Wed Viewings

As part of my ongoing effort to update more regularly, I plan on posting a few videos- music, art, etc. every Wednesday. Look forward to it.

The Quay Brothers- Two stop motion artists with a twisted and beautiful mind.



Riceboy Sleeps- the new band/art collective from the frontman of Sigur Ros and his boyfriend Alex. Jonsi & Alex



Bjork - One Day. I went out last night and was chided for not knowing this song, so i had to look it up....

Petrou Man

Check out the new menswear line called PETROU/MAN created by my friends Soteris Kallis and Nicolas Petrou, modeled by yours truly. This talented duo of experienced designers has created a TO DIE FOR menswear collection that is at once utilitarian, wearable, masculine, and glamorous. I can personally attest that every single piece in the collection is incredibly well made and thought out, from the seam finishes to the fabrications. The only horrible thing about being their phantom model was the torturous thought of realizing that I WANT EVERY SINGLE PIECE.

Petrou/Man

Playing w/Dolls

My last night in Salt Lake City this last July involved me going through my old doll collection with my mother and sister. As I sifted through the piles of mermaids, princesses, and warriors, hundreds of memories flooded back to me. I dressed and coiffed every one of those plastic beauties, they have become my muses in countless sketchbooks, fashion illustrations, and fantasies.

Pomona

While vacationing in Los Angeles I had the pleasure of discovering the joys of a little town called Pomona nestled in the San Bernadino valley. It was a brief respite from the endless sprawls of beige suburbs and shopping centers. The town is named after the greek goddess of fruit, and seems like the last bastion for a very vintage feeling L.A.




Our first stop was a thrift shop where Jillian had spotted a blue negligee a week earlier. She was thrilled when she found it still hanging on the rack, I was less than thrilled when she found a jumpsuit that she insisted I try on.





Now, I can't say I've ever wanted to work at a thrift store, filled with crying children, elevator music, and cheap people; but there was something about the merchandising of the 'expensive' section that made me want to throw my decorative skills down. So many delicate tea sets, mini reproductions of odd artwork, and strange dolls.






Next up was 'second street' a cluster of shops and stores contained in an arts colony. It was that part of a town that looks like its dying--the last gritty bits of a place that has given way to the Super Targets of America.





The highlight of second street was a little vintage boutique called La Bomba--filled with the kind of fodder that hipsters in New York would kill to have. I picked up a gorgeous little cowboy shirt, all grey and blue stripes with just enough ruffle.





- some deadstock shoes my friend paid 300$ for in NYC---125$ in LA.

Graphics Man

Here are a few rough versions of flyers for some upcoming shows from singer/songwriter Erin Barra. In between her regular gigs at The Bitter End, she's moonlighting in Utah later this month with The New York Funk Exchange, and The Groove Patrol. What do you think? Should I attempt to get some freelance graphic design work?

Fall Preview, Pocahontas Hair

I don't know what I'll be wearing for fall but I know what I want my hair to look like...




Okay, so my hair was getting really long earlier this year...and then I had a late winter psycho crisis and shaved my head. Now I miss my hair. Thank the lord it grows fast...but I want it to grow faster. I want Pocahontas hair!! Tomorrow! Okay, so maybe not tomorrow, but as soon as my hair is long enough to get a decent weave...(I'm thinking early September) I am SO going to harlem and getting some tracks sewn in. If Tyra can do it, so can I.






*All of these pics minus the first two are of Austrian model Florian Pessenteiner. Pretty Pretty boy.

Google Me

Interesting things happen when you Google yourself. Check it out-

Who is Andrew Yang?

Madonna gets some Mercy

Madonna has been getting a lot of flack for wanting to adopt internationally, as well as using her celebrity to bypass formalities the Malawi government has in place in its adoption process. Today, she was granted her adoption and she is getting her baby. I say CONGRATULATIONS! If only more celebrities would adopt.


Julie Andrews adopted two Vietnamese children in 1974.



Mia Farrow adopted 10 children from all around the world, some with disabilities. The most famous of them, Soon-Yi Previn, went on to have an affair with Mia's former-significant-other, Woody Allen, as a teenager. Then Woody and Soon-Yi married and adopted two children themselves.



Josephine Baker adopted 12 or 13 children of different ethnic backgrounds: her Rainbow Tribe.



In 2006, actress Meg Ryan adopted her daughter Daisy True from China.

Did You Know?

That over a quarter of the population of black swans exhibit homosexual tendencies?


A flamboyantly homosexual swan couple and their brood.

Swans are more or less monogamous water birds. They reinforce their pairings with frequent preening and sex. Should one die, the other usually lives out the remainder of it's life alone. Generally, when two male swans pair off, one mates with a female, she lays eggs in their nest, and then they chase her off. And because the males are so much bigger, their baby cygnets have up to ten times the survival rate as their hetero counterparts.

