Philadelphia artists.

I had the great pleasure of meeting artist Alexandra Tyng yesterday - and we both had work in the Philadelphia Sketch Club's exhibition at Newman Galleries. Here's Alex's painting of another Philly painter, Nancy Bea Miller:

And here I am with my painting of John:

Week recap.

...aaaaand it's been a busy one over here... started my first week of class at the Alliance Francaise (finally!), got back into the rhythm of the weekly sketching group over at Mark Bullen's studio, finally tried out Honey's Sit 'N' Eat, went to check out local drag diva Martha Graham Cracker's cabaret show at L'Etage, and attended my first dinner meeting at the Philadelphia Sketch Club, featuring a talk by illustrator Gene Barretta. All good stuff! I'm exhausted. Philly, you wear me out - but I love you. SMOOCH.

Oh yeah, and I've been doing some painting, too - here's a new one in progress (one of many):

Painting-in-progress, by me. Oil on canvas, 20"x16".

Sketchy, clubby.

Hey! It's been busy over here, but I wanted to take a moment to let you know that the painting below will be included in the Philadelphia Sketch Club's 150th Anniversary Exhibition opening this Saturday at Newman Galleries in downtown Philadelphia. Yay Sketch Club!

jrf dark, oil on canvas, 20"x16", by me.

Of paintings and centipedes.

Lest ye think I had forgotten about my painting pursuits, let me assure you that painting is totally happening chez Feissel. Totally! Just very, very achingly slowly these days. Plus, it does not help to distract one's self by being in the middle of several different painting projects simultaneously... but I seem to work like that, however dysfunctional it may seem.

Since we're on the topic of l'art, here's a painting (one half of a set) that I've been working on intermittently, a commission from a late-19th century b&w photo. This project has been fun, I just need to finish, fer Chrissakes, and wrap it up!

work in-progress, 2010, oil on panel, 14"x11", by me, Diane Feissel.

On another, non-painting-related note, we saw this movie over the weekend and I am here to tell you that - move over, Christopher Walken - Dieter Laser is now the creepiest man alive.

Kineticinterwebs.

Let's hear it for the Internets, the interwebs, the world wide wonder that is the world wide web... I have found more photos from the Kensington Kinetic Scupture Derby on Saturday. Thanks to Flickr user "odhusky," whose flickr profile can be found here, we have documentation of last Saturday's shenanigans:

Here’s John, looking super badass:

And here I am on the back of a tandem, with a peach on my head:

Many thanks to the ever-awesome Matt Shiley who made the peach head (among other costumes, and many of the bicycles involved) and otherwise got us into this whole barrel of monkeys.

Kinetic.

This past Thursday I waddled back up to NYC to go to the opening reception for "GO FIGURE" at J. Cacciola Gallery in Chelsea, featuring figurative work by Alex Kanevsky, Sophie Jodoin, Jeffrey Beauchamp, and Margaret Evangeline. It's the first time I’ve been able to see any of Sophie Jodoin's work live and in-person, so this was a true thrill for me. Also, Alex was kind enough to introduce me to her: this was truly like Christmas and my birthday rolled into one. YAY. Her work was reeeeeally cool, these particular pieces were in oil on mylar – here's a shot of my favorite:

Naturally Alex also had some stunning pieces, as usual – for example, the following:

Man, I love having New York so close by. But for now, back to Philly and its own brand of creative awesomeness! Yesterday I spent several hours tandem bicycling around Kensington/Fishtown with a giant peach on my head. John and I ended up joining up with a group in the Kensington Kinetic Sculpture Derby, dressing up in costumes and riding bicycles as part of the team representin’ Emerald Street Urban Farm. The "farm fanatic" group was dressed in various farm-related garb, with many of us taking the role of various fruits and vegetables. As we rode along the parade route, with me in my giant peach head, I kept hearing people yell out, "It's a tomato!!!" One kid yelled out, "LOOK, IT'S A PUMPKIN!!!" I thought, sadly, I am SO misunderstood here. Clearly Fishtown folk need to become better acquainted with their fruits and veggies. Anyway, observe said giant peach head below, on fellow participant Nate Dixon. He definitely amps up the psychotic peach factor by wielding a giant cardboard knife. (In retrospect, I wish I had carried that with me throughout the parade. Drat):

John had this great bike with flames on the seat and in the tires, and a peacock mask. Every farm needs a flaming peacock, right? YES.

By now there are probably a number of videos and photos posted out in the interwebs, so take a peek around... here's one with some snippets (I can be seen at about 1:20, look for the giant peach head):

Here's Kennedy (the front half of my tandem bike team), who's ready to eat some giant veggies... aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr

Anyway, good times. Eat your veggies. Shop at your local urban farm. Now I need some time to work on some of my own art projects...

Side note: where did this place come from? Looks cool, but it seems to have kind of sprung up out of nowhere. I love surprises! Thanks, Fishtown.

Asleep through NJ.

I should re-name this blog "www.asleepthroughnewjersey.blogspot.com" or something, due to the number of bus trips we've been making up to NYC (New Jersey pretty much taking up the entire trip between Philadelphia and Manhattan) and my ability to sleep soundly through every trip. So far it seems I'm taking advantage of proximity to NYC far more than the last time I lived in Philly ('93-'98), so that's a plus. Last night's trek northward was inspired by the discovery of a Recoil concert - only one of 2 in the U.S. on this spring's tour - taking place at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village. To explain: Recoil is a band/musical project undertaken since the late '80s by former Depeche Mode band member Alan Wilder. My husband John is quite enthusiastic about Depeche Mode (a vast understatement) and we have 4 or 5 of Recoil's albums... so we had to give this a go. It was a unique event, definitely worth the trip - and John got to say "hi" to Alan Wilder, and thank him for all the great music over the years, check it out:

...so I think that pretty much made John's day - possibly his week, maybe even his month. Maybe more. I, too, got a genuine and substantial thrill out of being in such close proximity to Mr. Wilder, enough to take several frenzied photos:
In short, it was excellent. Back to NYC tomorrow night for some visual art rather than music, to catch the group show at J. Cacciola Gallery... stay tuned for photos. In the meantime, here's a Recoil video from the 2000 album "Liquid" - the song is called "Strange Hours" and features the vocals of super-freaky and frankly terrifying singer and performer Diamanda Galás: