs and Semiotics

2011-05-02T10:22:00.001-07:00

Been hard at work on this frustrating little research project for a New Media class, attempting to turn each of these collages into an html image map with a link to information on the web about each architectural sign.
I failed at that part, but luckily am happy with their looks.

Good Head, #1

2011-04-18T08:16:00.000-07:00

Asking friends to design mastheads for me to strap to the front of this ship and sail the uncertain aesthetic seas.
This one's by Austin Reavis.

ADDENDUM: If you, invisible audience member, you nebulous cloud of cosmic dust, feel uniquely qualified to visually articulate the essence of Extreme Appearances, I am eager for you to do so!
Please include the name and blog tagline: art and visual culture on planet america.
Now you have a little project!!

Ham Reality

2011-04-16T07:56:00.000-07:00

Ran across this collage I created for Alicia Obermeyer in response to the slough of good looking postcards she's sent me over her two year-long Mail Art project.
Maybe it was a semi-conscious response to her own ham-related assemblage....

Ham post timed for the Easter season, by the way...

I'm Hungry

2011-04-14T10:44:00.000-07:00

(found on a box of garbage bags at my work...yielded no hotdogs)

I'm Happy.

I'm handpainted.

Art Files, season 1

2011-04-13T15:22:00.000-07:00

What does this minimal sculpture by Type A want from me, the viewer????
Thanks to Austin Dickson for holding the camera and giggling.

BE HERE NOW

2011-04-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

be here blur

end of the rainbow

Crowned Molding

2011-04-10T07:45:00.000-07:00

"Portrait of Dick Law" by Debbie Reichard, cedar molding, 6" high x perimeter of room (72'), 2002

Debbie Reichard was a guest lecturer in Sculpture at my art alma mater, Herron School of Art and Design. I thought she was frightening and very talented. I don't know what she's doing now but I bet it's interesting.

The internet tells me the title "accidental aesthete" has been taken by someone else already, but if it wasn't I would probably throw it around here.

Horn Of Plenty

2011-04-06T07:45:00.000-07:00

Simpsons Crapucopia

Jookabox keyboardist Lisa Berlin loves Coke, hates pants

I am a sculptor.

Zooz/Noon A/V

2011-04-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

NOONZOOZ - Birfukdeth @ Earth House (IndY)

NOON | Myspace Music Videos

Zooz performing at an Earth House Audiovisual Nite, October, 2010.
A VHS featuring collaborations from some of the performers (audio and visual) from these monthly events is currently in the works....

COLORS/CLUSTERS

2011-04-05T11:22:00.000-07:00

embryos

Animal Charm

2011-04-05T08:02:00.000-07:00

Chicago's Animal Charm thought about some things I've been thinking about lately but..you know..a decade and a half ago.

Sans Serif

2011-03-29T07:16:00.001-07:00

Two of something is a coincidence...

Three of something is a collection.

Happy to be alone in the zone together...

(really into 90's faux Nike sans serif font sweatshirts, as was the middle-aged man with eyeliner I embraced at the Really Really Free Market the other day)

I've got plans to put my hands in places

2011-03-28T11:55:00.000-07:00

Fingers from the Indianapolis Art Parade, 2008

Suburban Vernacular

2011-03-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

Steph Davidson's new genre artworks blow my mind. Not only is she our nation's preeminent animated GIFstress (cept she's Canadian), but her sculpture proposal "Disembodied Pizza Hut Roof" combines a shrewd eye for architectural vernacular and speaks to dumb pizzaheads like myself.

I've seen sculpture using isolated architectural elements before, and I like it...but it's not usually funny.

Excavated

2011-03-22T10:00:00.000-07:00

Dinosaur found in my backyard.
I know it's a little seasonally premature, but...

Souvenirs

2011-03-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

Last week Extreme Appearances strutted out of the sneezy public computer labs it usually inhabits and onto the sandy beaches of Chicago for SPRING BREAK!!!
While it missed some critical photo ops (cardboard food with fuzzy green pipe cleaner appendages in the pie cooler at Denny's in Merrilville, IN) due to geriatric cock-blocking, it was able to make some notable acquisitions.

CIA via UFO to Mercury
(for $2.99 at Reckless?? so good!!)

