The Artist Studio: Chuck Close on Google Video

A profile of one of my favorite modern painters Chuck Close.

Arne Glimcher presents a series on great living artists. Following the artist into his studio, Arne Glimcher, presents a relaxed and informal portrait of Chuck Close, his work and methods. From his studio space, to the hanging and unveiling of an exhibition the film shows the artist at work and in conversation, discussing the people, places and artists that have influenced and inspired his work, his inspiration in nature, in the art of past civilizations and the work of artists still producing today. Arne Glimcher is one of the foremost gallerists and contemporary art dealers in the world

Blockhead on the Block

The Auction block that is.

I’ve been invited to participate in the 2007 KIDS’N CAMP ART AUCTION put on by the Portland, ME chapter of the Salvation Army, on Thursday, March 8th from 5:30pm to 9:00pm.

Blockhead

Blockhead–Acrylic paint, and objects on masonite 18×12 approx.

It’s a good cause, I hope they make some money. You can go to Portland for the auction (directions on the site), or bid online for some items (check the details here).

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My top ten cool things for 2006

Everybody else is doing top 10 lists, why not me. 😀

  1. wxPython
    Yep, cross platform, fairly easy to learn, more powerful than Tkinter (Python’s “official” GUI toolkit). It may have some faults, but it works well for me as a noob Python programmer.
  2. Democracy TV
    The free and open source internet tv platform. There’s an opportunity to build a new, open mass medium of online television. We’re developing the Democracy internet TV platform so that watching internet video channels will be as easy as watching TV and broadcasting a channel will be open to everyone. Unlike traditional TV, everyone will have a voice. An alternative to mass media, and corporate controlled TV. Hundreds of “channels”. My favorite? Punkcast.com, of course. 😀
  3. Coffee By Design
    Coffee By Design’s mission is to educate people about specialty coffee and to provide them with the best quality coffee beans available at our Micro Roastery and Coffeehouses in Portland, Maine. We take pride in our reputation for offering the highest quality products at a fair price as well as providing extraordinary service. Our goal is 100% customer satisfaction. Damn good coffe. Fairly local to me, only 3hrs away. Great seveice, and good pricing. I recommend the Rebel Blend Dark Roasted coffee. Not only because it’s good but because a portion of sales goes to Rebel Blend Arts Fund, which gives grants to artists.
  4. My cowon IAudio M5 Portable Digital Audio Player.
    Plays all formats. of audio files you can throw at it, holds 20GB worth of music(and just about any other kind of file, but you can only view text files, not pics, or anything else.) Works with Linux, since it’s basically just a porable hard drive with music playing software on it.
  5. Download Punk
    See my post on this fine site.
  6. Ghostland Observatory
    These guys actually beat out Exene Cervenka and Joan Jett (both of whom I love, and had new CDs out this year) because of their originality, and total coolness and independence. Try Piano Man from Paparazzi Lightning.
  7. Musee Picasso in Barcelona
    From my 2 month working excursion. My favorite thing, a great collection. See this post for more things.
  8. Someone Comes to Town Someone Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow
    This fine book beat out a couple of others as my fave read this year, for it’s absolute strangeness, and great writing. On the short list:
    Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
    Driving with Shannon by S A Robinson
    I thought I did a review of this, but I didn’t. It’s a semi-autobiographical memoir of a couple of teen age punk rockers trip cross country in the early eighties, a good, but not great book.
  9. Eternal Gaze
    A wonderful, animated short about the artist Alberto Giacometti
    It even beat out How to draw a Bunny, for me.
  10. My wife
    Who continues towards her goal of being an RN, works a demanding job, and still loves me for who only knows what reason.

There’s really so much more like Cobh, Ireland, other bands, and download sites, my kids, my cats, my dad, ART books, not having internet for 2 months, Richard Dawkins, Keith Olberman, and many, many other things that I can’t think of, but, these are my top 10 cool things.