How is it for you so far?

I’m doing pretty well. I think I’m coming down with a cold, and it’s 17 degrees here in New York. But I’m good otherwise.

I just went on a whirlwind adventure, and I’d like to tell you about it. It’s not that I did anything art related really. Just some r&d, r&r and some family fun.

It started when my sweetie and I got on a plane in Newark, New Jersey. We flew to Seattle, Washington for a short layover and then to Portland, Oregon for about 7 hours. We got to eat breakfast at Shari’s twice, with his awesome mom, cousin, dad and brother. Then we got on another plane. We got off that plane in Honolulu, Hawaii. My dad and cousin picked us up and took us to the North Shore of O’ahu. We stayed in a house my cousins were housesitting, on a beach called the Pipeline (sort of near Sunset Beach) for a few days, with 3 of my cousins and my parents. It was completely amazing. We had relaxing christmastime fun, layed around in hammocks, did tech support for my family members, swam in the ocean and a waterfall, walked around in the lovely hawaiian winter (it was in the70s), ate to much, and did some sightseeing. 5 days later we got on a plane at night and went to LA, to the LAX airport and rented a car after a red eye. We drove to my uncle’s house in the Hollywood hills, hung out with him and went to a wonderful Cirque du Soleil show called Iris. The next day we went to Universal Studios and did a tour, after going on a couple of rides. That night we had to get on another plane in Burbank, bound for New York, for JFK. We got here in the morning and went home and went to sleep finally, after days of sleeping too few hours, on planes, or not at all.

It was a jam packed week, so many different airports, but it was super wonderful! I am so happy to have been able to do all of that… with all of those great people. The west coast is my best coast (I do like this one though). The cult of youth in LA was itching for a punch in the nose from me though – people kept knocking into my uncle, who has bad leg arthritis and a cane. Look where you’re going Los Angeles, if you know what’s good for you! And while you’re at it get me a damn lychee, green tea, pineapple shave ice!

So here I am, back in the breadbasket of culture, the whirlpool of invention, the nest of the new. And I can’t stop blowing my nose! I think I’ll draw and sew, since I’m on winter break. I wish I had time to find a job too, so I will look for one for fun. Oh, I’ve got to get in touch with an artist about a little interning. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Take good care!
Katie

PS I hope these pictures of warmth help take the edge off this cold snap.

Please excuse the late posting of this – the event was like a month ago! Whoops! I forgot. Huh. This grad school thing is distracting.

Open Studio was fun. It was kind of weird, and I have had crowd/people anxiety for a long time, so it can get pretty intense now that I’ve moved here and barely hang out with anyone. There were a ton of people there (the eye twitch that I developed as soon as we decided to move finally stopped! I don’t recommend 4 months of eye twitch, fyi, yikes). Anyhow, the studio is usually very quiet, if you saw those photos of the space in earlier posts you can imagine… not so much traffic up there. I usually only see a few people in my program, mostly my studio mate, and professors up there.

Anyhow, it was really fun, through whatever personal weirdness that I have.

Lots of people came, many of my awesome professors were there, and my friends Mark and Lauren came all the way from different parts of Queens. THANK YOU GUYS! It was fun to hang out with people from the school some more too. I feel like I am a little too focused on working sometimes, and don’t get to hang out with many of the awesome people I am going to school with.

It was good, overall. It’s always great to hear feedback from the public. And I met some wonderful people, and I got some ideas. And it was really fun to hear how people interacted and reacted to my new work. It is always good to talk about the work, or try to explain it. It really helps me, it seems like I am always figuring out what the heck I’m doing through talking about it. Grad school is great for that. I am learning a lot about myself and the work I do. Opening up the studio to people I don’t know helps me get a fresh perspective too. I’ve had a great studio visit and some wonderful critiques since then, but that open studio really opened up my studio heart.

Awesome! Love, Katie

one of the guys in my program said he was glad there were girls around to do stuff like this! yay girls!

This was popular in my Studio Art MFA Seminar class, and at my husbands work. Good thing it makes 2 loaves! We got to eat one ourselves and split one up between our cohorts.
Plus it’d be a groovy holiday treat!

Ingredients
3-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups sugar (the original recipe said 3 cups, that’s a lot)
4 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs (or energ-e egg replacer if yr vegan!)
1 tablespoon grated fresh or dry ginger (could use more if you like it spicy!)
1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon vanilla
1 cup persimmon, cubed (I used 1 1/2 persimmons – mmm i ate that other half)
1/2 cup fresh or frozen cranberries, thawed (you could use a few more maybe)
1 cup chopped walnuts or almonds
optional 1 teaspoon lime juice
(optional: oat mixture for top – i just eyeball this but it’s about:
2 tablespoons rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon sugar
1/8 or 1/4 teaspoon oil)

Directions
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees! Do it, do it, it’s worth it.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, pumpkin, vanilla and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in cranberries and nuts.

