Creature Comforts USA - Art

Someone has videotaped us talking about art!!!

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Summer of the Lightning Bugs

Drew Minson at RRL

Drew plays harmonica and acoustic guitar in this clip

Natalie Zanot

Another Photo by Hideo Ueda

A Japanese View of Catherine's Dinosaurs

Janet Biggs Video Installation

Janet Biggs Video Installation

If you haven't seen the video show at Cornell's Johnson Art Museum, you still have a few weeks. The video is a clip I took while standing outside the building at night a month ago.

Stop. Look. Listen:
An Exhibition of Video Works
October 13 – December 23

Catherine Joy Sings Imaginary Friend

More from Catherine Joy at Rural Research Labs!

Catherine Joy @ Rural Research Labs

Catherine and her dinosaurs

Live Joy

Friday, Nov. 16 - Singer-songwriter Catherine Joy comes to play at RRL. She moved from Brooklyn to Ovid a few years ago for a job controlling the seagull population, and that has found its way into her visual art, songs and performances.
"The love child of Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits," Catherine plays piano, guitar and stompbox; and cohesively combines folk, pop, jazz, cabaret, comedy and performance art – making her one of the more original acts to emerge on the Ithaca scene. She's also a painter and graphic artist, as seen on her delightfully disturbed poster art.

Please come and see something special and unique – and bring a guest or two. It's FREE.

Music and more info here.

Honest Work

(Billy Bragg)

The Labor Songs show 'Halfway to May Day' at RRL on Nov. 1 was fun, and the kind of RRL experience we usually hope for. We filled over two hours with readings and songs. There were four musical performers, one of whom took our flyer at Showcase Elmira and another who saw a listing in the newspaper. It was evident that everyone was invested and worked hard on preparing their material for the show. Thanks to all who participated and came to watch.

Here's a partial list of performances (from memory)
- & songwriters, where known:

To Have and To Have Not - Billy Bragg
Do You Want My Job? - John Hiatt/Little Village (Dan A)

Reading: Don't Let Us Get Sick - Warren Zevon (Tom O)

Israelites - Desmond Dekker
Next Train to Memphis - Tom Brown
Mercenary Song - Steve Earle (Tom B)

Takin' Care of (Patients) - Randy Bachman/Fred Turner/Dan Maloney
If I Had a Hammer - Pete Seeger (Dan M)

Reading: Pa. coal miners' letters (Tom O)

Between the Wars - Billy Bragg
Tip Your Waitress - Loudon Wainwright III (Dan A)

The Long Black Veil - Lefty Frizzell
and several others (Andy)

Reading: Funeral - Mekons (Tom O)

A-L-O-I - Tom Brown
Viola Lee Blues - ? (Tom B)

Nothing is Perfect - Neil Young
Christmas in Washington - Steve Earle (Dan A)

Dark as a Dungeon - Merle Travis
Nice Guy - Dan Maloney
This Land is Your Land - Woody Guthrie (Dan M)

Thinking out loud here: One of the lessons we're learning from trying new things is the challenge of attracting an audience. This first event went well in every other respect; one factor affecting attendance (and drawing more performers) might have been a competing folk concert at the Clemens Center.
(I'm also not sure if adding 'Dan Aloi presents' to this and other shows would make a difference in this town; I'd be willing to try it and trade on past recognition or alleged respect, etc., only if I wasn't one of the performers!)

The idea now is to do this again, and for everyone there on Thursday to commit to bring two more people (and then those people bring two people the next time, and so on - sounds like a union organizing model!).

Result: We will try doing this on a regular basis through the spring, with shows monthly, and usually on the first . The only criteria is work-related (however loosely defined), topical/political songs and readings.

For now, mark your calendars for Friday, Dec. 28 (updated date) and Friday, Feb. 1. Since someone asked me if I could do it in Ithaca, I'm also considering finding a venue for an RRL-presented show there in this format for March or April (to be discussed). Then it's May Day at RRL! Outside, if the weather allows?
I'm already working on songs for the next show.

Ideas, thoughts, comments here, if you have 'em.

Technicolor Close Up

Technicolor Trailer Park at RRL

Showcase Elmira

Technicolor Sounds at RRL

Coming to RRL on two wheels

come one, come all -- it's free for you and Grandma.

Technicolor Trailer Park
This Friday- Oct. 12 @ RRL
7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Redneck glam rock? that's what they call it. here's a few more -- rootsy acoustic and very original anti-neo-alt-whatever? two guys and a girl, three singer-songwriters? guitar, mandolin, bass, melodica, funky garage-sale vintage keyboards and assorted props? improv stories with audience-contributed Mad Libs, all about a young misfit named Stanley? all that and more.
The most fearless band I know.

This kicks off a Friday music series at RRL.

