El Museo de las Cabezas, Volume One

The cover of El Museo de las Cabezas, one of my many visual journals. Originally, when I began this in 2006, I was going to call it Brain's Big Enough and the theme was going to be the brain. Brain's Big enough  transformed in to an exhibition of paintings that was called I Am Joe's Brain in 2009. So until 2010, Brain's Big Enough laid in a pile of journals that I decided to save until later.

In the fall of 2010, there was an exhibition of sculpture by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt at Neue Galerie,   link here  http://www.neuegalerie.org/exhibitions/messerschmidt I've been rather obsessed with Franz Xaver Messerscmidt since 1978, when I found him referred to in a book on Gustav Klimt. So I spent a lot of time in the fall of 2010 and the winter of 2011 sketching his "character heads" and day dreaming about them.

Originally, I was going to call this journal The Facebook but I realized that there really is too much Facebook permeating the world. So, El Museo de las Cabezas was born. 

Tlingit helmet mask and Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. 

Eventually, Franz Zaver Messerschmidt left Neue Galerie and in the summer of 2011, Nancy Grossman arrived at PS 1 MOMA, link here  http://momaps1.org/exhibitions/view/333

Their relationship to each other seems obvious. After all, my brain's big enough.

Nancy Grossman's head and Lord Pacal.

Eventually, I had to finish the book with various sundry other heads. There is a book called El Museo de las Cabezas, Volume Two, but I'm still working on it. 

The back cover.

We Became Snakes

I've been drawing a lot these days. I'm fascinated by snakes and I like to draw them. This drawing is gouache and acrylic with little collaged pigs that I found in a cooring book about agriculture in New York State. A child had colored the little guy pink and I scanned it and printed a bunch. I now have hundreds of these little paper pigs floating around. Drawing these Tibetan flames is really a nice meditation. 

It's called "We Became Snakes, " after an album by Saccharin Trust. Yeah, I'm a fan of Eighties Hardcore.

Click on the picture. It looks really nice when it gets bigger. 

Codex Paradoxa Metamorphosis

These are pages from  a book I made called Codex Paradoxa Metamorphosis. The title comes from a book illustrated by Maria Sibylla Merian, in the 1600's. My book is an accordion book, based on a Meso-American model. The pages measure 20 inches by 30 inches and are attached to each other by red string. When it is completely unfolded, Codex Paradoxa Metamorphosis stretches twenty feet long. I showed this book at La Casa Azul Bookstore in New York from October until December.

The last pages of the Four Year Journal

Seen at the American Museum of Natural History.

I need to go back soon to draw more dinosaurs.

Two copies of Parmigianino’s Antea. I'm a fan of Parmagianino and this was on view at the Frick Collection in 2008. I bought a postcard of it and made the drawings last year. I'm not working in this journal anymore, but photographing it and posting the images  took considerable time. 

Yello

Friendship

Finally, I've come to the end of the pages of the Four Year Journal. 

Confessions of a Cucumber Mask

Confessions of a Cucumber Mask is part of the Four Year Journal. I don't have much of this journal left to post in the blog. That's a good thing because I have a lot of new work that wants to be part of the Interweave.

Hurricane Drawings

Because of Hurricane Sandy, I've had a good bit of time on my hands. I haven't been able to go to my job. So I'm working a lot in my journals. I spend a lot of time, in a normal day, travelling on the subway. Twice a week, I travel from Flushing Queens to South Jamaica Queens. Since I have a low threshold of boredom, I spend a lot of time drawing people that I see on the 

subway. I usually draw with pens and markers.  And when I have time, I add to and augment the drawings with ink, watercolor, gouache and a variety of other materials.

So since Sunday October 28, I've been adding to  journal pages. At a certain point on October 29, I lost electricity for two days and was drawing by flashlight and candle light.

Most of the people that I draw, I never see again. These folks, in particular, since I saw them in southern Queens, may have suffered some horrible things as a result of the hurricane. It's a big world out there.

Two Codices

On Saturday, October 13 from 3:00 PM to 5:00, will be the opening of my solo exhibition “Two Codices.” I will be showing two artist’s books, “The Lives of the Saints” and “Codex Paradoxa Metamorphosis.”  Both pieces feature collage, drawing, painting and printmaking and are exhibited not as traditional books but as wall installations.

During the opening reception, visitors will be able to make crayon rubbings from my printing blocks. Children are especially welcome to participate.

The exhibition “Two Codices”  will be on view at La Casa Azul Bookstore from October 13 until December 18 2012. La Casa Azul Bookstore is located at 143 E. 103rd Street

New York, NY 10029, between Lexington & Park Ave, steps away from the 6 train - 103rd street stop. Phone: (212) 426 – 2626. Store hours are Wednesday  through Saturday         12:00pm  - 8:00pm and Sunday 12:00pm  - 6:00pm 

I hope to see you there!