Riders on the Train -- a group show at Axiom Gallery, Boston

Nance Davies' latest group show launches at Axiom Center for New and Experimental Media November 10, with a reception November 13, 6-9 pm - Here's the venue information, followed by a project description from the Riders on the Train website. Don't let this one pull out of the station without you!

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AXIOM Gallery

141 Green Street
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

617-676-5904

Gallery Hours -- During Exhibitions only: Wednesdays, Thursdays 6-9 pm and Saturdays 2-5 pm

Press Contact -- 617-676-5904

Directions
AXIOM Gallery is located in the ground floor level of the Green Street Subway ("T") station on the Orange Line - Outbound to Forest Hills in Jamaica Plain / corner of Amory and Green Streets. By Public Transportation

Take OrangeLine Outbound to Green Street, AXIOM Gallery is located in the ground floor level of the Green Street Subway.

Get Directions Using : Google Maps

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CONCEPT

In recent years, the ideas concerning ‘what art can be, where it should exist, how it should by made – by whom and for whom – have undergone radical changes. We no longer expect to find art only in museums and galleries, made by and consumed by an informed elite. Today art is off the wall, under the bridge, on the river, and in the soup and conversation! Art moves, morphs, divides and multiplies as people from diverse walks of life, contribute to and inform our cultural production. Often artist and audience 'fuse' for purposes of creating a more authentic and empathetic voice. [1]

The contemporary ‘T’ rider exists as a part of an atypical community shaped by social contingency, time / place fluctuations and indeterminate recurrences - a community transported by train and thought. This project does not assume to create community but rather to make visible, through writing, a kind of ‘already-existing-community’. Participating 'T Riders' are the collective makers of the work. [2]


SITE [ trainSPACE & consciousnessSPACE ]

The project site is layered space. Specifically – the space of the train [literal / material] and the space of human consciousness [virtual]. Riders navigate and negotiate this shared space through carefully coded behavior – often retreating to private thought. Unlike car and bike navigation, which require concentrated skill and attention, this kind of travel allows the rider a temporary suspension in time and space - an interval of unscheduled consciousness. The project seeks to frame this temporary space as a place of potential, generative thought – a fluid place for imagination - a collective nervous system. [3]

Finally, it is hoped that the creative work offered by the riding community will offer an authentic, aggregate, definition of the train riding experience through a diversity of perspectives – work that reflects and critiques the conditions of this mobile space where the rider is - at once - transported and transporting.


MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROJECT and
HOW TO SUBMIT

email: ridersonthetrain@comcast.net

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"In Praise of Forces of Nature" -- a poetry reading at Chelsea Art Museum Saturday November 7

My good friend Jeff Wright just shot me an email - clear your calendar for Saturday afternoon, kids. This is a 'Can't Miss' situation. Rock onward - B

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Chelsea Art Museum invites you to the 8th Poetry Reading in Praise of Forces of Nature with Donald Kuspit, James Mann, Cynthia Nadleman, Carter Ratcliff, Raphael Rubenstein and Jeffrey Cyphers Wright

In conjunction with a solo show of paintings by Marlene Tseng Yu
FREE ADMISSION
Saturday, November 7 at 4pm
Chelsea Art Museum, 556 West 22nd Street @ 11th Avenue

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Bill Gusky -- New Paintings

My website's updated. Check it out. Thanks - B

Feed the Beast -- 2009 -- acrylic on paper -- 10 x 14 inches

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LISA LUDWIG: THE ART NEIGHBORHOOD at Jack the Pelican Presents

This looks cool -- let me know how it goes, I'm locked in the studio 'til the holidays. Cheers - B

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Opening this friday
October 23, 7 - 9pm

LISA LUDWIG: THE ART NEIGHBORHOOD

Our art world is usually competitive and insecure and not very friendly or generous to outsiders, especially artists over 40. We indulge children, but we don't usually encourage their official participation. We don't even acknowledge old people who make art on weekends. And mostly, we judge each other and don't really have very much fun. (or maybe it's me?...)

