A Look at Second Seating - Worth a Click

Click on Second Seating, at this moment in time.
It'll take you to two dozen new photos of works in progress by participating artists. Lots of color, lots of excitment, lots more to do.
Here's an image of Jesse Sifuentes' coffee mug buffet table.

Another Story From the Banquet Table

Do these remind you of hand blown goblets from Matamoras? Perhaps, years ago, if you were lucky, you watched such goblets hand blown beside a fiery furnace. No such luck nowadays. The goblets on this buffet table are imitation Mexican glassware.
The labels say ‘Made in China.’ The price? A fraction of those hand blown Mexican goblets. The cost to our neighbors across the Rio Grande? Incalculable.

Making Art, Making the Space Ready

Making art, scrubbing oyster shells. Art is spilling out in the form of painted plates and chairs, collages with photos, fabric, paper cuts and odd spoons.
Adding golden words on oyster shells. That would be why I am scrubbing more and more shells. Suddenly I can see a great pile of shells with golden words.

Also seeing, once again, just how much work is ahead. Still fund raising. Wish I could just stop making calls for funds. But in order to feel truly comfortable, I need more dollars.
Now is the moment to get the postcard invite designed, printed and mailed - in three weeks time. How did it come to this?
I see the city inspector on Monday for the final look through of the space. We've done everything the city asked and we should get an 90 day occupancy permit.
Then the space will be cleaned and the floor power washed, we'll put up a few wall/panels here and there and paint them mustard, terracotta and chartreuse. Then I'll call back the electrician to make ready for the chandeliers. Oh, I need to nail down some stage lights and talk what sort of music and sounds will play on a tape in the space.



Oh, and then there is everybody else's art. Victor Rodriguez' parrot chandeliers, Aggie Eyster's etched metal table tops, Jesse Sifunetes' coffee mug mosaic, Gonzo247's aerosol art table and chairs. It's all going to more than anyone anticipated when all is installed.
Hey, I've managed to secure beer and bottled water and munchies for the opening reception. Still working on a source for cases of Chardonnay.

Very Short Stories From the Banquet Table

Even though forewarned, we were bedazzled and knew that anything we ate from this table would linger in our memories, our taste buds forever favoring this repast over all others.
She is said to have remarked, “Let them eat cake,” but these are not her words. They were merely an attribution.

There is nothing so inviting as the sound of dinner plates being stacked, one after the other proclaiming a meal to come, a repast to remember, a feast of dreams.
He approached her at the buffet table, just as she lifted a Vietnamese summer roll to her mouth. It drizzled with peanut sauce.
She held the summer roll suspended in air, “Thank heaven he arrived before I smiled at him with noodles between my teeth.”
Then, holding the dripping summer roll, she did indeed smile broadly – and was bewitching.
“Heavens,” she sighed, “if I’d known this was to be so elaborate, so exquisite, so reminiscent of my dreams, perhaps I would have chosen the silver shoes or I’d have bared my shoulders or possibly, floated on air itself to reach this table.”

Mango juice ran down her arm and dripped from her elbow. The man in her life pursed his lips and tasted sweet juice scented with something ineffable. She smelled of life and mango.
The delights of this table carry over into dreams. We shift in bed and still asleep, taste the fruit, the spiral loaf, the savory meats, a bit of mousse and a parfait. The question is “Do we devour this exquisite food or is it all the other way around? Does the banquet seduce and we, drawn in with one exquisite bite, become the possessed?”

Oyster Shell Messages

About four this afternoon, it occurred to me that I could write on oyster shells and then place them by the half dozen on the oyster plates I bought in Seattle last spring. Funny how ideas just spring from thin air. I keep going out to the oyster pile behind my studio and bringing handfuls of shells into the kitchen sink to scrub. I am loving them and know that I'll use them in many more ways than simply banked against the Bayou, Bay, Beach table at Second Seating. I am really loving them.
What if we actually found messages in oyster shells after we'd eaten the oyster?

