Odd Foods: Monstera Deliciosa
The Delicious Monster!
The Monstera Deliciosa or Delicious Monster would seem well described as a cross between an ear of corn and a plated dinosaur, while its taste lies squarely between that of a banana and a pineapple.
I’ve had the pleasure of ingesting this fruit on more than one occasion. Only recently, however, had I taken the time to photograph it. There is a multi-day delay between when you get the fruit home and when it’s then ready to eat. For easy ripening it’s suggested that you stand the fruit up in a large glass, tip down (see photo below). When the scales begin to fold outward and drop off, the internal flesh is then ready to eat. It’s worth noting that if eaten while unripe the fruit can irritate the throat and the latex of the leaves and vines can create rashes on the skin.
Monstera deliciosa is a creeping vine native to the tropical rainforests of southern Mexico south to Colombia, and many of you have likely seen it before (though not fruiting) as it’s a popular choice of interior decorators. This member of the Arum family is an epiphyte with aerial roots, able to grow up to 60 ft high with large, leathery, glossy, heart-shaped leaves.
Like so many worldwide fruits, it’s common names are numerous, including Ceriman, Swiss Cheese Plant (or just Cheese Plant), Fruit Salad Plant, Monster fruit, Monsterio Delicio, Monstereo, Mexican Breadfruit, Monstera, split-leaf philodendron, Locust and Wild Honey, Windowleaf, Delicious Monster, Balazo and Penglai Banana.
In a world where foreign (and somewhat alien) fruits can be delivered to our doorsteps just shy of optimal eating one should not be surprised to read that the Delicious Monster is not cheap. Noting that a complete fruit takes nearly a year to mature it makes the close to $5 cost (from the most economical grocery store in New York City!!!) almost bearable.
Click the image below for a larger multi-photo collection of the fruit’s lifecycle (once it’s in your home.)
Learning to Love Rejection
"sigh..."
As with any profession, there are going to be positives and negatives to the job. As an artist, one of the negatives is often cited as the relatively large amount of direct (and sometimes personal) rejection one can face.
The very nature of being an artist, or at least one who doesn’t create in a vacuum, is that you intend to put your work out there to be judged. That’s part of the plan for many. And the fact of the matter is, there has never been an artist whose work is universally loved. That’s not to say there aren’t artists whose work speaks to the majority, but rather, there has never been an artist whose every effort is loved by every human on the planet. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that for every person who passionately embraces your work, there is someone out there who just as passionately loathes it.
Essential Artists: Jonathan Allen
"Away We Go", paint, paper on paper, 22 x 30 in
Welcome to “Essential Artists”: a celebration of the arts, and a rare chance for one artist to assume the role of fan.
I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Jonathan Allen at an event held at New York’s Whitney Museum this past year. It was only later, after a volley of social encounters that I was to become familiar with his artwork. What I found was an explosion of color and subject matter that often re-imagined familiar tropes into a kaleidoscopic spread that was at times both soothing and startling, though always aesthetically pleasing.
Within the professionally minded world of the arts it is not uncommon for the intention of a work to be prized above its aesthetic. As a matter of personal taste I find I am often unable to disassociate the two, and so it was with great pleasure I noted that Allen’s work manages a fine balance of both – a rare talent indeed. As a 2008 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner grant and graduate of the vaunted Bronx Museum’s Artist In The Marketplace program, his CV reads like a “How To” manual of how to make it in the art world.
It was then with a hint of excitement that I realized his first US solo show was set to take place at a gallery I too had had the good fortune of showcasing work with: the Lower East Side bastion of creative expression known as Lu Magnus.
If you’re in the area I can safely say that one would be remiss in not attending this stateside solo debut – it’s sure to tickle the senses – and if in the market, there will be no better time to snap up this promising young artists’ work.