Lisa Ludwig's version of it all is very different, and it's not just her. You're not going to believe the ambition of this project...

To read more, visit http://www.JackthePelicanpresents.com/ludwig.html



FOR MORE INFORMATION:

* Visit http://www.theartneighborhood.com
* Visit The Art Neighborhood Facebook fan page
* Visit the Jack the Pelican Facebook fan page
* Call Helene DuMenil, 917-499-6304

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From Jack the Pelican Presents website...
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Jack the Pelican is delighted to present Lisa Ludwig's "Art Neighborhood." It's about our neighborhood. But more, it's about building a neighborhood—a new and better one, for all of us.

SHANTYTOWN
This living and organically-evolving shantytown portrait of her/our community is ripe for the time (Hello Recession Creativity 101) and, for art people, a welcome respite from the nastiness of ourselves, without an ounce of cynicism. This is a show for everyone—literally, everyone is invited to participate. Come by and see for yourself how it just keeps growing and growing...

REALLY REALLY: YOU ARE WELCOME!
Ludwig has seeded the project with a dozen play-set situations and nearly fifty of her own action figures. School children, senior citizens and 'professional' artist collaborators have contributed another hundred. These are real people, mostly representing themselves, and in fantasy scenarios that put themselves in charge of their own destinies. ...And you're invited too—Visit theartneighborhood.com and find out how to make (or commission) your own. Everyone is welcome. (For people from afar, if you cannot be on hand to act out your character, there is a network of volunteers who can operate your action figure.)

SCHOOL WOKSHOPS
• Berkeley Carroll Middle School
• Good Shepherd Services at P.S. 32
• Oasis Art and Education Center

CONTEXT
Our art world is usually competitive and insecure and not very friendly or generous to outsiders, especially artists over 40. We indulge children but we don't usually encourage their official participation. We don't even acknowledge old people who make art on weekends. And mostly, we judge each other and don't really have very much fun. (...I'm hoping it's not just me.) Lisa's in a punk band and has been active as an artist in the W'burg underground for a long time. She's been making action figures for years, but never on this epic scale.

WHEN JACK THE PELICAN FELL IN LOVE WITH LISA LUDWIG
Some of you may be surprised how intimate and personal and fun Lisa Ludwig art play can be. In November of 2007, Jack the Pelican was delighted to receive a custom play set, reconstructing the scene of Guy Benfield's performance "Mother Door Spirit Level" that had taken place several days before at the gallery. All the key characters were there in miniature. The whole thing was reduced to its essence. Moving parts (and replacement components) allowed us to replay the performance over and over again, changing it up however we wanted. It was all in cardboard just like this, but it nailed the whole thing and all of us individually. (It too will be on display.)

MUTUAL RESPECT
Imagine that we're all eight-years-old again and we're still us, but we can do anything we want, so long as we respect the golden rule. That's what this is like—a giant, joyful play. Be nice to others. Let them be nice to you.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Every figure is clearly tagged to a real person for easy connection on Facebook. Like that one? How old are they? Right there in the gallery, look them up. Oh, it's Joshua... 10 years old, he wants to be an astronaut.

ALL PROCEEDS GO TO...
The artist's proceeds from commissioned art or art sales from this project go to Making Art Work, a special program of the Carter Burden Center for the Aging. Carter Burden Center for the Aging promotes the well-being of elderly residents through a broad array of direct social services and volunteer programs oriented to individual, family and community needs. Aging Artists are encouraged to continue with their artistic endeavors and we are proud to contribute to the center. Find out more about Carter Burden Center. http://www.burdencenter.org/

SPECIAL EVENTS
Special scenarios will unfold throughout the exhibition for action figures to express themselves. For specific dates and times, visit theartneighborhood.com