Little rubber stamp snippet made by artist Picasso Gaglione from the "Without You I'm Nothing" exhibit at the MCA

Fatal Faux Pas by Sam Gaskin
aka Sam Gas Can

Sometimes we create culture and sometimes we consume it like a drunken gas station food decision.

Extreme Alleyfinds

2011-03-20T11:35:00.001-07:00

My life is an exquisite trainwreck, but at least I found this 8 foot tall sign in the alley behind my house today. Perhaps something or someone in Fountain Square does care.

Art Thoughtz

2011-03-16T08:27:00.000-07:00

Hennessy Youngman, new patron saint of Extreme Appearances.
Dudes who get it.

From Fountain Square, with Love

2011-03-14T20:07:00.000-07:00

Love is all around in the Indianapolis neighborhood of Fountain Square.

"Wooden Exercise Toy" purchased from Bud's Market, the local grocer.

As far as I can tell, it is neither wooden, nor an exercise toy (???).

This post feels lacking without a picture of the geriatric couple in Juniors' clothes who'd push an empty baby stroller past my porch every day this summer, but I'll stalk that White Whale when I'm laying out the board for FS Bingo.

Advice Column

2011-03-12T12:21:00.000-08:00

I really put this desgin scheme on a pedestal.

Understated Bootlegs

2011-03-07T10:45:00.000-08:00

I'm into subtle bootlegs lately. Hat found at Value World in Fountain Square, Indianapolis.

Do you think Brown Garf knows Black Bart?

This post is dedicated to the "Twitty Bird" pipe with the distended blue eyes and the Warner Brothers copyright on the back, lost some time this summer.

BooBouquet

2011-03-06T08:48:00.000-08:00

One of the more compelling art urban legends I've heard is that there is ONE ARTIST who developed and mastered the dewy rose/ballet shoe/reflective piano surface stock photos that dot the walls of TCBYs and sub-par falafelries of our nation.
It is his work we see each time.
My friend Vanessa dropped this knowledge on me one memorable night at Zorba's 24-hour diner in Chicago's Greektown--the selfsame diner which appeared in Ice-T's expose on prostitution, Pimps Up Hoes Down--that featured an impressive collection of work in the stock rose genre.
I have chosen to refrain researching this hypothesis in any meaningful way because, simply, I WANT TO BELIEVE.

It's a girl

2011-02-28T13:16:00.000-08:00

One prop, and a play for your home to perform:

A: "You must pay the rent!"
B: "But I can't pay the rent!"
A: "You must pay the rent!"
B: "I just simply CAN"T pay the rent!"
C: "I'll pay the rent!"

I want to LIVE part 2

2011-02-27T17:50:00.001-08:00

YES I WILL design: segments for your kids' show, logos for your 5K Run/Walk, costumes for your band, brand identity for your microbrew, puffpaint rompers for baby. (rompers only available with sad clown and Twin Towers themes)

Make Me Psychic

2011-02-25T12:45:00.000-08:00

"Anita the duck buys a psychic device at a novelty store in an alternate universe and creates mayhem at a crazy party."

This is too wonderful not to repost.
Video from 1978 by the mind-alteringly good Sally Cruikshank, a babe and apparent Muppet veteran, with production aid from comixx badass Kim Deitch.

Stuck in the Stacks

2011-02-24T09:28:00.000-08:00

But without the likes of Edgar Froese.

Blog density due to a day spent shluffing in the library.
(pictured above, circa 2009)

Still my most popular picture on Flickr.

Thanks again to model Katie Lyn Coles.

All Punks Please Leave Earth

2011-02-24T07:05:00.000-08:00

GAY BEAST

BEST GRAPHICS EVER

BEST BAND EVER???

And while we're on the subject of twisting classic punk around into a whole new balloon animal, it's recently come to my attention that Henry Rollins has been providing the voice of Mr. Rainicorn on the children's television program, adventure time.

Relevantly, I have also figured out how to text a Black Flag emoticon, and so now will go back to bed.
!¡!¡

Jazz Breakfast

2011-02-21T11:38:00.000-08:00

This babe has my number.

I've been using an Ornette Coleman cd as a coaster for my coffee lately. You think that's what he meant by the Shape of Jazz to Come?