Saturday is Valley Folk's season opener as well, with Adam Miller, autoharp virtuouso. There aren't many of those. Minnie Pearl? pu-leeze and how-dy. June Carter Cash? Love her, rest her soul, but hardly a prodigy. Reese Witherspoon? Zing go the strings of my heart, but she barely knows G, C and D.
There's an admission charge.

And next Friday (10-19), Catherine White will present "Showcase Elmira," with live music, food, spoken word, and performing drag queens! Also free and the showcase gives the public another chance to see the studio tour artists' work. And drag queens.

The very NEXT Friday, Oct. 26, is words by Charlie James and music by Jesse Bennett, who are equally entertaining offstage as on. A Molly Perry Production.

Nov. 1 (a Thursday) is a themed open mic: Labor Songs. Not just old Wobbly songs and field hollers, but those would be cool. Anything goes. Dan A. (which is me) has a clutch of work-related songs from the '80s and '90s. [I was going to do "She Works Hard (For the Money)" but the chords are eluding me.] There will be some other Likeminded Pinkos singing about the Big Boss Man, and a special surprise RRL guest performer.

That's just one little month.
Our humble brick hut is alive with cul-cha.

Please forward this notice to all possibly interested parties. Or invite the parties to our parties. Either way, let's have more parties.

Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

Yoko Ono: About The IMAGINE PEACE TOWER.

She is just the best.

What I am up to.

So I just had to make an emergency stop at my parent's house in Horseheads so I could change my daughter's diaper. We were at staple's trying to make copies of the flier for the Charlie James poetry extravaganza. Olivia threw herself on the floor and screamed and all the old people in there were giving me dirty looks. Anyway, as far as making stuff goes, I am obsessed with Richard Simmons and seem to be theming everything around him. Perhaps I am losing my mind. Hope all is well with everybody ( p.s- I never posted to a blog before so forgive me).

Posters of the View from Harris Hill

Artists Wilka Roig and Graham McDougal visited RRL on Saturday. Graham's interest in the poster of the Chemung River Valley [we have in these posters in large quantities in the Carriage House], prompted Jan and Tom to take them to see the view and think about the history of the land before the arrival of the white man. It was a perfect day to blend art and life.

Wilka Roig Photographs in the Gallery

At the CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, NY on September 14, 2007.

Derrida

ESL Students Read Dan Aloi's Derrida Painting (Video by Tyrone Marsh)

Hanet Is Always the Center of Attention!

Where ever he goes, he causes a stir...

Better Strategies

A followup on the Brian Eno lovefest last week, for you Mac people (which should be all of you, and if not, why not?): Oblique Strategies - comprising all of the editions of the cards to date - is available as an Apple Dashboard Widget!!! (freeware, for OSX 10.4 or later).

Theory on the grill

There ain't no way, no how that summer ends on Labor Day.

Here's a tentative plan:

Saturday, Sept. 8 on the RRL patio: BBQ and a movie. Starting up the grill around 4-5 p.m. sound OK?

We gather, we cook, we sit around, we visit, we eat, we watch stuff. Bring a dish or something to pass -- we can coordinate all that via e-mail, since last time worked so well. Let the group know if you can't make it.

The feature: "Zizek!" (2005) a documentary about the "Wild Man of Theory." Informatic, edutaining and entertational. And more!

We also may have some Wallace and Gromit/Nick Park shorts, for those with shorter attention spans. If you have to be bribed with animation, really, it's OK. It's still art.

More here: Zizek! the Movie

See you all there.

This Just In

Sorry, we missed the Monday showing.
This should have been on the blog from the git-go:

See and hear what your fellow SouthernTierites think about living here...
in Jan Kather's Aleatoric Video project:

Aleatoric Video will be hosted by:
Steele Library (Elmira) - August 20
Hammondsport Library - August 27
Waverly Library - August 29
Watkins Glen Library - September 1
(info lifted from Jan's Facebook page)

... but it returns to Elmira!
Octagon Fair at EC - Sept. 29

Nice Star-Gazette article on the project
HERE

Accept advice.

One of my favorite tools, ever:
Oblique Strategies – "Over 100 Worthwhile Dilemmas"

And now, a haiku:

For art makin’ fools:
advice for gettin’ unstuck
in creative thinkin’

… and livin’ in general .

Brian Eno and the late Peter Schmidt created this set of cards, that has evolved into several different editions and various digital media over the years – from HyperCard stacks (way back before the Interwebs) to WAP apps for mobile phones. It remains a living, growing thing, inspiring additional sayings and whole editions by several other folks.

The idea: Pick a card, read it, think about it for a second or a while, and get back to work.

Some examples:

You Are an Engineer.

Instead of Changing a Thing, Change the World Around It.

Give Way to Your First Impulse.

