if you go to one opening in nyc this year, be it this one.

Announcing Radical Spirit, a pirate television broadcast, monumental sculpture, and video installation by James Case-Leal built inside the sanctuary of Lutheran Church of the Messiah in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. The exhibition will be open to the public September 28 - October 2. The broadcast signal will be receivable by the local public on their television sets on analog channel 17 during these times. Please join us for a performance and opening reception on Tuesday, September 28 from 6 to 9pm.

Lutheran Church of the Messiah - 129 Russell St. Brooklyn, NY 11222

i spent the day volunteering for james case-leal yesterday, helping to install his incredible, 'Radical Spirit' show at the Lutheran Church of the Messiah. this is the church i look out of my kitchen window to see every morning, the church the full moon rises over every month. and because i take a purely heathen and aesthetic pleasure in (most) churches, what better place to see art?

james case-leal is a sweet and talented artist i met in cuba when i was doing this (staging the first st. pat's parade in havana) and that (falling in love). he and his wife maggie also happen to be raising twins in new york city! i take my hat off to them!

so when i heard about james' amazing-sounding show and that he needed help, i came out to volunteer despite being on the upswing of an ass-kicking cold because, do you know how many volunteers i've requested, enticed, begged and bribed with mulberry cocktails during my tenure as CEO of DRI? (that's the boss's new title for me--use your imagination). hundreds. people have ridden in the back of box trucks, threshed reeds, carried ships, bundled chigger-infested plants, painted stripes on zebras, made batches of fake blood, torn down wood paneling to make oars, BAGGED SAND for chrissakes! in short, i owe the world, specifically the art world, some volunteer hours. big time.

and though i will tell you, pews are damn heavy, i had so much fun helping out yesterday because i believe in art and community...and karma. and i would also be telling the truth if i said that tonight's opening and performance, will be the best in new york city, of all of 2010. it's really cool. worth even a trek from the L train in a thunderstorm. and the show is only up for five days, cause, you know, people gotta go to church.

so come on, art-believers, come out to church!

someone, fetch me my teeth!

last night jade and i met after work for a seemingly naive and innocuous swing by art opening that turned into a surreal event of judgment.

first, to combat the inertia and laziness. jade had labored all day (saturday too!) hanging sheetrock, and i had traced all over the bronx in search of secret nyc green carts for a photo assignment. we were both beat and the trek from chelsea to deep alphabet city (avenue D and east 3rd) without a cab is something that would make the most energetic new yorker shudder.

but i had that little fairy called guilt and 'my word' hanging over my head to crack the whip and drag jade down the sidewalk toward a strange apartment building with absolutely no indication it contained an art gallery within. if i didn't have a copy of the invitation in my hand i swear i would have turned back thinking i had the wrong address. which is precisely what jade tried to get me to do. but after that walk? no way.

we tiptoed up the stairs and behold--aymar ccopacatty's show. sometimes, and these times come more rarely after thirteen years in the city, new york gives you a precious memory of what it felt like when you first landed here. where every staircase leads to an exciting mystery and a turn of a corner leads you somewhere that feels like another world. these moments are beautiful.

and there was aymar, dressed in his peruvian hat--not the knitted kind with llamas, but the leather kind that stands up to the austrailian or cowboy variety--knitting from a ball of shredded blue tarp spun yarn around his neck, surrounded by his awesome pieces woven from trash hung on cavases like paintings. though showing at 'a gathering of tribes' gallery, they managed to completely jump from the context of folk art into conceptual. a beautiful triumph and synthesis of his gemini split upbring in rhode island and peru. jade thanked me for dragging him there and declared it the best show he'd seen in a long time (naturally other than the ones we've just labored all summer over--but he's too modest to include those...).

having lasted the day on one peanut butter and jelly sandwich each, jade and i eventually migrated to the cheese and wine room. it was there that someone asked me to reach behind where i stood to grab his jacket. this one? i asked. and he gasped in mock horror: acid wash?! what do you take me for?
and i'd had enough wine to launch kitty joe style into a story. now, perhaps i haven't been writing enough drivel on my blog. you know, my blog is actually a tool of pity for those who surround me in daily life. it works as a filter so that i have somewhere to outlet these stupid memories and associations that i find so very important, thus saving the spoken world from my trivialities. the look of sheer boredom on the surrounding folks faces reminded me of this fact. and so, i'll double whammy and share here too. so this is what i said:

when i was in junior high, i wanted a jean jacket desperately, feverishly. i had no hope of attaining said object of luxury as it was not in the realm of mervyn's or the outlets (this was when you had to drive to san leandro to the outlets and they were in disparate wherehouses, not in strip malls). and then lo and behold, for reasons completely unbeknownst to me, my parents surprised me with the coveted jean jacket--just slipped it into my bedroom as if it had always been there. their expressions were proud and happy, but my stomach sank.
it was acid-washed. it was all the rage. but i hated acid-wash. i didn't listen to vanilla ice--i listened to the cure! how could this happen to me?! my dream come true turned into a nightmare.
but i was a good kid. a super guilty and obedient kid, and i understood very well that my parents were making a very special gesture. and i'd better show some gratitude fast. it even makes me squirm to admit this to this day. but i'm such a sucker for a story i just can't help myself, and maybe it's even a little theraputic to get it off my chest. though no need to alert said parental units if they're not already spying this.
so i wore that jacket every day to school for two years. i mean, i didn't actually have a choice--it was the jacket.
the end.

so two things happened when i told the story. for one, at the anti-climactic end, a tumbleweed cut through the clouds of east village art gallery smoke and rolled through the suddenly silent room.

and another, more horrific: when i set the scene and said,

'when i was in junior high in 1988....'
one of the dudes standing behind the bar gasped and yelped, far too enthusiastically,

'oh my god, i was only born the year before!!!'
which activated my super lazer eyes which accidentally burned him to a crisp on the spot.
ladies and gentlemen, i've gotten really old. i don't know how it happened, but it's true.

and i'll leave the second story for later because that's about all of the typing my arthritic hands can manage for now.

rock on

dear artist.
i like the ring of that.
three of my black and white (film!) photographs that i printed with my own hands--in a darkroom--will be displayed at credit suisse for a year in their boardroom. and for sweet irony's sake, the cocktail party will be catered by my old co-workers. nice. but i'm not bragging or anything.

the fruits of my labor

some of you have noticed that i've been absent from this blog. many of you wonder what i've been up too. others of you have noticed that i haven't returned calls. still others of you are so fed up with my neglect that i imagine it will take a lot of wooing to regain you as friends. not to mention that one of you who goes by the moniker of boyfriend, whose patience has been unending, though i know, difficulty obtained. thank you.

but here it is: the fruits of my labor and the culmination of my life of the past two packed full months. i've been interning at a not-for-profit art space in chelsea, my primary goal in the past two months, to raise thousands of dollars for the operating budget by soliciting one hundred artists to create an original art mask to be silently auctioned at The Dream of the Red Chamber Masquerade Ball on this Saturday, February, 23. notice how i switched suddenly into business mode white writing that, capitals and all....

anyhoo, our online auction is up and running, glitches mostly ironed out. feel like taking a look? click here.

so in addition to averaging 70-80 hours a week at the art space, i've also kept a pared down schedule with the artist i'm assisting, about 15-20 hours a week. plus writing papers for school, being a teacher's assistant as well as bookkeeping for a bag designer. oh, and did i mention the tattoo shop that i'm now managing?

two parts of my life have synthesized in the above mask, which my artist boss created, with a little (!) help from little ol' me. and i took the photo for the auction.

anyway, it's been exhilarating meeting and working so many talented artists, watching hard work pay off, glimpsing the art world, utilizing and building upon my prior knowledge in art and event planning and being appreciated for my efforts. I also got a chance to invite my dear life-long friend, jenilee, the super talented painter. Of course, she couldn't get in just by my invite--her work stands tall and impressed the powers that be. see her piece to the right:

i was also extremely touched when i contacted some friends from catering, mentioned i could use a little help at this pair of events, and voila, without hesitation, you were there. i really am fortunate to have such friends. thank you kathleen, ola, dan, scott, courtney, and whoever else comes on saturday.


The big ball is this Saturday. If you have $500 to blow, you're totally invited!

look close and you'll see my name on the benefit committee, naturally, misspelled.

