Lip Locked And Tongue Tied Tomorrow

Let's say one minute your trash has toilettes in it

but then your sky has this.

Traded Dekalb Ave.

for a more scenic route.

A good state for driving.

For skipping B and going straight to C.

Good state for plundering.

William said I couldn't show anyone this picture because he hadn't put his face on yet.

I kind of wish all of my furniture was mirror plated. And my plates too.

Here's some advice for those being haunted

and in need of instruction for vanquishing ghosts

there's this thing you can do.

Firstly, plunder an old forgotten closet

and find a fox fur coat.

Secondly, take it dancing outside.

Thirdly, define your boundaries

for better results, work in a circle from the inside out.

You can chant for added effect. It works

at least for as long you keep up the running.

South Carolina.

Family, all rosy cheeked and resolute.

Kate Kretz "Your Fragility..." 2010

What you are now looking at is a child's garment embroidered with mother's hair from gestation period. It reads: "your fragility in this sharp world is paralyzing."

Karen Tauches, "Paradise, Cabbagetown Installation," 2010

Welcome to Dalton Gallery's "My Sweet, Sweet..." curated by Lisa Alembik, who has to be one of - if not the biggest - champion of Atlanta artists currently curating large ambitious shows.

Karen Tauches, "Paradise, Cabbagetown Installation," Detail, 2010

Alembik is always looking for a connecting pulse to this place. Kind of like Tauches' neon-light billboard project "Paradise" displayed in her Cabbagetown side yard garden in 2010. Which had to be the most poignant piece of Atlanta-specific art to be made that year.

Am I right or what? Paradise in NEON, drifting above a lot of wildflowers, complained about by neighbors because of the light pollution (or so I think I heard), god it's Atlanta in all her dirty commercialized space wasting absurdity.

Jason Murphy, "Hansy," 2010, Pencil on Duralar, 23"x29"

And look at this obscenely raw portrait! Those beady eyes. Gross I can't stop looking and loving.

Jason Murphy, "Gorilla Mask," 2011, Pencil on Duralar, 8"x10"

Jason Murphy has a way of drawing that can be so uncomfortably visceral.

Jason Murphy, "Family Portrait," 2010, Pencil on Duralar, 21"x25"

Vibrational even. Family portrait. Sweet Sweet indeed.

Jason Murphy, "Family Portrait," Detail, 2010, Pencil on Duralar, 21"x25"

Look at the meatiness.

Karen Tauches, "Paradise," 2010, Neon, 2'x10'

Out of context of an urban side yard Paradise starts to take on an entirely different meaning. In the Dalton Gallery it was nicely paired with two small video pieces, becoming a looming specter, further unsettling the already anxious ridden home movies on display.

Larry Jens Anderson, "Miss Lois," 2011, Digital Image, coffee, handmade paper, prismacolor.

Larry Jens Anderson's piece "Miss Lois" nailed the aim of the show for me.

The delicate naivete of youth blown up and laid bare.

when Lois is just Lois and Ruth is just her "traveling companion."

Jillian MacDonald, "Screen Kiss," 2005, DVD

Love; the tricky business of lounge music and disco balls.

Jillian MacDonald, "Screen Kiss," 2005, DVD

And Johnny Depp in drag.

Jillian MacDonald, "Me and Billy Bob," 2003, DVD

Artist Jillian MacDonald added an element of hilarity by superimposing herself into romantic film moments with various heartthrobs.

Jillian MacDonald, "Me and Billy Bob," 2003, DVD

All apparently in a ruse to make Billy Bob jealous after he broke her heart (or so the story goes).

Jillian MacDonald, "Screen Kiss," 2005, DVD

Keaneu Reeves. ha. You need the background music to really feel this piece.

Jillian MacDonald, "Screen Kiss," 2005, DVD

Get it girls. Making me see red all over.

I've Been Sleeping on Your Pillow

Yes, exactly.

This is a good year

especially when you get a fluke weekend of sunshine

and the city looks golden and momentarily attractive.

Biking around in shorts in January.

I've learned to like the inbetweens.

