The New York I live in.

This is what it looks like sometimes.

New Studio! (& New Museum.)

Hello!

Well I’m all moved into my new studio!

I am in love with it. Yesterday I was there for 9 hours and feel like I got pretty settled. Today I was there for another few and I actually got to work on art! It feels really different, more calm, more light (vs heavy, as well as more direct morning sun), and honestly its more fun (so far i want to be there in my every waking moment, that’s a good sign). It’s also a better shape for me, it has nooks, which i LOVE and feels more magical somehow. The windows are so dreamy. I have 3! They open so I get breeze!

The new space is going to help me start my last year of grad school in a more kickass way, instead of being overwhelmed by moving across the country I am going to make so much true awesome work and intern in a revolutionary oldschool feminist gallery (more on that later) and learn about teaching. And I am going to win!

Today (before the bulk of the thunderstorm which is rattling my windows now) I went to the studio in the morning then down to the New Museum in the early afternoon to see Nathalie Djurberg‘s show – and also saw a group show called Ghosts in the Machine (arts relationship to technology w psychological/edelic surprises) and Carlos Motta‘s work, which were all also very good. That link stuff will help you see more, very worth it! Click!

I went to the museum with Gayla Martin and Shannon McBride, who are super awesome artists that go to school with me. We got to visit with Peter Fankhauser, who is a City College MFA alumni one of the best artists I have met. I am really lucky to be here now, I’ve been able to study with some phenomenal artists (as professors and peers). And I’m only halfway done! There’s more to come…

But for now here are some pictures of my new studio! I will update soon again, because you will notice my empty walls in these pictures – and they will be full of artwork very soon!

Love,
Katie

i found this cicada in the studio the day i moved in, so put it on the sill and away it flew.

this was before i got organized. Hmm.

look at that dreamy light! and the windows! swoon! I wish I was there not at home procrastinating scrubbing the floors.

workstations, with future work on paper and stop motion action planned.

empty walls. drawing station.

more empty walls, with some mossy fun in the works. i have a nice plant station finally. i blame my mom for my wanting things to always be so organized. thank you sweet mom!

NewYorkAgain

Hi!
I’m back in new york again!
My cat is happy to see me, and my sweetie, and the coastal contrasts are still very fresh!
I live here! Wow! And yes, it smells like that! Hah (eww)!
I drew and sewed a today, working on some machine sewn drawings – time consuming so I have no pictures yet. Also worked on painting and drawing some new book pages, and getting ready to move my studio to another building. Not quite as haunted. My work has been black on black lately. Very different from that literally glowing series I did in 2011 with reflective glass beads in the paint. There is some crazy light action when you look close though. Graphite over india ink is delicious, I’ll have you know. I worked this way a while back, in my landscape days. Nightscapes.
Anyhow, I am here again! So I am going to make sure I am as here and now as I can be. And, like my pop said I should do when we parted at the airport… I’m going to give ’em some hardcore california!
Here is a picture of my sweet blurry happy cat making biscuits!
Love, K

Hometown

I just visited my hometown, Santa Cruz California. I love and miss it. I saw some people I hadn’t for a decade, and some I’d seen more recently… overall it was full of love and cool air and nature and real produce and has helped bolster me for another New York year.
My family and friends are such wonderful people! I didn’t get to see enough of them, but I saw enough to make my heart feel more regular. New York is too far from California.
I miss it so much already! The only thing that seems to calm me down is situps, which are distracting from the sewing I need to do. It’s worth it though, since I’m having a hard time adjusting to being back so far.
Oh well.
I just got back, so I will get used to it soon.

xok

Rockawayish Beach Adventure

Hi!

Recently I went to the beach with one of my favorite people ever. We planned on going to Rockaway, so took the train there. But we didn’t get off and take the shuttle train down that way (I’d only been once and it was her 1st time – we watched all of the people with cooler bags and flipflops get off the train then looked at the map) so ended up just getting off after we realized this, when we found a stop that looked close to the water.

There didn’t seem to be much around where we were, for new york being so populated, we walked by a school, and some construction. Some giant apartment buildings were visible in the close distance. But the train was very close to the beach, we got off at B36 but ended up at B35. B for beach!

We walked down a street that began to crumble as we moved toward the ocean, the sidewalk disappearing, cracked, in weeds and wildflowers. Families holding towels walked this way too, all of us walking in the street when the sidewalk ended.

We walked up onto that long wooden boardwalk for a bit, realizing this was probably the origin of that ‘under the boardwalk’ song! I grew up in a town with a theme park, The Boardwalk, so I always thought that’s where the song came from. But miles of slatted wood walkway creating the only shade on this long and desolate beach really seems like a better reason.

We sat on the empty beach for a bit (there were less than 50 people on all of the beach we could see in either direction – this is new york so that was really weird), picnicked, jumped around in the water for a while and then realized there were 100000000s of tiny live squirmy multicolored clams floating in the water, with their siphons out and wiggling. So we stopped that jumping on the millions of mollusks part. It was weird to see so many floating violet, pink, and yellow clams.

By this time it was too hot, even under the boardwalk, so after a little more walking we headed back to the more populated parts of New York City.

Here are a few pictures, what a fun and fabulous day!

