Creative Grove Kindle

 

I have to admit, The Kindle tempts me, entices me, even vexes me and this vexing can be perplexing.

 

 I read a lot and I’m not against reading on a device. How can I be?  Dislocations is unavailable in print form.

I have thousands of books in my apartment, and they are a pain in the ass to dust.  The apartment is finite but, like the universe, my library keeps expanding. Luckily, Jersey City has a great library but unlike the Amazon selection, is not infinite (and they even have e-books).

Every book I borrow is one more I never need dust.

The Kindle was at a recent Creative Grove.

Creative Grove was the first stop on the Kindle tour.

The Kindle tour is a grass roots marketing campaign targeting art events. The idea is that artists read and they want to introduce them to the device. Also, Jersey City has a newly opened bookstore and there’s another on the way (or so a sign on one of the under-re-development storefronts has claimed since spring).  They were not selling Kindles or selling anything, but maybe being the rare location where one bookstore is here and one is on the way, Amazon realized here was a ground zero to launch their counter-erosion of the print vs e-book market share conflict.

The Kindle cost $119, which is actually pretty reasonable and significantly lower than it first was introduced to the market. The new version features better lighting, said the marketer-teer. There was a stand with a Kindle for demonstration, a booth in which one sat and could experience the different illumination conditions. You  selected a book and then adjusted the ambient lighting, and adjusted the Kindle Screen lighting. I felt so optimized.

I selected The Great Gatsby, the closest thing to literature because I am such a snob and I am dumbfounded that anybody can actually read Dan Brown’s sentences. It was the not the first time I had used a reading device. You cannot exactly skip around like you can flipping pages in a book, but pretty close. The minimal dusting required was the main advantage in my opinion.

I will probably get one eventually, probably two years. I will soon join the growing horde of people reading on the PATH or in Starbucks on screens where nobody can tell what they are reading.

Other than that development, it is worth noting that Amazon found Creative Grove and that a little corporate  inclusion can go a long way. We are now SoHo, Williamsburg and Tribeca, hip demographic ripe for exploitation. I want my frozen yogurt store (oh that’s right, one’s opening on the corner). Is that what they mean when they say we’re becoming just like Hoboken?

I order stuff off Amazon frequently, just like you. The thing with books though, the printing presses employed people, the bookstores employed people, the delivery trucks employed... well you get the idea. With the Kindle, Amazon gets richer and bigger  and the publishers and some writers and their editors receive revenue, but all the middle-men, all those jobs are never coming back. That isn’t mentioned in the booth where you can adjust the lighting to what ever suits your solitude.

Why think of them then, but then when should we think of them?

Later at home, sneezing from the dust  from Algren to Zola as I calculated how much space I would gain by removing the shelves and all of those rows and rows of neglected titles pleading to be reread.

Maria Skupien Shrine Restored

 

 

2005 – 10 years ago – she died, struck by a car – Maria Skupien – walking to mass on Newark Avenue, a street she must have walked countless times during her life in Jersey City.

Earlier this year, this road side shrine was vandalized, the glass broken and the statues inside stolen.  Walked by recently and noticed the shrine was restored – a new metal grate covers the glass surface, making it harder to break through.  There are new statues.

The story about her death was taped to the back of the box, which I retrieved at the library. She was a mother of 11,  74 years old, trying to be a cancer survivor until fate intervened.

 

 

 

From The Jersey Journal article.

Maria Skupien of Pavonia Avenue was hit by a 1986 Mazda as she attempted to cross Newark Avenue about 6:20 PM.

Her son said: “his mother was on her way to 7 p.m. Immaculate Conception Vigil Mass at St. Anthony of Padua on Sixth Street. He said she was a devoted parishioner who attended Mass several times a week.”

“Jersey City and Port Authority police and  off-duty Christ Hospital nurse were on the scene within minutes and attempted to resuscitate her, but to no avail. She was pronounced dead at 6:49 p.m. at the Jersey City Medical Center.

“A few hours earlier, Stanley Skupien said, he’d driven his mother home from the Bayonne Medical Center, where she was being treated for intestinal cancer. “It’s so sad,” he said, saying his mother had battled cancer for three years.

“She was a super-positive person. She was always saying I’m doing good, and kept it to herself. She never cried the blues about how she felt,” her  son said.

 

 

“Reports said Skupien was dressed in a black jacket, black pants and that a street light was out near the point-of-impact.”

“Mass will be held Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. at St. Anthony of Padua Church.

 

A lot of things come to mind, the fact that the pedestrians are still at risk in Jersey City, and the city has done basically nothing so far to enforce speed limits (my soap box issue).

That’s just some personal noise.

