th:   this show seems like a turning point in your work.   there are no screens.   no images.    it’s all robotic.

ar:   yeah, i’ve always been interested in mechanical movement — it’s really how i started making art — but then i made some video sculptures and kind of got distracted.  i mean i made pieces with screens for how many years?  twenty?

th:   twenty years is more than a distraction.

ar:    well, i went with it…   but continued to be interested in physical mechanical movement.  i like three-dimensional objects.   and to me, there’s something very compelling about an object that moves.   i wanted to make sculptures that didn’t just sit there.

ar:  i did some mechanical pieces in the mid-80s and started combining those ideas with feathers in the late-90s.   my first robots that used feathers were kind of massive,  rigid things.   they moved slowly and the feathers were only a small part of the design –  not the focus.

the movement of most kinetic art work is repetitive.   what i wanted to do with robotics is different.  to me, what distinguishes robotic work from kinetic work is that robotic work is open-ended — it doesn’t just run in a loop.   the pieces i’ve been making modify their own movements.

th:   the motions constantly change?

ar:   yeah.   for me the essence of what a robot is is in its autonomy — not its shape –  for example, static humanoid sculptures aren’t robots.

th:   explain what you mean by “autonomy”?

ar:    i didn’t want to make puppets.  my work isn’t something where i’m behind the curtain with a remote control for a performance.   i think sculptures are objects that should exist independently.    a robotic sculpture should move on its own accord — without human intervention.   it should choreograph it’s own actions.    and  it should know when to move and when to sleep.

th:   have a life on its own…

ar:   yeah.   something i started doing around 1999 was eliminating on/off switches.   that switch really drove me crazy.   not visually, but conceptually.   probably didn’t matter to anybody else… but i really didn’t like the idea of turning an artwork off.   it sort of seemed like putting a painting in the closet and then, ok,  you come home and take the painting out of the closet and put it on the wall and you look at it and then you take it down and put it back in the closet when you leave.

th:   that’s something that’s always bothered me about video…   it’s only there when you’ve turned on the player.

ar:    yeah,  well i didn’t like it for my sculptures.   an object has to be all of the time, not just when you remember to turn it on.   so now my sculptures have motion detectors and they sleep when nobody’s around.

th:   when it’s asleep, it’s not actually doing something inside is it?

ar:   well it is.   the brain is always working.   kind of makes you wonder about sleep in the computer world…   but in terms of  your own life,  it makes you think about the transition between sleep and wakefulness, how we manage to boot up our consciousness.

th:  why are you using feathers?

ar:  at first, it was just because i was looking for an extremely light, strong material.

but you know, a lot of my work makes reference to the human body and i’ve often fused machinery with organic forms or found materials to make sculptures seem more alive.    i have this idea that we’ve all become cyborgs without recognizing  it.   think about protective  clothing, vaccines, contraceptives, eyeglasses,  wristwatches, cellphones…

th:  contact lenses, pacemakers, prosthetics…

ar:   exactly.   so the feathers and the movements they can make, make these robots seem more alive.

th:   and these specific types of feathers?

ar:    i experimented with a lot of different feathers.   certain feathers enhanced certain kinds of movements.   the pheasant tail feathers are so flexible…  i can get them to bend and vibrate.   the ostrich feathers are very soft…  they kind of “fluff.”

th:  are you interested in dance?  i mean,  some of these pieces feel very “choreographed”…

ar:  ha! that would be funny since i’m this white guy from the suburbs who can’t dance.   no.   i guess i’m not really interested in dance.   but going to an auto assembly line, now that’s pretty beautiful.  so that’s more my inspiration.

th:  well the organic nature of the feathers, the flexibility, there’s something that’s really different…

ar : than the assembly line?

th:  yeah.

ar:   well i saw these pheasant feathers used in the headdress of a chinese folk dancer in taiwan and was mesmerized.  and i am very interested in music.  that’s where i get lots of the ideas about how to handle the organization of the movements of these sculptures.

th:  you’re not working with screens anymore?

ar:  i’m taking a break.

th:   why?

ar:  i wanted to get away from them…   they’re too loaded.  we can’t see one without thinking of computers or televisions —   something we think we should be getting information from…   we don’t “see” a screen anymore –  we automatically “read” it.    i’m also over the rectangle.   too many art works are based on grids.   this body of work is based on circles and radial symmetry.     i wanted to get away from that whole cartesian way of thinking.

th:  tell me about the tripods.

ar:  tripods…   well there’s this problem with sculpture…   if you don’t want a pedestal, how does the piece interface with the floor?   it needs its own stand…  and you can’t really make a neutral pedestal, a non-existent pedestal, so it really has to be a part of the piece.    so i did all these tripod experiments…   trying to come up with my own tripod.

th:  reinvent the wheel?

ar:  well, i still sometimes use ready-made tripods.   but with some work, i want a viewer to have no associations with any recognizable object.    that’s also part of the reason i didn’t want to use any screens in this exhibition.

so the tripod issue presented a real challenge — i needed something that functioned as a tripod but didn’t look like any tripod you’ve seen before.   my tripod is asymmetrical and the “spine” leans slightly rather than standing exactly vertical.   i emphasized two legs and hid the third.  the result is something which looks much more human or animal, rather than mechanical.    but the design does what i need a tripod to do –  it stands on three points so it’s stable and it also collapses for transport.

th:  i love the sound that some of the feather pieces make…   it’s like some other-worldly singing…    what is that?

