Two Legends

Blinky & Nigel. (This isn't a permanent installation, Nigel's ashes are in a portable pine box. But the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park is our crematorium of choice, and I had a hunch Blinky might be buried there.)

RIP Nige

It is with great sadness that I announce the passing of Sporting Field's Nigel NW1 RN from congestive heart failure Monday morning. Nigel was 11 years old and had been with us since the age of 2.

A fancy show whippet imported to LA from Virginia, Nigel grew an inch over the breed standard, and joined our family during retired racing greyhounds Albert and Reyna's final stretch. After a year as a solo artist, he was joined by whippet puppy siblings Chloe and Portfolio, who were technically his aunt and uncle.

Nigel went on to be one of the first dogs trained in the sport of K9 Nosework, and the first whippet to earn his NW1 title. Just two years ago he completed his Rally Novice title at the Whippet National in Eugene, OR, with the second highest score (after Portfolio, of course!)

Nigel was full of humor, curiosity, and boundless good cheer, even during the last year as his heart grew to bursting. He was my guru, and I'll be hard pressed to find as good a role model. We'll all miss him.

Looking better all the time!

(Map from Kirby's KAMANDI)

Cathy Ward at The Good Luck Gallery

Cathy Ward and Eric Wright have headed back to the UK, but Cathy’s solo US debut is up through Oct 3rd at The Good Luck gallery in L.A,’s Chinatown. I've written about Cathy's extraordinary scratchboard drawings a couple of times (here and here), but never had the chance to see more than a couple at a time in person until her current show. My first impression was that I was in some kind of Victorian era Jules Verne bathysphere (or bathyscube I guess) studded with portholes, each one looking out on a different murky, mysterious parallel reality -- all of which seemed to be made out of hair.

On further inspection, it became clear that Cathy's work has expanded its territory considerably (this particular strain -- a bigger picture of her multiple oeuvres can be explored here and here and here). The most remarkable examples of this new direction was a trio of works grouped together at the center of the gallery's north wall. Collectively entitled Insoluble Conflicts, these works incorporate washes of sumi ink that are explored and refined with scratchboard-type incisions. 

The new painterly quality conjures the badass Anglo romantic tradition of William Blake and JMW Turner, while the aleatory compositional technique -- wherein Cathy teases out hallucinatory imagery from cloudy washes -- and the informational density of the results trigger associations with German artists Albrecht Durer and Max Ernst (particularly the one with the Loplopesque bird), all of which is in keeping with the artist's fascination with Euro-paganism. I'm not sure how Da Vinci's Deluge drawings fit in, but it probably has something to do with the Freemasons.

Cathy Ward's work has been selected for inclusion in Pulse Miami in December, so her prices are certain to escalate. Snap 'em up now!

'patacritical Interrogation of Helle Haasse

re: The Limbourg Brothers & "the absolutely to come fall"!