DIA Beacon

This Sunday my friends and I were supposed to go apple picking.
The weather, however, did not cooperate. With mounting dread as the
weekend approached we realized that the forecast for rain on Sunday
was,in fact, inescapable. On top of that, apparently another friend's boss,
upon hearing she was going to do something fun for Sunday, made
sure she came into work, instead of "goofing off".I agree that this
is evil behavior. So in the end it was just my friend Signe and me.
We decided that it would be easier to take Metro North. Luckily Metro
North has an amazing deal where for $27.50, you get a round trip ticket
to Beacon and a discounted ticket to the museum.

I love leaving from Grand Central Station.It makes me feel like I should be wearing a
hobble skirt,heels,a silk blouse,a wide picture hat,and clutching a morroco leather carrying case, from which I extract a hankerchief after I kiss a man in a tailored wool suit goodbye. Signe and I made the best of the ride with card games. We played crazy eights, egyptian rat screw and speed, with Signe making up for my sadly deficient card game knowledge.There was a strange family on the train with us who we kept bumping into.It consisted of an Austrian or possibly Scandanavian accented older man, a little girl and an older teenage girl. The little girl was a super live wire, the older man was kindly, but weird, and not exactly in touch with reality. He seemed very invested in convincing the little girl that we were not taking out a pack of playing cards, but that rather it was a pack of cigarettes. I think we might have interrupted a conversation in which the little girl was trying to convince the older man that cigarettes are bad for you.

Most of the train was apparently going to Beacon as a well. We moved away from the strange family and found a group of two cute guys, who were unfortunately attached
to two cute girls who were going as well. We eyed them and wondered if they knew any card games.

When we got out of the train we were greated by a rainy farmer's market and pumpkin festival. We went into a old stone boat house for pumpkin squash soup and chili.

The first thing we really engaged with a simple examination of sculpture and
art which consisted of yarn stretched in different locales and corners of the
the museum's cavernous rooms. The artist was Fred Sandback.

In the DIA Beacon cafe we chatted with an art student from Columbia University.
We all found each other attractive and he promised to write our e-mails on a dollar
bill which he promised not to spend. I am afraid that he did not keep his promise,
and that I am going to get an e-mail from random employee at Seven-Eleven telling me
that they just found my e-mail on a dollar bill.

Aside from Bruce Nauman's " Body Pressure"the basement of DIA beacon is the realm of ghosts and haunts.

Bruce Nauman's "Body Pressure" now hangs in the entrance to my apartment
right behind the door. I have yet to invite visitors to practicipate,in "what they
might find to be quite an erotic exercise"but I am looking forward to the
opportunity. I took quite a chunk of Body Pressures in fact, so if anyone want to set up an "erotic exercise" please let me know.

Interview with Lisa Linhardt

Linhardt Design
156 First Ave., New York, NY 10009
nr. 9th St.






Lisa Linhardt is a jewelry designer living and working in New York. She focuses on ethically made jewelry
with interesting materials like tagua seed. Her work has been featured in the New York Magazine, and and has been worn by many celebrities including the beautiful Amber Rose. Success and acclaim,
however, don't make her unapproachable. I walked into her shop a month after it opened and had a lovely and
stimulating conversation about Scandinavian jewelry design. A year later, the conversation continues. You should
stop by her store and strike up a conversation of your own, and perhaps pick up some nice jewelry in the process.

My mother got started in jewelry making because her high school offered it.

How did you get started as a jewelry maker? Who were your early mentors?
Do you think there could be a realistic way of incorporating jewelry design into public school art curriculums?

