hibernating and so...

My sincerest apologies to my fans, both of you, for my absence in the past few days. i've been reading, nesting, meditating on this new place.

what is it that happens exactly when a place transforms from 'strange and new' to something more akin to 'home?' it doesn't happen so suddenly i suppose--not overnight anyway. i mean, don't get me wrong, i'm not yelling "I OWN THIS TOWN" from the rooftops or anything. not yet, anyway. but you know what i mean. at some point, you stop getting lost all the time. it's easier to spot the tourists, not to get bowled over in foot-traffic in the metro, and you feel ok about the bakery lady being brusque... 'cause she's just like that. nothing personal. exact change makes her day.

but at the same time, that transition from alien-to-home, there's something discomfiting about it. it's perhaps why residencies are generally a month or so. just enough time for one to be wildly thrown off course and, while regrouping, sort some things out in the studio. that "fight or flight" gene kicks in and you make stuff of pure gut. the newness of place puts a good fear in you, i think.
..and you might guess from my tone here that i'm fearful of it wearing off in the coming weeks. but, quite the contrary! it's cold outside! i'm pleased to have found a home in my studio surrounded by books i've been dying to read! i swear to you.

tomorrow, i'm hoping to make it to london for frieze art fair. i naïvly imagined the eurostar train was something like amtrak: not inexpensive, yet not wildly overpriced. it's unfortunately the latter. and, as both of you know by now, there is no Chinatown bus to London. who knew? that said, we'll see.
plan b means going to la Closerie Falbala, which is arguably Jean Dubuffet's magnum opus. it's a private site about an hour and a half out of Paris. there are some photos of the site here. I'm also hoping to visit the Tiffany Lamps exhibition here in town, as well as the graffiti photography exhibition at the Cartier Foundation. but, we'll see how the chips fall. stay tuned...