The Laundromat

The Laundromat had a gallery opening the other night. And I just couldn’t resist buying a particular piece. It is Blackout by Liz Atzberger. If you remember, we have a piece by her already. It’s using black paint and magnets and it’s a beautiful small piece. I like how the edges are washed in a rusty red and green haze, and add to the light and depth of the black. Liz mentioned that it would make a good companion piece to the other work we have. I didn’t really think of that, but I have to agree. The variation in mediums makes me want to position them in a way where they will oppose each other, black and white… I’m still throwing around some ideas in my head. I’m still trying to figure out where to put it. Kevin hopefully will walk over and install it for us. I’m used to associating her with plastic cable ties (which I dealt with way too much when I worked for the NYS Dept. of Ed.) and bright neon colors, so it’s funny that we have pieces that are primarily white and black.
I was telling Ryan that I was a little against getting a second piece, once I found out it was her, because I didn’t want to have a “thing.” I am fundamentally a little allergic to the idea of having a “thing.” The only thing more ridiculous is to make “not having a thing,” a thing in of itself, so I ignored that and went with my gut.

The show itself was along similar lines as the The burger show they did last year. Basically the showing artists create concepts that people will consume. There were some really great burger ideas last year. There was some talk about doing a hot dog show, but they settled on drinks. I think practically that that is the better idea. However, I was a little excited a for the idea of hot dogs. This, I think was a winning idea. They had an extensive menu of tasty treats and cute names.

Ben Godward’s drink seamlessly melded with his sculpture, which consists of buckets and globules of paint creating something of a neon phallic mountain-scape. His corona bottles were mini little sculptures that one of the prop stylists that attended the show bought for a famous day time talk show host/cook. (And coincidentally Ben was so sweet and gave us a bottle to have, which we are a little hesitant to open. We have something this semi-famous person has. HAH.)
We also had a Creamaster, which was a white russian, inspired by the video artist Matthew Barney by Artist Bob Scheib. (Who, by the way, enthusiastically made us the drinks and didn’t charge us exclaiming, “Art should be free!”) Another notable whiskey and soda green drink with a plastic shark was “The impossibility of a hangover in the mind of someone getting drunk…” Liz created a drink with coffee grinds, anise and vodka, which was pretty frightening, but went down pretty easily. Finally, I had the bacon salt rimmed pickle martini with a pickled brussel sprout, because it has everything I love. And it was surprisingly creamy and pretty damn awesome. Late in the party, I was running around shouting, “LICK THE RIM” pretty enthusiastically. That’s what happens to me when you mix bacon, martini, pickles, and brussel sprouts with me.