Last week I attended a fancy art opening at The Galleries at Moore over at Moore College, where my good friend Jordan Griska had his latest piece on display. Simply entitled Gas Pump, his newest sculpture is a kinetic piece that crumbles into itself over time, and was actually created using an old, 1930’s gas pump. It was pretty damn cool, and clearly spoke to our country’s reliance on gas.
I’m not going to lie to you, Internet. Sometimes I really don’t ‘get’ art. I can appreciate a pretty painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art or some fancy bronze sculpture in the local park, but when it comes to a deeper understanding of the work, I’m almost always at a loss. Literature, of course I get that. Post modern experimental performance art… not so much.
However, Jordan’s works are always easy to understand, comfortable to grasp. He somehow manages to create sculptures that speak to the more common (ie: me) folk. Their meaning doesn’t evade the non-art connoisseur. His pieces aren’t condescending. They’re fun, crazy. They move and are interactive. He creates them on a grand scale and sometimes, they are dangerous. He was working on his piece Sisyphus when we first met two years ago. A wild kinetic beast of a sculpture, he fell off and broke a disc in his spine.
Ad Infinitum is another great piece, massive tubes painted with electric paint, lit up by thousands of LEDs. Check it out. Seriously.
Keep it up, J. I’m proud of you.
Jordan Griska
www.jordangriska.com
Here’s the deal. I am artistically challenged. I can’t draw, paint, etch… nothing.
However, I can take sprites from classic NES games, blow them up in Photoshop, print them as 5×7’s at the local camera shop, and put them in Ikea frames.
My choice party while playing Final Fantasy 1, and my favorite boss in Mega Man 2.
I’m kinda proud of myself!
Sometimes Heather and I chase the rare, playful bunnerfly. It’s a bunny mixed with a butterfly. It’s also one of my gross pet names for Heather. Why? I’m not sure. Probably just to drive my friends crazy. But here we are, chasing them, in full color.
Big thanks to the ever talented Anthony Clark for this adorable print of me and Heather. His last one, where Heather and I were caught in a “bunderstorm” currently sits framed in my apartment and on my desk at work.
I’m the big squirrel. She’s the little squirrel.
I love the way you grumble when I wake you up at 11:00am. I love how we talk like Cuteoverload writers in public. I love how our respective nicknames for each other are based on the pets we own. I love that I don’t care about spending $200 on a train ticket, just as long as I can get a $3 slice of pizza with you. I love how you tell people I’m taking you to the prom in public, making me look like a creepy old guy, when it’s really your sorority’s formal. I love that you’re painfully out of my league, but still give me the time of day anyway. I love how we look as cartoons.
Most of all, I love that you’re probably going to make fun of me for writing this.
Thanks to Sara for helping me pick this cute Valentine’s Day gift out, and to Marnie for making it!
So I turned 25 a week ago. I stressed to my friends not to get me anything, and they know better anyway. I’m not big on material things. When I get tired of a video game, a movie, a new electronic gadget, *whoosh!* up it goes on eBay. So you better believe I was surprised at the gifts some of my friends came up with anyway.
Above is a gorgeous painting done by my friend Katie Regenye. Katie creates some seriously beautiful artwork, and I’m pretty upset that this photo does it zero justice. The lighting in my apartment just doesn’t illuminate it properly. She uses tons of color and little pieces of scrap thrown onto the canvas, like Easter basket grass, plastic bracelets, bits of wood, etc. The result is something truly unique, and I’m thrilled to have this hanging in my room…
… even if it did fall down on my face when I was sleeping the other night. I need to hang it up better.
My vixen of a girlfriend and my pal Alexis both made me pillows! The same dimensions and everything! Ah, the universe is so strange.
Heather made hers out of the t-shirt she bought from me when I first met her. When I was on tour with Foster, I spent some time running their merch table, and sold Heather this dark red t-shirt. This is, of course, inexplicably sweet and cute. Lex made a pillow with a picture of my bunny, Ash, on it. So awesome!
Eat your hearts out, Etsy people. Hee-hee.
This all makes me wish I had some sort of crafty talent aside from photography, but perhaps that is something I can consider this Christmas. Some sort of cute, personalized photographs for good friends and family, rather then my standard getting-people-DVDs-cause-I-don’t-know-what-else-to-get tactic.
Made me want to sign up for Buy Handmade. Check it out.
My debut novel comes out this Fall. You'll be able to download free audiobook podcasts 