Rainy Daze

It's been raining for a couple weeks now, reliably almost every other day. Even though I have been a productive bunny (scarves, pictures, drawing, dolls, partying, scarves) the rain makes it so easy to lounge, read, and watch movies. Plus, how else does one spend the time hungover beyond repair?



They Shoot Horses Don't They?

Sydney Pollack's masterful depiction of the desperation of those living during The Great Depression, has gone down in film history as one of The Greats. In the sixties it was nominated for several academy awards, and cemented the auteur's status as a filmmaker to be reckoned with, and Jane Fonda's acting skills that were...ahem...lost on Barbarella. It follows the lives of several couples who entered a marathon dance competition, and didn't sleep for over three months..you can imagine what this did to their sanity. A fleeting and disturbing glimpse into a forgotten part of american culture.



The Brother's Grimm

I'm sad to say I missed the opportunity to see this in theaters. After it received a bunch of bad reviews, I guess I thought it would be better to wait til I caught it on TV. Wrong. Maybe it's because I'm partial with anything that has an allusion to Fairy Tales, but this movie was a helluva lot of fun. It reminds me of the period adventure movies I used to watch as a kid, filled with humor, magic, and non reality. A stellar cast, and AMAZING costume and production design.




Twist

Twist is a modern retelling of Oliver Twist written and directed by Jacob Tierney. It stars Nick Stahl as the Artful Dodger, and a very cute Joshua Close as the Oliver character. The movie takes the Dickens out of London and lands in the seedy streets of Montreal, which is apparently filled with cute, cracked out hustlers. I want to take Oliver out of Montreal and put him in my pocket.



The Hours, Michael Cunningham.

Okay, we all saw the movie and thought it was amazing. The book is just as amazing, but even more saturated and satisfying in the way books are always more saturated and satisfying than movies. Michael Cunningham's prose is gorgeous and poignant, and he made me want to go straight to the Strand and pick up every other piece of writing he's penned. C'est Magnifique.

Congratulations Angelina!

Angelina beat out Oprah on the Forbes List of most powerful celebrities! Congrats!! It comes with marrying Brad Pitt, and saving the world one baby at a time.

Gallery Stroll

I've been seeing a lot of art over the past few weeks. Look forward to some more regular postings about some of the shows I'm popping into these days.

The first was artist Helle Mardhal's first New York solo exhibition at one of my favorite galleries, La Viola Bank Gallery in Chinatown. The work is consuming, dark, and somewhat cute and humorous, something that one could argue is expected from a scandanavian artist. (Those swedes, fins, and danes are all so conflicted and adorable.) The event was hosted by my three favorite promoters in the city, the six six six girls. They have a fun DIY blog full of fashion and excitement here.



The Girls



The Artist




Next stop a week or so later was the open studios at The School of Visual Arts. I was going to see my friend Jessica's performance art piece. She's a downtown photographer who featured me in a series of polaroids she did for a portrait series. You can see the picture of me @ her site, Transgressica



Now I can't say that I fully understand or appreciate performance art most of the time. This performance featured a cellist who was playing beautifully with his back turned to the audience and performers. A blindfolded attractive tattooed fellow stood blindfolded while he masturbated in front of an audience full of people. Jessica took polaroids of him, sometimes from a distance, sometimes from very close up. Voyeuristic, but intriguing. I don't mind performance art when it features an attractive tattooed fellow.




Next stop was the Met. I've been itching to see the Francis Bacon retrospective since it opened last Friday, but wandered around the glorious museum for three hours before I went inside. And as someone remotely connected to the I hadn't yet explored the New American Wing, or really gotten to appreciate the Greek and Roman galleries. I've steadily been drawing and illustrating more men, learning the appreciation for the male body that I've had for the female one my entire life--so I was particularly intrigued by the marble busts and figures of men. The male body has its own softness and curvature that I'm starting to feel secure enough to explore in my own work.

Portraiture is always exciting. Marble busts had to be accurate in a way that an oil painting can avoid, so it can sometimes be very haunting to see some of these faces, looking at you over the span of hundreds of years.

The Francis Bacon exhibition was exhausting and beautiful. His distorted portraits of himself, his lovers, and his anguish were very eye opening and dark. I needed an ice cream after leaving, and had to think of My Little Ponies before I went to bed, for fear of bloody fanged baboons coming after me in the night. I managed to snap a few pictures before I was stopped by the guard.."No pictures of the Bacon!"


Marie Antoinette's Pillow!


This statue always freaks me out. I know they're supposed to be sleeping. But they totally look dead. Dead babies!


Work the hair.


Face face give me face


I need a me some Heracles!


Why the long face?


bacon is beautiful.