• 10/23 OPENING NIGHT
  Premier of Lisa Ludwig's "Bella Ciao" takes place in the official Art Neighborhood Theater. Filmed by Lisa Ludwig and Craig Flanagin.
• 10/29 WEATHER FORECAST
  An event for Facebook. Behind the scenes:
  1) Collaborative work with Liz & Val on installation
  2) Documented/Animated Collaboration with BoSul Kim
• 10/31 HALLOWEEN BALL
  Noon till 4pm, come and make a costume for your action figure--Cause they're going to a Ball tonight!
• 11/7 PERFORMANCE
  Performed by The Drunkard's Wife, 7pm
• 11/13 TEARS AND GOODBYES
  Closing reception. Plans for the future...

SPECIAL THANKS TO
Rakian Nomura, Shogun
and collaborators Liz & Val and Craig Flanagin

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Visit http://www.theartneighborhood.com
Or call Helene DuMenil, 917-499-6304

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Visiting Provincetown? Stay at Heritage House

P-Town's best-kept secret hides right in the middle of town, halfway down Center Street and three-fifths of the way to Heaven. Your hosts Lynn Mogell and Sarah Peake have turned a magnificent old captain's house into sparkling-clean, airy and well-lit luxury at rates any deck hand could afford. Complimentary breakfast might include fresh-baked cranberry muffins, Portuguese pastries, sliced melon and other light tasty delights to set your day off right.

Autumn's coming, the crowds are leaving and the time's about right for your Indian Summer visit to Cape Cod. Give Lynn a call today to make it happen.

Heritage House
7 Center Street
Provincetown, MA
508-487-3692
info@heritageh.com

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Joanne Greenbaum: Hollywood Squares -- September 10 - October 31

The excellent Joanne Greenbaum's sixth D'amelio-Terras solo exhibition drops September 10. I'm crazy about her work; for evidence of my Greenbaumist leanings see my previous post. Wish I could spend more time gushing about it but I'm humping my own groove here at the Fine Arts Work Center and time is precious. Congratulations Joanne! Keep on doing that voodoo that you do so well.

Image from D'amelio-Terras's website

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Reid Stowe -- 1000 Days at Sea -- "Christmas Tree Effervescence"

It's amazing to think that someone whose every waking moment is spent on some aspect of his own survival would have the time to make art. But art making seems to move forward even under extreme circumstances. The impulse to find meaning in the arrangement of objects and materials, in the generation of images, is apparently nearly as elemental as the survival instinct itself. See a number of historical artworks for examples.

If you'd had an experience similar to the one Reid recorded on August 20, you also might put the repairs and food-procuring on hold as you made some sort of record.

Day 850 - August 20, 2009

Wind S, 10 knots, Course NW, Speed 1 knot, Position 5*22n by 16*26w

Christmas Tree Effervescence

A few days ago before I dropped the mainsail we sailed through a night of the most amazing phosphorescence I have ever seen. Shortly after dark green lights around the schooner began flashing on and off. They were about six feet in diameter and they flashed very brightly and then slowly dimmed down. They flashed all around us as far out as I could see. Obviously the flashing lights were not caused by the schooner or our school of fish.

The lights were so bright that I tried to film them with the video camera, but once again the wonders of the sea escaped being captured by my technical devices. I knew I would have to share this in words and a painted image, so I started looking at it with the artist's mind. My limited frontal vision changed to a spherical omnipresent vision and my being spread out with it.

It was a soft silky night and all the stars twinkled in a dark velvet sky. I could feel the stars touching me. The green phosphorescence around the schooner made me feel as if I were sailing in a Christmas tree of effervescent flashing lights with neon decorative mobile fish swimming around and through me.

I knew the phenomena could end and I didn't want to miss a moment, but I had to cook and eat dinner. After dinner it was still there and I climbed to a higher vantage point to see the green flashing further out. As always this time of night my body gets tired and prayers begin.