ar:   they’re the vibrations of the motors moving the feathers.   as they speed up and slow down, they vibrate at different speeds — that makes different tones.   without the feathers, the vibrations are inaudible.    the feathers act as speaker cones and amplify the vibrations.

th:   really cool.    did you know they’d do that?

ar:  no.  it was a pleasant surprise.

th:  i find some of these pieces kind of sexy, or sensual or something

ar:   well i hope so.   i want them to feel friendly, happy, sensual, alive…  welcoming.   and yet you see the problem…  i mean they are just machines…

i think our minds are sensitive to certain kinds of motions — “wired” to recognize movements that are inviting, or on the other hand,  threatening.   and so i was wondering, can you get a machine to trigger those kinds of receptors in the human brain and what does that look like?

th:   have you ever seen birds doing a mating dance?   there’s some of that same kind of thing in the way you’re making the feathers vibrate.   i’ve seen male peacocks fan their tails and then shake them in this really kind of silly way…   and there’s something about these that remind me of that.

ar:   well that’s good.   i like that.   i hope there’s also something about flowers.   i like the way flowers bloom and open up and just really put it out there so unashamedly.   i wondered if there was some sort of mechanical way of doing that.   i guess i wanted to explore playfulness and sensuality.   those are things that i haven’t seen in kinetic machine art — the work from the 70s and 80s — it all seemed so violent.    and heavy and industrial.   i wanted movement that was playful.

th:  there is kind of a…not silliness, but something that’s funny.

ar:  silliness and funniness.   i don’t think we should take ourselves too seriously.   maybe i’m not silly enough, but i would like my work to convey those qualities.

you know,  you want your work to be attractive –  that goes back to the flower thing.  like if you’re walking in the woods and there’s all this stimulation, all this visual stuff, but a flower catches your eye and you go over to look at it.  what is it that pulls you in when there’s all this other stuff and yet you focus on this flower?

th:  did you read that michael pollan book, botany of desire?   he essentially says plants influenced their development by manipulating us.   it’s the same kind of stuff you’re talking about.  what is it that gets the attention of this human and makes them respond in a way that benefits the plant… or in this case the sculpture?  because the sculpture is animated by our presence, that’s what wakes it up…

ar:  and the sculptures need care.   that’s part of the loop…  so they somehow have to seduce a viewer to elicit that care.

th:  i also think that in general, a work of art has to seduce a viewer to begin with, but there has to be enough there to engage you over time.   otherwise it becomes the painting you end up putting away under your bed.

ar:   something that can be discovered over time…

th:  i think these robotic pieces do that.   you’re kind of forced to think about what it means to be living.

ar:   i know that from trying to build primitive robotic arms for this work.    you realize how amazing your own arm really is.  then you think about the interaction between your brain and your arm.   then the process of how you grew up and learned to run…    we’re living in a weird time — this emergence of artificial life.  always before there was this pretty obvious distinction between what was alive and what was not.  now there’re very complex machines with very complex software that evolve and kind of make you feel like they’re sort of alive.   and they’re only going to get more sophisticated and elicit more of that question of  “can we unplug this system? should we?’  that’s kind of new.

alan rath’s exhibition,  irrational exuberance,  is up at my gallery through saturday the 18th of may.

preheat the oven to 325.

9 cups old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups flaked coconut
3/4 cup quinoa
3/4 cup flax seed meal
1/2 cup black sesame seeds
2 1/2 cups slivered almonds
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups chopped pecans
1 cup chopped pistachios
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 1/4 cup maple syrup
1 1/4 cup walnut oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups dried berries (i use strawberries and blueberries that i dry during their season, but you could substitute or include dried sour cherries, golden raisins or cranberries)

in a large bowl, thoroughly combine the oats with the other grains, seeds, nuts and cinnamon.

separately, whisk together the syrup, oil and vanilla.   add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir to evenly coat.

bake 30 – 40 minutes on cookie sheets, stirring and rotating the pans every 10 minutes.    you want to toast the granola to golden — but not brown it…   watch it carefully — it scorches quickly.

spread the hot granola on a counter or table.   it will dry as it cools.  when it is dry, stir in the dried berries and store in air-tight containers.  serve with yogurt.

this is the time of year…  dry-farmed tomatoes are inexpensive at the farmers’ market.   i roast them with other vegetables for an intense, super-tomato flavor.

10 pounds of tomatoes, cut into chunks

2 fennel bulbs, quartered

4 medium onions, quartered

6 carrots, peeled and chunked

8 cloves garlic, cleaned and halved

4 stalks of celery, broken in quarters

toss the vegetables in olive oil in a large roaster, sprinkle with salt and cover.  bake in a 300 degree oven for two hours.   uncover, stir and return to the oven.   stir every 20 minutes until the liquid is mostly cooked off and the vegetables are a carmel-y goo.   cool.   then use a blender to purée the vegetables in small batches with vegetable (or chicken) stock.   you determine how thick you want the soup by adding more or less stock.   i like it a little chunky, so i blend less.   pour all of the batches from the blender into a stock pot and mix together, then heat the soup on the stove and serve garnished with fresh herbs, or a swirl of puréed avocado.   serve with toasted sandwiches of crusty, seeded bread and sharp cheddar and a green salad.

oscar wilde is supposed to have said, “i find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.”  his collection of chinese porcelain was emblematic of his superb taste…  and vanity.  i just think it’s a shame to eat good food from an ugly plate.

through brutally-hard labor and extreme austerity, rudolf and his young bride, jenny, scratch a living from the jungle.  his experiments with tea and quinine production revolutionize agriculture, and eventually, he prospers.