Spoon into two greased and flowered 9-in. x 5-in. loaf pans (or whatever you have that’s sort of that shape and size). If you are going to put the oat mixture on top, do it now! Mix the oats, sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl or cup and sprinkle over the top as evenly as you can.

Bake at 350° for 60 or 70 minutes or until a toothpick or sharp knife inserted near the center comes out clean (I just did it for an hour, the original recipe said 70-80 min). Cool for 10 or 15 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely. Yield: 2 loaves (16 slices each – I like bigger slices that are cut in half). You could share that other loaf with your friends, or you could freeze it for later.

I should have taken a photo of it. But it was all gone before I thought of that. Next time I make it I will post a photo. It was pretty.

I hope that works as well for you as it did for me. Let me know if you have questions or anything.

xoxok

Come over to the City College of New York! The oldest part of CUNY, on 140th and Convent (half of the studios are on Amsterdam, the other half are on Convent which is right next to Amsterdam).
I’m upstairs in Shepard Hall. Come over! Come over! Room 405. Yes, you can take the elevator, or the stairs. Follow the balloons and the signs!

Come see my art studio, come see what I’ve been making instead of hanging out and doing other NYC things. Among other little snacky things I’ll have my famous cucumber lime water for you to drink.

And all new exciting art for you to see! If you want you can buy some and help me pay for my education. Or just come see my work and talk to me. I’ll be happy to answer questions and talk to you about my work. And you will be able to meet other people in my program.

I hope to see you there!

xok

PS You can take the 1 train to 137th (and Broadway) and walk over to 140th and west to Amsterdam and Convent. Or you can take the A, B, C or D to 145th and head east on 145th then turn (left) down Convent and pass those gorgeous homes and churches and walk until you get there, that stop is about as far as the 1. Here is a map. And a subway map. Hope to see you there!

Holy cats! Today I did a lot of good stuff. I went to school (business, dude), then to Chelsea and saw 3 heavy hitters in one morning! And I there found a free box full of art books outside a gallery, (mostly auction catalogs, but there were some crazy good art books in there!). Then I went to class and had my day! It was very amazing.

The art! Sadly these shows are closing soon, so if you can go this weekend you will see them. Otherwise, there are always pictures.

First I saw Matthew Barney‘s DJED at the Gladstone Gallery, oh! It was so good! I can’t explain it very well, you have to look at the pictures. At the gallery there were sculptures (metal!) that were the evidence of an opera based on a Norman Mailer novel about ancient Egyptian Gods, in which the main character (Osiris) is a Chrysler. The sculptures are gorgeous, and the opera catalog was gorgeous, and I tried to look for video of it online but FAILED! Damn it, I was so excited to see that. If you find something will you let me know please? Hopefully he will release it somewhere soon, unless he already did and I missed it (which is likely, as I live under a big assy heavy stinky rock).

Then I saw Do Ho Suh‘s Home Within Home at Lehmann Maupin. I almost fainted by the translucent blue stitched “Specimen Series”, oh god! You have to look at the pictures in zoom if you can. There is a video of the biggest piece on the website too. Very worth watching. That one is a sliced house, with another house crashed into it (which has a house shaped parachute) intact with sliced orange juice in the fridge, sliced posters, sliced furniture, everything. It was beautiful and made me dizzy.

Then I went over to see Agnes Martin‘s “The 80′s Grey Paintings” at Pace. So good! She is amazing. There were a few that I could have stared at for years! But they’re all untitled, so, I can’t really tell you which ones. It was amazing to see them in person… I have thought of her work for a very long time. She is one of my heroes.

In one day I saw these shows, and I walked between them. Only in New York.

Then I went to get snacks, and then I took the train back to school – where I worked on a drawing that is also sewn and painted (and has sequins!). And that was fun and very time consuming. It’s more abstract, which feels gooooood!

I wanted to go to the opening of the sweetheart of one of my favorite Professors…. but I chose to stay home and do homework instead, because I have to go back to portland for a family emergency, tomorrow, but only for a couple of days. But I’m not getting much done here, not enough! I should have just eaten cereal and gone back to Chelsea. Bah. It always takes me so long to cook dinner and wash the dishes, pots and pans and clean up and try to talk to my grumpy spouse, that I haven’t gotten much done yet. And it’s 10 already. I hope the break I’m taking to write this in helps me focus more. I have lots of reading… art theory of course (no the class isn’t called that, why would it be called that. It’s called “Seminar” which reminds me of an infomercial, but instead it is totally awesome).

Ok! Now I really have to try to read some more. Oh, my brain is itchy. Sigh.

