Arizona (tasty divey food)

sometimes the best food comes from places like this

Freddy's Steakburgers. very thin burgers made from steak, they come with pickles, onions, mustard i think, i had a triple with cheese when i was treated (by Uncle Tim) to this great meal. the fries are super thin, sort of like shoestring potatoes and very very good!!! i'm feeling hungry just thinking about it. so if you are in Arizona (Phoenix) i recommend stopping in at Freddy's for a real greasy tasty meal!
now this next place is something of a different animal all together... RITOS Burritos (or burros as they are called)
this is the sign inside the store. the food is extraordinary, i have been eating these burros since i was about 10 i would guess. really the choices have always been "red" "green" or "bean"... the red chili is a pork chili filling the burro with shredded pork and amazing red chili flavor (a little more bitter than a green chili would be.) the green chili is chunks of pork in a great green chili sauce (i know i don't really have to describe these, but mmmmmmm they are so good!).
this is a picture of the bean burro that i split with my sister Laura, the beans are excellent, very runny but the flavor is just about perfect (obviously made with a good amount of lard)! i have to stop writing about it or i might start drooling just thinking about it. anyway, you can clearly see the address in the picture of the price board so if you need to find it, that is the most advice i can give you. thanks to Aunt Kay and Uncle Alan for taking us to get our burro fix! it was great!

Arizona (fancy foodie food)

following the theme of food... my sisters and i were staying the night with Aunt Kay and Uncle Alan and they wanted to take us out to dinner and our cousin Christopher and his wife Zoe joined us. FANCY DINNER. i can't recall what all the food was, but i do know it was really good! we had a couple of bottles of wine (a Malbec and something else) each person ordered an appetizer and a main course AND we split two desserts! what a tasty night... i'm going to let the food tell the tale:

this was the general sentiment about the food... (clean plates all around)

it was a great night with good conversations and great family and good food.

Arizona (beans and cornbread)

my reason for going to Arizona wasn't really happy in the traditional sense... my Grandma (Bonita Hunter) had ended her stay here on the earth and is in Heaven with her Savior Jesus. so it was bittersweet, bitter because she was gone but sweet because i know where she is now. she was a wonderful woman (a model for many other women to look at and follow after) and the type of Grandma anyone would be blessed to have. when i arrived at the airport, my Dad was there and we were picked up by his brother my Uncle Tim. we arrived at Uncle Tim's house to the smell of freshly cooking beans and cornbread which was being prepared for services that were going to take place later that day. i got to take a small bowl of beans with me in the car when we left the house:

beans and cornbread was always one of the most important meals at Grandma and Grandpa's house. really it is comfort food and the most easily related to Grandma, the beans flavored by a nice piece of salt pork, and plenty of butter and honey for the cornbread! mmm. i am blessed to have known my Grandma and thankful that i can carry the beans and cornbread tradition on with my own family.

Arizona (some things i saw)

upon arriving in AZ the first thing i photographed was the classic (at least to me) look of Arizona, plus there was some kind of mark on the car window that i was shooting through so it looks like a plume of dirt in the sky.
a moldy beautiful cactus paddle. i love the color of it.
a longer exposure of some native plant against the sky
a strawberry milkshake spilled outside a burger joint (this picture is special because i was thinking of my Uncle Willie when i took it, because he had told me the day before that he likes the photos that i post here on my blog that are of stains... so this one is for you Uncle Willie)
pretty birds on a wall
love the color of the sky in Arizona in the evening
tree, cactus, and moon
great geometry... plus the boxy lamp and lamp post is pretty great
it was very green (i guess that there had been much more rain this year than years past)
a plane from the car
this is what Arizona is to me. i love the color of the sky against the hills, it reminds me of when i was a child and visiting almost every year.

Omaha art

went to Bemis Center of Contemporary Art (http://www.bemiscenter.org/) and saw some really nice work. i don't know who most of these artists are but some good work.

kind of still work, i like the subtle colors and structure of it.
these two round ones are by the head of the painting department at SAIC Michelle Grabner. the first one is silverpoint on a painted panel. it was a very nice surface, very shimmery and light. it changed while walking past it, each angle gave a different kind of look.
i think this other one is all paint.
pretty good painting, fun to look at.
this orange thing was good too, really electric kind of color and shape.
this piece is probably my favorite that i saw at the Bemis Center, really simple and like a mattress on the wall and it was installed in a hallway but very strong. not even sure how to describe it but it was a great piece.
nice texture
cool entry to the restrooms, plus a nice sculpture outside
like the multi panel work
more paint (love the movement and drips)
this was a really great neon piece in the floor. kind of funny to claim the floor...

Omaha non-art

i'll let these speak for themselves:

Omaha brewery art

so the next adventure after Max visiting was to drive to Omaha with Chris and Dawn and Paul (Shauna's sister and her family) for the wedding of Shauna's cousin Beth. (it was a very nice wedding and we had a great time seeing family) aside from all of the great times with family there was some opportunity to look at art and given that opportunity i seized it. the first art that i saw was in a brewery that we went to for lunch, it seemed as if the brewery owners were at least minor art collectors... so i took some pictures of some of the things in the place.

this first one is a photo piece that i thought kind of funny, not really that smart of an artwork but still fun (i think i liked it because of the repetition and the jackelope).
the other one that i was happy with was this kind of sculptural painting/assemblage. just a simple piece but very fun to look at and enjoy. i love wood, so seeing the wood grain and the various parts all assembled was what drew me to it.

art update

okay, i know that i've been talking mostly about life experience and there is some more of that to come but i have also been making art and thinking about art pretty much all the time. interestingly, (maybe) i don't have an image to go with this quick interim post. i have been working on my million rectangles almost exclusively this summer and things are going well, i have at this point printed 5,800 sheets of the 6,945 sheets that i will print to get to a million (there are 144 rectangles on each sheet) so that is about 745 pounds of paper printed and it is over four feet tall... it is kind of fun to leave those of you reading this in the dark for a while longer as far as showing images, i like describing the work with words for now. another project that i am planning is a honey project that would involve about 1,526 gallons of honey... (don't want to describe it too much right now, but the quantity should hint at what the project would be) and the third thing i'm working on (i say third even though i have probably ten other things after these three that are cycling through my head and keeping me busy thinking) is a series of wood sculptures that are troughs or variations on a trough theme. that is the quick update (sans images) just to whet your appitite.

end of Max and spring break

so having Max come and visit was a grand thing! he is the only person from my side of the family that has been able to visit so it was awesome having him here. on the day before he left we had one last hurraw. we started the day with Brad at a coffee shop neat our apartment where we drank mugs of hot chocolate (some of the best in town (as far as i have explored anyway)) and talked about having an outdoor survival adventure next summer. a great way to start any day if you ask me. after that we went back to Brad's apartment and dropped him off so he could draw and we borrowed his car to go run errands in preparation for the rest of the day. we needed to go back to the apartment and pick up some things and so i risked the car and parked in a place i wasn't supposed to (a back alley behind our apartment) and we ran through the rain to get what we needed. next we were off to the grocery store to collect some various food items and beverages (cream soda and root beer) for the rest of the afternoon and evening. while at the grocery store we picked up some salty fried chicken items from the deli to have as a snack before going to Brad and Cassia's. after eating them and sharing a cream soda we were full:
once we got to Brad and Cassia's we started playing Settlers of Catan (a good strategy board game) and managed to finish one game before it was time to pick up Shauna. at last all five of us (Max, Shauna, Brad, Cassia, and i) were all together. our night of games began... it was a great way to end the last full day that Max had here, good friends, good games, good food (Cassia prepared a nice meal for us (i am having a hard time remembering what it was, pasta of some kind i think?)). next morning we got up a little late and once Max was packed up we headed down town and took him to Navy Pier for one last stop before heading home, it was very windy so we got to watch seagulls struggle against the wind and we got to be blown around too. some tasty ice cream for a last food item and then onto the bus and train to get to the airport. i was allowed to walk with Max to the gate and that ended our adventure. i learned a ton about working collaboratively with Max and i look forward to applying that to future collaborations. until next spring break!

mmm pizza

after a good day of work we had Shauna meet us at millenium park and then walked to Giordano's to get pizza.
Shauna took pictures of us, but i failed to get one of her. but here is a picture of our extremely cheesy pizza, it was good to the last drop (though we weren't able to finish the whole thing in one sitting.)

drummeroni and cheese

one day when Max and i were headed home, we saw a drummer set up on the sidewalk. it was a beautiful evening:

this is the guy... Max was really impressed with his skills and was tempted to ask if he could play, but instead we just watched. i was making drawings of the drummer almost the entire time and it was great.


after a while we decided to leave so we could meet Shauna, after we got on the bus we realized that we still had some time so we went back to watch drum man. not long after we got back there a police officer told the drummer he had to pack up and get out of there because he was disrupting traffic. it was some kind of a joke, the drummer was out of the way of people walking on the sidewalk and not close enough to the road to have any impact. fortunately the drummer didn't leave but just waited for the officer to leave and then carried on with his playing. it was great free concert (though i gave him some money anyway). well worth the time to listen to some street performers.

millenium park

our time in the park was nice... lots of good conversation and people watching (plus some birds too). the giant mirror finish sculpture behind Max is called Cloud Gate (or the bean if you are a normal person) and it was made by Anish Kapoor. in this first picture Max is walking around up and down the stairs with his knees up by his head, seemed like the best way to walk around at the time.
so these pictures are of us interacting with Cloud Gate (it is really pretty nice public art) along with all the tourists. it is a fun place to be.
Max laying underneath and looking at the shiny surface.
being smashed by the bean.
me too
we were able to develop our ideas sitting in the fresh air at the park, enjoying the crowds of people. if you visit Chicago i recommend sitting near this spot in the park and daydreaming.

floating paper

at a certain point while Max was visiting we were having a rough time coming up with a good way to proceed. after stewing for a while looking at our paintings we decided to go for a walk to the park and just look and think and talk. on the way we were walking (indoors between the school and museum) and we had some paper postcards that we had grabbed after looking in one of the school galleries. as we walked we passed some vents that were blowing cool air into the space, not sure which one of us started it but we were holding our paper above the vents and letting it get blown around... soon we were completely enthralled and attempting to get our paper to float as long as possible above the vents. folding and modifying the paper was quickly undertaken trying to get the best result. it was very fun and great for our brains. we realized that the kind of artwork that we wanted to make was artwork like our experience playing with the air. it was a beautiful realization. we went on to the park and discussed possible ways to move forward, but were just really excited about having a sense of wonder at simple things.
(found this picture from artist Harry Kao that gives a sense of what we experienced)