as much as this is the story of rudolf’s increasing plantations and flourishing progeny, it’s also the story of his acrimonious relationship with his parents and siblings and his wife’s descent into mental illness.

the simplicity of  haasse’s prose perfectly suits her stolid protagonist.  but the sophistication of this work is demonstrated in her subtle revelation of his epic blind spots and untrustworthiness as a narrator.

it’s not until the conclusion that haase reveals that the characters and events in the “novel” aren’t fictional.  inspired by letters, photographs and documents from the archive of an actual family, she has vividly imagined their motivations, hopes and disappointments.

i finished this jewel of a book and thought of something a favorite author, tim o’brian, said.   “story-truth is sometimes truer than happening-truth.” story-truth is emotional-truth; thus the feeling created by a fictional story is sometimes truer than what results from reading the facts

t

while our new space is gorgeous, a gallery is only as good as the art in it…  an inaugural show is the benchmark, setting your audiences’ expectations.   we couldn’t open with a solo exhibition.  the program is too complex and isn’t about a single artist or set of ideas.   i wanted to launch this new iteration of  the gallery with a variety of artists exploring the cultural and aesthetic values we’ve developed.   i wanted a theme with sub-themes that i could use to tease out relationships between artists and artworks.   and it wouldn’t hurt if the show’s title was catchy.

i called the first exhibition look both ways.   kind of catchy…  and open-ended enough for me to follow several conceptual threads.

today is the 16th anniversary of the opening of hosfelt gallery.   at the most simple level, the title refers to the program we’ve refined, while at the same time looking toward our future.  many of the artists we’ve exhibited for years.  others we’re just beginning to work with.  so this is a look back and a look to the future…

one of the defining characteristics of the art at hosfelt gallery is that it’s made by artists with a knowledge of history — be it visual, cultural, political or social — and an understanding of how their work fits into the dialogue between the past and contemporary culture.  that knowledge leads to artworks that are forward-looking rather than being nostalgic or derivative.  shahzia sikander’s work, which refers to traditions of miniature painting but has as its subject contemporary social issues, is a perfect example.  as are john o’reilly’s collages and rina banerjee’s sculpture.   so on another level, look both ways is about the way artists interpret history to make work about the present.

i also wanted explore the idea that making art is a practice that has both an external and internal component.    so on a third level, the show is about how artists observe, internalize, then interpret their environment.   they look both out and inside themselves.   in the fin within – a sculpture by tim hawkinson — a cast from the space between the artist’s legs becomes the tail of a merman.    something mythological and historical is re-imagined and created using the artist’s body.   there’s a nod to bruce nauman’s 1965  a cast of space under my chair, an artists’s attempt to make the invisible visible…   and of course, a fin is a rudder — the thing that enables its owner to set a course.  a “fin within” is the internal mechanism, or compass, that gives an artist’s practice direction.   but a tail fin, as my friend laura pointed out, isn’t only about steering…   it’s also about propelling…   or moving the art forward.

jay defeo’s work is nearly always about scrutinizing objects from her daily life, interpreting them through the filter of her lovely idiosyncrasy, then photographing, drawing, re-working and reinterpreting them to come up with new ways of understanding.  it’s a process like a metaphysician’s — a quest to comprehend the nature and scope of the universe.

another goal was to challenge viewers to understand the difference between what is perceived at a glance and the complex layers of meaning that can unfold with prolonged looking.  the artworks in this exhibition often seem to be one thing with a quick look and something completely different when examined with care.  look both ways is about significance changing as your point-of-view shifts.

jim campbell’s LEDs are meaningless glittering lights unless you’re far enough away to see the individual pixels merge into a single moving image…

up close, this work by angelina pwerle is made of countless tiny colored dabs of paint.

which from a distance become three-dimensional interstellar clouds.    the “painting” by emil lukas appears to be a field of shimmering color…

until you’re close, where it reveals itself to be made of thread stretched over a shallow wooden tray.

the show is an exploration of the importance of examining life from a vantage point other than the one you’re most accustomed to.  as i worked on this show, it became a metaphor for the opportunity art gives a thoughtful viewer to see the world from another’s perspective…   and possibly look within themselves at their own prejudices.

once i’d decided on the artists and works to include, i laid the show out to develop formal and conceptual relationships between art works.    sometimes they’re as simple as the form of the russell crotty globe echoing the shape of marco maggi’s drawing on a convex mirror.

or the color palette of the globe relating to the watercolor paintings of nicole fein…

my hope is that less apparent relationships — like the fact that fein, crotty and pwerle’s works, are all personal meditations on landscape — also emerge.

though made by hand, the pixelation of the anoka faruqee and angelina pwerle works relate to the digital technology used by jim campbell.

i played with the theme of mirroring by including this jay defeo photo-collage…

and her photograph of a mirror in the bathroom she’d wallpapered in aluminum foil…

and marco maggi’s convex mirror…

what is reflection but an example of looking away from yourself and at yourself at the same time?

to understand what you’re seeing when you look at maggi’s piece, you’re forced to get up close, at which point, you see yourself…  you become part of the object you’re observing.   viewing art thoughtfully means recognizing that everything you observe is seen through a lens formed by your history and experience.   on another level, this show is about self-reflection.

the intricate web of scratched drawing on the mirror echos the thread work in emil lukas’ piece and the chain link of driss ouadahi’s painting breakthrough.     perhaps the ultimate question about perspective is are you looking from the inside or out?

