visual art

on context

in ,

on cy twombly at the getty
untitled (to sappho) 1976

the chunk of colour feels lonely until you slow down enough to decipher the text. the handwriting is scrawled long & pulling against itself–stretching into the margins.

it’s sappho. recounting the violent crushing of purple petal underfoot. the visceral feeling of it. the petals bruised from the pressure smashing down on them once delicate, now devolving into only colour. devolving into feeling.

the purple makes us feel the ache of the bruise blooming on pristine skin.

the getty center’s cy twombly exhibition, “making past present,” runs until 30 october, 2022.

victorian women

in

the past few weeks I’ve found myself re-interested in digital collage. figuring out how all the layers are going to work together is relaxing to me & also serves as a way to think through current events.

sisterhood

in

the onslaught attacking the civil rights of anyone not a cisgender heterosexual white man has been a lot to process. I have been thinking through things with collage.

on wheat, by agnes martin, 1957

in ,

sitting in front of “wheat”

it’s mesmerizing. like a golden field stretched out for a thousand miles on a clear warm day—but not too hot. the kind of day when there’s a breeze that prickles your skin but you don’t go inside to get your jacket.

at first the grey border looks like one shade as you’re drawn into the fields of wheat, but after a moment you realise its two types of grey fringing the field like vaseline on a camera lens. it pushes you in.

wheat whispers to you so quietly that at first you’re not sure if its a voice or a gust through the tree branches. but it is a voice & you can barely make out what it’s saying. maybe the words don’t matter? maybe they don’t have any meaning anyway.

a woman comes into the gallery & stands in front of wheat. perfectly centered. the center column rises from her like steam.

she’s enveloped in yellows like a goddess or the painting of one, with a delicate shimmering halo.

is this what agnes wanted us to do? daydream into her paintings?

six paintings by agnes martin at sf moma

in ,

sitting in a seven sided room at the san francisco museum of modern art.

you can’t photograph these, your picture looks like a solid canvas with nothing special about it.

it’s easy to walk by quickly & not really look. I see several people do that, from older couples to teens with dyed hair. they’re missing it & they don’t even know it because they don’t take the time to look. there’s a cultural comment in that, it’s a sign of the times maybe.

so many people don’t get it. the order found in chaos. it’s comforting if you let it be. it’s soothing. & when you get close to it you start to see the chaos creeping out… trickling out… a faucet that’s started to drip.

the grids are bursting at the seams but if you’re not close enough you’d never even know.

it kind of makes me sad the number of people who won’t even come into the gallery to look. I think they’re afraid of the silence… or maybe I’m being pretentious. but these are paintings you have to look at, right now, & you can’t take their picture & bring them with you. they aren’t bite sized.

there's texture to the paint too… the whisper of agnes’ voice.

the edges aren’t sharp—but dreamlike—it all starts to roll together.

notes on joan mitchell

in ,

some notes taken at the joan mitchell exhibition at san francisco museum of modern art

“this is a tree. I mean, it’s my idea of a tree which has nothing to do with a real tree.”
— joan mitchell

evenings on 73rd street

the orange is funny. 73rd street always felt brown to me. or a kind of grey brown like the fur on a real world-hardened squirrel.

maybe the gestures are hints at the people crowding the streets? the colours of their clothing flashing between buildings.

the red fits, but the orange I can’t quite make sense of. especially the one jagged hook in the center…like the men catching fish off the pier where I was walking this morning.

mud time

the violet pushes out here, like a secret being revealed or the first hours of dawn when the sun hasn’t made it quite over the horizon.

mud time like the stuff that caked my shoes as I trudged around le mont saint michel, the tide sliding in, claywet.

the clay is there too—that slick french clay that holds you like glue. your shoes almost pull off as you yank your foot free. the sound it makes… something like a slit throat.

that’s what the greens here are. the earth trying to swallow you back up.

untitled, 1961

“she risked the painting collapsing into unsightly chaos”

vétheuil

two people, one devouring the other.

OR

leaning down to kiss.

incredible how often those things overlap… or are even the same.

salut tom (for tom hess)

the yellow is almost warm but in a reserved kind of way. like when spring has sprouted but winter chill hangs on.

memory

nostalgia

sadness

la vie en rose

when you try to be relaxed but there’s that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach.

on night sea, by agnes martin, 1963

in ,

sitting in front of “night sea”

it is completely different in person. it doesn’t even look like the pictures on the internet.

the gold leaf literally sparkles, but the line is so fine you have to lean in close to see it. it has to catch the light.