I want to LIVE

2011-02-20T17:21:00.000-08:00

A video series begins. Sometimes the only thing that gets me through the night is a funny word and a 90's motivational text sweatshirt.
Thanks as usual to Austin Dickson for production assistance and Tre Reising for the use of his piece.

Jacket Cinema

2011-02-19T10:28:00.000-08:00

Fashion week continues with looks for the future.
Here, civil young longhair, Paul Pelsue, is pictured in a projection by Tom Streit.
In the future we'll all be avatars.

Fantasy Fashions

2011-02-17T09:20:00.001-08:00

A day of moderate weather calls for fashions designed by 17-year old girls.

Fuck Boris Vallejo, the young mystery babes behind these are my fantasy art heroes.

Feather Float

2011-02-16T13:56:00.000-08:00

(Text by Austin Reavis of Idldriv)

Bunch of dumb artists made a mess at the Flower Factory. Or did we make a drawing??

Status Update

2011-02-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

EKD vs. ART

2011-02-07T09:04:00.000-08:00

I don't usually cross-post from my school blog, but what the hell?
I went to the Indianapolis Museum of Art yesterday with the exclusive purpose of putting my coffee cup on the Donald Judd wall sconce, and NOT using a coaster. This is what happened.

(Thanks to After Effects Ubermensch, Austin Dickson for his editorial assistance. His own series of art disruptions, "Balls On Rodin," is currently in the works!)

Mug with the sound of its own making

2011-01-31T08:53:00.000-08:00

Here's a sketchbook page documenting what went on behind the scenes of the Mean Mug's inception.
The all-white design dog mentioned is a Yoshitomo Nara affair seen at the Chicago Art Institute gift shoppe (sic).
I want one, but not as much as I want a pair of those Balloon Dog bookends that have Jeff Koons up in intellectual property arms.

Which is interesting, given his history with appropriation.

More than all of that, I want Y. Nara's haircut...

Mean Mug

2011-01-30T12:04:00.000-08:00

And here we have a mock-up for another new product anchored on a one-liner.
A collaboration with ardickso of Ultimate Power blog...
MEAN MUGS
suitable for toting your Ice-T.

Type dorks: The "Squealer" typeface utilized here may be the only known full alphabet of characters based on the Cool S!

Import fun/Export praise

2011-01-27T09:46:00.001-08:00

If I had my druthers, I would import the whole Bless This Mess art show and affiliated goings-on from UIC Gallery 400 to my town. I would recoup the artists with something more substantial than coffee and greasy Mexican breakfast. We'd get some hang time, see the sights. Critical fierceness. Radical queer chaos. You know, whatever.

The Star-Studded lineup of the show includes the likes of:
Robin Hustle

who I almost got citizens arrested with once, and from whom I stole a bag of soap accidentally
Edie Fake

of whom I am not an aquaintence but I understand to be a total badass and competent tattooist.
And Forced into Femininity,
the confrontational opera act of Jail Flanagan, who among being one of my favorite people ever, compiled the zine Wet Noise about non-male noise music makers.

I'll file this one under Birthday Wishes....January 29.

Shout Out to my text-based art dudes

2011-01-25T08:33:00.000-08:00

Jason Arnold

Kyle Herrington

Wayne White (famous guy, not friend) will be lecturing at Herron School of Art and Design on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 5:30PM

Among other things in his impressive life-blurb, he's a Pee-Wee's playhouse veteran.
I'm going to ask him if Chairy was a bitch.

Also, guest written blurbs are becoming one of my favorite literary forms.
Will you write one for the back of my book?

Da Great American Novelty

2011-01-24T08:58:00.000-08:00

Comix genius and Garbage Pail Kids creator Mark Newgarden's historical capsule, Cheap Laffs, makes some compelling arguments in favor of the Novelty as being the preeminent art form of the 20th century.

So, in the same spirit that created Endangered Animal Vibrators and Cilantro Lime Chicken, I have cobbled together a new novelty, based-- like so many things--in unfortunate punning.
(a mixed media collaboration with Austin Robert Dickson)

GUN NUTS!!