I lay down naked on cushions in the cockpit and fell asleep only to wake up again and marvel at the magnificence and the prayers of thankfulness that go on and on.

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Reid Stowe -- Zen Sailing

Word comes from the deep blue sea that Reid Stowe has started a new art piece far from the sight of land. He's using an intriguing image to introduce the concept --


I'm guessing that the artwork above is made from a nautical chart from this or from one of his many previous voyages. The path it describes meanders in all directions. This is perfectly in keeping with Reid's description, which I'll excerpt here:

In the ancient orient, the story goes that when a man reached a certain age he was free to go on a 1000 day walk. This was his reward for a life of worldly duty. Now he could wander from town to town, into the nature or wherever he pleased. I often spoke of this story over the years as I tried to explain one aspect of the 1000 day trip I am on. I delved into many forms of spiritual knowledge and I kept Zen in mind.

A sailing writer called what I do "Hands off Sailing". That title is too mundane to describe such a hard won sacred act. I decided I must try to explain "The Art of Zen Sailing" and the steps I took to discover and learn. As I balanced my boats and learned to make them go where I wanted, I often used "Body English" the way a golfer uses body English to influence his golf ball. This is skill combined with an unstoppable urge to use invisible forces.

Read the entire entry at 1000days.net.

The artist has put his vessel under the control of wind and weather, influencing it only slightly through the movement of his body on board. It's a pure act, a performance streaming from a finely-tuned consciousness.

Don't settle here for the cliche of one's life as a vessel lost at sea, under control of the elements. That's way too Hemingway, way too embedded in the art historical narrative that Danto and others assure us is long past.

Consider the social identifiers that seem like an outer skin to you: your name, relationships with lovers and family members, your vocation, personal history, religion, preferences and so forth.

All of these are like a fairly idiosyncratic and somewhat beaten-upon twin-masted schooner, rolling across the waves of the South Atlantic. You need these identifiers to survive in any way that's meaningful to the rest of the world. They both invite people on board and also form a reasonable defense against the elements.

As solid and important as these socially-determined structures might seem, they aren't you; they're not who you are. Your essential being lies pure, radiant and glistening within. You can take charge, move this amalgamation of structures in the direction you desire, or you can force desire to take a back seat and allow the elements to control things and move these structures around.

This latter course requires a high degree of trust, the kind that comes from a deep-seated realization that the forces that course through your consciousness are the same ones that course through all of life, through the economy, the political sphere, through every element that touches you. They're the same forces influencing the sun, the atmosphere and the oceans, causing heat and cold, movement and calm, storm and silence.

Reid's Zen Sailing image shows his meandering course surrounded by thangka-like Buddhas or bodhisattvas. They appear as guides, each influencing the schooner's path. I also see them as guardians of a realm of security Reid has drawn himself, through his beliefs and, really, through pure faith. This small artwork is a reflection to me of the much larger one surrounding the artist, a kind of living mandala he's created on the high seas.

Is this the performance art of the new narrative?

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Timothy Gaewsky -- Can You Dig It Too

Newly-found art blog -- can you dig it, too?

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Shunpikers -- an exhibit curated by RL Croft at School 33 Art Center, Baltimore August 7 - October 3

My good friend Robin Croft invited me to participate in an exhibit in Baltimore. If you haven't Robin's website, you need to check it out. I've been a fan since stumbling upon his work some years back. I have no idea why we don't hear more about this intriguing sculptor.

At any rate the show's called Shunpiker, and it features Christine Hahn, Ken Huston, Janet Van Fleet and yours truly. I'll be showing some urethane pieces, aluminum cut-outs and drawings from the Channels series.

Here's a description of the show -- and if you're in Baltimore Friday night August 7, I hope you can stop by School 33.

Shunpiker is defined as one who travels the side roads, avoiding traffic and turnpikes.

