Scary Art for Scary Times

Am almost tempted to stop listening to the news.
Someone said to me yesterday, “sure glad I’m not on the job market now,” and I thought, yeah. But come to think of it… I’ve been on the job market now for SEVEN YEARS. And since I’ve been back from Turkey there have been exactly ZERO appropriate jobs posted in my corner of SoCal (actually quite a large area). Add in the number of MFAs graduated here each year, and soon we’ll be fighting each other for minimum wage.
Yeah.
Chair by Doris Salcedo.

ColorPop

Am trying to think of sweet things. Wayne Thiebaud.

Mirror, Mirror

Am feeling not so pretty or perky lately. Sort of wish I’d just catch this bad cold that’s going around and have an excuse to stay in bed a day or two. It’s partly starting the new fall quarter in the middle of an ongoing semester. Rather much.
Lovely little piece by Meret Oppenheim, 1962.

Inspiration

Agnes Martin:
delicate,
obsessed,
calm,
spiritual.

Sequined Bras in the Window

Flew south again.
It’s almost always good to get out of your life/routine/stressload/head for a few days, especially if you can get into someone else’s life (try on their underwear, metaphorically). The people I compare myself to up in NoCal are as close to me in life situation as possible, but have made very different decisions.
What I come away with is an awareness of how selfish the artist lifestyle is, how focused on obscurities that most think trivial. I had to stop myself from talking about my work, cause I’m enthusiastic, but don’t want to bore my friends, or make them think I’m as self-centered as I really am. I need their clear-eyed input, but lately I think I'm sort of manic in the number of projects I've started. Oh well, better than the alternative.
image taken in Chinatown, San Francisco

Acrobatic Art

OK I have to explain this image.
It’s at the top of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Overhead is a bridge that spans a drop from the fifth to the ground floor. Underneath this bridge are rock climbing clips, rope and harness used by Matthew Barney to make an athletic drawing while hanging from the bridge. I think Barney’s newer work is bullshit, but this piece looks back to his early career as an athlete, and is very compelling. Outside the window is a giant red “made in China” dinosaur, from the Chinese show, which I LOVED. Will talk about it soon.
Somebody thought about this confluence in the gallery—is this what makes a good curator?

Big City WannaBe

As I watched the debate last night I was filled with strange conflict. I both wanted Palin to do well and for her to fail miserably. As much as I disagree with her views, and think she’s not ready for such office, she represents our sex. I wanted her to fail nobely, I wanted her to be smart even though she’s inexperienced. I winced as Biden laughed, thought he’s laughing at her, at ME, cause I’ve felt that so many times from men of that stature.
And Oh-My-God, nucular? I-rack? I-ran? Kill me now.
Am up in SF for the weekend, needed a Big City break badly. At this very moment I’m in a café on Nob Hill sipping cab.
Saw SFMoma this morning, very inspiring! Also saw very fancy galleries (a lot of the work was unframed because of expense), and overheard this:
“I just wish people were crazy again, you know, buying art…”
Painting, David Park, who some people compare me to, and I’ll take that, thank you…

Grade School

Here’s something I wrote while in Turkey, volunteering in my son’s school, but never published on this blog. I’m interested in it partially cause Kid.01 is now in fifth grade here in SoCal:

I’ve finally stopped trying to maintain control over my fifth graders (mostly the boys). They are boisterous and loud, they throw erasers and pillows, they fall over in their chairs. They mock fight, and occasionally really fight. I just have to accept it. I’m trying now to let them have fun, and when my voice grows hoarse shouting above them I just stop and do something physical with them, like dance or march. I try to keep in mind how polite, quiet and respectful my college students are. Somehow these animals become civilized.
There’s a good explanation of the stresses these students are under at this elite private school. Basically being a student in Turkey from fifth grade on means an endless series of tests and test preparations. Tests are the only indicator for university entrance. No extracurricular activities, economic hardships, original experiences, or thoughts explored in essays are taken into account. And getting into university is basically the only chance to get ahead economically in Turkey. A friend told me even job listings for obscure government clerks request a university degree now.
All this makes me wonder about my own kids, and will I be OK with only gently helping them to be well-rounded university applicants, or will I be one of those parents who obsess over where (if?) my child goes to college? I went to a “fancy” school for my undergrad, but a third-tier (sorry) grad school, and that has affected my success, because before anyone looks at your work, they look at your c.v. Life sucks that way.