the works in this post are:

anoka faruqee  blue pool, 2012   acrylic on linen   56.25 x 51.25 inches

nicole fein    1051012, 2012   watercolor on paper   14 x 14 inches

1050812, 2012   watercolor on paper  14 x 14 inches

1052312, 2012  watercolor on paper   14 x 14 inches

tim hawkinson    the fin within, 1995  aluminum  36 x 15 x 15 inches

rina banerjee  she drew a premature prick, in a fluster of transgressions, abject by birth she knew not what else to do with this untouchable reach, unknowable body as she was an ancient savage towed into this modern present, 2011   female mannequin form, amber bottles, epoxy american buffalo horns, steel arm brace, banarasi indian wedding sari trim,

jay defeo    untitled (impressions of africa series), 1986   oil and alkyd on paper   50 x 38 inches

jay defeo    impressions of africa #1, 1986   oil and alkyd on paper   50 x 38 inches

shahzia sikander  end of something series 1, 2009   graphite and ink on paper   14 x 11 in

tim hawkinson    the fin within, 1995  aluminum  36 x 15 x 15 inches

jay defeo   untitled 1092, 1972    gelatin silver print   7 5/16 x 6 1/2 inches

jay defeo   untitled (impressions of africa series), 1986   oil and alkyd on paper   50 x 38 inches

jim campbell  tilted view, 2012   custom electronics, 1152 LEDs, wire, steel   72 x 60 x 38 in

angelina perwele  bush plum (6-511), 2011   acrylic on canvas   59 1/2 x 59 1/2 in

emil lukas   horizontal ring, 2012    thread over painted wood frame with nails and varnish   78 x 96 x 3 inches

russell crotty  coastal blog, 2012   acrylic, pencil & ink on paper on fiberglass sphere   24 inches in diameter

marco maggi  global myopia (utah street), 2012   engraved mirror   36 inches in diameter

nicole fein  1051012, 2012   watercolor on paper   14 x 14 inches

jay defeo  untitled 1972, 1972  photo collage   4 1/8 x 5 3/4 inches

jay defeo  mirror, 1973    silver gelatin print    3.5 x 4 inches

driss ouadahi   breakthrough, 2012  oil on canvas    78 3/4 x 141 3/4 in

all photos are by david stroud.

i looked at a lot of buildings over the course of nearly two years, so as soon as i saw this, i knew it was the one.

the light is extraordinary — three 80-foot bays of skylights flood the space and the entire length of the east wall of the gallery is 13-foot-high factory sash windows.

at 8,900 sq feet, it’s big enough to do large-scale installations or put on substantial solo or group exhibitions.  the volume allows me to provide each work of art the space it needs to look its best and the viewer the distance to get some perspective.

i worked with louis schump of HOK, who also designed my new york gallery, to conceptualize this project.

you enter the space through an entry sequence of hallway, stairs and exposed brick, and are surprised when you step into the sky-lit gallery.  the quality of light and sense of scale are so unexpected they make you pause.

the entry gallery is generously proportioned, but not overwhelming.   its 12 foot high walls don’t go to the ceiling, allowing you to see that the space continues beyond them.  you also have views of other galleries to both the right and the left and it’s clear that there’s something more beyond the space you’re in.   there’s a socratic aspect to it…   of not giving everything away, but drawing you  in to explore for yourself.   it’s one of the things i believe art should do and i curate with that in mind.

once you move into either of the two large galleries, none of the walls extend all of the way to the ceiling — they’re 10, 12 or 14 feet high — depending upon their function.

their partial height minimally impacts the expanse of the space and reinforces your awareness that this was once a factory.   the varying elevations also subtly animate the architecture.

the layout of the walls, too, is meant to not interfere with the elegant proportions of the building.  they frame views between galleries that allow me to develop connections between art works in the different spaces and use those views to guide the viewer.

anticipating and controlling the way viewers move through space is part of curating.  quite purposefully, there are no dead ends to this gallery –  a sequence of prospects circulates you from one artwork to the next encouraging the discovery of relationships and uncovering of meaning.

we left the shell of the building, the ceiling and the columns exactly as we found them.  they retain 90 years of patina.   that move establishes a conversation between the existing building (history) and new construction (a frame for looking at contemporary art).  it’s a metaphor for the way the gallery program refers to social, cultural and art history while exhibiting art that’s thoroughly contemporary.

we used the architecture to further exhibition strategies, in this case, exposed pilasters break up very long expanses of wall.

when were designing and building the space, everyone kept asking me, “are you sure you want white floors?  really?”

this is what it looked like before the white floors went in:

pretty good, huh?     but this is the same view after:

i kept saying, ” i think i want white floors…”  but had no idea what a defining feature of the gallery they would be.   they do several really important things.    first, the white floors link the walls.  separated by the dark floor, stark planes of sheet rock were like individual stages.   art looked great on them, but work on each wall felt  independent and unrelated to works on other walls.   finishing the floors the same color as the walls essentially eliminates the floor from your consciousness — giving the gallery an unusual coherence.   second, by removing the element of the floors from the visual equation, the art stands out from the space and has more impact — it’s the art that “pops” while the space recedes.  finally, and most impressively the daylight bouncing off the white floors is what gives the space its even, soft glow.  it’s the most flattering art lighting i have ever seen.

we used scrims on the sky lights to soften the glare,  reduce the UV and diffuse and even-out the light.