A Little Progress

Went into the studio this afternoon to work on two different projects. I cut some of that Hurricane Ike damaged velvet to patch on to one of two chairs that will sit on either side of the Bayou, Bay, Beach table. Actually it will rest among the thousands of oyster shells that are now drying and smelling up the area behind my studio.
Love the fabric because the dye ran when it was soaked with flood waters so it fades from light grey blue to dusty mauve. I'm finding it's perfect for covering the current herringbone upholstery on these chairs.
Also began to work on a montage of dozens of wallet sized East End images. Got out a big sheet of black and white checked paper that I've had forever. I think I'll use it for this montage. I've arranged the photos six or eight times so far, trying to find something compelling. I may add another paper like that intense Chinese red wrapping paper. Or may layer the images. I'll mix and match until it looks like something.Haven't gotten to painting labels for text yet. Maybe this evening? And though I made a ruffle for the fabric chandelier, I didn't pin and sew it in place. What is holding me up on that thing? Really needs to leave my dining room table.
Must say though, that one cup of Chinese black tea sure turned this day into one that's been productive. Probably should take a break, go to bed and watch Netflix tonight.

Looking Ahead

Today is August 1 and a very good day for taking stock. I'm in a post meltdown state, which means I am back in the zone. The month of August stretches ahead, each of its thirty days as long as a month. Artists are at work and Modelle and I are making the exhibition space ready. At this point, it is taking a lot of coordination and money. Modelle is helping with the coordination and I am still raising money. Another grant application will be submitted toward the end of next week. I have an appointment on Tuesday afternoon with yet another potential underwriter and I still need to round up a couple of stragglers so that their names can appear on the postcard invite.
What I realized when I talked through my latest application verbiage and budget with a friend is that Second Seating is a production. I've always called it an installation, but now that Irma's is not the 'finished space' we'd anticipated eight months ago, a 'production' is required to make the most of that metal building. In other words, it needs to be transformed.
An installation is a setting into which we enter and move about. An installation requires place making, ambiance and lighting. Those items require money and sound like a production to me. So I'm on it during these days in August. And in between the production moments, I'll be making art and collaborating with the other participating artists so we deliver a coherent mass of work. It'll be quite a trip.
I've been drawing on glassware again and baking it in the oven. These beveled glass strips are from a salvaged chandelier.
Gonzo247 is spraying the structure on which they hang Chinese red. I've written and drawn on all twenty of the strips of glass. I'll reassemble and see if it sings, or not. If it doesn't, I'll add more color and more stuff. My kitchen table is covered with dishes that still need to be drawn and written on. I am hoping that Mercedes will work with me on these so we have a true bilingual wall of plates. I did bake a dozen with phrases in Spanish, but more is better.
Found three more of those red glass compotes at Value Village last Thursday. Scooped them up to go with the two from at The Guild Shop that I bought months ago.
I'll add metallic glass paint to the three new compotes and bake them. I am wondering just what I will put in these vintage vessels. What sort of fruit? Or should they hold vegetables? What kind? Or should they be piled with objects? What objects? Christmas tree balls? Rocks, stones, shells? Should each compote hold something different? Yet each related to the others? So many options, nuances, relationships. This is the kind of stuff that filters through my head all day long and I love it. There is always something interesting to think about.
So, this morning I've had steel cut oats with yogurt and fresh sliced peaches for breakfast, am contemplating a cup of black breakfast tea and then I will head to the studio to make a wide ruffle for the base of this fabric covered chandelier. It needs to be finished this weekend and carted off to hang in the Harrisburg studio with those chandeliers made with filigreed Clorox bottles, Houston Dynamo balls and Valero oil pipe fittings.
I think another good job for this weekend will be to begin the making of dozens of hang tags that will hold text and bits of images. Text draws folks in emotionally, offers additional layers of meaning. Text can make folks sad or make them laugh. Random phrases, words that conjure up feelings. I love text.
I love Second Seating. I thank heaven that Second Seating appeared in my mind and that I can see this vision of what can be. Today, I am thanking heaven that the project needs a lot of work and attention because it's fun to do this work so others can see this panorama of chandeliers and dinner table too. I love the work. Most of the time. This morning.