Jonathan Allen: Explore Thyself
November 4th – December 18th, 2011
Lu Magnus
55 Hester St (btwn Ludlow & Essex)
New York, NY
To see more work by the artist please visit his website: www.jonathanallen.org
Lost and Found: Anatomy of an Accident
I stood over the pile of shattered safety glass that had been swept against the median. It looked different in the daylight. I could still see the lights reflecting on the faces of the crowd that had gathered: red, orange, white, blue, red, orange, white, blue, red, orange…
The accident had obviously been terrible: the car was on its side and a swarm of black clad firemen were prying and pulling at the shell with their Jaws of Life. It was then that I noticed that there wasn’t another car. As if reading my mind, or noting the way I was looking around, the man next to me muttered, “there was only the one car… and the pedestrian.” That’s when I saw the paramedics attending to the body that lay in the street. It was almost 25 feet from where the car sat in the intersection. I was aghast – and yet I continued to stand there, transfixed by the horror (or spectacle) of it all. My friend, who stood behind me, had grown increasingly agitated.
“Why are they all standing around? Why are they filming? Taking pictures? Laughing?”
I found myself looking in his direction and saying something about human nature. Our dark heart. Everyone love’s a trainwreck.
As I shuffled the pile with the tip of my boot, I reached down and collected the items in the image above. Looking around I realized that they were the only physical remnants of what had happened at that intersection the night before. They struck me more powerfully than any photo from the scene could have: they were there, in my hand and not on a screen.
click the above image to enlarge
Blind Faith: Sneak Peek
For an artist, finding your way to a new body of work can often be a lot like finding love: when least expected or sought – there it is!
Such is the case with my newest emerging project, “…and with blind faith do we charge into the promise of tomorrow.”
As this is a sneak peek I don’t want to give too much away (the dust is still settling) but suffice it to say that this seemingly simple body of line drawings deals with sight, trust, representation and the incredibly complex relationship we are creating with our machines.
How were the drawings made? What do the books mean (see image below)? What’s with the talk about “our machines”?
All will soon be revealed; eyes peeled: the complete project is to be released in the next month or so.
installation as imagined in a gallery setting
Sights and Sounds
11:00pm, Friday night, Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn.
The bodega lights blinked their blink and the mechanical horse groaned beneath the weight of the deadly serious man astride it.
There was something hypnotic to the lonely scene: the whine of the ride’s struggling motor seemingly the loudest sound, drowning out even the incessant aural assault that is Brooklyn traffic.
It was only later when I looked back at the picture that the surreal nature of it struck home: he’d been alone.
Essential Artists: Bodie Chewning
a sci-fi commission comes to life
Welcome to the first installment of “Essential Artists”: a new recurring feature on Clogvert. It’s a celebration of the arts, and a rare chance for one artist to assume the role of fan.
Now, I’ve found that artists for the most part do not help one another – this is not due to a pervasive and sinister sense of selfishness, but rather, the acts of creating and simply promoting yourself take so much time and energy that there’s bound to be little left in the tank to help your fellow artist. In my own small way, with this column I’d like to change that and celebrate the artists whose work I’m drawn to, no matter the medium or subject.
I stumbled upon the work of Bodie Chewning while grabbing a quick cup of java at the SoHo, New York bastion of heart palpitations known as Gimme! Coffee. Honestly, and as cavalier as it may sound, I don’t often take too great a notice of the work hung on the walls of coffee shops – but obviously, this time was different.
I’ve long been a fan of science fiction and comic books (in fact, they’re the reason I became an artist): Bodie’s work, as I’d come to learn, often speaks to both genres in style and subject.
So arresting was the quality of line and general sense of fantastic imagination that I tracked the artist down and commissioned a personal work (shown above – click image or here to enlarge).
Chewning, who is self taught, also produces t-shirt graphics, accessory illustrations and designs for both major & minor apparel companies in New York City.
To see other examples of his work and to find out more head on over to his website (www.bodiechewning.com).
Lost and Found: A Day At The Beach
Samantha and Gloria loved the beach.
They could spend all day there, and September really was the best time of the year to get outside. By then people had largely decided the summer was over, and even at New York’s Coney Island you could find a quiet section of the beach on a weekday. A good book, a little water, some snacks… and your girl! What more did anyone need?