Take care!
XOK

swamp adventure

hi!!!
i went kayaking in the great swamp, upstate new york, yesterday… here are a few pictures. it was the best thing i’ve done all year. i wish i could go every day.
xo
k

plants i am growing and will grow

well hello there!

since i moved to new york city i have been itchy for gardening, particularly because of my garden based background. and because i love nature and i really truly can’t get enough of it. and i really like the idea of food justice. people need to eat (and have access to food that’s not just fast, like veggies) and be empowered to take growing and making food into their own hands. especially in dumb old usa… we have so much space in this country, we could just grow food. ok, some of us do. i actually do not right now.

i’ve been growing small things, basil, chives, lettuce (though i really should have more light to do that)… inside in the brightest spots i have. i’ll post some pictures when these stop looking so sad and wilty. i had hoped to be able to eat some of them soon – but i am just happy they’re alive at this point. they need sun and i do not have that, as i am at the bottom of my building, in the back.

if you check out my movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wWtMXXrvFM) you’ll see my interest in plants is various. food plants, of course. and i am growing more, against glass, for another film. you’ll see! ooooo speaking of – i’m going to go put some sprouts on (aka put seeds in water for a little while then put them in the little janky sprouter i have)… be right back.

ok, so have you heard about kodekama? string gardens?

oh my gods! they are so awesome! plants suspended from strings, it’s totally the right kind of art/plant/stuff for me! i am not quite sure what i will do with this yet, but there is a lot of sculptural potential, and i am going to at least try it out. so i’m headed down to the most likely garden store (come on now new york, i know you’re old school but this is crazy! if i had the funds i’d totally open up a garden store here – there is so much need for that kind of thing, but i am in school and in the negative amounts of money, so i cannot).

anyhow, here is more information about kokedama:

http://www.designsponge.com/2011/04/diy-project-kokedama-string-garden.html

http://www.stringgardens.com/ (the care sheet is great!)

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/style-design/top-ten-gardening-stores

i will update you about what i make when i make something worth updating you about.

take good care!!!

k

Art! Ahhh!

Hi! How’s it going over 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.

New Yawrk

Yay!

I’m here! In New York! In West Harlem. It’s totally hot!

Hot in several ways… the one way where it’s hot s**t, and the way where it’s pushing 100 today, and tomorrow is supposed to be above that. Other hot ways, I am sure. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I’m just getting used to things, and waiting for packages a lot. We received 1/2 of the stuff we sent ourselves, but 1/2 should come in the next few days. Friday or monday.

But there was the getting rid of 1/2 of the belongings, and the getting friends and family to keep a bunch of it safe for us.

Moving was hard. Very hard. Leaving the family and friends especially. It doesn’t feel quite real yet.

But now, here we are in the city, without chairs. Working on it, but still – you get the idea. I’m sitting on a yoga mat.

Ok, just wanted to post a quickie update.

I feel like I’ll feel all moved when the last box comes, and when we get a table and chairs, and a couch. I would like a small desk too, since I will have homework. So it might be a minute.

Cool beans! Happy days to you! Time for a bath!

Katie

Art Newsletter for July!

Hello Everyone!

In July please visit Crow Arts Manor, part of Milepost5 in SE Portland, to see one of my paintings of plants. 850 NE 81st Ave. #114 in Portland. This space is awesome, and houses writing classes of all sorts. The group show my painting is in promises to be awesome!

I’ve been super busy with 3 dayjobs, so not showing too much art lately – and I’m going to New York for grad school soon! Yes! I’m out of here in 3 weeks! I’m so crazy excited! I didn’t think it’d happen, really, so haven’t told that many people about it yet. But it’s happening. It’s real. It’s going to be a big move, I’ve been in Portland a super long time, so I feel funny about leaving. And leaving family & friends, and this beautiful coast. I’ll be back at some point soon though. I am really excited for some intensive artistic focus & professional development. And I am looking forward to learning how to be an art teacher, at a college level, as well as being in the center of the art world for a couple of years.

I’m having a “fire sale” with most of my pieces of art available at huge discounts. I’ve got to pare down and would like to sell my remaining older work. If you are interested please let me know. Many of my abstract landscapes are available as well as lots of wonderful random paintings, fabric landscape, prints, sculptures, etc. Here are some examples… if you find something you want let me know and I’ll tell you if i still have it – and we’ll plan it all out. http://www.katiespain.com/Katie_Spain/Work/Work.html,
http://www.kathleensimpson.info/kathleensimpson.info/Artwork/Pages/This_Horizon.html, http://www.kathleensimpson.info/kathleensimpson.info/Archive/Archive.html.

I’m also selling a beautiful wood bookshelf, a fancy mattress and box spring (half a year old – firm pillowtop), a pretty vintage yellow dining table, wood and metal utility shelves, and a few odds and ends. And I’m giving away a few great things; including a lovely heirloom vintage couch with a wood frame – which needs to be moved by someone else and their friend, reupholstering, and a good home. A 4 1/2 foot tall wicker shelf thing. An amazing tall and thin studio shelf. A nightstand and end table that I painted up all pretty, and some other random goodies. Please please let me know if you are looking for anything in particular (just might have it for you) or are interested in the items I listed.

Thank you for all of your support over the years! And thanks for your patience and help along this path. I will update you soon. I am excited for this adventure, and for the art that will come out of it. You can also follow my changes on my blog… I’ll make sure to give detailed reports.

Love! Art! Love!
Katie