In an effort to avoid cherry picking particular elements of artists' work to force-fit them into concocted themes, this exhibition attempts to restore the individual as the point from which all themes flow. It consciously aims to be "anti-thematic", so that the artists' individual journey is not sacrificed for the marketing strategy of a unified front. This proposition's somewhat reversed approach has been to invite underknown, veteran artists to exhibit their work, bringing with them all the arcane details of unique life paths. Since the deciding factor in selecting each artist unavoidably rests within the scope of this curator's tastes, the participants lean toward the conceptual rather than the retinal in their chosen media, favoring introspection and privacy over gnawing demands for self-promotion. This exhibition features mature artists tempered by a strong sense of individuality, who make a deliberate, noncommercial art in spite of our culture's increasing fascination with instant gratification and untried youth.

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Lisa Call's blog "Make Big Art"

This one's news to me. The post she titles "The Power of Responsibility" lays down the facts. Lisa's a highly successful artist, so I'll be studying her advice quite closely. I'd advise you to do the same.

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Kat Payne

Blew my mind to find out that one of Boston's funniest stand-up comedians keeps a blog. Twisted. Brilliant. Payne will assassinate you. Cool thing is the momentum's building. Get in early so you can say you knew her before she was on Comedy Central, before the HBO special, and before the NBC series.

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Dig Nancy Ewart

I like the voice of her writing.

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Artists -- Get involved in the Benefit for Artist Nicole Gagne

From the website:

Postcard show and sale of original postcard-sized pieces of artwork created by both emerging and established artists to benefit Nicole Gagne, a fellow artist seriously injured in a staircase collapse in LIC.

Artwork will be sold at $40 per piece. Artists who donate will get excellent exposure in a show in NYC, and collectors walk away with a great piece of original art. All funds raised will go to help Nicole with her immediate expenses.

Submission Deadline: July 23, 2009

For details clicky clicky --> http://benefitfornicole.blogspot.com/

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Tim O'Donnell: "All that is art"

My friend Tim O'Donnell passed me a link to his new online art project. Here's the blurb -- you need to check it out --

"Artist Tim O'Donnell has invited you to an online project. Each day Tim will post a 2-D work, photograph, and video during his spring residency on the Cape. It will be posted on the blog: All that is art."

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The New Star Trek Movie

JJ Abrams doesn't really love James Tiberius Kirk. He just keeps him hangin' on.

I'll tell you what I mean by that in a minute. But it bears noting that Motown's auto industry could learn a lot about making old models newly relevant from the way Abrams has taken Star Trek the Original Series and retooled it for an entirely new generation. And he did it without most of the usual cheap clip-on concepts that most screenwriters and directors have used this past couple decades:

• Hip-Hop music
  
• Characters who were originally boring now infused with dance funktasticness
• Anyone on a skateboard or skateboard-like appliance
• Background characters who look like cartoon characters or Muppets
• Fart jokes, poop jokes, bathroom humor
• Lots of swearing
• Characters who originally ignored each other now sexually involved
  
• Sassy characters who exude Jerry-Springer-audience-member attitude
• Well-known comedians performing some version of their own schtick
  

Actually, Abrams does use one of the devices listed above, and it's a bit painful. I'm letting it slide for now; decide for yourself if it works.

It's almost, but not quite, as if Abrams had taken Roddenberry's development concept from the 1960's 'as is' and executed it using tons more cash -- the early Star Trek episodes filmed for $80,000 each, if I recall correctly from David Gerrold's book The Trouble with Tribbles -- and using early 21st-century cinema culture, referring now to cinematography and special effects in particular.

And it's even more than that. Star Trek the Original Series was developed at the end of the Modernist narrative, when great technological progress was mated with a strong faith in the ability of humankind to improve itself. The idea was, more or less, that we'd become better people as our technologies eradicated disease, starvation and war. There was a Utopian gleam, if not really a Utopian ambition, to the Modernist project. And The Original Series is a pure expression of that. This is a galaxy united in peace, with warring factions who still haven't picked up on the enlightenment making things difficult from time to time.