fear of all fears, horror of all horrors, mother of all phobias

those of you who have spent any time around me are probably familiar with my aversion to needles. this extends to most things medical, but especially the evil nasty needles. i swear it all stems from the memory of having a painful operation on my foot as a child. naturally memory is the great distorter, but when the nurse picked up that needle, to 'anesthetise' my foot, i swear it was longer than my arm! and straight into that wound did she plunge that instrument of torture. i have since learned, after working for a foot doctor, that the injection should be administered between the toes, NOT smack dab in the center of the inflamed area! this is nice breakfast banter, isn't it? needless to say, i cried throughout the operation with pain from the shot, not the dry ice nor the cutting out of infected cells. and so, whole and raging, a new phobia was born. don't ask me to watch the surgery channel with you. don't ask me to listen to your tales of injuries and blood (though i'm about to regale you with mine!), because you will find me turning green and sitting down quickly. and woe is the nurse that ignores my pleas to lie down after having blood drawn--even the pinprick in the finger kind. i don't care about what's on the closest horizontal surface. i don't care if it's dirty or you have to walk over my clammy body. just let me lie there, NOW. another nurse (take note, beloved nurses-to-be of mine) felt i would be much more comfortable in this situation if i could lay down on a cot. she picked me up off the office floor and tried to walk me across the hall. and i heard, as though from a distant radio transmisssion: 'get her head!' and down i went. embarrassing, yes. totally irrational, i know. but it's just the unavoidable way my overactive mind works. consequently, (torturous and frequent dental experiences aside) i've been able to avoid the needle on several occasions. call me black hearted, but you will not ever talk me into donating blood. it's just more than i could voluntarily bring my selfish soul to do. and it's miraculous that on two occasions i have braved the tattoo needle, and will again soon. these instances have all been accompanied by the wooziness and the fainting or almost fainting episodes. i can hardly bring myself to be embarrassed anymore. i can be a tough girl sometimes. just not around needles. and gloriously, i have managed in my life to avoid other such injections. okay, so i had to spend the first day of school each year in the principal's office explaining that i belong to a cult-like religion that does not allow immunizations. i'll just ride on your vaccinations, other kids, thank you. crazy that this was cause for social ridicule, along with 'why doesn't kitty say the pledge of allegiance?' oh, that would be because i pledge my allegiance to jehovah god, not the flag. what? but i digress.
the other night my artistic and adventurous side found me joining the crew of a crazy artist who launched a homemade one-man submarine into the new york harbor. and now, time to display said once-confiscated-by-the-police vehicle at an art show. it was a strangely warm and rainy november night. the truck lurched over the cobblestone streets down on the docks of red hook, brooklyn. from the wrought iron staircase clinging to the side of the old brick warehouse, the city was blanketed in what this northern californian could only call fog, but i could see the tip of the statue of liberty's torch rising above the factories and lofts. a light rain began to fall, or rather, it felt like that fog just came over and wrapped around us. the task was to unload the steel top of the submarine out of the truck and onto a dolly to transport it to the woodshop where the barrel of the sub sat waiting to be capped off. oh, and a lot of rocks. to weigh down the submarine of course. okay, it was heavy, but i'm a strong girl (as i keep insisting!). I lift a lot of stuff. i grew up out in the garage helping my dad with cars--i'm a tough girl! keep telling yourself that, kitty, right? but the submarine cap wasn't just deathly heavy. it was also completely unwieldy, outfitted as it was with long vertical pipes, glass portals and such. fog had turned to rain and that big piece of steel was slippery! thanks be to god, gaia, martin gore, whoever--i didn't feel the steel slicing my finger like a piece of polish sausage at the hands of a greenpoint stone cold polish fox and a deli slicer. my hands were happily numb from the cold. but as i stood above the dolly trying desperately to swing those pipes around, in the dull glow of the light escaping the freight elevator, i saw a pool of blood deepening on the blond wood of the cart. the blood was gushing from my very finger! i could see that a flap of flesh was half separated from said mutilated digit. so i held pressure on it (stop gushing!) and we went upstairs to the wood shop first aid kit, leaving a trail of crimson blood to mark the way through the pale fresh sawdust on the floor. thankfully, said submarine builder is also a non-squeamish tattoo artist, wasting not a moment in flushing out the wound, pulling out a mysterious shard of steel, and bandaging my fountaining finger tight tight tight. thanks be also, to my long arms, as i lay on the filthy bathroom floor, arm extended up to the sink. and everyone shrugged and said, 'you'll be okay--when was your last tetanus shot?' and that's when the needle scratched the record and i began to freak out to have to answer--NEVER--but i sure could hook you up with some literature about jehovah god! who needs a tetanus shot? well, now that would be me. desperately. but because of a lengthy emergency room wait and my absolute fear of stitches (let's not even go there), i abandoned the hospital and found myself two days later, shaking at a stranger-to-me doctor's office saying, no really, i've never had a tetanus shot. and he looked at my finger and said, head shaking, 'how did you DO this?'
okay, and as usual, the shot wasn't so bad. yeah, my arm is sore and i feel mysteriously ill today. but the nurse was damn good. i closed my eyes and she pinched my arm a bunch of times so i didn't even feel the (gulp) needle very much. but my god, making the decision to do the right thing was so so hard and scary and only motivated by total paranoia of dying of lockjaw tetanus poisoning and i promise, next time i'll wear heavy work gloves. i have, at my disposal, many amazing images which could accompany this story, but i think it would be a copyright issue, so you'll just have to use your imaginations.
well, one little picture couldn't hurt, could it? i swear, if asked, i will remove this.