Artshot: John Baldessari

1. John Baldessari, Jaqueline Kennedy Onassis

2. 14th Street MTA Stop, Tanquerey Ad featuring Branford Marsalis

Artshot: Mimi Vang Olsen, West Village

Whether you've seen her cards and calenders in stores or you've passed by her neighborhood fixture of a studio on Hudson in the West Village- you've probably contemplated having your pets portrait done by Mimi Vang Olsen. Her style is based on itinerate american folk paintings of the 19th century and she, after years of doing this work, is a master. Remarkably detailed with lyrical forms and patterns, her custom pet portraits are truly making the trip to her studio to see- not to mention, she's very charming!

 

Where: 545 Hudson Street, West Village

Who: Mimi Vang Olsen

What: Custom Pet Portait Artist

Rainy Landscape

 I hope this post finds you all well and relatively unscathed by Sandy....it's been a long week. I had taken the shots of a raindrops on the wrapping on a cardboard box a while back in Gramercy...they seem somehow appropriate now, as does the artwork of Melanie Comber. Ms. Comber's oil and pigment on canvases at Fine Art Society reference everything from daguerreotypes to lunar landings, snowy landscapes to viruses under a microscope. They are as foreign as they are familiar, as beautiful as they are inexplicably unsettling. It's been a strange week, so forgive (and enjoy) the stream-of- conscious imagery.

1. -minus- album artwork for Arctic Exhibition via Yahoo! Music UK and Ireland

2. Melanie Comber, No Man's Land

3.,5. Plastic Wrapped Cardboard, Gramercy Park

4. Jonnyphoto, Forgotten Moon

6. Melanie Comber, 123

7.  From Australia's First Arctic Expedition, Skeleton of a sea elephant and Harold Hamilton

Artshot: Edgar Honetschlager

1.,4. My pictures of the seats on the 1train

2. Edgar Honetschlager, David

3. Edgar Honetschlager, David Hockney

5. Edgar Honetschlager, Christian Fennesz

6. Edgar Honetschlager, Derek Jarman

Memphis in NYC: A Look Around Town

If you're out and about, you'll find the influences and remanents of Post Modernism and Memphis all over. In NY, the architecture is scarce, but product and graphic design still owes a great deal to the 80's fun and design for design's sake. I have to say, in a city of cement and limestone, the colorful geometrics make smile. 

1. The Standard, NYC

2. George Sowden Clocks for Memphis Milano

3. Lacoste Sheets, Macy's Herald Square Window

4.,6. Forrest Myers, The Wall, 1973,  Broadway and Houston, NYC.

5., 10. Nathalie du Pasquier, Objects for the Electronics Age

7. Peter Shire table via Manishtama

8. Scholastic Building on Broadway, NYC

9. Ingas Sempe for Ligne Roset in the Soho showroom

11. Houston and Wooster, NYC....I wish they'd try to keep this up! Great building.

Love. High Kitsch in Gramercy: Rolf's

There are some evenings when only REALLY BIG beers and pretzel sticks at a bar decked with seasonal leaves and vines, lights and the occasional toy, etc. will do- that, my friends, is when you head to Rolf's on 3rd Avenue (by the way, they changed to fall for Octoberfest since I've been). I always feel like I've stepped back to the fifties and am standing at a Bavarian restaurant in the Catskills when I'm here. We've shown up on nights when the bar was stacked high with meat sandwiches for happy hour, but usually it's wine glasses full of pretzel sticks and the largest mugs of beer I've encountered in the city- they're German drafts that are light, but surprisingly tasty. We seem, after a mug or two, always to order dinner at the bar. Order the potato pancakes (approximately the size of a human head) and any sausage...bratwurst, weisswurst, knackwurst- all great. Spatzle is tasty and the smoked pork chop is wonderful. Truth is, the food and drinks are not cheap, but the service is warm and the atmosphere is priceless. It is definitely a New York experience and, in the end, that's why one goes to Rolf's.

Where? 281 Third Avenue

What? Bavarian and Alsatian

When? 7 Days a Week 12pm- 10:30, Bar open until "customers are present" or until 4 a.m.

Animal Dreams

1., 5., Upper West Side

2. Harlem, Lenox Ave. and 20th Street

3. East Village

4. Upper West Side at & 3rd

Artshot: Ross Bleckner

1. Ross Bleckner, Middle Brother

2. Rusted Construction Dumpster, Chelsea

3. Ross Bleckner, Throbbing Hearts

Artshot: Antoni Tapies

Antoni Tapies, Objectes at Nicholas Gallery


Obviously, I'm on the subway quite a bit and find the decay of the tunnels and the ephemeral markings of the MTA and city workers fascinating....codes that patina and lose heir meeting with time. The top image is of numerical identifications I'm sure have been there for decades. The second (below), was photographed on the 1 train heading uptown...it's what looked like a USPS sticker that had been stuck to the fluorescent light above the subway doors, the wear and tear is subsequent months trying to remove it. All of the scrapes were backlight and I have to say, it was fantastic looking.

 Antoni Tapies, Broken Ground via Christie's

Thrifty Me: Gramercy

The area around 23rd and 3rd Avenue is a treasure trove of vintage and thrift stores! The three I've highlighted are my absolute favorites, but there is also Goodwill, Salvation Army, Cause for Paws (all on 23rd between 2nd and 3rd). It's a great place to shop for bargains and they all benefit very worthy causes.

Vintage Thrift  

Where? 286 Third Avenue between 22nd & 23rd

What? Great Furniture, Art and Table Top, Window Auctions...they get a lot of wonderful mid century to deco pieces! The current window auction has some wonderful medical -themed accessories from the thrities and forties!

New York City Opera Thrift

Where? 222 East 23rd

What? Furniture (Doyle's donates here) and Great Designer Clothes for Women

Housing Works 

Where? 157 East 23rd

What? Furniture, Clothes, Art, Window Auctions