Well, Abrams literally blows away one of the supposedly most enlightened symbols of that Modernist world in Act I. It was quite unexpected for me, and I'm not going to blow it for you. At any rate, in doing so, Abrams hurled the entire Star Trek premise deep into the much more skeptical 21st century. And in my view he made the Star Trek premise his own.

The cast he's chosen is quite strong. Chris Pine does a convincing job owning the Kirk role, and he does it confidently enough to fling a few Shatnerisms along the way. Zach Quinto's Spock is just plain eerie in its semblance to the young Nimoy's version. I particularly enjoyed John Cho's Sulu; he pulls that role off with a seriousness that not only makes me buy into it completely, but really adds a lot to the atmosphere of the bridge. He's got military gravitas down. Karl Urban seems sometimes to be acting by the skin of his teeth as McCoy, and I'd almost fault the writing at those points where it gets too thin. And for my money Abrams plays the "I'm a doctor, not a _______" line a bit too much, reaching almost beyond the boundary of pastiche's Neutral Zone.

I have only two serious grips with the casting:

My first gripe would be with the vocal tones of key cast members. Yeah, sounds trivial. But Pine's voice has a bit of a boozed-out quality to it. Fine, he's depicted as a heavy drinker early on, but it takes the edge off of some lines in a way that I wish it wouldn't, because over all the writing's pretty good. I want to hear a more Shatnerian sonorousness. And he's always so dead-certain, too -- perhaps as would be the manner of a young hotshot, I suppose, but for me it peels away the illusion just a little bit.

Quinto's voice is just too high for Spock, in my opinion. Even when young, Nimoy's Spock got a lot of mileage out of vocal tone, or monotone. It's just a bit tough to hear excellent Spock lines from a voice that could have come out of any given member of an 80's boy band.

And my second gripe with the casting is that Abrams unknowingly touched the third rail of legitimate Star Trek productions. This law needs to be written in bold type at the top of every script he directs: In the Star Trek universe there is no Winona Ryder.

While I like the script a lot in its general thrust and in many of its particulars, things in my view got a bit out of control in several areas:

• I'm seeing too much of Leonard Nimoy as the old Spock. The script's reasoning on this is fine. But Abrams flings him around a bit too much at the end for my taste. I'd have allowed his presence here to be a bit more enigmatic, a bit more ghostly. Also there are some pretty big plot holes surrounding the manner in which Nimoy first appears.
• There are at least 3 times that we see Jim Kirk hanging on to the edge of an incredible drop. OK, we get it: "Kirk lives life on the edge." Move on.
  
• The premise surrounding the bad guy character is pretty thin, in my view, although Eric Bana plays him quite effectively.

Kudos to make-up and special effects. It's the usual Star Trek Mardi Gras xenomorphology -- various combinations of wacky head on human body -- and while that always annoyed me from the point of view of realistic expectations, nowadays I consider it to be part of the brand.

It'll be interesting to see where Abrams takes the property now. Over all this was a very satisfying night at the flicks. So long as he can stay away from HoloDecks, Sherlock Holmes, Baseball, and all the crap that infested TNG -- and so long as Kirk never wears a baseball cap backwards, Spock stays off the skateboards and McCoy doesn't lay down any freestyle raps -- I should think this new iteration of Star Trek will play out well.

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Nick Ferris and Rani Free: "Regrets" -- at Chacala May 13 - 14

My friend Nick Ferris shot me an email about a big show he's cooking up with Rani Free -- read and be enlightened!

I’m putting on a charity exhibition next week in New York on the theme of “Regrets” which I wanted to invite you to. Since we launched the show’s website we’ve been inundated with people sending in anonymous regrets and it seems to have really struck a chord with people.