Of course, no one really knew how close Sam and Gloria were. They didn’t need to. That was between them. Private. Mind your own business kind of stuff. And their people probably wouldn’t understand.
They’d both been into boys before, but for the most part men couldn’t be counted on. All they wanted was one thing. You let them downtown and then they were waving bye-bye. On to the next chica.
And that was that: separately they’d both decided no more men. No thank you!
It was a surprise really: they’d been just friends for so long that they felt like sisters, but one day Sam realized just how beautiful Gloria really was: inside and out. And she started looking at her a little differently. She thought she was going crazy, but it seemed like Gloria was looking at her a little differently too. The rest had seemed so natural. And their friendship was tighter than ever. Sisters forever. Together. For real.
Found beneath the BQE in Sunset Park, Brooklyn amidst the thick smog of construction vehicles and the relentless noise of the traffic above.
Click here or the image above to see the full strip.
Compulsive Creativity
I’ve long recognized the fact that there are those who are amazing painters, others who are truly gifted sculptors, or still others who are near savants with a camera. I’ve also come to recognize the fact that that’s not me.
As you may or may not know, depending on how you’ve come to read these line, I tend to dabble in a variety of mediums. I’ve heard it all, “jack of all trades, master of none,” but it’s the way my mind works, and it’s what keeps me interested. It’s also what ultimately led me to understand where my true talent lies. I’m good at being creative. Compulsively so.
Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines creativity through it’s root – to create, which is in turn defined as “to produce through imaginative skill.” That, in a nutshell, is what I love to do. I love the conceptualizing: the genesis, the flights of distant fancy that swirl in my head as I sit in a chair and stair into space, or as I lay in the dark and drift off to sleep. It brings a smile to my face to even write about it, so it’s not surprising for me to say that creating things is what I believe I was born to do. I would be a bad accountant, a bad factory worker, a bad fighter pilot, a bad CEO, and the list goes on. But I’m also not foolish, and realize that “creating things” allows me an awful lot of freedom. It allows me to find satisfaction within the realms of design, drawing, painting, photography, writing, sculpture and to a lesser degree, music. In fact, so all encompassing is this passion to create, were it not for the grounding anchor of my home life and a woman who is not an artist, I would lead the life of a vampire: gradually working longer hours, sleeping later and later each day until the hours of sunlight I see would be outweighed by the hours of waking darkness. I know this, because I’ve lead that life. It’s a pretty lonely place and I’m thankful to be (sometimes begrudgingly) pulled back into the stream of humanity.
Again and again I come back to the question of what it is that drives a person to do what they do. As I lay on the concrete floor of my studio working on yet another Carnivora drawing (the most ambitious by several feet) I can’t help but wonder why it is I’m compelled to work on a drawing for a body of work that has been released. I thought I was done with it. I really did, and yet… here I am, working on yet another drawing which is certain to take me hundreds of hours to complete, and is guaranteed to cause my barely managed repetitive stress injury to flare up. Perhaps it’s the sense of calm and focus that comes over me while laying on that cold, hard floor. Perhaps it’s the feeling of satisfaction I get when I sit back and look at the lines. Or perhaps it’s that small sense of wonder that comes from knowing that this sheet of paper was once blank. That the lines that form a cohesive image are something that I’ve created. That came from my hand. My mind.
It’s enough to keep you up at night…
Sights and Sounds
10:30pm, Brooklyn, NY, corners of Vanderbilt and Greene Ave.
It seemed somehow surreal, as though it were a movie set.
Surely there was no way, in this somewhat sleepy section of Brooklyn, for cars to go fast enough to wind up on their sides, smashed against iron gates set deep upon the sidewalk?!? But as I walked around the accident scene – shockingly close at hand – I realized that was exactly what I was seeing.
Adding to the Hollywood effect of it all, I noted with some relief that there was not a single drop of blood to be seen, nor were there any victims visible. And so, like many a New Yorker, I drifted off into the night.