"...Inauspicious timing."
--Mark Newgarden

(Muscular "realistic" Nut drawn by Lisa "Shitty Rose" Berlin)

Don't tread on em, Get em while they're stupid, etc.
(And just to keep ya from yr work forever, those little ta$temaker$/taskmasters at Vice went ahead and wrote a rad comprehensive overview of the career of Mr. Newgarden with pix from his house.)
Cha-CHING.

The annals of type

2011-01-22T09:59:00.001-08:00

My years of cohabitation have yielded ample opportunities to explore the unsung and intriguing Vernacular Typography of the Passive Aggressive Sign.
Common among this genre: cardboard or repurposed garbage bases, multiple expletives, exclamation points.

The award for my favorite sign ever, and possible best collective house rule, goes to Emelda's text from my first house:
"If you eat too many cookies you won't have room for C@KE! (ed- Anarchy sign for A)
FUCKERS!! EAT THE CAKE!!"

Traversing the spectrum w/ Violette n Susan

2011-01-21T12:25:00.001-08:00

Red and purple. The feminist theorist color scheme, circa '70.

Susan Sontag, "Against Interpretation and Other Essays." Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966.

"La Batarde," Violette Leduc. Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1976.
Designer / Illustrator: Jacqueline Schuman

Ex-Boyfriend: "Move your book. It looks French and farty."

Bless this mess

2011-01-18T07:50:00.000-08:00

Welcome to 2011.
Thank you for bearing with my absence as I deal with the ramifications of my Christmas present...

"odd mesh-like creatures of uncertain affinity"

New reports impending.

Fair Play

2010-08-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

Cellphone transmissions from the Indiana State Fair

The Bear Affair

Lambotard by American Apparel

Typography 101

Because they didn't know how to airbrush Black Cathy.

Unmegalithic

2010-04-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

Crush List Obelisk (Public Art Proposal)

The only good thing I've ever drawn

Timeless, tasteless, and eternally flaccid,
EKD

Neolojizm

2010-03-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

Expanding the lexicon when and where I can:

Dudiphone (dood-eh-fon): n. an instance in which a man repeats what a woman says right after her, but louder, and everyone hears him and laughs or goes "yeah!"
v. to repeat what a woman says in a louder voice than her, esp. a joke or insight.
Ex. "Don't dudiphone me, mothafucka."

Train Trax/Trapper Keepers

2010-03-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

Spring Break, Greencastle IN

Practice makes PerfectS

'Mericana

2010-03-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

bathroom wallpaper at Arthur's Music in Fountain Square, Indianapolis.
sometimes known as the Wild Boar Tavern, or Horn Dogs' Brasserie.
For reference...

fussy footwear/fruity boots

racist charicature clusterfudge available at the gift shoppe

next post may feature selections from a Statistical Index of Kitchen Witches and/or the hidden poetry of latrinations.

Scenes From a Fish Fry

2010-03-11T11:12:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, my associate Mark and I attended a Lenten fish fry at a local Catholic church and elementary school-- incidentally the gradeschool attended by this blog's autuer.
our goal was to film an ethnographic documentary using my semi-insider status to win the confidence necessary to access some of the more mysterious corners of this phenomenon.
However, since the only boom mic we could acquire was a hairbrush tied to a broom handle we scaled back our project's scope (that's a fish joke) and just ate Cod with my parents.
Submitted for the readership's approval are our hastily collected relics.

food revue

& a pink cloud for you

Lux Exterior b/w Midas Inside

2010-03-09T06:52:00.000-08:00

Greg's house puts a finer point on modernist metaphor in architecture.

Revisionist Herstory

2010-02-10T14:29:00.000-08:00

Cocaine Wolf was a woman.

Has No Boble

2010-01-28T07:55:00.001-08:00

I stumbled upon "Has No Boble" while walking the railroad tracks of near east Indianapolis a couple years ago. Little did I know, this scrawl has been appearing across the city (and outside its limits) with subtle variations and impressive regularity.
My friend Paul Christian has been documenting the cryptic public writings of this seemingly local hobo poet for some time.
Check em out here.
(Not to be missed are his exhaustive Tom-J-Lael files, but far more has been written about that man/myth/legend.)

I'm intrigued by the minor star status (in certain communities) of local graffiti weirdos.
I'm not interested in over-analysis or artsploitation, I'm just genuinely fascinated by people's compulsions to make a distinctive mark on their environment.
The "Has no Boble" photograph on my refrigerator has provoked more comment than almost any other object in my house (and the walls are pretty plastered).
If you have similar stories/documents, feel free to post links.

Smartmouth: variations on a theme

2010-01-27T07:32:00.000-08:00

Good Ideas, not by me, but I wish they were.

1)Get a tattoo of a white picket fence around your bicep in lieu of barbed wire.
Frontyard pride, straight out the suburbs.
(Idea by Tom Streit)

2)Carnie's: a Fair Food restaurant. Elephant ears for breakfast, fried Snickers around the clock. Tenderloins too big for the bun and the occasional Indiana Banana (corn on the cob) round out the food pyramid.
It could be at Washington Square Mall, or any airport.
(Idea by Benny Sanders)

3)An ode to Mrs. Ben Dover

(By the lovely and talented Jill Marie Mason)

None Sing

2010-01-26T08:18:00.000-08:00

collages on paper by Erin K. Drew
Taking inspirations from neon sign stylings.

Fairytale in the Supermarket

2010-01-25T09:03:00.001-08:00

Incredible flyer found in my mailbox.
If you can't be there, try to imagine it.

California Dreamscapes

2010-01-24T14:02:00.000-08:00

Assimilated Play Regions

Post-Apocalypstic Bike Parts

Companion Animals

I'm a stranger here myself.
Much more to say about realspace from cyberspace and more accounts of second-rate city flaneurie to come.

Release the Bats

2009-09-09T15:30:00.000-07:00

[no internet access lately, but visual culture continues unfettered. I know you like Situationist revisionism, so here's an account of my suburban derive.-ed.]

Plied by white wine, drained on an immaculate porch, Mary and I decide to navigate the cul-de-sacs of Steinmeier farms by bike. Huffy Howlers, wayward night owls, whizzing around, simulating exercise. Skidding into piles of gravel at the end of hills.
A cruise is normal in these parts, except when it's in the dark.
Creeps can see into kids' windows and the ambiance is amplified by moribund newspaper details-- grim cliches, obscene-- of an axe murder on Christmas morning in one of these trim yards, a teen going postal on his parents.
It could push you off your course, like bad vibes always might,
make you that much more blind.

Dreamscape Analysis

2009-08-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

Coat in color for increased visibility. Covered in stuffed animals. Playhouse looks amidst bricks. Make it stand out. Mark a trauma.
Where did something really awful happen?
Where did I fall off my bike?
Strategic trash re-structuring. Foam coating and rain-battered bears.
Human hair walls and the uncanny.
Saying the word "anxiety" might even make your heart race.
Lost time, lost looking.

Fear of a Soft Planet

2009-08-02T19:27:00.000-07:00

stuffed animal insulation

pool noodle flying buttresses

Fake Cop

2009-07-26T17:59:00.000-07:00

Duane Hanson, "Museun Guard"

There's a high number of second hand cop cars on the Indianapolis streets, usually repossessed by obviously non-cop black folks. Tinted windows and double rear view mirrors are retained; bumper stickers for fallen officers remain smeared across the back. Drivers slow down when they pass.
They warrant a double-take, and probably prevent pull-overs by authorities who don't look twice.
But it's kind of a bummer having fake cops around.
More jaunts in the voluntary panopticon.

Also in cars: The other day I saw a dashboard mirror festooned with fuzzy twenty-sided dice!

2009-07-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

I think there should be a spaghetti western called Beard Full of Money.

Interests

2009-07-18T16:52:00.000-07:00

My doctor says to cultivate interests.
Today I am into ...

1.Text in (this) art

by Kyle Herrington

2.Food in (this) art

(okay, and ladies' underthings)

by Alicia Obermeryer

3. And text in food:

Free (the) Money

2009-07-16T14:50:00.001-07:00

Extreme Appearances: wherein I release into the ether the ideas I never use, like the plants spitting out flies in my trauma landscape dream last night.
Because of overabundance. Too much information. The fun postmodern affliction.