Love, Katie

Ok, back to it!

PS This post was inspired by my friend Jo, who posed a nice response to something else I posted recently. Thank you Jo! You made me want to post something again!

PSS This is not the drawing I worked on today, but has similarities. And a li’l sculpture.

lots of different kinds of homework, back and forth sporadically. reading articles written by artists, and writing application materials for a residency and a couple of grants, and the editing of an interview with one of my fellow grad students. also i waited for packages from ups, (which arrived at the end of the day).

here is the quote of the day, for you dear:

“I write a manifesto and I want nothing, yet I say certain things, and in principle I am against manifestoes, as I am also against principles,”
-Tristan Tzara 1918 (Dada Manifesto)

also i did some solid procrastination today, for example reading this interesting article about the modern life of humans (well, women specifically, but men too). it’s worth a read. this kind of thing really interests me, as a feminist and a woman alive today. it talks about some interesting ideologies that i have noticed myself having (although i am not in the main focus of the article). but if you are of my generation at all, you will probably find interesting things in here.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/all-the-single-ladies/8654/?single_page=true

also i procrastinated more by trying to learn how to use illustrator and photoshop, with mixed results. eh, i tried, right.

that’s all for today. except talking to my cat a lot.

hope things are good where you are.

love, katie

Thank you so much for reading my blog, you are wonderful.

Hey! I had my first critique in 6 years today. It was interesting because I wasn’t allowed to say anything. And none of my work was actually done, I’ve just been messing around (a lot) to find the forms and material I want to work with. And there were some good things said, some incredibly awesome constructive things. Most of them were really helpful. But still. WOW! I feel like I got punched in the face, really hard. It’s going to lead to some good things, I know. And I know it is one of the most valuable parts of artistically educational institutions, this peer critique system. And I’m in New York for goddesses sake. I need this shit to be for real. FOR REAL! And when people call it “country kitchen” I need to either mean it to be like that, or to change it so they don’t think that next time. I am so glad to have a great studio-mate. Thank you Heather, you saved my ass. And thank you for being ok with listening to me cry and then listening to me get the hell over it. I am so glad to have been able to process that shit right after it happened. And now I am way damn stronger! YESSS!!!!! (High five!)

And all of that got me thinking. Why am I here? Why?

Yeah, that’s as far as I got. (Ok, I have a lot of reasons. But the main one I can think of – making things hard for myself so I’ll have to get better as an artist – seems like a jerky reason right now.)

So, let’s change the subject. Fall is for more than falling down. Getting back up is it’s main feature. Hell yes!

The artist Faith Ringold went to my school (as did Lee Krasner, and many others, but that’s different story). Today there was an award ceremony for Faith Ringold at my school. So I went to see the show of quilts that went with it, after school. Thank goodness for Faith Ringold. She not only is an inspiration to generations of women and men all over the world, she also speaks and teaches and writes and all of the other good things besides making art. She is so amazing! Here is more information about the thing I went to. I’m not sure if she was there. By the time I got over there I just wanted to go home and go to bed, so I left pretty much right away. No crying in public! But the quilts inspired by her were interesting and various. I will go back to see them.  http://www1.ccny.cuny.edu/advancement/news/Faith-Ringgold-Honored-by-CCNY.cfm

So, more change of subject… It’s October! Already! Time is passing very quickly.

I feel so much better than I did just an hour ago. I made a root vegetable roast, chicken in a clay pot, and an apple pie, all of which is in the oven. It’s cold here already. And my building’s heat is not on yet. So we are swaddled in flannel and my goal is to have the gassy-ass oven all hot as long as I can tonight. Cooking always helps me think and calm down, and I haven’t been baking or cooking much since moving here. New York and my patient wonderful husband are both really eating out centric. And it’s been hot in the evenings. But all of a sudden it’s colder at night – so here I go! I will bake the hell out of this godawful east coast winter! Even though being the one who cooks in my household makes me a housewife (something that would have made my young self punch my current self in the damn teeth), well – I am the only one who will cook. So, I’ve just gone ahead and done it. Whatever. Life is change, right?

Soooo, speaking of change – I know I didn’t post on the equinox, but am thinking about that change a lot. Here are a few poems about equinox, fall or change. They are about both equinoxes, but I think that helps – since we are moving into the sleep/death/cold and in terms of that feeling it’s nice to think about the blooming/movement/fever. Although both are also my favorite times of year, for their individual meanings. It’s interesting to explore that from over here in the east. Wherever you are it is probably also interesting. Unless you are not interested in life things.

Thanks for rocking!

Love Forever, Katie Simpson Spain

Nothing Gold Can Stay

-Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Fall, Leaves, Fall

-Emily Bronte

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.

