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Saturday at The Reading Room

Posted on April 12, 2012No Comments

'Perpetual Care' (Roadkill Diamond documentation), 2011 — ‘Perpetual Care’ (Roadkill Diamond documentation), 2011

Tendered Currency, new work by Shane Mecklenburger, will open at The Reading Room on Saturday, April 14 from 7 to 9 pm with a reception for the artist followed by a reading on Sunday, April 15 at 4 pm. The exhibition will continue through May 12.

Mecklenburger’s work investigates American culture and various market functions and transactions, “our internal struggles and contradictions, our national self-perception and the way we are perceived, valued and devalued”. TRR will feature video, sculpture, prints and a live eBay auction. During an election year and while the Dallas Arts Fair is in progress, Mecklenburger will show how he sold The Future on eBay and made a diamond from the script of Superman III.

An intermedia artist working between installation, media art and performance, Mecklenburger holds an MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently Assistant Professor of Art & Technology at Ohio State University’s Department of Art. His work has exhibited at Hoxton Gallery/London, The Studio for Electro-Instrumental Music/Amsterdam, Ubersee Museum/Bremen, Centro Cultural Paso del Norte/Juarez, The El Paso Museum of Art and Dallas Museum of Art.

The Reading Room is a project space dedicated to the intersection of visual and text based culture located at 3715 Parry Avenue, Dallas. For further information Karen Weiner 214 952 4109.

Since I couldn’t embed Mecklenburger’s relevant video, you can go here to watch it.

Landscape & Gardening

The New Front Garden

Posted on April 9, 2012No Comments

Larger planting beds and less grass means less maintenance. With the exception of three Turk’s Cap shrubs, the front garden is now complete. Because of the newly extended beds, the removal of the not-so-hot-looking plants, the transplanting of some of the original perennials, and the addition of shade tolerant perennials, I’m hoping that I won’t need to be putting in the insane amount of maintenance hours that have been required over the last few summers. Looking at the above and following photos, you may think that things look a bit tiny and insignificant. Just you wait. In July or August, I’ll be taking new photos, and you will definitely see a big difference.

Interior Design

The Fourth Wall

Posted on April 4, 20122 Comments

For some reason the wall color reads correctly in the larger version, and in the above smaller version, the color is too intense. The smaller it is, the more saturated the color.

And the last wall to photograph in my bedroom. Now that the sun has returned, I’m photographing portions of my house that hadn’t been shot before. And tomorrow, I hope there will be at least an hour of quality morning light to photograph the newly installed front garden. All of these shots are needed to complete my redesigned website. The details are driving me crazy with endless hours of photoshopping and uploading, and I have yet to write the copy. Most of this work occurs at night, since my day hours have been monopolized with real work and continual domestic problems that need fixing.

Interior Design

You Are Now Entering My Office

Posted on April 2, 20124 Comments

Finally I was able to photograph my newly decorated office. For several weeks now I’ve been waiting for the sun to stay consistently bright from 1pm through 2pm in order to take these photos. Unfortunately, while waiting, the oak tree fully leafed out causing the light to not be as bright as it would have been while the tree was dormant. The sun wasn’t my only problem. With two other very different light sources, incandescent and fluorescent, I ended up having some strange color issues, which I will gladly point out to you in the following photographs.

Landscape & Gardening

My Little Hideaway

Posted on March 28, 2012No Comments

This wing of the house is what was formerly called the tumor wing.

The oak tree has fully leafed out, and it was the perfect time to take this photo. I am in the process of finishing a newly designed website which will include this blog, and this photo was needed for the landscape section. Keep in mind that what you see in the photo is an ongoing work in progress and some items are still missing. I am currently looking for a very large pot to place on the brick terrace in front of all the electrical boxes, and of course, I intend to plant something in it. I just don’t know what until I have the pot. And we’re waiting on the zexmenia to become available, which will be planted against the foundation under the screen porch. Expect the new site to be up and running by the end of next week, but before then I will post photos of my just completed front garden.

Landscape & Gardening

And So It Began…

Posted on March 27, 2012No Comments

During last week’s deluge, the front garden makeover finally commenced. The conditions were far from ideal, but the forecast had predicted sunny skies, and the work had already been postponed for too long. Michael Parkey had marked all existing plants with colored tape — the orange tape indicated complete removal, the white tape designated transplanting, and the blue meant that the plant was to remain untouched. The Hadden Landscaping crew made fast work of the demo despite the bog-like conditions, and the irrigation crew was able to come the next day to install the new drip lines and sprinkler heads.

Since this makeover is not as extensive as the backyard garden, I’ve decided that I will combine all the front transformation phases into a future single blog post. So expect another post with a lot more photos sometime towards the end of next week.

Landscape & Gardening

Caught the Wrong Critter

Posted on March 22, 2012No Comments

Sadly, an opossum was the one to get trapped. I actually like opossums, and they’re beneficial to have around. But since he would continually come back and fall for the same trick, it made sense to have him or her transported to a more rural area. We’ve decided not to continue with the bated traps until after the front garden’s landscaping has been completed and when little exotic goldfish are again available to restock my little pond. A day or two before I purchase the new fish, I will have Master Services come out and again place two traps. Anyway, I’ve been told that two blocks over, there is some raccoon roadkill, and perhaps this raccoon was the one who killed my tiny pets.

Landscape & Gardening

Come and Get It, You Little Monster

Posted on March 21, 2012No Comments

Last Friday night my little pond was totally trashed. And while cleaning — desperately looking for my three little fish — I only found bits and pieces of my former friends. The experts say it was raccoons, and there’s little to be done to prevent this from happening again. But this will not keep me from trying to encourage them to move out of my neighborhood. Master Services Animal Control has set up two traps around the fish pond, and way in the back end of each trap is a small container of dog food. They tell me that cats are not likely to fall for this trick, and I’m counting on it. If and when a raccoon has been captured, I will photograph the criminal to share with you before he or she is taken far away to be released.

If you’re wondering about new fish for the pond, I’m told that the new shipments of fish won’t arrive at local water garden stores until mid-April.

Contemporary Art

And in the Meantime…

Posted on March 19, 2012No Comments

Let’s maintain loose posture. Today was suppose to have been my first blog post about the front garden’s makeover. With torrential rainfall predicted over the next three days, Hadden Landscaping decided to postpone the first phase, which is to pull out the unwanted plants and dig up additional bed space. Starting today would have been equivalent to creating a giant mud pie to wallow in when they return to resume work on Wednesday or Thursday. But in the meantime, I’m just getting older.

The image above is a wonderful little piece created by Andy Coolquitt that I picked up at the annual Five x Seven back in 2002. Five x Seven is an annual fundraiser, art sale and exhibition benefitting AMOA-Arthouse exhibitions and educational programs.

Interior Design

Peekaboo (part 8)

Posted on March 13, 2012No Comments

Meet the new dining/library table. It arrived last week, but because of the dingy weather, the natural light wasn’t right until yesterday for taking a photograph. Both the top and base were purchased through Culp Associates. This ingenious combination of a top by Gregorius | Pineo with a base designed by Ironies was Charley McKenney’s idea. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I plan to play around with various table settings. And of course, I will photograph and share the arrangements with you. To see the top surface of the table click on the link below.