Happy Friday...

This photograph, by artist Rosemary Laing, was on the cover of my issue of Artkrush today. A nice way to begin the weekend. Read more about how Laing creates her work here.

I'm not sure what I'll be up to this weekend. I had a minor surgical procedure yesterday and am milking it for all its worth today: sitting in my boy's ugly brown recliner watching back to back sex and the city dvds. Yes, I'm feeling better.

So what are you up to? Let me know if you've got any artsy plans for the weekend. Leave me a comment.

also...

Over the weekend, somewhere, I lost my new fountain pen! Because I'm now addicted to writing with these fine instruments, it needed immediate replacement. The replacement, by Lamy, has a much stronger clip, so when I attach it to my canvas bag, I think it'll stay put, unlike the Waterman, which I'm pretty sure slipped off somewhere Saturday or Sunday: I had it at a Friday meeting, and by Sunday, it was nowhere to be found.

Weekend in Review

Hi everyone. So I hope you all had a good weekend and did something artsy. I did a few artsy things and a few non-artsy (but fun) things. First, the artsy.

David Matysiak's premiere of his Telephono Project at the Bemis Underground on Thursday nigh was a) packed and b) really cool. The overflow crowd drained all the red wine from the BU before we even got there - a first! - but we still managed to enjoy watching Jadon Ulrich create images for Matysiak's collaborative songs. After the show, I bought one of only 250 Telephono box sets, which include record albums of all the songs and a CD featuring all the tunes for your ipod or car stereo. Nice.

Saturday night's MUNNY Party, also at the Bemis Underground, was another packed event. The MUNNY dolls designed by local artist were very cool -- I especially liked Renee Hoover's bird MUNNY. A satellite Kidrobot store sold some groovy goods and my sister and I both popped for some keychains and zipper pulls. I got the cute coffee cup, part of the Yummy Breakfast Keychain series pictured at left. So appropo, right? What's fun about it is that you buy one sight unseen and don't know what you get until you open the box. Very Cracker Jack, grab-baggy, but I like the result of my purchase.

In non artsy news, I saw the new Batman movie this weekend. I'm a closeted comic lover and I always look forward to anything in the Batman franchise as he's definitely my favorite superhero. This latest incarnation of darker, grimmer Batman movies have been great, and Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is as notable as all the talk says it is. Even if you're not into blockbusters or comics, I'd recommend seeing it for Ledger's performance alone.

Yesterday, Alyssa Schukar (who donated her image for the site banner art) had a pool party/BBQ at her parents' house in Lincoln. She and her family were lovely hosts, and the steamy 90 degree weather was perfect for pool partying and grilling. I made two types of veggie burgers for the party, all of which were a real hit (if I do say so myself, they really were good.) So if you're wanting to try something new in the food department, I highly recommend either of these recipies, both courtesy of Martha Stewart. Enjoy.

Mediterranian veggie burgers with mint yogurt sauce

Veggie burgers with tahini mayonnaise

On e-newsletters

I just finished going through some emails and read the latest issue of Artkrush, a bi-weekly arts email newsletter put out by the fine people at Flavorpill. If you like/love/practice art, you should subscribe to this well written, thought provoking, relevant web-magazine.

(If you're also a fashionista, I recommend subsrcibing to Flavorpill's JC Report, which is similiar to Artkrush but covers the fashion world. I subscribe to both and they're equally well done.)

Artkrush led me to this review from the New York Times, beautifully written by Holland Cotter, of the Louise Bourgeois retrospective at the Guggenheim. I blogged about the show already in the New York posts from when I was in the city earlier this month. This review made me wish I could see this show again.

Ok. Carry on.

The importance of writing

So I type much faster than I write, and when I do put pen to paper, the pen had better be nice. This of course doesn't have anything directly to do with art, but surely, a nice pen can turn the simple act of writing into an art form.

A few weeks ago, I bought a couple disposable fountain pens and I like them a lot. They're by Pilot and called the Varsity. Here's what they look like. Cute, right?

Well, the first pen is almost already out of ink and I realized, much to my chagrin, that it was awfully wasteful to toss the entire pen once its empty. I mean, that's a piece of plastic that I'm contributing to a landfill that I'd just assume not throw in the trash. So that led to a rather exhaustive ebay search for a fountain pen of reasonable price with replaceable ink cartridges. I settled on one by Waterman, which was less than $40, stylish and refillable. It's called the Phileas Demonstrator and I chose to order it in clear, which I think is pretty sweet. I also ordered some chocolate brown ink: I might as well be stylish with my new, "earth friendly" pen. Anyhow, if you like a fountain pen and fancy being a bit old school, the pens come in lots of colors and the ink refills come in every color of the rainbow. Choose your own sylish combination and put all those stolen Bics back in the supply room at your office. Your notebooks - and the Earth - will thank you.

P.S. Here's my pen.

Telephono

Tomorrow night, David Matysiak will premiere his "Telephono" Project. (read about it here if you're unfamiliar.) The listening and album release party starts at 8 p.m. in the Bemis Underground. Matysiak's limited edition box set of five vinyl records archive the Telephono project, which includes contributions from musicians worldwide. The participants altered Matysiak's recordings before passing them on to another artist. I've never heard this type of "transformative" music project and I'm excited to check it out. Omaha video artist Jadon Ulrich will create some live visuals on site tomorrow night. The Telephono project has gotten some big time press -- it's been in both USA Today and on NPR. The party, of course, is free.

I just finished putting together the list of story assignments for the August issues of The Reader, and summer's art scene is in full bloom. There's some great stories on the docket, and the paper is free every week, so I hope you pick it up.

One other thing: last week I made mention of this blog at the end of my column, Mixed Media, in the paper. If you came to the site via the Reader, please let me know! I am curious if anyone saw that and took the time to visit. You can either leave me a comment or send me an email at boomsbaker@gmail.com.

See you soon.

For your viewing pleasure...

As a farewell to my friend Jake Gillespie, I present to you one of his beard drwaings. You might reognize the person in the drawing. (or you might not. She's incognito.)