I’ve seen this little shrine for years, as anyone who ever walked up Newark Avenue has. You knew it was a memorial, a fatality – you see these sort of shrines around everywhere, highways and busy streets. accidents happen, fate surprises. You know that this is a personal testament, that a circle of families and friends were in grief and needed to express their loss, and their love. The story too, walking to mass, fighting cancer, the suddenness. How many times a week did she make this same walk? Just so tragic and touching and gives us pause. We all that sorrow those responsible for this shrine and we also know, that any moment, we can be Maria.

When I blogged about the vandalism, I tried to do some research. A Jersey Journal editor told me, oh “there are millions” in Jersey City. Millions? Really. On Newark Avenue, I’ve only seen this one. But, his attitude seemed indicative of the weird attitude towards pedestrian fatalities in this town (sorry, this soap box is so persistent).

Maria Skupien, my thoughts and prayers are with you today. The shrine is no longer anonymous, I now know it’s yours.

 

 

Vandalized Shrine

 

Pre-Vandalized Shrine

 

Under-Recognized Russian Women Artists

 

 

 

 

Olga Doty, Art Director of the Museum of Russian Art

 

The   Museum of Russian Art probably takes the prize as the biggest local gem that is nearly entirely under the radar.

 For the Art Tour, Under-Recognized Russian Women Artists. I love the odd alliteration, and especially the compound modifier Under-Recognized. Aren’t we all. Sounds like this beautiful museum, which like many of paintings contains conflicting forces – the space has a functional feel, yet is also warm, inviting, well-lit and inspires contemplating art.

 

 

 

The collection of contemporary Russian Women artists was like taking an art history class. Every genre or school of visual art – impressionism, realism, cubism, naturalism, surrealism – every dang ism seemed referenced.

When I wandered in sometime on Art Tour Sunday, the place empty except for the Art Director, Olga, who explained why such a plethora of styles were on display. Although all the women were born in Russia, many were living in other countries – America, Israel, European nations – and they all had different memories and experiences with the Soviet era.  This shed some light on why there I could not discern a stylistic thread linking the work.  Cultures within the artists were colliding; Russia was a state of mind, a mere fact but without meaning in and of itself when it comes to categorizing these images.

But what was I thinking, that something should look Russian? There was a bear with a human face, a folklore piece that seemed replete with Slavic  intonations; other pieces had those worker and humanistic touches one associates with Lenin-era propaganda, although one depiction had a woman with  stop sign on her head dying in the street surrounded by what seems like a factory and there’s a swirling red cloud – was this red the egalitarian ideals of the worker run society floating over the violence and despair of the post-soviet Russia?

 

 

 

 

A beautiful woman with almond-shaped eyes and a mouth that looks like it would be very nice to kiss and a fish inexplicably in the background. Your gaze pauses on her lips, her round and ample cleavage – her blouse unbuttoned below her bra – then notices a similar grace in the  lips and fins of the fish. The curves reflect each other, are shadowy, creating a moody sensuality, But sadness is not far from the pleasure she and our all too tangible mortality promises.

 

Two friends hugging on a couch, outlined by shadows. There’s sorrow present in the room,  the sorrow is everywhere in the room, in fact everywhere but between the two friends huddled together.

 

There’s another picture, a marvelous piece of photo realism, a woman, looks into a broken mirror. You see her, you see the reflection, her finger uncertainly touches the spider web crack; did she cause the shatter, or is that shatter her own anxiety. But in her eyes an inner strength shines brigther than the fear.

 

Maybe that’s a common thread – dread, insecurity almost everywhere surrounding the subject, the core, the saving grace, where courage and confidence exist, perhaps will prevail yet but at least survives. That core, that confidence, is an unmistakable humanity, our selves.  

 

My favorite picture, was a porthole of what seems to be a seedy cabin of an aging luxury liner looking out on a snowy, winter city (I think I remember Minsk). Russia is a winter land. That warmth, the courage, the humanity is the frame of the porthole, where we are, the peeling wall paper enhancing our comfort as we look out on dread and anxiety and isolating chill is at the center of the image. It was almost the reverse of some of the other dialogs between confidence and confusion so many of these paintings were having.

 

 

 

 

 

Russia hasn’t looked Russian in years. I’m pretty well read in the 19^th century Russian masters of literature, but that whole world was shattered with the rise of the Soviet era – and all the different phases of that empire –  lots of different Russia’s from Lenin to Stalin, expansion and fall and even after, how different this country is now, seeming to edge towards the security of totalitarianism,  compared to say the crime-riddled capitalism of those early 90s .  The more you think about Russia, the more realize how diverse the culture and history and various “peoples” must be, and this collection reveals the diversity we are regrettably slow to acknowledge; the Under-Recognized Russian Women Artist tells us something about that complex diaspora, but tells us something else, something universal...  humanity that we share also compells us to endure.

