Archive for May, 2009
Carnivora: Sights and Sounds
A glimpse, or a taste…
2:00pm, on a bitterly cold February afternoon, hours behind schedule, in a photo studio below the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
The make-up was finally finished and the set-up was complete, but the studio was cold… far too cold for me, and I was wearing clothes and a hat. I couldn’t help but wince when I looked at our first model and saw her standing barefoot on the hard floor. As we marched heater after heater into the studio in an effort to increase the comfort level I crossed my fingers as the final preparations were made. There would be only one chance: we had to get it right.
shot with an iPhone 3G
Odd Foods: The UGLI© Fruit
In my on-going pursuit of food oddities, particularly fruit oddities, I’m continually amazed by what’s available at your local store.
At first I thought, “well, I do live in New York City, and there’s something fitting about having access to so much”, but as time has passed and I’ve been around, I’m realizing that these kinds of things are everywhere! The bodega or deli around the corner as well as the local grocer.
The ugli fruit (pronounced oo-glee according to wikipedia), or Jamaican Tangelo, is something special: not only are fruits like this available thanks to globalization, but their names are copyrighted and they’re sold as branded items. This fruit, which at the end of it all is a hybridization between a grapefruit and a tangerine, is sold under two different brand names: UGLI© Fruit and Uniq© Fruit.
Grown largely in it’s native Jamaica, the fruit was actually discovered growing wild on the island, and has since been commercialized.
The skin is rough, but easy to peel like a naval orange, while the flesh is extremely juicy tending more towards the sweet of the tangerine, rather than the bitter of the grapefruit… which is good because I don’t like grapefruit, and I did like this.
Not as expensive as some of the exotics I’ve looked at before, it does however command a premium when compared to more mundane fruits (apples and oranges for example). It’s slightly larger than a standard grapefruit, and had a sturdy shelf life, lasting more than 2 weeks on my counter before I dug in.
Andy had a Dream…
Almost a decade ago I traveled to Portugal and decided that I would paint and write while traveling throughout the country. I stayed for 6 months and it remains, in my mind, one of the most rewarding adventures I’ve ever experienced.
While abroad, I received a letter from my friend, Andrew Johnson, telling me of a dream he had had. It struck a visceral chord within and I was moved to pen an Eliot-esque poem embellishing the contents of his dream.
New York, present day…
As work on my multi-media installation, Carnivora, proceeds I am excited to know that one of my favorite musicians is hard at work crafting a unique album of music based on my writings and poems as they relate to the show’s premise. Of course, as is the case with so many things, there was work done before the work began, and as such Felix (the musician) repayed me a debt by creating a song based on a poem that I’ve never been able to let go of… it’s called The Dream (or I Dreamt as Andrew Johnson).
You can read the poem by clicking here, and you can listen to the resulting track below.
A Career in the Arts? Really? – Part II
Can you hear the gears turning?
What drives someone to desire a career as an artist?
What makes them say, I’m going to make “art” for a living?
From an early age I was drawn to creative endeavors: drawing, doodling, Play Dohing, Shrinky Dinking… you name it, I liked to do it.
Though my father wasn’t around for much of my childhood, I was fortunate to have had a mother who tirelessly encouraged my creative pursuits, providing me with endless reams of colored paper, rounded safety scissors, crayons and other implements of marking. Some of my most memorable childhood toys fell into that category.
There were the bathtub crayons, meant to be used on the tiles of our shower, and of course there were the crayon cookies; leftover crayon nibs melted together in muffin tins to form rainbow rounds (early recycling!)
Like my fondly remembered crayon cookies, sometimes it was the simplest of items that brought the most joy.
The joy of simple objects... like an egg carton... taped to your face?
Having played a large part in my early years, the importance of the arts began to fade throughout Middle School, where I focused largely on touching girls (all to no avail). It, therefore, came as some surprise when I was voted “Most Artistic” at the close of 8th grade. And certainly a great surprise to the boy who illustrated the entire yearbook.
Sadly, the arts all but died within me during the 4 years of high school, as I scribbled meaninglessly in notebooks and spent hours upon hours pouring over comic books with like minded friends. It was not until mid-way through my sophomore year of college that they surfaced again… but, boy, did they surface.