we frosted the bottom window panes, eliminating the view of traffic outside and creating a visually “quiet” space.   before:

after:

i’m prejudiced, but think this is a extraordinary place to view art…   and know it’s going to be really fun to curate.
the new hosfelt gallery, san francisco is at 260 utah street between 15th and 16th streets.   hours are tuesday through saturday, 10-6.    the phone is still 415 495 5454.

all of the photos in this post were made by david stroud.

she’s still experimenting with pattern.  she’s still referring to digital technology.  and she’s still committed to exploring the physicality of paint and the sensuality of the act of painting.   but i’ve never seen anything quite like these…

traditionally, “op-art” (á la vasarely, anuszkiewicz, soto and bridget riley), relies on
strict geometries to create vibrating optical effects.   faruqee’s paintings pulsate, quiver and undulate as well as the best of them…

while maintaining a sense of the organic.

they’re neither formal nor slick.

they’re successful (and original) because of their irregularities of hand and the inherent unruliness of paint.

we’ll be showing 30 of these paintings in our new york gallery from the 5th of october to the 29th of december in a show called:  anoka faruqee: “the sum is greater than its parts” 

originating in valencia, paella is named for the pan it’s cooked in — the paellera — and was at first made with chicken, rabbit, snails and fresh beans cooked together over an open fire.   as the dish spread, local variations developed and people improvised with whatever was at hand.  like anything you cook, your ingredients should vary depending upon what’s available locally and seasonally.

recently, patty unterman, who knows more about every kind of food than anyone i know, cooked paella for a group of friends over an open fire on the beach.   it was hands down the best paella i have ever tasted and one of the most delicious and memorable meals of my life.   two reasons it was so perfect,  she explained, the smoke from the fire (in this case, made of driftwood) infuses the paella with distinctive flavors and the perfect socarrat — the caramelizing of the rice on the bottom of the pan — develops best over an open fire.

patty bases her paella on the proportions suggested at the spanish table (http://www.spanishtable.com/).   it’s also where she buys her paella rice, piquillo peppers, chorizo and the 24-year-old pedro ximenes sherry vinegar which she swears she can’t live without.  we got our local clams at warrenton deep sea market, a few miles away in warrenton, oregon.

here’s how you do it.   calculate the amount of each ingredients by multiplying the below measurements by the number of people you want to serve (so for 10 people you’d use 5 cups of rice).

½ cup uncooked valencian rice

1 cup chicken stock (heated in a separate pot)

5 threads saffron (soaked in a little bit of white wine)

1 chicken thigh

½ soft chorizo

½ teaspoon sweet pimentón (paprika)

1 clove garlic, minced

¼ cup chopped onion

⅛ cup grated tomato (skin discarded)

2 shrimp or prawns

2-4 small clams and/or mussels

1 cup vegetables (english peas, snap peas or green beans cut in 1-inch pieces, artichoke heats

1 red piquillo pepper cut in strips

olive oil

it’s critical that your paellera is perfectly level, evenly heated and is stable –  you don’t want to go to all this work, only to have your dinner slosh into the fire.  i positioned two large stones so that i could hook the handles of the pan on the corners of the stones.    then, because the pan was still a little tippy, i jammed two old bbq forks into the sand so the sides of the pan would also rest on them.    you need an even bed of hot coals, so i built a “log cabin” style fire with drift wood ranging from 1-2 inches in diameter.   i started the fire 60 minutes before we wanted to start cooking — 2 hours before we wanted to eat.

once you have a nice bed of coals, put the paellera on the fire to heat, then add enough olive oil to cover the bottom of the pan.

when the oil is hot, add chicken and fry until it begins to brown.

then add garlic and onions and sauté until they’re translucent.

next, add the chorizo, then a couple of minutes later, the rice, stirring until it’s well-coated with the olive oil.

add paprika and grated tomato and stir.   then add the hot stock and saffron-infused wine.  the fire needs to be hot enough to bring the stock to a boil, then kept at a high simmer.

once the stock is added, do not stir the paella.  the rice will cook, absorbing the flavors of all of the ingredients as the fire slowly dies down.

when the rice has absorbed a lot of liquid but is still soupy, add the mussels and/or clams.

when the rice is cooked, tuck the shrimp or prawns down into the rice.  then add piquillo peppers and spread the vegetables on top.

this is when the crusty-caramel-y layer is forming on the bottom of the pan. it will smell (and taste) toasty, but not burnt.  the vegetables will cook in the steam and the paella is done when they are cooked but still crunchy.

pull it off the fire and let it “rest” for 10 minutes before serving.   salt it and squeeze lemon to taste.

how gorgeous is this?!

patty’s blog on food and restaurants is http://untermanonfood.com/.   it’s indispensable.

this dialogue and the photos from julie’s studio came out of the lead-up to her solo exhibition in our new york gallery space…

todd hosfelt:   language is really important in your work.   you’ve always had a visual vocabulary that you’ve worked from, but in this show, the titles also add to the meaning of the pieces.    first, will you tell me about the title of the show, “chinese, japanese, indian chief?”

julie chang:  it comes from the final line of a hand clapping game that we played when i was growing up in the 80′s in southern california.

i went to a chinese restaurant to

buy a loaf of bread, bread, bread,

the waiter asked me what my name is

and this is what i said, said, said,

my name is l-i-l-i chicka-li chicka-li,

extra cutie, pompom beauty,

i know karate, punch em in the body,

oops i’m sorry, don’t tell mommy,

chinese, japanese, indian chief!

you’d pull up at the corner of your eyes when you said “chinese”, then down on “japanese” and cross your arms in front of your body and nod your head for “indian chief.”  without understanding the implication or meaning, we were miming phrases and gestures as a way of belonging.    of course it also perpetuated racism…

t.h.:   that’s foul.