More often than not, it takes the right combination of exposure to the subject with an inspirational teacher to help discover your element. In college I interned with David Didur who was a former jeweler for Van Cleef and Arpel in Tokyo, Bulgari in Italy, and an established artist in his own right. Oddly enough he was using metals on a larger industrial scale when we worked together. Although at the time he didn’t teach me jewelry fabrication, I learned so much from him about design. He was and continues to be a mentor to this day. It wasn’t until after graduation that I took a class with a ceramic sculptor named Vera Lightstone who helped me discover the beauty of sculpting metal objects from silver clay. I continued on to traditional jewelry-making techniques at the School of Visual Arts, and then on to the Fashion Institute of Technology - where I met Steven Parker (formerly of Oscar Heymen Jewelers), Karen Bachmann (formerly of Tiffany’s) among other professors in the industry who have been very influential to me and my work. My time studying jewelry in Taos and Santa Fe also helped me see jewelry as an art rather than a fashion accessory.

I’m almost positive I would have found metal as an artistic medium earlier if classes were offered in my public school while growing up. I remember we had a shortage of classrooms that were already overflowing at sometimes 35 kids per class, so I am unsure how realistic it would be to find the room or budget for the project, but anything is possible. I can say your mom was very lucky!


You are from Queens. Did any of the arts and studios in Long Island City inspire you? What about in New York?

Yes, I am from Jamaica Queens - and from what I remember about Long Island City, it was the place we went to watch the fireworks and eat good Greek food. LIC did not have the art studios back then that it has now... If anything I was more inspired by the “bamboo earrings” my fellow LL-Jamaica-Queens-native rapped about in “Round-the-way Girl”... I was very inspired by the large graphic jewelry of the 80s and is probably the reason why my two-finger rings are so significant in my collections. I also remember cutting 7th and 8th grade to ride the F train into the city to hang out in the Village to just people-watch (sorry, Mom). It was a place for punks, preppies, rappers, you name it – you would catch the most interestingly-dressed people. I would always hang out on 8th street where my FAVORITE boutique was – Patricia Field’s. She had the best statement jewelry ever, and I would go catch a glimpse of it before it was worn on one of my fashion icon-idols Lady Miss Kier from the group Dee-Lite. I remember saving up money for all the huge jewelry that would match my favorite Pucci-inspired leggings. I learned if you’re going to wear it, wear it big or go home. So, yes, New York City was so influential to me at an early age as far as fashion was concerned. My parents were also big on taking my sister and I upstate New York on the weekends, specifically to Woodstock, where I spent all my time oogling over handmade silver jewelry in quaint little galleries. I’d like to think the streets of New York City influenced the bold quality, and the galleries helped me gain an eye for sophistication.

What do you think about really high end jewelry institutions like Tiffany's, how do you see them working with smaller independent designers such as yourself?

I highly respect what companies like Tiffany’s has built – Tiffany’s specifically started on Broadway as a team of two who had a dream to open a shop in NYC. It is amazing to see what they have built in the past almost 170 years or so, and I especially like the fact that they are currently thinking about ethically-sourced stones. Many of these high end jewelry institutions set standards for the industry as a whole and its great to see that sustainability is being considered. It would be a mutually beneficial collaboration if these institutions would allow local independent designers to showcase their work.


How long have you been making jewlery?

I used to make jewelry for my Barbies a very long time ago... Does that count? I started working with the combination of fire and precious metals back in 2000 and never seemed to let go of it... There were many times where I was without the facilities to create in the traditional jewelry medium, but every time I was away I seemed to come back to it more intensely than before.


What are your thoughts about using ethically produced and recycled materials in your jewelry designs?

First and foremost my goal is to design unique and beautiful signature pieces of jewelry. Incorporating ethically-sourced stones and recycled metals is something that comes about more in the process of making the piece.

Sourcing has probably been the most challenging aspect of incorporating ethically produced and recycled materials in my jewelry designs because a lot of suppliers don’t bother to trace the origin and labor. If all the jewelry designers in the world demand this information when sourcing materials, the industry will respond. Until then I think it will continue to be a challenge.


What made you decide to use an interior designer for your store who used recycled materials and plastic planters as lamp shades?

I used to work with Linda Wary (of Wary Meyers Decorative Arts) - we were both art directors for a publishing firm and promised each other that one day we would leave the world of graphic design and explore our love for working with our hands. A few years later Linda opened an interior company with husband and former Anthropologie Display-Director, John Meyers, where they scouted flea markets and repurposed the old into new for their interiors. I was going to open a jewelry boutique to be filled with materials based on a similar concept, so thought it would be a perfect partnership. I remember calling Linda and asking her to design the interior and she responded “I always thought we would be working together again.” I couldn’t be more happy with the results of the Wary Meyers team and their creative solutions to repurposing different materials for the store interior. They recently came out with a book called “Tossed and Found” which was based on their former column for Time Out New York Magazine about repurposing the old into new.


What does wearable mean to you? What about enhancing? Do you think the role of jewelry is to enhance something about a person, or to be a precious object in and of itself?

Jewelry has had so many functions throughout history as far as wearability and enhancement is concerned – utilitarian function (as with the ancient Romans who fastened their garb with fancified pins); status element (as with the Egyptian pharaohs who adorned themselves with jewels to exhibit their place in society); symbolic value (as with the heroic Purple Heart given to wounded and heroic soldiers); even magical significance (as with amulets, talismans and charms during the time of Charlemagne)... Today it seems most people wear my jewelry as an expression of who they are. I get so many requests for custom one-of-a-kind commissioned pieces that sometimes combine all those elements outlined above, or none at all. It seems there is more and more of a demand these days of pieces that capture the essence of their personality, energy and what is important to them as far as functionality/form is concerned. Figuring all that out from a complete stranger is always a challenge, but probably the best and most enjoyable part of what I do.


You showcase the work of other designers besides yourself. What makes you want to collaborate with or sell the work of a particular designer?

There is so much out there in the jewelry world. I love showcasing designers who stand out from the rest first and foremost - and also have work that I admire aesthetically and/or technically. Often times I’ll get a walk-in from a designer who has a good energy and needs an opportunity and I’ll show their work... It’s one of those things where I know it when I see it...


Are there any technical aspects about jewelry design that you really enjoy?

There are many technical aspects involved in designing a successful piece of jewelry. As with architecture, the fabrication needs to be considered, which can sometimes dictate material for example. Other times the design of the piece speaks from the material, and so the process starts from the other end. As a designer, you really have to explore and understand your medium. With jewelry there are so many variables – gold, platinum, silver, steel, wood, seeds, resin... The whole process requires getting to know your material and how it works. This makes each piece fresh and exciting from a both a technical and an aesthetic standpoint – and hopefully in the end, successful.


You make many ethically produced wedding rings. How is making something as symbolically laden as a wedding ring different form making other types of jewelry.
Anything insights that designing wedding jewelry has brought?

I recently attended a wedding for close friends whose engagement ring and wedding rings I made. Someone asked me that same question and before the ceremony I told them that I put the same amount of love in everything that I design, and that every piece is all wearable art... I always knew how special it is to somehow be a part of the physical representation of two people’s love for each other, but it was really during the ceremony of the rings that it really HIT me – this “wearable art” were tangible symbols of this amazing intangible bond between two people who truly were in love - they were about to solidify that love with these pieces I was a part of. It made me think how this was far beyond making any other custom jewelry! I thought about how the couple worked together to come up with something that represented them, all the times we met and the stories they shared in order to incorporate them into the ring that they were going to adorn for the rest of their lives - and how INCREDIBLE it was to be a part of their journey to the aisle and to what I was witnessing... It took what I do to a whole different spiritual level for me. I am so blessed to have designed one-of-a-kind rings that reflected their one-of-a-kind love for each other!

You have lived and studied in many places around the world.Any particularly memorable places or experiences that effect your work as a designer?

Living in Norway has significantly impacted my personal design aesthetic – I love the clean lines of Scandinavian design, and it was also a time in my life when I was incredibly in love and feeling inspired. Italy has also been influential, because everywhere I turned there was art and inspiration, but perhaps the most influential place hands down has been New York City, because of its diverse and ever-changing personality that serves as a constant muse. I love this city – its in my blood and in my heart, I don’t think that will ever change!

Vampires and Zombies of the Undead

Losing friends on facebook is always traumatic. I, myself try not to block anyone. Other than being a controlling helicopter relative, trying to recruit me into white slavery or causing people extreme suffering, there are very few reasons I would defriend you. Recently however, someone defriended me for a much fluffier reasons; I said that in my opinion, the vampires and goth movement of today isn't really revolutionary or interesting, and that the last time that Goths/vampires were culturally relevant was the eighties. The horror right?

I can understand how saying this to someone who currently identifies very strongly with whole doom and gloom Twilight/True Blood franchise( actually makes part of their living promoting it), might be offensive or threatening. It might be taken as saying you are not original. If said person took it that way it is unfortunate. The thing is though, I have some claim to the Goth thing, and I would imagine that someone who is into promoting mainstream Goth might want to talk shop a bit.

I wasn't a Goth exactly in highschool but I knew people who were, real goths, before the coming of Hot Topic and just as Marilyn Manson made an appearence. Or rather, my old best friend( who by the way is number 6 on my list of people I don't friend on facebook) took me with her into the periphery of whatever goth scene there was in super conservative Monmouth County, New Jersey.

Like Orpheus following Euridice into Hades, I saw some strange specters. Not ghosts, so much as the cruelties of human behavior. In addition to dressing arty and listening to way too much of The Cure, my best friend was in love with the alpha male of the Manasquan Goth clique, a "dark folk" musician, as were apparently many, many girls. He dated my neighbor's granddaughter, herself a total Goth/punk princess with bleached white hair; who being without a driver's liscence ( we were all 16, 15, 14 years old and bored to pieces in the "Desperate Housewives" perfection of a quiet Jersey Shore hamlet) would make memorable walks from Manasquan to Spring Lake along Route 18 . My friend, like lots of other girls apparently, decided that despite the fact that Mr. Dark-Folk Musician had a girl friend, he was her dark soul mate. I never got that, I only saw that he was the alpha male of a group that she and others wanted to be part of. He broke up with her in part because he didn't want other girls to use her to get to him. Eventually, my neighbors granddaughter would die in an accident where she walked in front of a train. I don't know that many people who accidently walk in front of trains, but ours was a very Catholic town with medieval sensibilities. In any case, it's a longer story but I always felt like in someways, by enabling the groupiedom for Mr. Dark Folk Musician, I also enabled the devaluing and death of Goth Princess.

I don't think being Goth itself was to blame for her death. I mean, Dave Matthews Band listening frat boys kill themselves too. Much about the Goth culture, which like a pagan living under the Spanish Inquisition, I delved into very secretly, is actually very positive. It is one of the few subcultures where politics didn't matter but a certain code of ethics and aesthetics did. This was perfect for kids looking for a rebellious outlet in a largely Republican area of New Jersey without completely alienating their parents by becoming hippie liberals.

I read and loved Sandman comics in 1996. I am one of the few people I know who can say that. I loved Vivianne Westwood. I did my best to dress in something unique inspired by these people through an amalgem of my mother's sixties gear, and a minimum of stuff from the Monmouth Mall.Walking in my new romantic gear on Manhattan's the Upper East Side trying to do my best Kate Moss imitation, " Alors, une prostitute!" exclaimed a French tourist much to my dismay. Music had a lot to do with it; since I wasn't really hardcore it was the Cure and Joy Division and Tori Amos, who had credibility because she was Delirium from Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

