Shifting Locales

posted by Caroline Picard

So may have noticed that we aren’t posting quite as often as we used to. That’s because we’ve moved to a new site for a day-to-day blog updates. To that end, you should check out the lantern daily! While we might still post here from time to time, the bulk of our thoughts will be contained on our new blog. Which is very exciting indeed.

Passing Through the Plastic Shaman

posted by Caroline Picard

Here is article I wrote about shamanism. It’s actually about shamanism as it was depicted in an exhibit in an apartment gallery over the summer. In some way that show became a vehicle for me to think about whether or not it is possible for a Contemporary (Urban? Though I’m not sure that makes a difference…) American can appropriate/incorporate shamanic practice (though shamanic could stand in for any kind of ritualistic practice embedded in another culture) without sacrificing a degree of potency or, in this case, collapsing under ironic influences….I don’t know. I feel like it’s dangerous to draw a conclusion wherein one’s access to foreign cultural understanding is limited, but it seems just as dangerous to assume that one is capable of fully understanding a community (particularly it’s spiritual habit) by virtue of possessing/recreating its signifiers. The latter feels a little imperial. The former could lead to the celebration of biggots. Neither is ideal.

Regardless, you can read the essay by going here.

The Corpse! Week One

Busy and exciting first weekend for the Corpse Performance Space @ The Green Lantern. First up, on Friday, The Open Secret series. Curated by Brian Wallace and Joni Murphy, the Open Secret is a series of performances and talks and readings involved in investigating ideas of artistic ecology. Recent SAIC MFA’er and Chances maven Ethan A. White gave the first presentation and, as you can see above, had a bit of hard time–he lost his notes and ended up having to dig through his computer all to leave us with the above moment: the embarrassment of the desktop picture. White’s performance began with this simple “mistake” and ended up devolving into a discussion and fight with a cardboard cut-out of himself: how does the artist move from the institution of the MFA to the institution of the gallery and, in tandem, the institution of work? White’s talk/performance suggested the importance of receding from the research-based practice of the classroom to re-think the always and already stereotypically bare, flippant, performative gesture of removing one’s clothes. White’s performance became less about the artistic ecology suggested by the curatorial notes of The Open Secret and instead concentrated on the importance of inward movement.



Readings of Author’s Not Present followed from yours truly, Malcolm Sutton (who you can see below, laughing through Breton, and Brian, Joni, and an audience member. The first film screening of the Open Secret is this Saturday (Apartment by Marina Roy).



Saturday night, Marc Riordan showed up with a band of rowdy improvisors for the Now It’s Dark series. Here’s a photo of him introducing everybody:



I’ve been really excited about this series–improvised scores to experimental movies–and Marc delivered an amazing set of both. He blogged about the experience here and asks pretty much every question I had about the night:

“Is everybody playing in service to the movies? To each other? Or are the movies being screened in service to the music? To the performers? This ambiguity was in part the intent of this first performance, and reflects a central issue in improvised music, and one that comes up less in traditional filmmaking: how do we judge the success of a collaborative piece? The answer, of course, will vary depending on which collaborator you ask.”

I’ve uploaded an excerpt from the night here. It’s the soundtrack for Michelle Harris’ Boat, an amazing still shot of a warehouse on a dock. The light from the warehouse–split into windows–is reflected onto the dark water, reminding me of level meters on a mixing board. As disruptions passed through the scene–a boat, birds, a man driving machinery–these levels distorted and flickered and eventually returned to static nobility. A fascinating piece that the musicians did well with. The next Now It’s Dark happens on October 29th.

Next show at Green Lantern Gallery: Future Shock, October 1 – November 13, 2010

Hey, we’re really excited about the next show we have opening at Green Lantern Gallery, hope you can join us.

Future Shock
Curated by Abigail Satinsky
Opening Reception, October 1, 7 – 10 pm
October 1 – November 13, 2010
2542 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago, IL 60622
Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 12-6 pm

Artists: Brandon Alvendia, Conrad Bakker, Edie Fake, Library of Radiant Optimism, People Powered, Red 76, Randall Szott

Borrowing its title from sociologist Alvin Toffler’s 1970 bestseller, Future Shock is a group exhibition of artists examining yesterday’s dreams of tomorrow. Toffler warned that society was experiencing too much change in too short a time, hurtling towards an overwhelmingly technocratic future. Some of his loopy apprehensive futurism has proven correct. Today, thanks to telecommunications and the Internet, we have even more anxieties about the large amounts of historical information to dig through and a lack of a method for comparing and processing different kinds of information. Toffler’s utopian dream for technology as a tool to build a more decent democratic and humane society is still an active question. This exhibition will bring together a group of artists and thinkers who are surveying the information overload of the present and assembling creative libraries to understand how radical countercultural histories and utopian futures exist uncomfortably in the present.

Brandon Alvendia continues his Silver Galleon Press project with a new publication “Little Brother” by renowned novelist, journalist and copy-left activist Cory Doctorow. Conrad Bakker’s Untitled Project: SELF HELP is a small-scale lending library comprised of carved and painted self-help paperbacks from the 1970’s. Edie Fake’s City of Night is a series of drawings combating the erasure of local queer history by paying homage to buildings that historically served as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered social spaces in Chicago. The Library of Radiant Optimism brings together a selection of how-to books documenting cultural practices from the founding and maintenance of communal living spaces and growing your own organic garden, to early sustainable design initiatives and home birthing. Recalling some of the political struggles and utopist visions contemporary to Future Shock, People Powered presents a selection of artist and activist manifestos from 1965-1975, examining the original design and graphic styles of the printed matter as an integral part of their message. Red76’s Follow the Light. Let the Light be Your Guide is equal parts lighthouse and library, featuring a collective archive and reading group of radiant political texts and a spotlight in the gallery that becomes brighter as texts accumulate. Randall Szott’s collection of copies of Future Shock books gathered at thrift stores displays what he calls “one of North America’s most discarded books.”

***
Founder of the Silver Galleon Press, an experimental publishing project, Brandon Alvendia is an artist, educator, publisher, and independent curator living and working out of Chicago. He attended the School of the Art Institute (BFA ’03) and University of Illinois in Chicago (MFA ’07). Encompassing a variety of media, his work often features and supports the efforts of other artists. His website can be found at http://www.alvendia.net

Conrad Bakker lives and works out of Urbana, Illinois. Bakker’s ongoing Untitled Projects engage a variety of social, institutional, and consumer contexts, utilizing humor, contextual awareness, formal play, interventionist strategies, and imperfect carving and painting techniques. Bakker has exhibited his work nationally and internationally at Tate Modern (London) Galerie Analix Forever (Geneva), the New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (Chicago), Fargfabriken Center for Contemporary Art and Architecture (Stockholm), The Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (Saratoga Springs), The Blanton Musuem of Art (Austin), The Soap Factory (Minneapolis), Southern Exposure (San Francisco), Art in General (New York City), Revolution (Detroit), Bona Fide (Chicago), Suitable (Chicago), Lora Reynolds Gallery (Austin), Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies, The Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Program, Contemporary Art Museum Houston, in mailboxes and on his front lawn.

Edie Fake was born in Chicagoland in 1980 and has lived and exhibited all over the place. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 2002 and has since clocked time in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Baltimore. He returned to Chicago, where he currently lives and works, after the converted school bus he lived on broke down. His visual art work, dealing heavily with the confluence of love and fury in queer utopian visions, has been shown at LACE in Los Angeles, Dumbo Arts Center in Brooklyn, and the Nikolaj Museum in Copenhagen. He was one of the first recipients of Printed Matter’s Awards for Artists and his drawings have been included in Hot and Cold and LTTR. His first book, Gaylord Phoenix, will be published this December by Secret Acres and his next large project, drawings for a gay history map, recently won a Critical Fierceness Grant for queer art in Chicago.

The Library of Radiant Optimism is Bonnie Fortune and Brett Bloom. Bonnie Fortune is an artist, writer, and educator. When not collaborating as Let’s Re-make, her work is invested in collecting personal narratives to explore issues of environmentalism, feminism, and social support networks. Brett Bloom is addicted to collaborative work. In addition to Let’s Re-Make, he works with the group Temporary Services that runs a publishing imprint and online store Half Letter Press. Let’s Re-Make allows Brett to investigate the exciting intersections of art, ecology, social justice and transformative creativity

People Powered designs experimental pilot programs that integrate art, environmentalism, and communities. By presenting these projects in exhibitions and public locations in the city, People Powered creates a platform for discussing how these practices may intersect. Most recently, People Powered presented their Manifesto project at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis, IN.

Beginning in Portland, Oregon, in 2000, Red76 is now a nationwide network of artists, musicians, and activists who create projects that focus on ways that knowledge is produced and the myriad forms it takes. The collective’s endeavors, ranging from the operation of a month-long free clothing store and potluck restaurant on a loading dock in Portland (Ghosttown, 2006) to the episodic publishing a journal on radical histories (Journal of Radical Shimming), are designed to foster—and provoke—discussion and actions in public space.

Randall Szott is not “based” anywhere. When not working on his bio or vitae, he alternates between life in Oak Park, Illinois and various locations along the coastline of the southeastern United States on the largest US owned hopper dredge. His life is a series of three-week cycles on land and three at sea. He believes himself to be the only cook in the merchant marine with an MA in Interdisciplinary Art and an MFA in Art Critical Practices. He has presented his work at The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the California College of the Arts, and The Skydive (Houston), The Andy Warhol Museum (Pittsburgh) and The Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus). Szott frequently creates his own venues – Concept Trucking, placekraft, LeisureArts, and perhaps the only legitimate one – He Said, She Said. He has collaborated with InCUBATE, Public Collectors, Nancy Zastudil (Studiolo54), and The Public School. He is co-founding editor of 127 Prince, a journal of social practice

***
The Green Lantern Gallery & Press is a 501(c)3 non-profit gallery and paperback press dedicated to the study, presentation, and archive of contemporary art practice. The Green Lantern Gallery develops thematic exhibitions, artist projects, and public programs around the idea of artists’ research, highlighting creative inquiry, experimental processes, and explorations into social and political engagement. Committed to forming independent and sustainable models for the distribution and presentation of noncommercial contemporary art, the nonprofit Gallery and Press is partnered with the for-profit Paper Cave Bookstore and Corpse Performance Space under the umbrella of Lantern Projects in order to explore different possibilities to support artists and our local creative community. More at thegreenlantern.org.

A Lesson in Stealing

posted by caroline picard

what follows in an excerpt from erica adam’s book: on the mutation of fortune (due out via green lantern press this spring!!)

a lesson in stealing

Listen: the doll I stole was thumb size, and had the face of a fox. We had been playing in a basement crowded with boxes, and I held the doll in my fist as I went upstairs to the bathroom. I shoved the doll in my cotton underwear and my mother called for us to go home. I stood under an oak tree, felt the rub of the small doll.

I took the doll, the little fox decked in a christening gown and bonnet, and gave it to my godmother. She lived across the street. She put the doll in a wooden cradle large enough to rock a real child. It lay on the cushion, its face a small mark in the sea of white.
But it was not enough. When the moon was a fat lamp in the sky, I went to my mother in a nightgown struck with tears. I sobbed my story. She made me telephone my godmother, and I spooled the cord around my finger, winding it with every unanswered ring. When I hung up, my finger had darkened into the blue of a dead infant.

In the morning, I knocked on the door of my godmother’s house. Again, there was no answer.
My mother said, You must give one of your dolls. Put it there, on her doorstep.
I had only one. It was the size of my palm, a little brown bear in a yellow dress. A surrogate mother to the child I had stolen. I gave that one.

Then I had none.

David Moré opens TONIGHT!

and you should come!

You should also check out this article—

This Green Lantern Has Super-Artistic Powers

September 9, 2010 3:38 PM

BY SARAH TEREZ-ROSENBLUM

I’m thinking of a cultural object: Bigger than a breadbox and founded by Caroline Picard, The Green Lantern harkens to Chicago’s grassroots literary history and DIY philosophy.

Despite coincidental Trekkie and comic book connotations, The Green Lantern has nothing to do with GenCon and everything to do with art. Simultaneously a non-profit paperback press and gallery, GL publishes and distributes emerging and/or little-known works.

Additionally, as a venue, it showcases emerging and mid-career artists of all media. Begun out of Executive Director Picard’s Wicker Park apartment, GL was recently shut down for lack of a business license due to improper zoning. Now, however, the ambitious and newly relocated GL is back with a parade of upcoming projects and Gallery Director Abby Satinsky on board. Picard took a seat in the captain’s chair (ba-dum-bum) to discuss her multifaceted brainchild.

Bookstores We Love: Episode 1

Hey, Welcome to Bookstores We Love. We’ll be doing this on a ‘whenever the mood strikes’ basis, but we have a lot of love for indie bookstores, so expect to see a lot of posts like this in the future. We wanted to call attention to the bookstores that inspired us as we gear up for the launch of our own little shop, The Paper Cave.

