Miles Neidinger and Justin Farkas at La Esquina

I love all these car fenders. I can only hope that they where found from street corners around Kansas city, but sadly thats probably not true.

I like this piece a lot as well. Its a little more sparse then I usually see Justin working.

Failed Asparagus

My first attempt at grilling Asparagus went bad the other day as  it all sadly burnt. My second attempt though was much more successful. Though I didn't photograph it.

Me and President Bush

I've apparently been channeling President Bush in my art. 

Also at the Nerman Museum

Wondering around the Nerman Museum I also found these works of art interesting.

I can't remember this painters name but he teaches at the school.

The Cute security guard refered to this Dan Cameron piece secretly as "The Golden Girls Kleenex."

The Nerman Museum is the new Grand Arts

It's official the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College not only has the best contemporary art in town, but a decent selection of food at there openings.  Unlike the Kemper, this food was out for all to take, and with plenty of sodas, water, wine and beer.  The theme of the food was "New Mexico" with inspired cuisine that tries to evoke the them of the current exhibition "Unfolding Tradition: Rio Grande Textiles.  My favorite where the hot poppers, followed by some southwestern tortilla chips dipped in guacamole to cool off my taste buds.  After dropping one plate I realized that they don't have trash cans in Overland Park. Magical Asian women in bow-ties and white shirts appear to clean up the mess. Who knew?

It wasn't that long of a drive out to Kansas to visit the Museum, and it was nice being one of the few people under thirty. Eyeing this fact I wanted to whore myself out to some Overland Park art collectors but decided not to.  The textile show was better then I thought it was going to be with some truly unique pieces.  

If you get a chance make sure you hit up the next Nerman Museum opening.

Check it out. Chocolate that looks like rocks. It's both decoration and edible!!!

You can't even tell the difference between a chocolate rock and a real one!

Terrastock 7

Braving the border of Indiana and Kentucky, me and my friend Joe headed to Terrastock 7. The first night was filled with the die-hards of the Phycodelic music festival. By die hards I mean men in there late twenties to mid-forties who would be classified as music dorks. I feel safe in saying this because I to am a music dork. The women in the venue could be counted on one hand, while most of them seemed to be with the bands. Friday afternoon was nice eating my bagel to the beautifully vicious sounds of Sharon Krauss, which also lead to swooning over the cute girls in Black Forest/Black Sea.

Saturday brought out the hipsters in bright neon colors, and skinny jeans, with matching urban outfittered out girlfriends. But the music was awesome, from Tara Jane Oneil, to the incredible set by Bardo Pond. Sunday was the last day and felt like Thursday again with the majority of the crowd being diehards and band members. The best set of the day came from my hometown Virginia region Pelt, followed by Jack Rose and The Black Twigs. Makoto Kawbata ended the festival with the wailing of his classical/nosie music of solo guitar, which briefly slipped into a meta-narrative on the guitar riff from his band Acid Mothers Temple. All in all it was a great musical experience that I want get to see again for two years, but will be well worth a long car ride through the MidWest.

Barnes & Noble Missed Connection

About a week or so ago I did another missed Connection at Barnes & Noble. This time I had girls I know (thanks Brittany and Sharese) hand write the notes on stationary which I then slipped into books that looked interesting, popular, or funny.

Block Party at La Esquina

Missed Connection Intervention at Loose Park

Group Show at Byron Cohen Gallery

James Woodfill

Julie Farstad

Julie Farstad

Fall Into Summer Hunger: Marcie Miller Gross at Review Studios

Marcie Miller Gross’s fiber work opened at Review Studios Gallery space on Friday May 9th. And brought out Kansas City’s Art Scene. Walking into the space I was greeted by a large amount of Boulevard Wheat Beers alongside piles of cashews, Strawberry’s and even a bowl of Jelly Belly jellybeans. I took my time gathering a plate of food and beer and moving through the crowd of mostly late 30’s to 40’s Kansas City artist and entered the gallery.

Marcie Miller Gross’s work mostly works with industrial and medical cloths and felt usually folded and stacked. She sees her work as dealing with weight, density, and equilibrium finding parallels to the body and human conditions.

Eating a strawberry I looked up at the wall of sweaters which looked like it had been stacked and cut, and then evenly hung and placed by each other like wind chimes flattened. Noticing familiar sweater patterns I thought these pieces would look great next to the pile of winter sweaters lazily thrown in my closet.

Next to this piece laid strands of colored strings hung in pairs loosely on the wall with each pair of strands forming specific loops, and knots with the occasional string jetting out and connecting to each other. The colors predominantly dark reds, greens, and blues covered over half the wall and seemed to be the strongest work in the show with the physicality and frailness of the strands evoking the looseness and strength of human connections.

Opening my beer and licking up the salt from my cashew I stopped and looked at the work on the floor. Strewn across the floor were several 3 foot long pieces of felt in Gap Fall colors of orange, heather grey, emerald blue, and dark green each individually sewn together in the middle, in shapes resembling snowboards. I contemplated that perhaps Miller-Gross had a son who was into skate boarding and snowboards, and perhaps that this was an influence? Outside of that notion the work didn’t seem to activate the space, or my mind in the same way as the strands.

Quickly glancing back up I wondered passed the Kansas City art elite ending on a wall housing a long wide block of one inch dial pieces of felt stacked on top of each other. The dark auburn colors seemed to evoke fall while also coming too close again at looking like cut up Gap sweaters further invoking memories of fall, and winter. Wandering out of the gallery to grab more beer and cashews I wondered whether I had spent more time looking at art, or filling my stomach.

CiCi's Pizza Video

This is a video I made with Mark Ridgeway and Erin Hinz documenting our experience at CiCi's Buffet Pizza.

Control: Puppet Video

This is a video I made with the puppet I created of myself.

Boys 2 Men: Paul Shortt and Clayton Skidmore