 

 

Museum of Russian Art

Aquatic Dreaming

 

The turtle first caught my eye in this life-aquatic dreamscape mural appearing here on first. Soft, pastel tones a wistful yet pleasant hallucination, water… fish… houses on stilts… but the turtle is obviously a land tortoise not an aquatic terrapin, oh and there seems to be a hut tied to his head.

“References to Hawaii,” says Ekundayo, who was creating the work on a sunny afternoon. "He's from Hawaii, it's where he was raised and the inspiration for these images comes from his past.

 

 

The guy who looks part squid, in the center, who looks like a part of the rebel alliance fighting the empire in Star Wars, who is he? “A friend of mine.”

That is actually part of the street tradition – and by tradition I could mean trend, only time will tell – ultra-personal references. I suspect the faces peaking out of the houses on stilts are also based on some personal acquaintances. I like the inside joke aspect. Not knowing seems to open the art up more to the viewer than knowing. Why is there a squid-man here, or a land tortoise swimming with fishes.

This mural was tricky for me to get a complete picture in one shot with my cheapo camera. A house on stilts is on one end, on the other is another house, not on stilts – both have faces sticking out, as if the houses are squeezed around an entire head of a blue-skinned human, but the house not on stilts has arms attached, has a weird smiled (of course, if you were blue and had a house surrounding your head, you may have a weird smile too) and has a fish perched on his hand.

In the background are trees and the lower portions of the painting show what appears to a be shoreline – land and tides washing up on the sand – yet the large, floating fish abound throughout, part of a Finding Nemo like entourage to the swimming tortoise.

Are we submerged – is this a world we live post-tsunami – where even the raised homes are under the ocean. Is the ocean now everywhere. The title of the mural – Finally, a mural with a TITLE!!!! – is Savage Habit.  Is living by the ocean, say in Hawaii, mean that the savagery of nature, the unyielding and relentless  waves makes the possibility of submersion a reality every moment. Do we adapt by evolving into squid? Is this the world climate change will actually bring? Even in our houses, we are not safe and even when we bring land-based homes in our minds, we still have to adapt to the ocean, return to where we were born, and live a life-aquatic?  Savagery may be a constant risk, but this soggy vision is warm, inviting, invokes no fear.

Is this the dream one has growing up in the tropics, where the ocean surrounds you. Some faces are familiar to you, but you’re dreaming so they look different. The turtle, the fish, they’re familiar to everyone. They’re in our dreams too.

 Ekundayo Website Here

 

Drawing Space

 

 

Victory Hall Drawing Rooms is located at 180 Grand Street and is one of the largest galleries in town and the group show held during the annual artist studio tour featured upwards of two dozen artists. These included: Eileen Ferara, Elizabeth Onorato, Ibou Ndoye, Steve Singer, Margaret Weber, Sandra Desando, Maggie Ens, Mike Markman, Kim Wiseman, Greg Brickey, Jasmine Graf, Glenn Garver, Orlando Reyes, Winifred McNeill, Phil Pellicane, Nyugen E Smith, Heidi Curko, Anne Trauben, Loura van der Meule, Demetrio Alfonso, Geraldine Gaines, 
Cheryl Gross, Jill Scipione, Stephanie Daniels, Megan Klim.

It’s a fascinating space, a former convent – although I might bet it was something before it was a nunnery because there seemed to be an institutional ambiance and while I was told the various rooms were living spaces for the sisters, they seemed rather spacious, about classroom size. Whatever the case, gallery that is now is an engaging showcase for art, a long hall way with rooms opening on side and art everywhere.

The “drawing” was broadly defined – there were some tiny sculptures, though I didn’t get a good picture – and what seemed a be a mini-show-within-a-show featuring high school students – but for the most part, various forms of sketch were the rule of the day.

Margaret Weber had a series of owls – I believe snow owls – occupying one space.

 

 

 

At the end of a hall there was an even a video of Sandy flooding – I think there was a smattering of animation so maybe it could qualify as drawing. Geraldine Gaines was showing African-inspired wood carvings.

Victory Hall Drawing Room is a permanent not a temporary for the tour only gallery, a noteworthy trend in Jersey City. Aside from the drawings, mostly compelling, the space it self, the hall and rooms and what seems like a mysterious past – it certainly wasn’t built to be an art gallery – sparks your curiosity. There’s a lot of corners inspiring wonder what might be around them.

Victory Hall Drawing Roomwebsites.