During last year’s Dollar Store Summer Tour I had the enviable job of booking 7 readers in 11 cities across the country. Some towns we knew we wanted to hit. Home towns, fun towns. Austin, Texas where featherproof author Amelia Gray lives, and I used to. Atlanta, where Blake Butler is from. New Orleans, because New Orleans is awesome. But then there were the towns in-between. One of the big question marks was Houston. Nothing against Houston, I know a lot of nice folks from there, but we weren’t sure what kind of literary scene might be happening there. I started the usual round of calls to indie bookstores, looking for a spot, and eventually someone said “You sound like Domy people.”

I called up Russell at Domy, and he was good people indeed. The store’s site looked great, and they made a nice little write up for our event. When we got there, things were even better. I was honestly blown away at the awesomeness of Domy. They have a really great, eclectic collection of books on art, design, graffiti, counter-culture, crazy culture, and everything in-between. There are artist books and robot toys. The entire store is white, which gives it a gallery feel, and I have to say: the collection is very well curated. As well as the art! They have regular art shows with all sorts of awesome art-makers, and reading events.

Our reading was a lot of fun. We had a good crowd, and read to them out on the patio which was a great place for a reading. We caught a few people hanging out, reading and enjoying snacks from the cafe next door, and added our own group, there to see the reading. We had a big wooden porch, which we turned into a stage for a night. Domy offered us a reading discount, and we emptied our pockets. They bought a lot of our books to sell in the shop after we had gone as well. All around, a great place to have a reading, and a great discovery in Houston!

This past summer, during my annual pilgrimage to Austin, I had the chance to visit Domy Houston’s new sister store, Domy Austin, which has been open for just a year or two. Already it looks and feels amazing, with another creative mix of local and international printed matter. Austin definitely has its own vibe, with less toys and more DVDs, but the same Domy awesomeness is definitely to be found. Russell, who moved to Austin to open the Domy store, was kind enough to show Ally and I around, and we browsed and took photos and talked shopped until we had to run to the airport.

Two great bookstores deep in the heart of Texas! Recommended for all who live there, and any who visit.

This Season and its Performative Things

As the performance web site and calendar for the gallery is slowly coming together, I thought for my first blog post I’d give a quick overview of some of the different series and events we’ll be producing this fall.

The Open Secret: Curated by Brian Wallace and Joni Murphy, this series delves into how artists invest themselves in local community while still keeping an eye to the internet and the various new communities cyber-space affords. This series will be a mish-mash of artist talks, performances, and film screenings from those local and distant that’ll be wrapped up into a sassy publication.

Now It’s Dark: Local improvisor/art-music/nice hair dude Marc Riordan curates a series of experimental films with improvised scores other local improvisors. Marc was at the space yesterday telling me and Abby about one of the movies he’ll be showing: Peanut-butter and Robin the Boy-Wonder is all I’m gonna say. David Moré-who’s show of sound portraits is up at the moment-will be lending his singing saw to the movies, and Jeff Kimmel, Jason Roebke, and Brian Labycz will be around too.

Quiet Circle:More improvisation, but rather than facing a screen, the musicians will be arranged throughout the gallery–the better to make subtle noises that investigate spatiality and notions of collaboration at a distance, my dear. Everything I’ve ever seen curator Noé Cuéllar do is smart (pressed suit rather than SAT) and luscious (folds of thick corduroy rather than lip gloss): ten people playing politely in a circle isn’t just an idea he had, it’s his thing.

As Yet Untitled Experimental Movie Night:Co-curator Jesse McClean has been in Venice for the film fest for the last few days, so we’re still working out the title for this one, but it’s gonna be a doozy: three nights of film that investigate the connections between director and audience. 20 minute Van Halen solos? Middle school kids cussing? The entire cast of Hello Dolly recording the entire Harry Smith folk archive set under heavy sedation? One of these things will not be apart of this series. Co-curated with Eric Fleischauer.

As Yet Untitled Established Authors talking to Younger Authors:I really want to call this night Crosstalk! or At the Table! or Around the Coyote! (…) to give it the Sunday morning TV zazz I think it deserves. This night is being curated by Beth Sampson, who’s working on the new School of the Art Institute journal Dear Navigator, and she’s got poets coming out of her ears/flying in from all over, all of whom I can’t talk about yet. Why am I doing so? Because poetry is a passive-aggressive media.

The Parlor also begins tonight with Gina Frangello and continues through December: Atomix regular Adam Levin will be up in October reading from his new book from McSweeney’s and urban-running-womyn Lindsay Hunter reads sideways from her new featherproof book in November.