Outside the Box

In the past several years I’ve become aware of Asberger’s Syndrome (an Austism Spectrum disorder), Tourettes, and OCD, so can understand and empathize with some of my students’ odd behavior. Usually they don’t seem to know the rules of society, and can say things that seem rude or callous. They may not understand an assignment the first time I explain it. They may ask strange questions that seem off subject. They may talk loudly and inappropriately.
I actually have two colleagues who may have something like Asberger’s. Knowing they may not be able to help their behavior makes it better. I don’t get offended by insensitive comments.
I actually sort of enjoy talking to people who see life a bit differently, don’t you?

Harvest Time in CA

An urban garden, unfortunately not mine…

My Landscape

I am enjoying my students this term. I have a bunch of characters. A tattoo artist who comes to class after trying out what he’s just learned. On skin… An Egyptian woman who exudes warmth… A Caldean Iraqi whose father won’t let her go to the art store to buy supplies… Several students with learning disabilities who are right in there, working hard…
Here’s a landscape by a Turkish artist, Ridvan Koskun. Very typical color palette for Turkey, earth tones and intense Prussian Blue.

If I look a bit ragged, or seem distracted, you know why.

I have been manically flailing around the past year to find something to replace, at least in part, teaching. Every month I apply for grants, try to get exhibitions of my work, work on other writing projects, paint, do occasional commercial jobs, learn new software, apply to teach at new schools, look into business opportunities, shoot teaching videos, make artworld contacts, attend openings and museums… in addition to prepping six courses and taking care of my kids.
It really burns me when my colleagues who are tenured complain. I know insecurity is the buzzword of the day, but come on.

Hungry

Kid.01 had a school assignment to use adjectives to describe a favorite food. The rest of the class had to guess it. Here’s what he wrote:
soft,
white,
chewy,
squishy,
oval,
salty,
good with pesto…
yes, gnocchi. Not one person, not even his teacher, had ever heard of it. A staple of our household.
The easiest? Crunchy, spicy, red. If you don’t know, you haven’t been around kids lately.
Above is menudo with thick homemade tortillas, rice and beans. Later we ate carne asada tacos, street style.

Imagine This

You and your kids have been invited to a party where you don’t know anyone. The house has a large, wild yard, with trees to climb and an abandoned playhouse. A guy in a kilt is chopping freshly cut watermelons from the garden with an ax. Adults are lolling around, listening to jazz from a record player pulled into the garden (nice to see vinyl spinning again).
The kids are stand-offish at first, but after dinner you hear whooping in the dusk—the boys and girls have started a battle in the meadow, pine cones for grenades and stink bombs, sticks for swords and guns. The older ones are moving in slow motion, dying spectacular deaths. The little kids are leaping out from behind trees in ambushes. The choreography has the adults enthralled, although we pretend not to notice.
You think back to magical moments from your own childhood of long forgotten backyard parties, where loose and ungoverned games formed that could never have been planned.
Boat Sculpture by Nancy Rubins

Chunky Dunking

I recently saw a new Eve Ensler play, “The Good Body.” As with the “Vagina Monologues,” it’s theater based on interviews with women, but this time about how we deal with our bodies: fat farms, botox, the “spread,” boob jobs, vaginal tightening, nipple piercing, starvation, living at the gym, and bread fixation. Girl talk to the hilt, with lots of four letter words thrown in to toughen up the mood, which I like (women denied colorful language is one of my pet peeves).
That same day, someone gave me a compliment, but I heard it as “Kloe is fat.” Really incredible, because that’s not at all what was meant. So even rail thin dolls like me are always on the verge of hating ourselves.
(above pug's name is Smudge-perfect, no?)

…

I am trying to process what has happened, so I can see the bigger picture. I will write about the specifics later. But for now I can tell you I have lost my best teaching job.
It is a new experience for me to lose a job like this. It has profoundly upset and angered me. Now I understand what many people have gone through, how depressed they feel, how out of control… to be told, “it’s not fair, but we can’t do anything about it.”
If I ever have employees, I will remember this experience, and take care of those who work hard for me.