Abandon Normal Instruments.

Honour Thy Error as a Hidden Intention.

Steal a Solution.

Balance the Consistency Principle with the Inconsistency Principle.

A Line Has Two Sides.

Try Faking It.

Accept advice.

Faced With A Choice, Do Both.

Do Something Boring.


I first discovered Oblique Strategies as an illustrated set in a magazine* that could be cut out, cut up and pasted onto cards. I seem to remember drawings of zebras…

*Not just any magazine, but CoEvolution Quarterly (later known as Whole Earth Review – publishers of The Whole Earth Catalog, subtitle “Access to Tools” – the true source of my education, other than the Southside Branch Library).

If I still have the original magazine or the copies I once made of the pages, I’ll coax another deck out of it.

For more challenging, pithy sayings, check out artist Jenny Holzer’s “Truisms” (as seen on this
Twitter microblog).


Jenny is wonderful, an artist-activist at heart. Her axioms are different but no less eye-opening. Eno and Schmidt address the creative process directly.

Further study: HERE
AND HERE (more links)

ENO'S SITE
--- > click on ‘oblique strategies’ on the left

Another random card generator


OK … so what words inspire YOU? Please share with the group.

Will Wright and Brian Eno - Generative Systems

Why a donut print becomes art.

in tha hizzouse...

Dan and Wendy!

Lurking, apparently...

More undertow: About Last Night
-- a general arts blog, stage & literature mostly, but check the blogroll and sidebar for reviews, more sites, links to lots of audio (Dali, Duchamp, writers) and video (jazz greats)_, news, criticism... including this video interview on Americanism in art, from Commentary mag.

License plate art by Michael Kalish.

(Added, some hours later:)

These are probably more our thing, I am digging them anyway...
More visual art-specific artsjournal blogs:

Modern Art Notes

Culturegrrl
-- wait, there was a major J. Cornell show that just closed in Salem? damn!

Man, it's beautiful out there.

(click to view larger image)

Not only that, no one can hear you scream.

Or for that matter, shout "Wow!!!"
So stop gazing at your navel and go... where no man (or woman) has gone before: Spitzer Space Telescope Images

one of the benefits of working at a uni ... cool stuff like this.

L'Avventura

L'Avventura opened my eyes to what film can communicate better than any other medium -- for the first time I saw beyond character, story, scene and effects, and discovered a rich language of image and mood, and backgrounds and landscapes that spoke louder than the actors.
((I could say the same thing about Mulholland Dr.))

"If I hadn't become a director, I would have been an architect, or maybe a painter. In other words, I think I'm someone who has things to show rather than things to say."
-- Michelangelo Antonioni, 1912-2007

Essential:
L'Avventura (1960)
Blow-Up (1967)
The Passenger (1975)

Turn That Damn Sculpture Down!

NEW YORK—At “Not Your Parents’ MTV: Music Videos From Hell,” a recent show at Manhattan’s Postmasters gallery, one work drew particular attention to itself. Karaoke Deathmatch 100 (2007), a video projected across the space’s back wall, featured the two members of the New York-based collective MTAA taking turns stepping up to the mike and trying to out-sing each other with karaoke staples from “We’ve Only Just Begun” to “Stairway to Heaven.” The work’s 50 rounds of intense crooning were originally presented (and contained) online, but in the gallery the sound spilled across the space to affect the viewing of the other eight videos in the show.

The phenomenon demonstrated by MTAA’s piece—the leaking of sound from an audio or video work into adjacent areas commonly referred to as noise “glare”—is just one of many complications that “media work” (a broad label that includes everything from single-channel video to interactive software-based work) has introduced to exhibition design. Every media work carries its own potential for interference, and over the years, numerous curatorial strategies have been developed to neutralize them—from using headphones and sit-down computer kiosks to dividing galleries into small screening rooms—some of which are more distracting than the works themselves. But curators and dealers are discovering that rather than attempting to reduce “glare” and other installation challenges, some of the most successful exhibitions take advantage of media work’s idiosyncrasies, using them to craft the overall experience of the exhibition.

Last Chance to see

the Jan Thomas installation at 171 Cedar Arts in Corning. The "In Resemblance" show comes down on Saturday, August 18. Also on exhibit are pieces by Arts of the Southern Finger Lakes' Lynn Rhoda and Ginnie Lupi, as well as Vanessa Decker Goodman.

Where ..

... are Dan and Wendy?

Michael and I saw The Simpsons Movie tonight. Quite good, very funny. Cameos by Green Day and Tom Hanks ("Since the United States has no credibility left, they're borrowing some of mine.")

(above - not Green Day but Sonic Youth.)

Ghetto Ballet?

See the movie Rize

Wilka Roig's Website

http://www.tarrahwilka.com/

Pix!