You can start by making that video with the "Honk if you have a blog" sign, then move on to cross-stitched underpants that say "bless this mess."
Check back periodically. I'll have you making millions. I'm a life coach.

Toys

2009-07-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

Relevantly, I attended an art opening last Thursday of new work by Judith Levy. Installed in the fishbowlish atrium of the IMA is her Memory Cloud, consisting of individual slide viewers hung from the ceiling that can be accessed and examined by art patrons. Inside these viewers: 128 unique photgraphs of anonymous Midwesterners, circa 1960s. Faded colors and wedding cakes. Female experience. Et Cetera.

My last excursion to the Museum of Art was for an event with relatively similar equipment. The Vladmaster Experience featured four short viewmaster "films" shot and soundtracked by certainly the shyest and dorkiest woman to ever adopt the flamboyant surname "Vladimir." She distributed individual reels of film packed in precious silkscreened boxes to each audience member alogside an oldschool Viewmaster toy. We were then subjected to our own individual viewing experience, atop Vlad's soundtracks.

One criteria I use in distinguishing art I condsider "good" involves questioning if the artist used their chosen medium to do things they couldn't do (better) in another. If they chose animated film, did characters in their narratives turn inside out and walk through walls? (Gumby = good art)
It might have been more interesting if, given our isolated viewing contexts, Vladimir's experiences would have drastically differed between viewers-- If she had had a few different reels circulating amongst us, to later attempt to compare. This would have played on the strange anti-social experience created between crowd members, instead of just hingeing on the novelty of flim made for a retro toy.

Meanwhile, I hear some dudes are hosting coloring contests to get other assholes to emblazon their business cards.

An infantalizing bunch, these artists.

When the Levy breaks

2009-07-07T14:02:00.001-07:00

For further evidence of the complexities and pratfalls of communication, non-direct or "unalienated," please consider the Judith Levy conundrum.

I discoverd Judith's work in 2004 in the form of a picture of two dogs, one of them with a human head and a bubble of brunette hair, flying an enormous kite made of pizza. I was thrilled to discover that the art was done not by young lowbrow upstarts, but by an intensely eccentric middle-aged woman, and that the head was hers. I talked to Judy at her Harrison center studio on a boozy Friday night, and her eyes bored into my soul. I decided I wanted to be her when I grew up.
So one day I left a flier of my own dog-themed art under her door.

The crude, low-contrast xerox depicted an afghan hound, not unlike the one above, beaming with a benign and slightly coquettish expression, culled from my then-roomate's book of dog photographs. The intrigue for me was that a pet pic, the bane of the highschool photo instructor's existence, could be so breathtakingly transcendent.
On it I pasted a quote from an Atmosphere jam: "Life's not a bitch, it's a beautiful woman." Motivational art, to make you want to live. A baffler, from one weird dog artist to another.

Now I work at the Harrison Center, where Judith's studio no longer resides. And yesterday, as my co-workers were running through a list of oblique forms of vandalism that had happened in the building over the years, they mentioned a perceived death threat Judith once had received.
a note with a dog, and something about bitches.
I guess we can't control whether or not we make sense.

Leaving flyers under doors is bound to make you feel weird, like the thrill of writing on things in public. Public vs. private visibility. With all art context makes meaning, and when you remain anonymous you might be misunderstood.
We cover ourselves with text not everyone can read clearly. What message are you sending? What aesthetic are you conveying? It floats through the air, an ambiance, till you can't even smell it, you're around it so often, like a house soaked with cat pee.

Sein Language

2009-07-06T16:48:00.000-07:00

Right now, my boyfriend is downtown flying a sign that says "I am bipolar, just out of hospital. Anything will help." Last week I was applying on craigslist to be a seasonal "sign dancer" at fireworks outlets. I think they show, all these signs, that ours is an increasingly visual culture.
Honk if you're into it. over the internet. anything helps.
Is sign-flying a more direct form of communication? Is it like posting intimacies online? Does it turn your car into a computer? What do we see through the screen?..
Here's a video I want to make: Someone films me standin on a corner holding a cardboard sign that says "Honk if you have a blog." Or honk if you hit a bong.
If you see something, say something.

Challenger

2009-06-20T19:03:00.000-07:00

preparing to blast off