Myself and the other artist, Rani Free, have put this altogether in our spare time over the last 8 weeks, including taking all of the photography. The show comprises of photography, sculptures, video installations, audio installations, an interactive “Stage of Regrets”, a specially commissioned children’s book and also a Wall of Regrets where visitors can post their own regrets at the gallery. Myself and Rani will also be on NBC Nightly News Monday to promote the show. There are about 250 regrets in total featured in the show. The show’s website is www.nickandrani.com

It’s free to attend and proceeds from any picture sales go to charity.

Many thanks

Nick
212 224 3507

More details are below:

………………..

Regrets
Chacala
394 Broadway, 4th Fl
New York, NY 10013
The gallery is located in Tribeca on Broadway between Walker and White Street at: Chacala Art Gallery - 394 Broadway, 4th Fl, New York, NY 10013

(Canal St Station – N,Q, R, W and 6)

May 13th 12-5pm
May 14th 12-5pm

Regrets Exhibition Opening in New York May 13/14 2009.

A new art exhibition entitled “Regrets” is opening in New York for a limited run in May. The theme has captured the imagination of people worldwide with hundreds of visitors to the show’s site listing their anonymous regrets in life – from the deeply personal to the highly superficial.

As well as featuring regrets from the website, the exhibition captures the personal regrets of the artists through a variety of media including photography, poetry, short films, sculptures, audio and even a specially commissioned children’s book (Rated R). The exhibition also features interactive artwork - a stage of Regrets where people can overcome some of their regrets in life and a “Wall of Regrets” where visitors can list their own regrets whilst at the show. In total over 250 regrets (both positive and negative will be in the show)

Regrets is a fun, sad, challenging, heartbreaking and highly unique exhibition – where guests can be both voyeuristic and introspective.

The show is free to the public and proceeds from any sales go to support two very important charities - You Can Thrive and Sense.



Even more about Regrets:

“I regret not being myself. I hide myself. Always”

This is just one of the many regrets posted anonymously on the official website - nickandrani.com. As soon as the theme of this exhibition was announced, one thing became apparent - nearly everyone has regrets of some kind, but very few share them, with anyone. Until now.

As well as the unprecedented public feedback to the idea of Regrets, the artists have done a remarkable job in putting this exhibition together in their spare time in just two months. All of the works of art were produced in this timeframe. Once the show is over, a charity Regrets book will also be published that will capture all of the regrets listed both before and during the show.

If you would like more information or to talk directly to the artists, please contact us at nick@nickandrani.com. The exhibition is highly unique and for great cause, and we would appreciate all the support we can get.

The artists would like to thank the following people and companies for heir support, generosity and belief in Regrets:

Amanda Zizgen, JustCalmDown.com, Clifford Endo, Lenny Zinnanti, Rich Strait, StockChoiceToday.com, Madame X

Please note all proceeds go to some very worth causes. The two charities supported are:

• You Can Thrive! Foundation supports an innovative multi-tiered quality of life program to help alleviate unnecessary pain, disability, and psychosocial that often accompanies a diagnosis of cancer, and resurfaces after treatment or during extended living with disease.
• Sense is the leading national charity that supports and campaigns for children and adults who are deafblind. It provides expert advice and information as well as specialist services to deafblind people, their families, carers and the professionals who work with them.

For more information about the artists please go to www.nickandrani.com
For press enquiries please contact Nick Ferris: nick@nickandrani.com

Nicholas Ferris
Group Publisher
emii.com
212 224 3507

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Reid Stowe - The Oceanic Heart Part 2

Reid Stowe, The Oceanic Heart -- 2009 --

GPS markers on Google Maps describing a heart-shaped path 2,600 miles in circumference

Considering all the problems he's had to deal with alone on his twin-masted schooner, artist Reid Stowe's Texas-plus-sized conceptual piece is a triumph.

