Rome baby!

I'm in Rome now, and every day I see more amazing art than I can possibly write about. I have thousands of pictures and tons of great stories and I'm completely in love with about a million things a day. Today? A fragment of a giant foot that was on the grass near a restoration in progress that's taking place off of the Appian Way. There's another giant foot fragment in Rome that's on Via dei Piedi or something- this is not that foot. That's good too, but that's a human foot. This one was about three feet wide and well, see for yourself.




I'm working on a new large drawing and have done a few small ones, but those will be posted later. For now, though, some random pictures of things I love in Rome. Not even close to a complete list.



Bernini's Bee Fountain



and his elephant. Pretty much everything Bernini is great, including his buffi baffi. This elephant is outside of the church called Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. Which I also love, not least because its name translates as "St. Mary on top of Minerva." Because it is. The old temple to Minerva is underneath it somewhere.



Why fake what you already have? This is in that same church, and it's reeeeaaaalll....



These ladies are on the top of the National Museum of Modern Art.



And this guy, whose name I think is Mithrades, is in the Vatican.



Another fountain, this time outside the Villa Borghese, which you can look up if you want to understand this fine simile: as pigs are to mud, Sam is to Rome.

The Infant Asterios

In the process of working on my big book project I made a very tiny book that I'm selling online at Quimby's for a whopping $7. Quimby's is a fabulous bookstore and they were nice enough to feature my book this week on their home page. If you want one you can get it here.

These images are pages from the book- I'm pretty sure that the cover image is larger than actual size.







Asterios is the name that Minos gave to the Minotaur when he was born. The minotaur, in case you're not up on your classical monsters, was the son of Minos and Pasiphae, a sorceress. Kind of. You can look it up. I would explain, but I'm going to Rome any minute now and unless I get about fifty things done in the next week I'm going to have to exchange my plane ticket for a one way ticket to crazy town.

Quimby's doesn't stock too many copies of the book, so if you want one and they're out I'd appreciate it if you'd comment and let me know. (These tiny minotaur books are in stores for a limited time only! Get yours today! )

Dinky Drawings (no Shrinky)

Want to know how to say a funny moustache in Italian? You know you do: i buffi baffi. Now, please, use that in a sentence. Or as a personal mission statement. I don't care.

I'm getting ready to go teach in Rome for a semester, so I'm trying to learn Italian. I've also been making some tiny drawings while I'm printing pages for the artists' book I'm making. My printer is slow and my computer is small, so when I print, my computer hangs up for what seems like at least six hours. I print a lot, so I started working on little drawings in the down time. These are at Gallery Joe, and the one called "Sensitive" is going to be in their summer group show.















Bigger versions of these pieces are on my website on the drawings page.

My book project is coming along very well, if I do say so myself, and I've finally managed to make an etching that I really love! Gallery Joe set me up with James Stroud from Center Street Studio and he made me a fabulous tool that's letting me make tiny tiny marks- it's a sewing needle stuck in to a piece of wood, and it's genius. I just got back the first proof of my etching and it looks really great- I can't wait to get it finished.

In other news, I was a finalist for the Pew Fellowships in the Arts this year. Pretty cool! The artists who won this year are super geniusy, so I was in good company. Big ups, as my friend Carolyn would say, to Rob Matthews, Daniel Heyman, Anthony Campuzano and Nami Yamomoto! (Carolyn is very street because she's a pHD candidate at Penn.)

I must not blog! (I blog.)

I'm still busy like a bee working on the big artists' book project and my etchings and I've also been doing a series of very small drawings that I'm excited about. I'm using colored magic markers in addition to the ballpoint pen and I'm loving it.

But I'm not going to post images of those yet. I'm bringing them to Gallery Joe first, and (first rule of bad blogging) I'm trying to avoid posting too much so that I can concentrate on getting more art made.

It should be easy to decide not to post to my blog, but being in the studio making a lot of work means, for me, listening to a lot of podcasts, which makes me want to blab about them. I've found some great ones.

The Philadelphia Free Library has a podcast of their author events, several of which are amazing, especially this one by Lynda Barry. I went to this event, and it was a hilarious, brilliant talk: I think everyone should listen to it. But I'm bossy that way.



Marilynne Robinson and Etgar Keret & Rivka Galchen were also good, but I would advise people to lay off the Salman Rushdie, Nanci Pelosi or Joyce Freaking Carol Oates. If you listen to hers don't say I didn't warn you.

Another great podcast that has taken me through hours of scratching at my etching plate with a tiny tiny needle is the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. I love this thing. It's great. I haven't heard a bad one of these yet.

I've also just found out that hulu.com has art21 episodes online Which means that even if you don't have the DVDs you can watch amazing artists talking about their work for free online. Go hulu!

Now it's back to the studio for me. Ciao!