 j.c.: it seemed harmless.   but you know how the more innocuous something appears the more likely it is to kick you in the ass when you aren’t looking…    there are a lot of childhood games, stories and nursery rhymes that are really loaded with   paradoxes and inconsistencies.   they’re confusing when you’re a child and leave a bad taste when you remember them as an adult.

in my work i’m interested in exploring some of the contradictions inherent in the culture in which i was raised.   as the daughter of chinese immigrants,  i grew up with this constant feeling of cultural vertigo – living somewhere between east and west.   sometimes i still find myself feeling lost.   neither here nor there, both this and that, in and out…   my art looks at the struggle between belonging and alienation…    the difference between surface and substance.

th:  i think a lot of people grow up feeling like they don’t exactly fit in some way or another…

jc:  exactly!

th:   the version of the rhyme i heard as a kid (20 years earlier and in the midwest) makes reference to breasts…    but your version is also pretty demeaning to women as well as being racist…

jc:  do you mean “dirty knees. look at these!”?    yes, it’s the unconscious and insidious that i find most interesting.  in this case, it’s mostly girls who play this game, unknowingly participating in a display of self-denegradation.

th:   they’re kids.   perpetuating stereotypes they don’t understand.

jc:  and to a certain extent we all feel like we’ve got to play along…

th:  how about the titles of the individual pieces?

jc:  a lot of them are inspired by the soundtrack of my childhood.  so “up, up and away” references aspiration, with a special nod to my father, who worked on the space shuttle program.  “nine ten do it again” could also have also been titled, “practice makes perfect” or “tiger mom” or “never good enough.”

th:   ouch!

jc:  yeah.   sad, but true.

“second shift” is a sociological term used to talk about gender inequality in domestic labor.   it’s the unpaid labor of a woman who works at a job outside the house all day, then comes home to cook and clean and take care of the kids.  it’s her second shift:  the kind of household i grew up in.

th:  me too.

jc: i also think of it in the context of new immigrant or sexual labor.

th:  what do you mean?

jc:  there’s a lot of attention paid to undocumented immigrant labor.   equally controversial, yet less talked about is the prevalence of pornography and prostitution.   in both cases i see a group of people demonized for doing what they have to do to get by.  this is a big topic, so suffice it to say that it’s easier to blame the individual than the society that creates and sustains “the problem.”

jc:  “happy endings” speaks to the fairy tale-perpetuated assumption of marriage as the ultimate goal for women.

th:   mmmmm.  i think it also refers to a sex act that’s the culmination of a massage…

jc:  yes.  double meanings are important in my work.  i’m using “happy ending” to refer to both the impossibility of a cinderella-like ending as well as the exoticization of asian women through the mail order bride and sex industries.

th:  there are images in your paintings that get doubled and abstracted or buried until they’re almost not available to the viewer except subliminally.   what are you hiding from us and why?

jc:  creating layers that shift from the foreground to background and from seen to unseen is inherent in my aesthetic.   it’s also at the conceptual foundation of my work, in that i’m always inviting the viewer to look deeper.   there’s very little in life that is as simple as it first appears…

th:  let’s talk about color…    the paintings look so “right” but when you start analyzing the individual colors, they seem like they ought never to be together…   you’re a really talented colorist.

jc:  thank you.  my use of color has been something i tend to take for granted, which is why, in this series, i set out to see how far i could push the limits of “right.”  it was touch and go until the very end, so as they say, “careful what you ask for.”

th:   where does your fascination with pattern and decoration come from?

jc:  as far back as i remember, i was aware of the perceived value that certain patterns, brands and symbols had over others and how that related to my own understanding of identity and value.

th:  are you a shelter magazine junkie?

jc:  you got me.   i have an extensive “house porn” collection that i don’t even bother hiding under my mattress.

th:  you’ve talked to me before about designers appropriating “exotic” cultural material.     do you want to say anything about that?

jc:  sure.  in the context of racial and feminist discourse, they talk about the “taking back” of language.   in a way, i’m experimenting with the same practice – and in both instances i think it’s somewhat treacherous territory.   that’s to say that i’m aware i walk a fine line between celebration and critique.

th:  describe your big transbay terminal project in san francisco.

jc:  it’s big.   seriously.   even though i’m three to four years into working on this, it still feels like i was given a unicorn on my birthday.   imagine taking one of my paintings and applying it to 20,000 square feet of terrazzo.  the approach, look and feel will be very similar to my paintings, but the content will be more inspiring and uplifting and less critical and subversive.

th:  tell me about the genesis of the works on paper.

jc:  originally they were just a solution to the problem of keeping my screens from drying before I was finished working with them.  i’d use paper to clear the ink after each pass on the panels.    they evolved into an experiment in color and compositional problem-solving.    paper is cheap and plentiful, so i could try things out without having to worry about the final outcome.

th:  the works on panel are so thought-through and so planned…    does it feel good to be working spontaneously on paper, or is it scary?

jc:  it feels great! there’s this permissiveness to the works on paper that has been missing in my practice.  i want to go even further, but for now i’m encouraged by my initial attempts.

th:  working on paper is physically / technically different than working on panel.    anything you want to say about that?

jc:  it’s a fast and furious and reactive process that relies on my ability to act instinctively.   there’s no time to over-think or doubt myself, which in and of itself is a huge relief.

