Busy as hell. Handing monster guidebook project in on Friday. Until then, entertain yourselves with this. And light candles and say prayers. I’m gonna need all the help I can get.
Monthly Archive for August, 2009
Skewville just debuted a brand, spankin’ new website that chronicle 13 years of Skewy mayhem – on and off the street. Check it out.
DEAR ART NURSE:
I made a sculpture about 4 months ago, mostly comprised of candle wax. I had no idea how to preserve the wax from breaking and melting away if it was put in high temperatures, so i decided to coat it with shellac, primarily out of fear of using resins, due to their toxicity. A few weeks ago i was moving the piece to a different location, left it temporarily outside and realized that the wax was getting soft. Now that i know that the shellac is not working the way I intended it to, I have no idea what i should use to preserve the piece. Whatever material I use, it must be clear, and must protect the piece from melting… Any suggestions?
– Daphne
DEAR DAPHNE:
Good question! This raises one of the most common misconceptions in the art world: whether something made of an inherently soft, degradable, or otherwise delicate/unstable material can be protected by coating it with something. The answer: No. You can’t keep a soft surface from melting in the heat by protecting it with a coating — whether it’s shellac or a synthetic resin. We love the suppleness and depth of wax sculpture just as much as the next art medical professional (think: Medardo Rosso, or the heaving animatronic breasts of Britney Spears at Madame Tussauds). But all waxes, whether paraffin, beeswax or microcrystalline are sensitive to heat.
The only thing you can do to keep it from melting is to keep it cool, that is, indoors and away from heat sources. In the future, if you want to use wax for sculpting, look for wax with a higher melting temperature. If you’re getting your wax at the 99-cent store, try using the ones that don’t have a scent (they tend to be harder). If you don’t mind materials that melt, however, I’d like to recommend lard. If the piece doesn’t work out, you can always cook with it.
– Rx, San Suzie
Have a question for the Art Nurse? E-mail her at suzie [at] c-monster [dot] net.
Hubba hubba.
Okay, so we weren’t really supposed to be taking pictures inside the Getty Conservation Institute when we toured it last year as part of the USC/Getty fellowship. But a fellow fellow (who shall remain nameless) snapped this pic. And since it’s August. And enough time has passed. And since I’m not doing much blogging because I have a MASSIVE project due next week, I figured it’d be a good time to share this piece of hotness the interesting story behind this project: a Roman statue from the Skulpturensammlung Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden…oh, who gives a crap…it’s a hottie conservator standing next to the nekkid torso of a Roman god. What more do you need?
I’ll be back with the usual Digest hijinks after Labor Day. By all means, click on the image to see it large.
xox,
C.
Cry/Fix by Exene Cervenka at Western Project in L.A. (Image courtesy of Western Project.)
- In L.A.: Exene Cervenka and Wayne White, We’re Not the Jet Set, at Western Project in Culver City, through Sept. 5. (LAT.)
- In L.A.: The first annual Malibu Art Fair kicks off on Saturday 12pm at the Malibu Country Mart.
- In Seattle: A one-day only show of tiny art in an alley 1618 10th Ave W. Queen Anne, this Saturday, beginning at 2 p.m.
- In Denver: Jim Green at the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, through Aug. 30. This looks like a must-see.
- In NYC: Self-Portraits at the Skarstedt Gallery, through Sept. 4.
- In Osaka: Yayoi Kusama at Six, inside the Comme des Garçons store, through Nov. 8.
- Love these murals. So L.A.
- Attention, Photography Types: Conscientious is having a portfolio competition.
Objects of a lifetime, all carefully arranged in MoMA’s mezzanine. Waste Not by Song Dong. (All photos by C-M.)
Last year, after my father died, my mother, my sister and I were faced with that mind-numbing post-death ritual of cleaning up. The house was littered with his things. Some items were eminently disposable: crumpled Kleenex, old magazines, empty bottles of pills. Others, clearly keepsakes. There was his wedding band, the mother-of-pearl crucifix he’d toted around for decades, the self-portrait with showgirl. And, of course, there were all the pieces in between – puzzling little bits that seemed like they could be valuable because they had at one point been important to my father: scribbled notes and rusty knick knacks from places we could hardly recall.
Of course, the bulk of his things were of no use to us. There were old engineering texts and boxes with slide rules and typewriter ribbons for typewriters we hadn’t had in decades. There was no doubt we’d get rid them. Despite their uselessness, these things nonetheless held a charge, a memory of my father – one that made them just a little bit difficult to throw away. I felt the same charge at Song Dong’s incredibly moving exhibit, Waste Not, at NYC’s MoMA. A sprawling installation of the entire contents of his mother’s house, it is a record – in stuff – of his mother’s life and, more significantly, his father’s death. Each object, however trivial, set aside, put away, secured – because, at one moment in time, it had been important.
The show is up through September 7. Do not miss.
Click on images to supersize.
I’ve really been enjoying the online photo essays of Peruvian photographer Carlos Diaz (who I have to confess, I know nothing about — I just stumbled onto his website by accident). The above image comes from a series on signage in tourist-trampled Cuzco. His work runs the gamut – from solemn religious ceremonies in the Andes to hip-hop concerts in Callao to body building contests in Cuzco to otaku gatherings in Puno – covering the breadth of Peruvian life.
You can see his latest on his blog, Ojjo.
Jim Avignon, The Big Bailout Burlesque at Factory Fresh. (Image Courtesy Factory Fresh.)
- In NYC: Factory Fresh hosts live music and performances, including Larry’s Fake-Tattoo Performance, the one-man band Neoangin and Kim Boekbinder of Vermillion Lies, Friday at 8pm.
- In NYC: The Breaking Point, Eric Ayotte, Melody Boone and Ryan O’Connor at Work, opens Saturday at 6pm. Includes BBQ and dancing.
- In NYC: 1(212): A Summer Wasted, with Marissa Bluestone & Peter Feigen baum, opens today.
- In SF: Color Between the Lines, Erik Parra and Danny Neece, at Artillery, opens today.
Zoe Strauss has just posted some bad-ass photos of tonight’s end-of-days storm on her Flickr feed. Badass. (Image courtesy of Zoe Strauss.)
infinity, in Spool, at chashama on 37th street. (Image courtesy of infinity.)
- In NYC: infinity, with special guests, Spool, at chashama on West 37th Street, performances through Aug. 21st.
- In Durham, N.C.: Picasso and the Allure of Language at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, opens Thursday.
- In Denver: Paper Narratives at Abecedarian Gallery, through Sept. 5.
- In Albuquerque: Experimental Geography at the Albuquerque Museum, through Sep. 20.
- In Santa Monica, Calif.: Barkley Hendricks, The Birth of Cool, at the Santa Monica Museum of Art through Aug. 22.
- In L.A.: Nicole Miller at LAXART, through Aug. 22.
- In Seattle: Rachel Maxi, Lay of the Land, at Grey, through Oct. 3. (Another Bouncing Ball.)
- Jen Bekman’s Hey Hotshot competition is now accepting your photography entries.