& it’s not blue! it’s more turquoise, but not a steady shade. each individual rectangle has a gradient from deep turquoise to deep ocean blue. the lines start to shift as you look at it. they start to trick you. & this is how you’re pulled in, like quicksand in slow motion.

& you can see her. where the lines don’t quite match up or reach the edges of the canvas. that’s where agnes lives.

it stands out for its depth. the way I feel sometimes when I cross a bridge & a voice says “jump”.

night sea undulates the way the ocean does when there’s not a shoreline in sight. it feels like floating on your back & you just dip your ears below the water. sound becomes just a suggestion. you’re in a different world now. do you have a body? does it matter? maybe you & your body are the same thing as the water. maybe there’s no grid where your body ends & the water begins.

now on sale: fleurs de l'espace oracle deck!

in ,

Over the past year I’ve been working on creating an accessible & easy to use oracle deck for card readers of all skill levels & today that deck–Fleurs de L’Espace–is released for purchase!

I created this 33 card collage deck inspired by my 90s childhood intro to divination: the Magic 8 Ball. I wanted to create an oracle deck that was cool as hell but also easy to use–so that anyone could use it to get started on their cartomancy journey. This deck is all about building your intuition without the rules & regulations we sometimes ascribe to oracle cards of all types. There is no guide book, no rules, & your interpretations can go as deep as you feel is right! Use it as quick way to answer daily yes or no questions (it's small enough to carry in your bag) or sit with its short words & phrases a bit longer to dig into how you really feel about a topic. Fleurs de L'Espace is for everyone, from beginners wanting to get their divination feet wet to advanced readers who want an easy-to-use daily deck.

It was important to me to make the deck as accessible as possible, so I strove to keep the price point below $40. To save on overhead costs, you can purchase your copy of Fleurs De L’espace directly from the printer!

Oracles

in ,

if you know me you know I have been an avid tarot & oracle card reader for nearly two decades. over the past several months I’ve been developing my first original oracle deck to be released to the public. I wanted to create something that was fun & approachable to people with any level of experience reading & working with cards. fleurs de 'l’espace is what I came up with!

this is a 33 card collage deck designed & created by me. it’s meant to be used fast & loose, without the pomp & circumstance some other decks expect. to that end, there is no guidebook & no rules about how you use these funny little flower cards. the deck was inspired by my divination gateway drug: the magic 8 ball, & can be read as straightforward answers to simple questions or explored further, depending on your mood.

fleurs de l’espace will be available for sale SOON. stay tuned to my tarot insta (@nobullshittarot) & website (nobullshittarot.com) for launch details & more card previews on the way.

lake hollywood

in , , ,

hollywood reservoir drawing, 2021

lake hollywood reservoir, also known as simply hollywood reservoir, is located in the hollywood hills in the santa monica mountains.

the reservoir is created by mulholland damn, which was built in 1924 by the los angeles department of water & power. it holds a maximum of 2.5 billion gallons of water, but since 1931 has been kept permanently lowered to a maximum of approximately 1.3 billion gallons. its deepest point is 183 feet.

william mulholland, the dam’s namesake, was an irish american civil engineer & the head of the department of water & power in los angeles. he was the engineer behind several dam projects throughout the state, & he even consulted on nevada’s hoover damn. he was the chief engineer of the los angeles aqueduct, which met with rebellion in owens valley in 1924. there were several attempts to sabotage the aqueduct by local area farmers & ranchers in a period known as the “california water wars”. the rebellion ended, however, with the collapse of the local county bank in 1927.

mulholland was haunted for much of his life by the st. francis dam collapse of 1928. just 12 hours after he & his assistant examined the completed dam it failed, sending 12.4 billion gallons of water in a wall 140 feet high & at speeds of up to 18 miles per hour, rushing into the scattered towns below. the water eventually spilled into the pacific ocean 54 miles from its point of origin. mulholland took full responsibility for the collapse & retired 9 months later. at least 431 people died.

the inquest recommended mulholland not be held criminally liable for the disaster, though in some of his testimony he stated: “whether it is good or bad, don't blame anyone else, you just fasten it on me. if there was an error in human judgment, I was the human, I won't try to fasten it on anyone else.”

mulholland spent the remainder of his life in seclusion, dying in 1935 from a stroke. he is buried in the forest lawn memorial park cemetery in glendale, caifornia.