love this table by furniture designer paul loebach.  he calls it “watson table” for the scientist who discovered the structure of DNA.  it also refers to the “barley twist” in traditional english and american wood work.

laminated carbon fiber and wood give the legs strength and grace.

also love the blanket designed by loebach and jessie hensen — “nothing lost” — made of two pieces of felted wool, laser cut, and reassembled.  no waste.   inspired by 19th century american quilters quoting the bible.

both are nice examples of alluding to tradition with contemporary materials and methods.   craftsmanship is key.

visit loebach’s website here:   http://paulloebach.com

our hero or anti-hero, darashikoh shezad or daru, is a young banker who, dulled by a hang-over and provoked by the bullying of a client, forgets his place and gets himself canned.   he slides into poverty, drug dealing, addiction and violence.  he falls in love with his best friend’s wife.   the three of them — daru, his childhood friend, the handsome, rich and politically powerful aurangzeb, and aurangzeb’s wife, mumtaz — party with lahore’s elite while fundamentalists celebrate nuclear capability with parades, speeches and kalashnikov fire.

disillusioned by his inability to get a job, bitter, stoned and obsessed with mumtaz, daru quickly goes from party boy to pariah.   “there are two social classes in pakistan,” is the tongue-in-cheek theory of one of daru’s university professors.  “the first group, large and sweaty, contains the those referred to as the masses.  the second group is much smaller, but its members exercise vastly greater control over their immediate environment and are collectively termed the elite.   the distinction between members of these two groups is made on the basis of control of an important resource:  air-conditioning.”  daru’s place in upper-class society was always peripheral, based solely on a single powerful connection.  bad luck and a couple of mistakes thrust him irrevocably out and into the world of the perspiring hordes.

the title of the book and one of it’s main motifs emerges in this scene.   his power has been turned off and daru finds his servant staring at a candle.

i walk over to him, my shadow dancing on a different wall from his.

“what is it?” i ask him.

“a moth in love, saab,” manucci says.

sometimes i don’t understand what he’s talking about.   but i do see a moth circling above our heads.  “bring me the fly swatter,” i tell him.

“no, saab.”

i hit him across the top of his head, not too hard and with an open hand, but forcefully enough to let him know that i won’t put up with any impertinence. “what do you mean, no, saab?”

“please, saab,” he says, cringing.  “watch.”

the moth circles lower, bouncing like a drunk pilot in turbulence.   i could clap him out of existence but i don’t, because i’m getting a little curious myself.

the moth starts to make diving passes at the candle.

“he’s an aggressive fellow, this moth,” i say to manucci.

“love, saab,” he replies.

“i never knew you were such a romantic.”

he blushes,  “the poets say some moths will do anything out of love for a flame.”

“how do you know what the poets say?”

“i used to sneak into pak tea house to listen.”

the moth stops swooping, enters a holding pattern about two feet above the candle, and then lands on the wall in front of us.  it’s gray with a black dot on its back that looks like an eye.

“that’s an ugly moth,” i say.

i wait for manucci’s response, but hes says nothing.

the moth doesn’t move.

“he’s afraid,”manucci says.

“he should be.   love’s a dangerous thing.”   i look carefully.  dark streaks run down the moth’s folded wings.   “maybe he’s burnt himself.”

the moth takes off again, and we both step back, because he’s circling at eye level now and seems to have lost rudder control, smacking into the wall on each round.   he circles lower and lower, spinning around the candle in tighter revolutions, like a soap sud over an open drain.   a few times he seems to touch the flame, but dances off unhurt.

then he ignites like a ball of hair, curling into an oily puff of fumes with a hiss.   the candle flame flickers and dims for a moment, then burns as bright as before,

moth smoke lingers.

i lift the candle and look around the mantelpiece for the moth’s body, but i can’t find it.

for a moment i think i smell burning flesh, and even though i tell myself it must be my imagination, i put the candle down feeling more than a little disgusted.

of course daru is the moth.   as is mumtaz.   and pakistan in it’s race to arm (at one point daru surprises his young cousin and friend at their computer, “what are you two doing?” “looking at naughty pictures?”   “but instead of naked women i see a jerkily expanding mushroom cloud, a burst of digital pastels.”).   to that list let’s also add a society focused on wide-screen TVs,  SUVs and religious fanaticism.

one last interesting fact.  the names of the three main characters — darashikoh shezad (daru), aurangzeb and mumtaz — are also the names of  the actors in a bloody historical drama.  the emperor shah jahan’s eldest and favored son, shahzada dara shikoh (often described by historians as luckless) was defeated and put to death by his brother, the future emperor aurangzeb.   their mother was mumtaz mahal, the wife for whom shah jahan built the taj mahal.

muhammad dara shikoh was a patron of the arts and a religious pluralist — a liberal muslim who rejected orthodoxy.  aurangzeb, who had his brother’s head delivered to their ailing, imprisoned father, was a conservative who imposed islamic law and destroyed the schools and temples of non-muslims.

moth smoke is a story of power and rivalry and jealously and corruption.  one in which characters use words like “love” when they really mean “obsession,” “addiction”  or “extremism.”

marten currently has an exhibition in the new york gallery.    my favorite piece is a group of six prints she got from a parisian book stall.  they were probably from a portfolio that victorians used to select their drawing room furnishings — the 19th century equivalent of browsing the dwr website.

in each fussy seat, marten poses a woman’s disengaged body part.  not bloody lumps of flesh, mind you,  but bejeweled, well-coiffed, lipsticked and elegantly accessorized features.