An interview with David Moré

Hello! this is my first blog post as the Gallery Director at Green Lantern. We’re really excited about our opening this Saturday September 11 from 7-10 pm for David Moré’s show Normal Bias. For each exhibition we’re putting together a publication that will include things like interviews, essays, and documentation of artists’ projects. Here’s our interview with David, the rest of the publication will be available for download from the website starting Saturday. See you this weekend at our new location, 2542 W. Chicago Ave. And we’ll have open hours next week from Tuesday through Saturday 12-6 pm. Yea, we’re opening! -Abby

A conversation between David Moré, Caroline Picard and Abigail Satinsky.

AS: So let’s start by talking about when you began making instruments.

DM: Probably six or seven years ago?

AS: You were drawing before that right?

DM: Yeah. I think I kind of I came to a realization that “I’m drawing or painting just so I can hang out in my studio and listen to records. That’s real dumb.” I’ve also had this kind of uncomfortable relationship, as far as being a cultural producer, I would go to more shows and buy more records than I did books or go to art galleries. And I actually had an instructor who brought that up and said something like, “You kids buy so many CDs, when was the last time you bought a really good book about artists?” And I think it’s a pretty common thing. But yeah, I’m not a musician. Even though it seems like I should maybe try to be, it seems like the format of being in a band and having this relationship where there’s an audience and you’re presenting your music and asking for peoples’ time is not a natural thing for me. And I’ve played instruments before, so I don’t think it’s a patience issue of whether I should just sit down and learn to play the cello.

CP: Do you think it’s weird to think of these homemade instruments as being your medium? It seems like there is a difference between an artist that works with painting and pens and charcoal versus a musician. But then it also seems like you’re using these acoustic tools as a traditional artist would pens or charcoal.

DM: Yeah that’s nice because I occupy a difficult in-between place. You can’t really play a song on a spring and a piece of wood, but you can produce this other kind of thing and that’s what led to this project [sound portraits]. Thinking “Hey I should find a context for these things I do.” You can’t do like a Beethoven cover record on styrofoam.

CP: Can you talk about how you found or came upon this context of making sound portraits in the gallery?

DM: Well it originated from when Temporary Services did the Fair at UIC’s Gallery 400 and I got asked to do something. And so the fair was mostly people presenting publications or other things they had made or that were easily salable. And so I thought, “Fair, hmm, it’s called Fair. Maybe you can get your portrait done like you do at fairs, like a caricature. Cool, yeah! Audio portraits! Yeah that’s a great idea!” So I took this opportunity at Green Lantern to see if I could expand on it. And like you said, now I have more space to move around…

AS: How did you think it worked at Gallery 400?

DM: It was OK, it was fun. I think it worked alright because it was one day in a really cramped space. I definitely think that doing it at the Fair involved relating to an initiated audience. People knew they were going to an art fair. But here, [at The Green Lantern] I’ve been able to get people who are just passing by. And that’s some what interests me. The way I can relate to them, like “I do this kind of weird thing but what do y’all think, what is this music?”

AS: That’s interesting to me that you say the people at the fair would be the initiated and the people that would walk into the gallery aren’t. Because even though we are testing out ways to be something other than a totally traditional gallery space, for most people this is definitely a gallery. There are a bunch of objects on display that they’re going to look at and judge.

DM: But I don’t think this place is obviously a gallery yet and that’s the sense I get from people coming in like, “Wait, so what is this…?”

AS: Right, we’re still in a state of ambiguity…

DM: …and so it’s only a temporary gallery and you’re going to move in January..

CP: …the space right now is full of plants and furniture and curious tables with unusual homemade instruments…

[laughter]

DM: I also kind of like and hate when people ask what I’m doing. I don’t really know but I’m going to try it first and then try to figure out. That process can be pretty infuriating, but it’s also nice because ultimately I might learn something. It feels like an actual experiment.

AS: Well it’s an experiment but there’s also parameters. The participants know where to sit, how long it’s going to take, etc. Which actually, I feel, is really helpful in a lot of ways in terms of getting people to feel comfortable if they know what the parameters of the space they’re occupying because these instruments are such curiosities too.