Shafted and Screwed

I have to leave this profession. We can only put up with so much before we just. can’t. teach. one. more. day.

Vocabulary Expanded

Kid.01: Mr. S got mad at us for using text in our book summaries.
Kloe: What do you mean?
Kid.01: You know, lol, bff, lotl, aka.
Kloe: What’s bff and lotl?
Kid.01 (exasperated): Best friends forever and Lord of the losers!
…
Kid.01: You wear tighty whities.
Kid.02: Yeah (giggle). Tight means awesome.
(student drawing combining Botticelli and Munch)

Expressive Modern

A beautiful panel by a Turkish friend, Guldane Araz, painted while she was studying in Cologne, Germany.

More Tarkan, Turkey’s Answer to Johnny Depp

Watch the man dance in the desert, quite possibly the sexiest hips ever…

Visitors in the Studio

I participated in an open house this weekend, in a borrowed studio, showing seven of my new Greek statue paintings. It was worth it: I made a few good contacts, including art teachers, a curator I’ve been dying to meet for a while, and a few nice folks who just love art. No one talked about buying and I didn’t expect it. In this economy spending on art is the last thing on people’s minds (although seems the very rich are investing in art through the auction houses).
One man looked at my paintings for a while, so I explained how I’m going in two directions with the work: a drippy more abstract treatment, cropping so close that the background disappears, and a more dramatic treatment, with hand gestures and more skin showing, keeping the background. When I told this man the backgrounds were from Long Island, the landscape that inspired Jackson Pollack, he said I should call the series “Homage to Pollack,” which I quite liked.
He loved the drip grid I just finished on one painting, with the curves and movement of the figures interwoven. He also thought the depth of the landscape worked well with the grid overlay. So at least I reached one person! (See painting here.)
Another visitor told me the painting is like trying to view the past through the grid of the present, history and myth obstructed and altered by modern understanding.
Paintings above are by a friend, Jeanne Dunn.

Sometimes this is my day:

I get home from teaching my 100 plus students, some of whom are only 18 and still talking about their “senior year,” after frantically searching for a set of classroom keys I’ve misplaced, teaching half a lecture with a projector that makes all artwork yellow, and attending a parent meeting at the elementary school district that was a waste of time.
I face my own progeny, one of whom is crying over his homework that is taking too long (and yes, it is, and I’m going to complain to the teacher about it, ridiculous that a 10 year old has 3 hours of homework), and the other who is crying because he can’t get his newly tied shoes untied. And the milk has gone bad somehow, and everyone hated their lunch that I made that morning, and the laundry has piled up and and and… it’s going to be a very long semester…

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days

I knew this movie was going to be both brilliant and tough. I was unprepared. It follows 24 hours in the lives of two friends in mid-1980s Romania, Behind-the-Curtain; Otilia and her roommate Gabita, who needs an illegal abortion.
On the DVD the director/writer says the story is about solidarity between the women, but I was struck how the students are raped, literally and metaphorically, repeatedly throughout the day by just about everyone with whom they interact. They pay price after price for small mistakes, little lies they make to survive. Yes, the film shows the fetus on the bathroom floor. But see how Otilia scoops it up in her purse, runs through the dark streets of Bucharest to get rid of it, knowing what’s pressed up against her, oh my god, knowing that she could be in exactly the same place, that her boyfriend wouldn’t be there either. These women want to escape the entire fate of motherhood because they see no reward in it.
Please see this movie.

Painted Placemats

Another fit of my Martha Stewartism: using up scraps of gessoed canvas, my kids painted their favorite desserts: chocolate birthday cake, plate of donuts, ice cream sundae, and peach pie.

Food Abstract

Licorice collage by Wayne Hulgin. Don’t think it will last, but love it all the same.