Being even slightly into goth in the mid nineties was mostly just trouble. My best friend got grounded for sneaking off to a Cure concert.My mom grilled me to reveal who my friend's accomplices were, but I wouldn't tell. Even though I was a good kid that would never sneak off without permission, I also wasn't a snitch. Not being a snitch would eventually bite me. I felt that I was pursecuted as a Goth or for Goth associations. I felt that I was paying for others luxuries. I was the good girl and the cover. My school accused me of doing drugs.My high school guidance counselor would harrass me for not smiling at things like Honor Society inductions,she would later harrass my family to put me on anti-depressants. Cutting oneself was part of it for sure. My best friend cut herself. She was never harassed by her school, and eventually grew out of it without any stigma. Since I wasn't really goth, I think it being close to people who were
acting self destructively showed on me more. People in my school and parents harrassed me about the unknown group I was on the edge of, attributing all responsibility to me.

We left Goth, and eventually each other behind.We moved onto Belle and Sebastian. And Ida. And eventually we moved away from each other, because the grappling and jockeying for position in that strange scene in the disfunctional conservatism of New Jersey took too many causualities. I started going to more rave-ish things hanging out with more neo hippies. Who are all doing fine now, since they were kinda neo-hippies in a great school.

People say that the current obsession with Goth has lots to do with class, kinda of an alternative to Gossip Girl. You get fangs when you can't get Prada. I am not sure about that, but I think there may be some truth to the theory. Most of the Goths I knew haunted the edges of an affluent beach town. I have met a surprising number of Goths from minorities. Junot Diaz' s latest book has a Dominican Goth. To get an idea of just how seriously people take vampires, consider a similar example with zombies.Imagine someone getting into a tiff about your saying that you think that Romero did Zombies better than Shaun of the Dead. I mean seriously?

People do take their vampires seriously. A vampire is sexual. A zombie is just silly and gross. What if the zombie's tongue falls off when it kisses you... ewww.. But in some ways I think zombies are more the reality. War and all the conflict that is going on the world, the anxiety which Goth sublimates, it isn't sexy. It is gross. The realities we are anxious about, people getting blown up in Afghanistan, drugs and abuse, rape and murder aren't sexy. There are no perpetually undead creatures that can make them sexy. And in the end, ultimately, it is best to face the emotion which all of these entertainment archtypes channel: sadness.

House of Organic Fashion Show

Looking at some of the clothes on display at fashion week
and in recent fashion magazines, a friend of mine was disturbed
by the tendency to make women look like little girls or dolls.
I personally like the childlike playfulness that comes from dressing
women like animals ; Bjork's swam dress was an amazingly
gutsy move which made me love her even more,
not a fashion don't . I had a ton of fun at the New York Couture
show at Webster Hall, it was like some 1980’s New York club dream.
I am even OK with the bunny ears recently sported by the likes
of Madonna and an Olson twin. However, as much as I love my
gold lame, I could see where my friend was coming from with a
desire for beautiful,ungimmicky clothing.

To this end, I was very happy and excited to have the opportunity
to see the Ekovaruhuset show as part of Green Fashion Week. It
managed to balance a serious interest in ethical clothing production
with a serious interest in beauty.

The brief but beautiful show of fair trade and fairly made
clothing was at the aptly named King of Greene St. (Greene St. for
Green Fashion Week….get it?). Various eco-bloggers, fashion editors,
and designers gathered around the plywood stage sipping on bottled
water which supports sustainable water projects in Africa. The
audience was shown how sustainable can be beautiful and elegant.
The clothes were mostly dresses.They were fluid and wearable.

Wearable can be a subject of debate in a world of super skinny
fashions models, so let me tell you that though the models were
certainly tall and lanky, they looked like they ate. One sported a set
of ripped abs to enhance a nice cropped shirt ensemble. The music was
also fairly (and well!) made, with a live band headed by TV on the
Radio’s Jaleel Bunton on guitar; which together with a drum kit beat
out the rhythms of the models strutting.

