TWIG WITH PHOTO

Sunday, July 15, 2012.  A random arrangement on the sidewalk across from my apartment.  It's early on a Sunday morning and already hot.  The image is pocked with pebble marks from the myriad feet that have trod over it since it fell from someones pocket.  Maybe it is a photo meant for a passport, but it was given to a careless lover.  Maybe it is a memento of a loved one, now lost, but weighted down by this slight twig until the image could be rescued by a passerby.  It is now saved - circle, line and square.

ME AND MY SHADOW

May 7, 2011. We've seen him before, over in Chelsea at the Highline. Here, the Prussian occupies the space in front of the shadow of the white figure behind him. The artist has pressed all three into a single space, improbable and impossible, but still, there it is. Done. He walks, colored in a uniform more brilliant than we might expect. And he is oblivious to what lurks behind. How often do we move along just like this, lost in our reveries, unknowing and so sure that one day will follow the next, until it doesn't. Or is it that he is here, today, and this is the day he has, and tomorrow may or may not come, but it doesn't matter, because he has made this day what it could be.

ALTERATION

March 11, 2011. Should a work of art remain unchanged? When is that decision made, who makes it, and is it right. There are those works we would probably not want to see changed in any way. But is there room for interactive pieces such as this? Did the first artist decide the work could be changed and do so? Did another come along and decide it could be improved? Was the first sad to see the original go away, ephemeral as a sand mandala? I would have liked to see them continue, alongside each other.

PURPLE

April 11, 2010. I don't know how this is done, but I love the chalky white background of these post poster surfaces. The dark sweeps of the roller cross the surface to provide a background for the swatches of purple that start and end the frame. Did someone do this on the run - a sort of kamikaze approach to this subway art? I don't know how long it will stay, but I want to enjoy it while it is there.

CLOWN PROTECTOR

January 23, 2010. Night in the Meat Packing neighborhood. This clown is watching all the tourists walk by – unmoved, amused or something else? The image was layered over other cut-out and painted images from any number of artists, but this was the final image, until it isn’t, which could be tomorrow.