The latests, at a new link hyah: Jan's photos from the opening

Hey, that's not "a guest" in the Brian Jonestown shirt, that's my second cousin, Ben Redder! (Friend of Molly's, I think)

And the "guests" Tom, Karen and I are talking to are Matt Conway (who's "one of us" by association) and his girlfriend and little dog in basket)

Hey Jan, could ya forward me Wilka's link too?

signed,
least photogenic human being, evah

NP Idiot's Delight on WFUV
- All Tomorrow's Parties, VU and Nico
-Gimme Some Truth, John Lennon
-The Boxers, Paul and Artie
-and some band from the Catskills.

Cyberplaque

Testing the waters.

Interactive Net Art

This is a cross between internet art and gaming - We talked about Jason Nelson at one of our informal meetings. Maybe he would be interested in doing some internet art with RR?

Living My Life Faster - 8 years of JK's Daily Photo Project

Karen - This is the video I was talking about. Check out others, like Me: Girl takes pic of herself everyday...

Summer's here and ...

the time is right for writing in the streets.

A site full of designs by street artists, via Art News blog:
ST*NCLR*VL*TN

I know it's corny

but how could I resist? I was up at 5:30 am!

She was perfectly preserved underwater for over 30 years!

A Lady in the Lake: The True Account of Death and Discovery in Lake Placid (Mass Market Paperback)
by George Christian Ortloff (Author)

Art is a hammer ...

Hey everybody: Sorry I didn't make it down for all the work on Saturday. Was sick and slept it off until 4 pm, then got an invite to join some friends for food and music at Sheldrake Point.

I was in the studio Sunday afternoon into early evening, however, before Tom was showing around the young photographer interested in working at RRL. Before that I was finishing a piece and hurting for fasteners -- when I couldn't find what I wanted I smashed a few pushpins with a hammer; plastic bits flying everywhere. It was very therapeutic.

Kudos:
- Melissa's show looks good. I like how she used the furniture, Reidy, Taylor and dog (sorry, I am spacing on all names today).
- Dan's "KURT" sign looks REALLY good. I finally installed it after being tired of looking at it for weeks as 'separates'. I used the ladder and was very safe.
- Thanks to Dan for helping me over the phone with a shelf for my piece. Tom says it's maybe an inch too high, oh well. I was more concerned with no one touching it.
– I have one more simple/small framed item that might hang, but not sure just where it should go right now. As well as the usual uncertainty that it should go up at all.
- Thanks Jan for keeping us updated on all the visiting young'uns. It made my week.

See everybody soon; I'll stop by tonight, Wednesday and of course Friday.

Best wishes Tom!

'Scuse me while I kiss this guy

Everybody: Please congratulate our fearless leader as he exits the workaday world of art moving and storage and somehow finds more time for laundry, sleep, and being a studio rat -- not necessarily in that order. This is for you, Tom -- you're the straw that stirs the drink. We love you, man.

(That's Lily Allen living it up off Sydney, above.)

What Japan really thinks of us

People of LLR:
I stomps on your puny little art project.

I wonder if

in Japan do they call us "L L Rabs"?

More invites

I have sent invites to the blog to Karen and to Michael, who was working on his own project in the studio last night. If anyone needs help signing on, let me know... I have put coding for LINKS and IMAGES in my posting template since my bad bad browser at home doesn't let me do the latter. If you wants code, then asks.

I is has a ball now.

yours,

Big in Japan

Jan's Secret Comments Revealed

Rhonda Morton said this about RR after conducting her Young Adult Writers Group session at the Carriage House:
It's great to have that little wonderfully alive spot enriching the community!

Lynn Rusinko said after attending a Community Arts Meeting in their new building on Lake Street: I left the glow of the atrium light of a meeting at CA last night and turned the corner to see lights spill from the Carriage House. It's so nice to see life in the dark.

And my favorite moment today when the Japanese students visited the exhibit: They saw Dan Aloi's Derrida Deconstruction and word by word, line by line, spoke the whole painting! Dan you passed the Japanese test for effective interactive art.

Dan Gives the Tour to ESL Students

Good stuff in the comments, but...

Hey Jan! Post out here in the open where we can see you! (See? Tedd's not shy!)

Sweet! My first ever blog entry.

Welcome to the RRL blog!

A home on the Web for comments, news and more by the artists & friends of RRL -- throw down those mad ideas, yo. And brush up on posting photos, video, links and such. The Blogger program's sky is the limit.

Here's one of my favorite blogs, for the writing, music & art:

Locust St.
-- Chris is a great and thorough essayist. Check out his "7 Drinks of Mankind" item on coffee.

enjoy, and post away!
-- Dan A

Art: Roy Lichtenstein, screenprint - now on display (with 76 other rarely seen Roy prints) at Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT