My Earliest Abstract Work of Art

I recently came across this abstract art project from my elementary school days. It was created by lining a shirt box with a piece of paper, tossing in a marble or small rubber ball, and some blobs of paint. The magic is made by closing the lid on the box, and with a few random shakes of the box, the ball rolls around through the paint. When you remove the lid, there is a surprise work of contemporary art on paper. I always loved this painting. It's my very own Jackson Pollock- style work of modern art.

Looking Back at the Art of Swoon

Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2004)

I moved to Greenpoint in 2000 when it still very much a Polish neighborhood and in many places, an industrial wasteland; not the fancy, hip and cool place it has now become. Often feeling uninspired in my own painting and in need of some air and a long walk, I would head out from within the confines of my apartment with my camera to explore. In the adjacent neighborhood of Williamsburg, I had a few favorite spots that I knew would keep changing when it came to street art. They would get "hit" all the time by many artists, and I could always get some good shots. I liked to see what had changed since the last time I ventured beyond the four walls. This activity of walking and taking pictures and interacting with the art of the streets inspired me. In many ways, it saved me from the boredom of my new surroundings. I felt like I was visiting a museum and returned to my new home renewed with vigor and ready to paint.

Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2002)

Amidst the simple bubble letter graffiti "throw ups", I started to recognize the work of Swoon (Caledonia Curry) around the neighborhood. Immensely talented, her pieces consisted of intricately cut paper of life-sized figures depicting regular neighborhood folk. With a feminine touch, they were launched onto abandoned walls with wheatpaste. Sometimes the pieces were rendered with sketchy lines. Other times, they were simple paper silhouettes; the negative space giving the work its stark contrast with whatever background was chosen. The paper would eventually discolor, transform, peel, and fade away which is always part of the game. Art of this ilk is temporary.  

Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2005)

I always kept an eye out for the immediately recognizable pieces by Swoon, and have followed her work over the years. I later learned that she was a fairly recent graduate from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn (like myself). I still wonder what her professors had to say then about her work during those dreadful class critiques, and what they would think of her doing her paste-up work on the street in the dead of night. After all, the practice of street art is still very much a man's game. 

Williamsburg Brooklyn, (2006)

In 2010, I headed to Braddock, PA for a road trip. I heard a lot about this once-thriving rust-belt town becoming an area that was being revitalized by artists, galleries, new business, and urban farming. It was a haven for artists and entrepreneurial types fed-up with big-city prices who were starting over in this industrial steel town that was now virtually forgotten. When I arrived, I was delighted to see that lots of recognizable street artists had altered the urban decay of Braddock's streets with murals. Swoon was among them, and she continues to be involved with the area's transformation.

 Braddock, PA (2010)

Braddock, PA (2010)

Braddock, PA (2010)

Braddock, PA (2010)

Braddock, PA (2010)

Braddock, PA (2010)

Braddock, PA (2010)

Today, a major show by Swoon, Submerged Motherlands, opens at the Brooklyn Museum. I bet those professors from Pratt would be impressed. Jealous even. You can bet that I'll be checking out that show soon. More photos of Swoon's work will surely be here. Stay tuned.

Ice Queen, Scope Art Fair 2014

Slate Gallery, Brooklyn (2010)

Slate Gallery, Brooklyn (2010)

Brooklyn Waterfront Shelter Sculpture, East River State Park Installation (2010)

Larger-than-life Ice Queen, Downtown Brooklyn Flatbush area (2013)

Small Print, Scope Art Fair (2010)

Bushwick, Brooklyn (with Stikman) (2009)

Williamsburg, Brooklyn (2005)

Braddock, PA (2010)

Going Back In Time

How long have you been doing what you do now? Are you an artist, like me?

For the past month or so, I've been preparing for a series of artist interviews that will be posted here in the coming weeks. For each artist, I have crafted a specific and custom set of questions that will pertain to each one. But there is one question that will be the same for every artist featured: When did you know that you wanted to be an artist? For me, the answer is very simple. I've always known.

This photo is from around 1978 (captured by dad for "posterity"). I was painting some dough cookies that I made with my mom for our Christmas tree. But my desires to be an artist and memories of being creative come way before this. For as long as I can remember, I would occupy the bulk of my time at my small craft table in my room. I would spend hours emulating cards and decorations by making my own holiday decorations from construction paper and pipe cleaners for our front door. In our house, the fridge wasn't the center for display, it was our front door and bay window; the perfect gallery for the world to see. My parents nurtured my creative tendencies by enrolling me in Saturday Art School at a (still-functioning) art school in Phildelphia called Fleisher's. I still love the smell of paint combined with mineral spirits from those days. A couple of years later, when I actually sold a watercolor and drawing of the circus at a childrens' art gallery (also in Philadelphia) for Ten Dollars, there was no going back!

I just never wanted to do anything else. In New York City, this is a hard lifestyle to pull off, but the quest endlessly continues....

Missing Those Carefree Student Days

Now that the holidays are over, and we are back to the daily grind, the daily grind sometimes just feels like exactly that- a complete and total overly-scheduled grind. This past week, as I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the subway to come and whisk me home after a long day, I was lamenting not being a carefree student any longer. I miss the days of meeting new people, being around friends all the time, not having a regimented schedule, and studying abroad. Don't get me wrong, I do not miss the days of writing papers, the pressure of procrastination, and assignments that caused me to stay up all night.

During the summer just before my third and final year at graduate school (as a double major) I went on the most amazing program to Venice, Italy. I had already caught the travel bug many years before, so finishing up some needed credits was as great an excuse as any to get on a plane again. That summer, I met lifelong friends (both American and Italian), and got to know the labyrinthine city so very well. Even though the program was geared towards the study of art history, painting classes were also held in the Giudecca. I completed my assignments on site- some of the most incredible vistas that Europe has to offer. Here are some of my pieces from that magical summer of 1997.

More Beginnings - Fractal Geometry

Every January, I think about where my art will go this year and what I've done so far. Every so often, I think to myself, "How did I get here?" My art story is a long and winding road with many, many stops along the way. My creative tendencies started before I was in kindergarten, but more on that later....

I started college with every intention of going to medical school. After all, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I was really good at removing the white part of bacon or any fat on my plate before it would ever pass my lips; almost surgeon-like. With this quality of separating the edible from the fat, along with a steady hand, I naively felt confident in that I already had one advantage over the rest of my classmates.

As a break from all of the hardcore science classes, I broke up my schedule with some kind of an art class every semester. This class always felt like a huge relief, and as if I were going back to my roots. Painting class always felt so easy by comparison. At some point, we had to create a series of pieces with a theme, and my dad informed me about this relatively new discovery (1975) in the world of mathematics- fractals. As timing would have it, there happened to be a very big article about fractals in his new National Geographic. As I looked at the article, I saw a distinct relationship to nature, and found the vivid colors endlessly fascinating. I created a series of works based on the various fractal types, and also worked with a mathematics professor to understand how certain math functions created the archetypal shapes. Here are a few of my early paintings from those days in 1993.