Sonja Ahlers' The Selves on TCA

A review I wrote of Sonja Ahlers' exhibition The Selves (up until Tuesday at Magic Pony) was just posted on Toronto Craft Alert. Check it out here.

The Selves is also the title of Sonja's new book on Drawn and Quarterly.

Cornsilk Pinback Buttons

Posted on Etsy here, and also available at Art History as of last week. Made of 100% Kozo Japanese paper (Mura Koban) and real cornsilk.

Neat Little Press Mention...

My Ninth Grade Notes and Plaster Fingers got a nice mention in a write-up about Art History in the current Design Lines Annual Guide Issue. Check it out here.

Both my Plaster Fingers and Ninth Grade Notes are for sale at my Etsy shop, which can be found here.

From Russia with Love on Etsy

Last night I placed a new listing on Etsy for From Russia with Love custom mail order bride drawings. I had the idea to do these a long time ago when asked to contribute the FRWL project to a group show that never came to fruition. Below is a short description of the project, along with ordering info.

*****

From Russia with Love Mail Order Bride-- MADE TO ORDER

Your very own mail order bride...made to order! For $30, I will send you your own mail order bride portrait, drawn in archival ink on a postcard-size (4"X6") piece of heavyweight cold press watercolour paper. Drawings can be made (from actual "mail order bride" websites) either at random, or made to order from your specifications. Specifications can include any combination of the following:

-Age
-Height
-Eye Colour
-Hair Colour
-Weight
-Hobbies/Special Interests

Each drawing comes with an info sheet that includes information about each portrait subject-- name, country and city of origin, age, etc.

From the original FRWL artist's statement:
From Russia with Love is a project based around a series of 72 portraits of Russian “mail order brides” drawn from photographs on internet sites. This project is an extension of previous work exploring serial portraiture- yearbook photos, WWII military portraits- and the idea of portraits of this nature serving as “human catalogues.” Using the laborious act of drawing each woman’s likeness by hand, the project attempts to subvert the idea of these women being catalogued, while alluding to their commodification through their presentation within storefront installations and supplementary bookwork/pinback button multiples.

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If you're interested in purchasing a drawing, buy one through the listing on my Etsy shop here.

Another Wristband

This next one is brown...looks a little more primitive than the black one.

I'm considering selling these on Etsy, even though they're not meant to be worn. Something to think about...

Richard Kern

I've never been a fan of his work, but in keeping with the last post, here's another quote, this one from Richard Kern found in a recent interview from the latest issue of Eye Weekly. I feel like both Kern's quote and the Agnes Martin quote below are two sides of the same coin.

"I know underground culture is out there somewhere right now but I don’t know what it is. I don’t do Facebook or Twitter. I’m on the ’net nonstop but, and it may be a stupid thing to say, but I feel like Facebook is like joining a fraternity. It’s just a giant group of people saying, “Hey, let’s all do this.” The challenge to me now would be to somehow get outside of all of that stuff, where nobody is. All I know is that if there’s something you want to do you’ve just got to do it, all the time. People who are making good art aren’t sitting around on Facebook all day."

If you're into pictures of naked lady parts, Richard Kern has a show up at Studio Gallery in Toronto until May 30.

Agnes Martin on Art and Solitude

I found the following inspiring Agnes Martin quote on another blog this morning, which was excerpted from her book of prose, Writings:

"We have been very strenuously conditioned against solitude. To be alone is considered to be a grievous and dangerous condition. So I beg you to recall in detail any times when you were alone and discover your exact response at those times. I suggest to artists that you take every opportunity of being alone, that you give up having pets and unnecessary companions. You will find the fear that we have been taught is not just one fear but many fears. When you discover what they are they will be overcome. Most people have never been alone enough to feel these fears. But even without the experience of them they dread them. I suggest that people who like to be alone, who walk alone will perhaps be serious workers in the art field."

More on Agnes Martin and her work here.

Spiked Wristband

An uber-feminine take on the classic punk bracelet. 100% DIY, and made with real thorns from my mother's rose bush. (Thanks mom!)