“Mom… I’m dropping out of the pre-med program… I’m going to be an artist!”
Gulp!
Click here for Part III of this ongoing look at the origins of an interest in the arts. Click here to view Part I.
Sights and Sounds
A glimpse, or a taste…
2:30pm, midtown Manhattan, the sidewalks were full of shoulders angling and jerking: the busy dance of coming and going.
I stood in front of a bank of televisions as they squawked noiselessly behind plate glass: all flashing their non-news… save for one. There was something macabre about the image as it hung there, frozen, quivering ever so slightly in time to some imagined pulse. It was monstrous and delicious in the way that anything that shakes you free from urban repitition can be (lock the door, down the stairs, board the train, up the stairs, open wallet, etc, etc.).
shot with an iPhone 3G
Lost and Found: The Highest Stairway
Alejandro loved his children.
It really was as simple as that, and so it was no surprise that he carried a picture of his only son, Nueve, in his wallet.
Nueve, which of course, meant 9 in English, was a nod to Nueve’s role in his families lineage: he was the ninth son born to the same blood line, and big things were expected of him. He was the one they hoped would “make it”. There was only one problem… Nueve was a girl.
No one knew: Alejandro would never let anyone know.
The styles of the time allowed for little boys to wear their hair long, and Neuve understood the importance of maintaining the facade: it was fun, it was a game.
Alejandro worried about the future as he stumbled slightly on the irregular rise of the stone step.
Found in the shadows of Huayna Picchu, wind-pressed to one of the many steps of Peru’s pre-Columbian Incan wonder, Machu Picchu.
Sights and Sounds
A glimpse, or a taste…
Mid-afternoon on a blustery day, though not quite winter, since it seems we don’t have those in New York anymore.
The scent of fish was strong as I rounded the corner having just come from Dim Sum in Brooklyn’s, then new-to-me, Chinatown. The abundance was the second thing you noticed: the possibilities were boundless and the prices reasonable! But could they sell it all? After a brief tour of the bounty I shuffled home with a small bag of razor clams and a pound of LIVE shrimp knowing for certain that my taste buds would thank me.
shot with an iPhone 3G
A Career in the Arts? Really? – Part I
What drives someone to desire a career as an artist?
What makes them say, I’m going to make “art” for a living?
I surely don’t know, but I know that I’ve fully made that decision.
Over the course of the nearly 10 years that I’ve lived in New York, I’ve made plenty of art, but always struggled when people asked me what I did for a living. It felt, somehow, disingenuous to say, “why, I’m an artist!” when I knew that I had another job. It didn’t feel right even when I was making a good deal of my income from freelance graphic design (that’s a personal statement and not a comment on the artistic merits of design). When I hit my early 30’s, however, it dawned on me: it’s time to do it or not, but no more half-way. I didn’t want to lay on my deathbed wishing that I had tried to be an artist. I was going to do it.
Nigh on two years later and I’ve done it: and by “done it” I mean that on a day-to-day basis it’s all I do, and though I may be ass-over-tea kettle in debt, with a hill to climb in front of me that would intimidate the most talented in the field, I still go to bed at night with a smile on my face.
Click for Part II of this ongoing look at the origins of an interest in the arts.
Studio cat, Igga, keeps a watchful eye on the work at paw...
A new day, a new dawn… a NEW SITE!
Many suns and many moons have passed since my last posting to this menagerie, but there’s been a great deal of movement behind the scenes as the mighty process of retooling has taken place.
Most importantly…
Lo, a new website has emerged from beneath the covers: www.jasoncovert.com
Some may have been there before, and many likely not, but it’s new, and America loves new.
I would tell you that once you step in, you can smell that new website smell, but I’d be lying because technology simply isn’t there… yet.
Check it out – namely you may notice a distillation of focus: upon landing, you’ll have two basic choices – photography or fine art. I’m trying to focus, people. Focus.
When I was in high school, Mr. Brown, my physics teacher, once told my mother that he thought I could do incredible things if only I would focus. Sadly, he didn’t think I ever would. Well, Mr. Brown, I’m giving it a shot.
A ray of sunshine in an otherwise drab and lifeless internet