Sarah Palin

Not boring. Not safe. Very exciting choice.
Of course, I have no patience with her views or party. I can understand pro-life, although I disagree. I absolutely cannot handle someone who wants creationism to be taught in schools. Her views on the environment and the war make her repulsive to me.
But…
I was listening to her speak on the radio tonight, and thought, I want to see what this woman looks like. She looks like McCain’s granddaughter. She looks like me, and millions of 40 something American women. And when she held her baby, I bet millions of hearts all over this country broke. Because that is ME. Hilary is my aunt, but this woman, like Obama, is me. Quite shocking really.
Finally, finally we have a presidential race that is not about old white men.

Painting as Labor

I do love almost everything about painting.
• I love shopping for art supplies: paint, brushes, canvas.
• I love planning my work, making notes in my sketchbook, researching, visualizing.
• I love working with canvas: cutting, gesso-ing, stretching.
• I love the first marks I make on a white field.
• I love the violent colors of the first pass.
• I love the hours of silent working.
• I love to sit back and see a painting in different light, and different angles.
• I love it when I have problems, and then when they work themselves out.
• I love knowing a painting is finished.
• I love it if someone else likes my work and tells me.
• I love to get criticism of the work.
• I love to sell a painting.
I don’t love PR, trying to get shows, getting rejected, not showing the work, storing the work.
But most of the labor of painting is wonderful, and I feel lucky to be able to do it.

End of Summer Thought on Labor

The idea of labor is culturally based. I can only compare what I know (teaching in Turkey and the USA), so here goes...
Turkish teachers at all levels put in long days with an hour lunch break at noon, and several tea breaks. Most ride public transportation or private mini buses, which can add hours to their day. For housewives (house-husbands are rare), labor means heavy manual work, cleaning, cooking and washing without many of the conveniences Americans take for granted. But, Turks mix labor with socializing throughout the day. You always have time for a chat with a friend/co-worker.
American teachers and other workers separate work and play. We like to get in and get out of our work spaces. Maybe that’s one reason being a SAHP (stay at home parent) is so hard for many of us. We work hard, and we complain hard. We get satisfaction out of elaborating how difficult and exhausting our jobs are. We’re very productive, but comparatively, we don’t work as hard as most people in the world.
And give me a break, teaching is not working in the fields, or cleaning houses, or any of those really back-breaking jobs.
One other note.
I have a friend who is a lawyer. She makes almost $300 per hour. If she answers an email or phone call from a client, she bills $50 a pop. Now if each time I answered an email from a student I could charge even $5, I’d be raking in the dough. But that just shows you what we value in this society.

Symmetry, Not Literally

Here’s another work in my collection, by Richard Baker. It’s mixed media: photographic print and oil paint on wood. The photo is of a pond that is on his property, and the pelvis bone shape is actually based on a motorcycle part, I think. I’ve always loved his work, which is meditative, and juxtaposes surprising forms and colors. In this series he worked with symmetry. And there’s that red again…

Amateur vs. Professional—What is Valued in Art

I participated in a neighborhood opening a few days ago. I knew I might be among amateur artists, and that’s fine. But it got me thinking about how art is judged, compared to, say, Olympic sports, or even dance. There are clear standards in sports. The lines are smudgey for ballroom dancing or ice skating, although they are considered sports too. But for visual art, how do we judge what is “professional” compared to what is student or amateur?
And judge we do.
I led a class discussion with brand new students on how quality is determined in the contemporary artworld. The arts scene in my corner of SoCal is not great. We’re a conservative area, a tourist mecca; we’re not into culture, at least not the visual arts. When I talk to my students I understand why better. These are art students, they’re in my classes because they’ve self-selected to study art, and still they feel mostly contempt for contemporary art. The exact word that kept coming up was “crap.” It’s my job to enlighten them, but really, they should already be on that road. Some are not even at the trail-head yet.

Eleanor Antin’s New Work

Eleanor Antin is a conceptual artist, performance artist and educator. I took two courses with her during my graduate studies, and she was the most amazing teacher. I saw some of her work from the 1980s at Documenta in Germany last summer, but was underwhelmed—her nurses and ballerinas are shot in sepia tones, printed small. Polite.
Her new show, Historical Takes, is also rooted in the past, but is vibrant, raunchy and BIG. Huge photos, bright colors, garish make-up, lush scenes. In them she juxtaposes modern SoCal life with that of ancient Roman Pompeii, both civilizations on the brink of disaster. My “Winged Victory” even makes an appearance, on a eucalyptus secluded tennis court.
As with all her work, she’s telling stories, even commenting that these images are her “poor man’s cinema.” The photos are indeed productions; we understand and admire the scale, the amount of effort and time that went into making them. But they are also FUN and FUNNY.
The day I went, the museum was full of wide-eyed kids and old ladies saying, “How interesting.” I love that that there were no warning signs about how randy, sexy, and violent the stuff is. Humor softens it.
Antin still expresses strong feminist ideas about the male gaze, and who literally selects what is beautiful. She allows Helen of Troy to rewrite her history.
Interspersed in the galleries are videos showing Antin producting the work. They show how Eleanor just can’t get out of the picture, and thank God! She’s there, lumpy, short, laughing and cussing, adjusting hands and boobs of beautiful models. At one point she exposes an elderly man’s backside, lifting his toga a bit.
The only drawback for me was the wall text—it tells us too much. Otherwise, I say, get your beautiful tan body down to see this show!

YouTube for Turkey, at Least for Now

YouTube, and a growing number of other sites, have been blocked by the Turkish government in the past few months. Many feared growing censorship. A few days ago Turkish sites that are still up began a protest, and voluntarily banned themselves in solidarity. It worked! Today YouTube is finally back up.

Brown City

Here’s another work in my collection, a lithograph by the dean of my university in Turkey, Atilla Atar. It’s inscribed “for Kloe with love and health.” Isn’t that nice? I just love how old-fashioned it feels, and how rich the browns are, creating a deep Cubist cityscape.
As for Biden... boring.

Studio Search Update

For now I’m making due with painting on my patio. It’s not great. In fact, it sucks. I can only work on small canvases, I can only have one painting up at a time, and I can’t back away from the painting more than 6 feet. I know, I’m just spoiled rotten.
Looked for a new studio space today. Seems I was paying almost $3/square foot, which I knew was too much. The going rate is more like $2/square foot, but I should be able to find a space for less as I want it rough.
I had a lovely encounter. Went into a barbershop that had a real estate sign on it. Inside there was a man who looked like a woman and a woman who sounded like a man. Neither spoke English. So in broken Spanish I told them what I was looking for, and they explained that their rent was also too high and they were leaving. They gave me a lead down the street. I thanked them and left. A block away a car honked at me and it was the woman/man, offering to give me a lift. I trusted, and took it, and she was very gracious.
Sort of made my day...
I love painting on linen. It makes a difference, feels like oil painting, although I’m using acrylics. The shine of acrylics is mitigated by thick, rough linen. Unfortunately, it costs $33/yd. So I’m trying some linen/cotton mix ($15/yd) and a heavy cotton canvas ($11/yd), both from an upholstery store, rather than an art supply.

Roses in the Powder Room

I’m starting a series of posts about my own art collection. Not shooting the work separate on a white wall, but showing how I display it in my house, among books and clutter and toilet paper (yes, I have art in my bathrooms—but not nudes! An image of a nude in the bathroom is one of my pet peeves).
So we’re starting out with one of my newest pieces, a large impasto painting by Jeanette Piranio. It’s in the bathroom, cause the light there is best for it, and as an oil, it can withstand steam. Quite nice, and fits my “red” theme.
Thanks again, G!

Small Greek Torsos

Just posted some photos of my newest paintings on Art of Kloe. Let me know what you think!
PS am just reading that Manny Farber has died. just saw his last show a few weeks ago, multimedia drawings from his garden. it was as always gorgeous and inspiring, to see click and scroll down.

Gradual Morph

I haven’t been posting regularly. Kloe Among the Turks seems to be transitioning into another type of blog, one less about everyday stuff and more about my struggles as an artist. I need to be careful about what I write about teaching and about my personal situation.
But to tell you the truth, my life is just not as interesting as it was when I lived in Turkey. Well, at least it’s as uninteresting as any long-haired-blond, wide-blue-eyed, high-heeled doll’s life can be.
So come back and read, just not often, so you won’t be disappointed. Someday I’ll be famous, but for now, I’m just a typical starving artist and over-worked teacher, proud mom and frivolous party girl.
kisses

Tarkan, Turkish Man

A bit of fun before the summer ends...