I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

Equinox

-Joy Harjo

I must keep from breaking into the story by force
for if I do I will find myself with a war club in my hand
and the smoke of grief staggering toward the sun,
your nation dead beside you.

I keep walking away though it has been an eternity
and from each drop of blood
springs up sons and daughters, trees,
a mountain of sorrows, of songs.

I tell you this from the dusk of a small city in the north
not far from the birthplace of cars and industry.
Geese are returning to mate and crocuses have
broken through the frozen earth.

Soon they will come for me and I will make my stand
before the jury of destiny. Yes, I will answer in the clatter
of the new world, I have broken my addiction to war
and desire. Yes, I will reply, I have buried the dead

and made songs of the blood, the marrow.

PS Oh gods! So good! I just saw Blackstar on the Colbert Report. Holy dang! Yay! It was really good! Watch this! It is awesome! The online version has one more song!   http://www.colbertnation.com/full-episodes/wed-october-5-2011-black-star

look, i’m trying a new format! inserting pictures into the text! do you like it? let me know… i am used to putting them all at the end, but this seems exciting, and more like a story book. which is good, in my mind.

detail of new tunnel drawing, in process

today i took a long and meandering (ok, i got lost a couple of times) trip to red hook, brooklyn to get burlap coffee sacks from stumptown‘s roasting center of nyc. well, it’s a warehouse with some nice guys in it… but it’s the center, seriously. the damn center.

hay bales and scaffolding in chelsea

before that i went to chelsea to see a show i needed to see for one of my classes (and a couple more shows). oh sweet chelsea. so much work, there is so much good work there. i wish i’d had more time. but i will go next week, of course (i go every week, it’s helpful and fun). i also went to a quilting store to get thread for my project involving burlap.

then i took the train over to carol gardens. such a pretty neighborhood, where my friend robin used to live. i walked over to the industrial quiet red hook neighborhood where stumptown brews their delicious beans. i’d emailed and called ahead to make sure it was ok for me to go in – and figure out where it was. everyone i corresponded with was great, so i went in today – i have the day off of school for rosh hashanah. and i really needed that burlap! oh and it’s gorgeous, by the way.

sculpture sketches, in the works

there were no markings on the building to let me know it was actually stumptown but i had the address and saw guys with bags of coffee inside so i knew i was in the right spot.

oh sweet stumptown! everyone within the roasting facility was awesome. so many nice guys! making such good coffee! so good! ahhh! i love them. they offered me more burlap sacks than i could actually carry. so many, gorgeous burlap sacks! i had to leave some behind, ok i had to leave a lot. i think i might go back there soon, if i need more burlap. also i’d like to show the fellas that work there some pictures of the sculptures (if they’re any good). or bring them cookies. both?

111, governor's island, nyc, nearish red hook

i wish i weren’t so bad with names. the main guy was amazing, and i am a dork and can’t ever remember anyones name. really. well, if you’ve met me you know this already. especially if it took me 8 times to remember, and if it did i sincerely apologize. it is the way my brain works, it’s not you.

anyhow, i asked if i could buy some coffee there – they don’t sell it, so he just gave me a bit. and he knew what i meant by “caramely or dark” of course, since that’s his job. it’s my new favorite! so good! i keep making people smell the beans! ok, only myself,  studio-mate, and sweetheart, but still. if there were more people around they’d have to smell those lovely guatemala santa clara beans.

anyhow, i love them! love stumptown! solid! they just toss those burlap sacks out at the end of the day anyhow, i am so going back there! and i’ll bring my cart next time! and i’ll be ready by reading the directions more clearly before i go out into the world. and maybe i’ll bring a map? not that i have a good one. but i could get one, right.

hot burlap

i’ve included some pictures of the burlap, some drawing i’ve been doing, some hay i saw in chelsea, other things i’ve seen lately, and some things i’ve been working on. those paper sculptures are in the family of what i’ll be making from the burlap. but bigger. mmmm. burlap. it’s so pretty when it’s been used. that scuffed ink, it makes me delirious! ahhh, i love texture. hmm.

xoxok

ps THANK YOU STUMPTOWN! YOU ROCK MY SOCKS OFF!

do this please, come on now!

sculpture sketches, paper and string.

I just wanted to share that. I have sensations in my visual organs too! Whoops, I maybe am doing homework too late at night to retain any of the reading… oh well, I will finish this part.

i am here because of art. art. i just wanted to clarify that. i think you probably already know. but i was talking to someone i don’t know the other day – who raised some valid questions. yes, i have some complicated goals. ultimately though it’s art that’s been at the engine of my life, and i have no choice, i cannot stop it.

thank goodness i’ve got some good people to go along with all of this art. yay!

but it’s the art that brought me here.

ok, thanks!

k