a la Mickey SmithLeave it to Mackil to hunt down SPECULUM and send it my way. Any word with two U's is so... Inspiring enough to post on this limp old blog.

a la Mickey SmithLeave it to Mackil to hunt down SPECULUM and send it my way. Any word with two U's is so... Inspiring enough to post on this limp old blog. 

Jim Mackil

a la Mickey Smith

Occasionally I receive photos from friends ( + strangers) "a la Mickey Smith". I love them. Oh yes, and "a la peanut butter sandwiches!", along with Heather Everhart at the helm, the blog is back.

Chad Richardson

David Enblom

Louis Menand

Earth Day

Collocation NATURE is being produced in Germany this month. We're still on schedule for installation in the first week of June! 

there's something i've been meaning to tell you...

I've been meaning to tell you that the show of the same title is up at Marty Walker Gallery in Dallas, Texas. The show closes tomorrow. There is a great slideshow of all the text based art up on the Marty Walker blog.

München, Germany

Apologies for falling from the face of the earth, into facebook. (It's evil.) Until a few weeks ago I didn't realize this blog had a single reader... So I'm back and will make an effort to post once a week. 

I'm definitely in production vs. exhibition mode, a welcome change. New projects coming up, along with some new work on the Volume project. Recently I took a last minute flight to Munich and spent five thrilling days in the Franz Mayer studio. (A photo album is up on  facebook.) The public art project I'm working on is a Collocation called NATURE. Sixteen 40 x 60 inch glass panels to be mounted in the new Biomedical Sciences Building at the University of Florida this June. (As if you needed another reason to head to Gainesville this summer?)

This is my first major public art commission, and although I have been on the other side of the desk for this process, I must admit the learning curve is oh so high. I'm relishing in the challenge and will be sure to keep the blog update with a few progress reports... Promise. 

Part of my  team in Munich - Michael and Klaus working reviewing samples fresh from the kiln at Franz Mayer.

Close up of the type sandblasted into the glass. Not sure if you can tell, but there were three different painting styles to choose from... 

Vyborg Library

If you're traveling through Russia, be sure to stop at the Vyborg Library...

MORE BOOKS for Everyone

MORE BOOKS went up on 20x200.com yesterday. An interview went up on the 20x200 blog today. I love working with Jen Bekman and her crew and highly recommend this experience to any artist. This sort of instant gratification is hard to come by working alone in the studio... 

"We are upstate with mom + bob now. Just made mom run to town so I could log in here at McDonalds to get a piece of art... I GOT THE LAST ONE! [$20]"

"Gorgeous, funny and I bought. In fact, I was driving from Witchita to St. Louis on my way to NY and bought on my iPhone on the side of the road. See you Nov 14."

"OMG. I SO didn't mean to buy it, but it was just so fucking turquoise. I couldn't resist. Damn you!"

More thanks to everyone who snatched up a print! Hope to see you all at Invisible-Exports on November 14th!

Installation: Saint Petersburg

A note from Saint Petersburg... Yesterday the exhibition was installed at the Pushkin Dom. The juxtoposition of the contemporary and classical is appropriately poetic.

Going, going, gone?

In June, I considered photographing the collection at Columbia's Medical Library. A staff librarian told me the journals had either been sent to deep storage or to the dumpster just weeks before.

This afternoon I went with my snappy camera to scout at the NYU Medical Center Library. (Pictured above.) I had been forewarned, but the empty stacks were eerie. The NYU journals were sent to the dumpster about two months ago. 

Librarians have predicted Volume will be an important document in ten years. New York, as always, is ahead of her time. 

It's Google Stoopid

In the process of working on the Volume project, I have seen my subjects start to slip away into storage, deep storage, and in recent months, into dumpsters. Despite the prevalence of the Internet, people are often shocked to hear the books are actually being taken from their shelves. As Nicholson Baker told us the way of the bound newspapers in Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper , Nicholas Carr has written a new book I can't wait to read. In the first few paragraphs Atlantic article he sets the stage from his personal experience as a writer, "Research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes." The book is called The Big Switch: Rewiring the World from Edison to Google. 

Volume on iGoogle

Thanks to The Webmomster, a Volume theme can now be downloaded from iGoogle. To use it on your search page, follow the instructions here. I'll write a bit more about the timely irony of this marriage and the Atlantic's "Is Google Making Us Stoopid?" July cover article another time. Until then, Nicolas Carr's article is worth a read.