Fall Semester Starts Soon

I’ll be at three different schools. Filling my gas tank is going to be brutal.
I’m teaching beginning drawing, art history (Ancient to Gothic), color theory, 2D design, and possibly linear perspective or digital imaging. I expect the history survey to be the most work, and it pays the least. But—hear me pledge—I will do a better job, try to complain less, and enjoy learning more about Greek figurative sculpture in particular.
If you’re thinking of going to university, you better sign up now, because classes are almost completely filled. There are going to be many disgruntled students who won’t be able to crash courses in the next few weeks. I hope Arnie Baby hears about it.

Animation

Summer school ended this week. It was a great class with one small exception that shall go unnamed. Several students were serious artists already, working on their own. I hope I helped them, and maybe inspired them.
Others were more interested in animation, and we created short consecutive frames in class using live models. It’s sort of fun!

Buying and Selling

Selling work is so seductive. When someone likes your work enough to lay down hard-earned cash, it’s a tremendous feeling of validation. But does it sway the way an artist works? Will the artist consider making more works just like the one that sold, when maybe she wouldn’t have continued with that line of thinking? Would she recreate the exact work that sold, thinking maybe to sell it again? Would other, more challenging work get put aside?
Would she risk relationships with dealers, collaborators, other artists, friends, to sell? I hope not.
I collect art. Usually I trade for it, sometimes I buy it. Sometimes it’s a gift. I love my art collection, not as I love things, but as I love experiences. I have several new pieces, and I love to come home to them.
When I sell a painting I don’t miss it. It’s like it never existed for me, and I’m glad it’s gone. I don't really care to know who has it or where it lives. Leaves space, literally and mentally, to create more work.

Business is Business

I had to move out of my studio. I asked the property manager for a reduction in rent, thinking there was a good chance of it. (I was paying what a home entertainment business had paid previously—the building owner wants to keep artists in residence as opposed to “real” businesses. And yes, I do think artists should get some patronage, we add value to a space…) But the answer was no, Business is business, I understand that. I’m just not successful enough to justify such a monthly expense.
So I was sad, but am going to use this as an opportunity to explore the neighborhood I really love, see if I can find a studio there.
In the meantime, I’ll maybe set up on my patio for a month. This is California, after all.

Missing my Elders

The other day I was in Costco sorting out my membership so I could again purchase way too much stuff and eat a free lunch of food samples. Not to mention buy gas at 30 to 40 cents per gallon below normal. OK, I admit I’m suburban at heart although I fight the good fight.
Anyway, my original membership was with my grandmother. So I’m explaining that she died, and the woman helping me keeps repeating on the phone and to supervisors, “the grandmother passed away.” And every time she said it, I could feel my composure slip a bit. Until I finally started weeping, right there at the Costco membership counter amid crying kids and hotdog eaters.
It makes me realize how much I miss her. Most of my life I spent a night a week with my grandparents, and I haven’t been able to replace that ritual.
I also miss when my parents are out of town, and am thankful when they return.

Studio Rent Due

Soon I have to decide whether or not to keep my little studio. In June I borrowed a large painting studio in a nice building from a friend. I was so productive there that when my friend came back I rented another, smaller space down the hall. Again I used it well.
It’s a luxury. But I’m realizing that to be taken seriously as a painter, I must pay the price and look like one. That means a professional place to work in, where curators can come and refer collectors. I also enjoy the camaraderie among the artists; it feels like we are all working toward something together.
My Greek series continues to grow. Instead of limiting myself to one size for a series, like I’ve done in the past, I’m allowing bigger and smaller paintings to flow as I need to work out problems.
I started four small torsos that are fun and easy, decorative but beautiful, while I’m trying to figure out how to fix the bigger works. The colors are muted but sweet pinks and grayed yellows set against dark purples and brownish blues. I also splurged on linen to see if it affects my work. Yikes, like it, and it’s $33/yd. Will have to check upholstery stores to see if I can find it cheaper.

