The Ladder Herald

Getting Ready for Halloween & Day of the Dead!

and a few more:

Joseph Cornell

[This is one of the boxes he made for Emily Dickinson. I love the blue sky out the little window.]

Went to a beautiful exhibit on Joseph Cornell yesterday at SFMOMA. Gabe and I have been members there for many years, even when we were very young and broke, because we are urbanists and Gabriel thinks it's important to support your local modern art museum. I like this about him.

And I LOVE being a member. (It is only $95 for a family, and you get tons of free guest passes to give to your parents when they come to town.) You slide right past the line on busy days and check in at the front desk. Then you drop off your stuff and stroll freely around. The museum smells like all museums...what is that smell? Paste, fine paper, dried paint, focaccia and coffee in the cafe, wet umbrellas.

Cornell was similar to Dickinson in the way he stayed home (in the house he mostly grew up in) to care for his sick brother. He lived on Utopia Street in Queens. The art work he made there is imaginative, intricate, and mysterious. There is some collage on paper, but mostly it is these wooden boxes—the size of a small medicine chest, or smaller. Inside he placed elements of paper and 3-D collage. Birds, fish, girls, clocks, skyscrapers... They are so poetic, and so psychological. Two things I like. Go see them, if you can! Here's the link to the very fine exhibit:

SFMOMA Joseph Cornell

He was a devotee of Emily Dickinson (they were both "great rejectors" says Adam Gopnik on Cornell in 2003). Yes, lovely.

Here is the Gopnik piece on him:

New Yorker Gopnik on Cornell

Greetings From the Past

I went to Antioch College for my undergraduate work, and also to be born as a person, learn most of what I base my life on, and to meet the love of my life. It feels like home to me there, especially the crazy parts. Anyway, Antioch is in trouble (it has always been in trouble) but this time it feels realer...maybe. There is a cool postcard art show that I want to promote to show our love. And because it is so fun to make postcards. I was once in a postcard project on maps where I made a map of my ideal city: no cars, many sculptural coffee shops and lots of tall tall buildings and plazas. Anyway, Jonah and I are going to make our cards today after school.

"Greetings from Antioch College - The Postcard Show"

November 3 - December 31, 2007
Casa Frela Gallery in Harlem, NYC  Opening night gala at 5:00pm

http://casafrela.gourdom.com/gallery/antioch

OPEN CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS - ALL WILL BE ACCEPTED
Submissions deadline is October 12, 2007

This is a major art show fundraiser and awareness-building event to support the continuance of Antioch College. The exhibition is open to submissions from all in the larger Antioch Community (students, faculty, alumni, staff, villagers, supporters, etc) and encourages the expression of the creative imagination of this Community as testimony to the vitality of the College.  We invite you to join our effort to keep Antioch College open, maintain faculty tenure and re-establish independent governance for the College.

Complete details about the event, submission guidelines and application are available here:

http://casafrela.gourdom.com/gallery/antioch

Please spread the word, as this project is a great way to come together as a community to raise money and positive awareness in the media for Antioch College.

Brought to you by the Antioch NYC Alumni Chapter and Casa Frela Gallery

What Are You Masking?

Jonah's obsessed with masking tape. He used an entire roll today, making sculpture, toys & necklaces for Rye, boats, water pipes, bridges, houses, scones, wheels, and crowns.

When I asked him why all the tape he said, "because when I try to draw it doesn't come out like what I see in my mind."

He calls them his "projects", as in "I can't give you a kiss! I'm too busy working on my projects!"

He's inspired me to remember my old paper tricks: fortune tellers and newspaper hats. It's fun to make stuff. It's incredible, actually.

Here's a link to a good explanation of how to make a fortune teller out of paper:

Enchanted Learning

Some of the fortunes we've written are:

1. You will eat trash soup at Yukky Restaurant.
2. If you turn around quickly, you will see the invisible Splorgak. Too late!
3. Sneakers will soon be edible.
4. Your robot's name will be Zaza in the year 2040.
5. You will find a secret cave where you can hide your treasure from the pirates.
6. A guinea pig will follow you home.
7. You will invent salad ice cream.
8. You will go camping on the moon in the year 2050.

If this seems adorable or precocious in any way, let me just add that he is also farting continually, really stinking up the apartment. This includes times when he is sitting on my lap.

Babies Who Wear Glasses, Are Gasses.

Also kind of wanted to call this: Rye-Colored Glasses.

Wry Rye.

Here is Rye in my favorite picture ever. Wearing the pipe cleaner glasses that Jonah and his teacher Miho made for him. They made a pair for everyone in our family. Mine are yellow and pink. Maybe we'll all wear them for a Christmas/Hannukah card photo.

I think it is so cool that Jonah includes Rye in our family. He's new, but he's already one of us. When we get glasses, he gets them too.

I am sure I am going to learn about rage and destruction in my Human Development class at CIIS when we study siblings, and I certainly have memories of my own, as the older sister of two younger girlies. BUT, it is still a blessing when your kids love each other, in addition to the other feelings they may have or will have...