Subtlety. Nay, accidents.

Working behind the scenes

of my own mind.

It's a prickly place, the mind.

William visited with his fan (article #1 of the forthcoming Antoinette outfit).

And I went to Athens

to see Forever Young projected big for the 6x6 festival.

Mr. Hits showed me ATHICA late night.

The new show "Taking Part." The artists all collaborate with or respond to other people, many becoming social anthropologist of a sort.

Apparently the more appropriate term is "Participatory Art." Like the project by Michael Lease entitled "Send Me The Pillow That You Dream On."

For example, take this striking woman

who was similarly striking in High School.

She sent her Brooklyn apartment window view of the world.

And her bed. I love photos of pillows and beds.

Or take this guy from High school

who now has a pleasant view of a brick wall

has grown up

and sleeps in an amazing dinosaur bed. It was easy to get distracted and spend a long time running circles through this piece, sort of like Facebook except less gross.

Hope Hilton, "Walk With Me: Athens," 2011

Hope Hilton, who loves walking like I love beds, asks gallery visitors to draw maps of their favorite walks in Athens. She then does each walk - experiencing some intimate glance into a stranger's routine.

I wonder what she thinks about on these walks. How quickly they become her own?

Brian Hitselberger, "Psalm," 2010-2011, Double-Sided Silkscreen Prints on Card Stock on Wooden Shelf.

Mr. Hits, poignant and austere and gorgeous as ever,

collaborated with his father. Each wrote this line

and Mr. Hits transformed it into a screen print on the front and back of each piece of paper.

One for each visitor to take. This is my kind of participation. I took four.

Best Not be Too Intentional

I went to a poetry reading the other night.

Here are the backs of heads of some of those in attendance.

And here is a poem by Sandra Simonds who read from her new chapbook "I've Lived In So Many Apartments."

I couldn't find a poem from that collection online so you'll have to settle for this gem magnificently titled:

"Prose Poem Written at the Ok Coral."

I went to visit the amputee. He lived in a teepee made of stained glass. Precious stones lined the pathway leading up to his teepee. There were gardens in the area mostly gardens of light green moss. There was a forest of glass pineapples. I want to ask him many questions like do you take vitamins and if you do, what sort of vitamins do you take. I also want to ask him if he ever experiences the phantom limb phenomenon. When he says yes, I have a phantom limb I ask him: does it feel pain? or does it tickle the rest of your body. He said he lost his limb in the great war of 44444444444. According to the Kabbalah this was a "no nonsense" war. A war among wars.

When the great war of 4445454545454523243 ended many people were walking around the continent looking for their limbs. Prosthetics were invented only much earlier so he was fortunate enough not to bear the shame of a false-limb. The sham of it. He says I am an elitist and if I have lost a limb then I shall not hide from a night of googly eye stars. I lack nothing. I have all of my limbs.

He showed me his pet goat. He said the goat likes to drink saline solution and the goat chews black bubble gum. I was getting annoyed with myself. Would I ever be able to really understand the amputee in the teepee? Strange days. Strange days, friend. The moon is that dried clot of blood on a dried flower in my left pocket. Does the limb ooze cloud? I took out my ATM card because the teepee had a snack bar and I was getting hungry. Limb, llama, buccaneer, despair.

a Ghastly fear!
The amputee would ask me to play a game of pick-up sticks. Notice that his left leg is missing and he wants to play only if a towel is tied around the missing limb. It's okay. I will tie the towel to the missing limb. He says please go outside the fort and pick us a few glass pears so that we can dine tonight and play our games in peace with full stomachs and I will put on some Schubert for the goat. It's the uselessness of milk, I tell you. The red breasts thrown out to Chernobyl sized skin cancer mutts.

In the months that followed the amputee disclosed the much needed information and though he had a violet temper I got all of the facts Jack. He moved into a dormitory-style "old folks" home and he killed his pet goat in a sacrificial ritual that could only be understood in terms of biblical prophecy. I was moved to a different case. Oh my caseload is heavy! Peking duck, marbles, Joan of Arc.

Dog in a Blanket