Lots of things about the green movement are synonymous with old
fashioned, and old fashioned was in appearance here in a good way.
In the new House of Organic collection, hemp, linen and wool
see heavy use and these fabrics are coaxed into modern pleating
and intricate seersucker details. Much of the saturated brilliance of
resort wear comes from bleaches and harsh dyes. This clothing line
uses more natural methods of coloring the clothes as well. As a result,
the colors tend on more of a grey pallet (a good thing) and are saturated
and jewel-like.

The line House of Organic ( or Ekovaruhuset in Swedish) is
headed by Johanna Hofring, a Swedish designer, and former Lower
East Side rocker, who started the House of Organic in Sweden in 2004.
The lines other designers (including the innovative threeASFOUR
group) come from a diverse range of places including Taiwan,
Peru, Japan,Israel,Palestine,Russia, and Manhattan. Green fashion;
as illustrated by Ekovaruhuset’s international swath of stores in
Paris, Sweden and New York, is a global concern.

May

It s amazing how many hours of ones life can be spent online.

In order to remedy this issue I been fostering a dog. It forces me
to get out of the house even if I am not working that day, and also
I think, brings all sorts of good Karma.

The particular dog I am watching is a mix of pit bull and something els.
He is six months old and lost a great deal of his fur to puppy mange. His
name is Melvin. He isnt much trouble.

Another Cool Russian Art Opening and SAT handouts

Last night I went to an art opening at the Russian Art Gallery in Soho
for ALEXANDER ZAKHAROV show of new paintings of creepy little
Carebears on airplane wings and teeny tiny barbies and dinosaurs
hiding out in logs. It was like the flotsam of an educated well rounded
western childhood was haunting the Russian landscape in cutesy pie
yet sinister ways with monkeys ready to push their stuffed bretheren
into vats of glowing algae and sweatshirt puffy paint taking over
the taiga.

I had a handout from my after school program. It's pretty fun.

You can try it if you want:

For this exercise, I would like you to choose words starting with
the same letters as your name and then write a paragraph/story using these words.
So Sara would be Substantiate Abstruse Rampant and Arcane.

You can chose words from below or use your own, but they need to be difficult SAT words.

Alleviate bombastic copious deleterious
Arcane belie concord debacle
Assimilate banal concur debilitate
Autonomy brevity conspicuous dilatory
Abstruse bolster contentious dirge

Equivocal flagrant grandiose homogenous
Epitome felicitous generous hackneyed
Ebullience fabricate generate hubris
Exorbitant fallacy genre heinous
Exuberant flag genealogy heterogeneous

Ingenious jaded kiln loquacious
Impetuous jocular knell languid
Impetus juxtapose knack largess
Inundate jaundiced kindred lavish
Impugn jovial kindle lugubrious

Multiplicity nefarious ornate paucity
Multifarious nimble opulent proliferate
Mar naïve opaque portent
Magnanimous narcissistic onerous prescience
Mendacious nag obsequious prodigious

Quiescent Rampant Substantiate Therapeutic
Quell Rhetoric Scrupulous Tenuous
Quintessential Rudimentary Sophistry Temperate
Quandary Reticent Substantiate Tenacity
Qualitative Reclusive Sanctimonious Tumultous

Ubiquitous Veracity Woebegone Xenophobia
Undulate Venal Wary Xerox
Untenable Vociferous Wily Xanthippe
Upbraid Variegated wraith Xhosa
Unassuming Vigilant wrath Xyloid

Yawp Zaftig
Yore Zealous
Yar Zest
Ydrad Zenith
Yield Zephyr


After my friend Andrea and I got dinner to celebrate her new job.
We went to a really nice restaurant called bread and ate bread, pasta
and wine.

It was lovely.

Procrastination

It's frustrating how it takes me all afternoon to write up a stupid lesson
plan.... I get so distracted watching movies on Youtube and reading about
conspiracy theories.

Though maybe my knowledge of UFO's will one day be useful.
The man at my pizza shop thinks so. I'm not so sure.