CP: I agree. It’s interesting with this portraiture set up that people have so many expectations about what their portrait is going to look like. And then I think that there’s also this tendency to read into how somebody describes you as to whether or not they like you or they think you’re a good person or they think you’re attractive. And I think that by making this soundscape the result is already so abstract that it seems to cut a lot of that stuff out, or at least make it very transparent, you know, because you’re like “Whoa there was that weird squealing sound I wonder if it means that David thinks I’m depressed.” And then you’re like, “What am I doing? That’s idiotic. It’s just a sound. ”

[laughter]

AS: Yeah when I see people come in and sit in the chair, they feel special. It’s even true when I was sitting there, I thought, this is just for me. And it reminds me also of another portrait experience. When I was ten, I went to New Orleans with my family. I got my portrait drawn in the touristy part in town. I remember it didn’t look anything like me and I was so disappointed because I felt like I had just sat there for so long! Somehow I thought the portrait would explain something about me, like it would be the window into my soul or something. And then actually getting it and thinking, “Oh you didn’t get me at all!” That is so sad! I don’t even know what happened to the drawing itself, but I remember vividly the expectation of the portrait to really be me and then realizing that that fleeting encounter failed miserably.

DM: Yeah I have never sat for a portrait like that but I imagine that it would be like the expectation of a kind of truth about yourself which is, I mean, that’s nuts! But maybe it’s a mistake that I’ve entered into making people’s portraits using audio. But I’ve been working on it and actually trying to give it a shot and find some parameters and maybe there’s some way you can gauge like, wow you’ve actually got me! Some people sitting have said “Oh wow that’s actually pretty accurate! You were right on there.” And they’re joking a little bit but there is something there. The idea of someone sitting there making abstract noises and then someone else relating those to their life is actually a pretty wild idea.

CP: Can you talk more about your selection of sounds?

DM: One of my concerns is drawing attention to everyday sounds. I think that is a common theme that there’s all these interesting sounds going on around us and if we start paying attention to them, it can be a really fulfilling experience. I can also make the analogy of when I was drawing a still life or an object or a friend, it would really change your relationship to the person or to the object just because you’re so intensely looking at your subject. You can kind of get the same thing just by walking around with a tape recorder and anytime you click it on, you’re paying attention to everything that’s happening around you. I had a really sweet experience a couple of years ago. I was walking around in Havana with this guy, and during a power outage, I said I wanted to make a recording of a generator. When I switched the recorder on he was quiet and when I was done he said, “That was so amazing, as soon as you turned that thing on I just noticed all the amazing street sounds and generative sounds just from taking this walk in this darkened city.” Focusing on surrounding sounds can be a really rich experience.

I want there to be a lot of humor involved too. Yesterday for one of the portraits I took a cymbal and I was bowing it in the bathroom. It was really really loud but at least there was this spatial difference in the sound. Also, with a lot of the work I’m interested in doing, sound doesn’t have to come from two speakers, even though that’s the way a lot of people perceive it.

The only thing I guess I don’t know how it’s going to end. There is going to be a formal gallery opening and I am collecting all the portraits. They are definitely a gift, they are a gift for the person whose portrait I took.

But I am also recording them all digitally and I’m going to have an archive. So on a personal level a lot of the project is getting composition ideas because you have to improvise on the spot to see what these people sound like, right? The project is kind of like a big exercise for me.

CP: Does that mean that over the course of a day before you come into the studio, you think about different sort of compositional progressions?

DM: Well, I think the project potentially builds a more efficient process to describe what someone sounds like which sounds like a completely ridiculous idea. But it is kind of good to make your brain do this thing that doesn’t really make any sense. Just to see if it comes up with anything else, a solution to this ridiculous problem.

Prepping books

posted by caroline picard

Things are getting closer. Of course it’s still months from the point of releasing books to the public, but I’m almost finished laying out/proofing Fiction at Work–a collection of flash fiction culled from the online journal of the same name. And I’m due for the last edits of Erica’s On The Mutation of Fortune; I’m about halfway through the layout process on that one. Kordian is also almost finished and Amira’s text, Forgery, is ready for layout. And bam. There it is. Probably means we’ll release these books early next year. Hopefully, hopefully in the new space.

The space that does not, as yet, exist. I was looking at a space over in Logan Square pretty seriously. It looked amazing, a three story building with a substantial storefront. The basement, as it turns out, was almost entirely saturated with water: meaning the wooden support beams were 92% wet. The inspector had a yellow hand-held contraption with two little prongs that flipped out upon the depression of a button. When inserted into wood, they measured the water therein. So onward, yet again.

Of course I’m worried about how long it might actually take to get a space. Every single dream I’ve had this summer has involved some aspect of architecture. So much so, that I’ve almost convinced myself that all my dreams must be that way, about architecture. In the meantime, though, we’re doing great work, devising strategies to support the gallery via fundrasising, and of course the public programs and exhibits start this week. And soon, soon the bookstore will be live, on-line as well…

More updates to come.