her prowess makes it nearly impossible to determine where the archival material leaves off and her imaginings begin.  her talent lies in intuitively taking clues from the original artwork, to twist it delightfully.

i love the way the corner of the mouth, otherwise rendered realistically, playfully flips up and over.  this is not a mouth — but a representation of a mouth.   perhaps the coy smile is due to the abundance of male attention evidenced by the calling cards?

marten’s art is often about fashion, feminine beauty and and desire.

in this work, she associates archaic images used for displaying objects with depictions of attributes that conventionally make a woman attractive.   one of the things this work might be about is objectification of women.   you know, that “teeth like pearls” and “eyes like pools of water” bullshit.  is marten’s message that a woman is not an object?  that she’s more than the the sum of her attractive features?

or, perhaps, that women used to be satisfied with shopping, redecorating or taking a new lover when they were dissatisfied with their lives.   now they can also choose to have collagen injections, color their hair and have their noses done…

ruth marten’s solo exhibition, “strange bedfellows,” is up in my new york gallery — 531 west 36th street at 10th avenue — through 16 june.

photos all by anastasia vasilakis – http://www.anastasiavasilakis-sitelines.com/

a little furniture re-arranging and a third skin thrown over the back of the pfister sofa, made this awkward corner of our kitchen/dining room a delightful place to read or have a conversation.

but the problem with making a change, even as simple as this one, is that it makes the rest of the place feel, well, tired.    a week after we did this, we decided we needed to paint out the fiesta-orange wall in the kitchen.     the lilacs blooming in the garden inspired the color (benjamin moore crocus 1404)…

which works so well with the stainless steel kitchen and makes the greens of the ferns in the light well pop.

but is an incredibly unforgiving color — a yellow crate of strawberries left on the counter was amazingly jarring.  jokes about peas under mattresses aside, i had to pack away the orange fiesta and bauer dishes, replace the dish towels with natural colored linen and edit and rearrange the the objects…

bowls from dinosaur design in sydney and a frog vase that belonged to my great grandmother.

a sterling tea strainer by ted muehling, my navajo silver baby spoon used to dip sugar from a 9-sided japanese cup, sundry flea market finds…

we spent $350 and it feels like a new room.   but rather than satisfying the itch, i’m daydreaming about what to do next…

better known for his first novel, “one flew over the cuckoo’s nest,” ken kesey’s “sometimes a great notion” (1964) is his masterpiece.   set in a logging town in oregon, it’s the story of the stamper family – father henry, first son hank, hank’s wife viv and second son (with a different wife) leland.  the stampers and their extended family are at odds with the rest of the community because they refuse to honor a strike that has destroyed the economy of the town. crusty patriarch henry is laid up with an injury and hunky hank is running the family logging business when leland, who’s been gone 12 years, comes home from yale seeking revenge.

the greek tragedy of a plot is expansive and non-linear.   minor characters are fleshed-out to create atmospere, but more importantly as devices to give the reader insights into the complexities of the personalities of the stampers.  on top of all that,  kesey uses multiple first person narrators –  at times switching perspective from one paragraph to the next, or even line by line.  i know it sounds like a mess, but it’s a device that allows kesey to effectively reveal how differently each of the characters interprets the events that form the narrative and to make the point that no one ever really understands what motivates anyone else.

when i finished the book, i turned back to the first page and read big chunks of the novel again.  “sometimes a great notion” is extraordinary.  read it.

in 2006 the new york times published a list of 25 novels compiled from the responses of famous writers and “literary sages” who’d  been asked the question  “what is the single best work of american fiction published in the last 25 years?”  don delillo’s “underworld” (1997) was runner-up, with 11 of the 125 votes; toni morrison’s “beloved” (1987) got 15.  though i’m no fan of “beloved,” my expectations for “underworld” were high.

the prologue is a great piece of writing describing the 1951 dodgers-giants game in which bobby thomson hit a home run to win the pennant for the new york giants.  the narrative is moody and multifaceted and we’re treated to juicy historic characters like frank sinatra, jackie gleason and j. edgar hoover.    it’s a fantastic read and i’m not even slightly interested in the sport.    the winning home run is evidently one of the most famous events in baseball history.  delillo uses the ball thompson  hit into the left field bleachers, along with the theme of human waste, as the threads that very loosely stitch this novel together.

like “sometimes a great notion,” this novel is not chronological and is narrated from various perspectives.   but this book is far wider-ranging and far more ambitious — an attempt to describe the psychological condition of cold war america.  unfortunately, in delillo’s hands, the subject is too big, even for an eight hundred page book.   it got away from him and his editor failed to pull it back together.  i’ve heard this called a “demanding” read.  i’d say grueling.  “the sound and the fury” is demanding. this is just sloppy.  sure, there is some nice writing — a few beautifully drawn scenes and a couple of fairly interesting character sketches.  but none of the characters, particularly the nominally central character, a waste management consultant, are actually well-developed.  an unforgivable flaw, i think, in a book of this scale.

so how did this book end up number two on that 2006 list?    a new york-centric literary establishment mistaking ambition for quality.   my tip:  read only the prologue; spend the time you’ve conserved enjoying kesey’s “sometimes a great notion.”

if you have suggestions of books i should be considering for my list, please let me know.

an ottoman by christopher kurtz, made of reclaimed first-growth redwood.

i love the mass. the weight and bulk made elegant by the hover off the ground.

the historical reference to tufted upholstry.

the poetic reference to counting the rings of ancient trees.

“tufted” can be acquired from the san fancisco gallery HEDGE.

http://www.hedgegallery.com/#/home/