Josh in Failing Light, Mott & Prince ManhattanOne of the more interesting and enjoyable modalities in New York is the life lived on the sidewalk. Maybe that's cliché, but for good reason. There are few, if any places on the West Coast where time spent in a car does not take up a good percentage of non-working waking hours and the New York sidewalk turns out to be a perfect salve to a life spent bouncing around in a tin box with wheels. I have only ever hung out with Josh incidentally, on the sidewalk or in a shop. I've never been to his apartment, never met him for a drink, never bumped into him at a party. He inhabits that unique New York category of "Street Friend." In this sort of passerby relationship, details about the personal life come both fast and slow. While I perceived, nearly instantly, that he is sweethearts with Abbie, a painter friend who I initially met at our local, it took me a lot longer to learn that he is an artist in his own right. Longer still to find out that he is a fellow struggling-to-get-in-the-water surfer. It's an enjoyable way to slowly get to know someone, piecemeal, as it happens anyway.
6 comments:
Really nice post. And I love his works on paper.p
great artwork for sure.
I have a warm place in my heart for Klein Tools, and that bag pulled me in two directions.
Direction 1: The Klein identity belongs with the utility that Klein brings to electricians. Get that bag out of the hands of that art-ridden fellow tromping the streets of a hip New York neighborhood.
Direction 2: I want one.
Great post, Mr. T. I like to think of ways to define community. One way that I have thought in the past is that community is about conflict. While the image of community that is held up by people trying to self consciously build community is that of a perfectly multicultural crowd holding hands, genuine community comes from dealing with disagreements.
Now, I think I would like to add in the idea that community is defined by transportation. Really, a car community is different than a subway community. Wonder what a pogo community would be like.
The majority of "artists" I know in New York makes his or her living by doing non-art. Really, the only way most of these people know how to make their living doing non-art is with their hands. Electricians, carpenters, drywallers. Also waiters and waitresses and bartenders. This fellow had actually just gotten off work where he actually employed that bag to its stated purpose.
This sort of mindless thumbing of the nose at a perceived obviously hipster sentiment rankles my sensibilities in the most poignant way.
That being said, it is true that our first notions are based on the instant perception. To this I think it is fair to say that it is understandable enough that your mind went in direction #1.
However, to drywall in the fastest, hardest city in America to fund an artistic vision, I hope we might agree, is as sincere as anything else.
I am sorry that I rankled you. I can understand why the rankling happened. However, my intention was really to just mock my own reaction to the great pictures and prose you posted.
I constantly knock my own relationship with Perceived Bourgeoisie Lifestyle (PBL). It is all my own self consciousness, a quaint flaw that is my favorite flagellate -- it has just enough range to reach my own behind.
I like to do the self flogging in public to maximize my shame per whipping ratio.
Yeah, boy was I rankled. But you gave me some sort of high horse, upon which I now sit, all the way up there in my own special saddle of shame.
Post a Comment