Check this latest entry from day 745 on 1000days.net:

It seems perhaps bad news has replaced our search for the miraculous and our human myths, and I am left to think we are an intellectual society in fear, with many suffering a sense of personal meaninglessness. Those who went to our website and looked at our Google map may have been surprised I am now completing a giant heart with my course in dedication to Soanya and as a gift to the world.

Stowe has stepped off the civilization-sanitized plain most Americans inhabit, where a meal is a few microwave minutes away and distractions abound.

He's dropped back deeper, to a level not usually experienced by other-than-tribal people in this hemisphere, at least not since when -- the seventeenth century? And it saturates his writing, which reminds me of John of the Cross, "The Cloud of Unknowning," and others who have sojourned long in a place where each continued moment of life seemed like a gift.

The thing is, he always sounded this way, even in writings before the 1000 Days voyage.

I've come to believe that the things you learn in your early 20's are the ones that stay with you for the rest of your life. During those years of his life, Stowe was criss-crossing the Atlantic in small sailing vessels, often solo. He spoke to me once of the way you become one with your ship -- drifting off to sleep and suddenly sensing something that needs attention high up on a mast.

Long weeks alone on the sea, your mind wrapped up in survival moment by moment, facing storms of lightning, wind and rain, and also of doubt, and yet living through all of them: there's no way that that isn't going to affect your outlook. In my opinion it was highly transformative.

Stowe learned the mystic's appreciation for life and the universe not through books, or at the feet of a guru, or because it was a really cool fad. He really didn't even try to learn it in the first place. It came to him through protracted, sometimes gruelling day-to-day experience. And it never left him.

Unlike so many similar gestures made in irony or with hypocrisy, this Oceanic Heart is real. The only question remaining in my mind is can the world accept it?

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Verena Dobnik / Associated Press article published this past May 3 on Reid Stowe's "1000 Days" voyage

Here's a snippet:

Also monitoring Stowe’s travels is Charles Doane, editor-at-large of Sail magazine. “I check his positions every day,” he says.

Already, Stowe “has set the record of the longest nonstop, unsupplied voyage at sea,” says Doane, adding that proof the schooner has not touched land comes from a GPS satellite system tracking the voyage, along with regular photos and videos posted on the Web.

“I want to inspire people to follow their dreams,” Stowe says. And in fact, the voyage serves as a vicarious adventure for some young virtual sailors — second-graders at a Virginia school whose teacher, Mindy Morrison, wrote to the wandering mariner that his Web site was helping them locate continents and oceans, making geography “more tangible and more importantly, FUN!”

On the newspaper's blog one of the commenter's left something that really resonates with me, partly I think from having worked with Reid all those years ago:

As I try to imagine the perspective of Reid Stowe as he sails into the fringe of our worlds, I find myself surrounded with images of classic adventure tales from my childhood; like The Little Prince by Saint-Exupery, telling the story of a lonely boy from another planet who fell in love with a mysterious rose, or the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor of the Thousand and One Nights who goes to sea to repair his fortune. I hear sounds of Rimsky-Korsakovs Scheherazade and remember how I used to fantasize about what would do when I grow up.

Reid Stowes quest is profoundly idealistic and makes a point about life and human nature.

Can I get an 'amen,' somebody?

Read the article -

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Matt Sardinia

I found out about Matt Sardinia while cruising the social news sites. Call the influences -- for me it looks like science fiction, robotics, movie posters --


Matt calls himself an artist and illustrator. Illustration now is such a broad field, and for me anyway, there's a lot of overlap with, in many cases, only the bogey of 'artist's intent' to discern if a work is 'fine art' or 'illustration'.

There's definitely been art in NYC galleries over the past decade that's highly influenced by illustration of various sorts-- magazine illustration from the 40's and 50's, science fiction paperback covers, sci-fi magazines from the mid-20th-century. We're doing a lot of ransacking of the past century. I think Matt's onto something. He's a young guy so he's got a lot of time to work out the kinks.


For some reason this one reminds me of Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation. Go figure.

See more at Matt Sardinia's website.

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