Yellow Boy

Have I mentioned I’m in love with SpongeBob?

The Edge of Heaven

Just saw this Turkish/German film. The director, Fatih Akin, also made “Head On,” one of the best movies I’ve seen in the last few years.
“The Edge of Heaven” follows a multitude of characters whose lives are intertwined between Istanbul and Bremen. A bit slow, but worth seeing, it’s about the connection between parents and children, how careless we are about basic communication, and how tragic misunderstandings can develop.
And it made me so homesick for Turkey, for the food and raki, the beautiful sad people, the language, and the endless dry landscape. It made me feel Turkey is my home, not here. (The characters living in Germany also feel the pull of Anatolia.)
Plus it’s really cool to hear Turkish, German and English used interchangeably.

I returned from Turkey one year ago. These are my last photos from that year abroad as a Fulbright Scholar: in Munich eating typical German, and in my Anatolian City, which is called Eskisehir. I wish there was a way to get back to Turkey, but it's not possible now. So I'll just dream, while I live here in SoCal, a paradise I take for granted.

Bitch Out

• A student basically dissed me today when I tried to help him.
• I got sent home from a lunch meeting because I had a kid with me.
• Arnold is threatening to cut pay for State workers, possibly including me, to minimum wage.
• I nearly faint every time I fill my gas tank. And fall semester hasn’t even started.
• Some are reading this blog for truthful information. I AM A DOLL!
• I deparately need pizza, the thickest and greasiest possible.

Explosion for Real

Yesterday there was a double bombing in Istanbul. First one drew the crowds, second one was deadly.
The place was a residential neighborhood. Please don’t think this is normal for Turkey—this is like a bomb going off in Glendale.
So far, the people suspect the PKK (Kurdish Separatists), but doesn’t seem right. Maybe extremists are trying to destabilize the political situation in Turkey, because there is a legal movement to recall the democratically elected, although religious, AK Party government.

sorry about multiple videos, there was a commercial that snuck its way into the embedding... now can't get it out, and I'm too tired to redo this post...

Exploded

I am at a complete loss.

Sensitive Child

02: Mama, where would you live if you didn’t have a house?
K: Well, I supposed you’d be homeless.
02: But what if you had a car?
K: You could live in your car.
02: That’s what I was thinking. But what if you were a rich hobo?
K: You could live in a motel?
02: No, you could buy a house. Then you’d be a hobo in a house.

This is what concerns my little one on the eve of his seventh birthday.

Und so...

Should I go out and buy some slutty Bratz clothes before my new big sister imposes her fashion sense on me?

Mattel Won the 1st Round

Summer Garden

Tomatoes, of course. Also cucumbers, onions, chard, strawberries, chilis, herbs. Arugula seeded on its own, I’m psyched.
Best thing, however, is the compost I cooked. Rich black soil from a smelly mess of kitchen scraps and dried bougainvillea flowers. It can almost be eaten with a large spoon.

You. Must. Read. This.

She’s my friend, she’s Turkish. English is not her first or possibly even second language. But she writes AMAZING. Plus she lives in an incredible wooden Armenian house in one of the most picturesque neighborhoods of Istanbul, she’s an artist, designer, but above all, she’s smart. Very smart.
Elif, seni seviyorum.

Greek Paintings: Not Appropriation, but Maybe Easy

This funny appropriation of Rodin’s “Thinker” is by Nathan Mabry. It’s called Process Art: Dead Men Don’t Make Sculpture (2008). It’s installed with the figure’s back to the street, silly in itself, but the punch-line is when you come around and find the Halloween mask, in bronze, on his face. Kloe likes it.
Appropriation is a hard concept for students to grasp, especially when we teachers punish plagiarism in writing so harshly. I’ve been referencing Greek sculpture in my new paintings, not appropriating. Hopefully making something new that evokes the sensuality of the original marbles, but using white paint. A friend told me this work needs more edge, and I realized it’s a bit tame, but my last series was so risky I can’t even show it (that’s why I haven’t talked about it on this blog, or posted it on Art of Kloe). So maybe I need to take it easy and play safe for a while.