11 hours in the big apple

At the last minute my husband and I decided to surprise a friend who is having an open studio in NYC this weekend. Since it was a spontaneous adventure I spent the time on the train pouring over the New Yorker magazine for art show listings and sketching out our plan of attack for the day. To avoid carrying around handfuls of printouts, addresses, post-it notes and pages of the magazine, I collaged the highlights into my sketchbook. (and it made my bag lighter) I planned our day according to art needs verses neighborhoods. By the time we arrived in Manhattan I had planned out enough gallery, museum, and paper store visits for three weeks.

My friend Rodney Durso's studio was filled with powerful large scale fearless paintings. We met while studying inventive forms of image making at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts this summer. After reviewing his work we bounced around several other gallery's in the neighborhood that happened to have collage shows up. It's motivational to see the different combinations of color, composition, and materials that others are creating. I felt the urge to start experimenting on the spot. The more I see the more I love.

New York is covered with interesting images. It's like one big art installation (sprinkled with plenty of hot dog vendors) Next we headed over to see the Picasso show at the Whitney Museum of Art. It was enlightening to see how much he had influenced the art that was being created in his lifetime, and still continues to do so. I'm going to have to look closer at my Picasso books this week.