Signs

California Garden-Photograph by Julia Healy

I love the juxtaposition of garbage and wisteria...

Weeping Buildings, Watercolor by Julia Healy, 9/11/2001

I WIll Never Forget You, Elizabeth

My dear, dear friend Elizabeth Egbert fought a brave battle and the cancer won. She died on Saturday and I still have trouble wrapping my brain around this horrific event. She was a friend, an artist, an adviser and counselor! A smart, wry, woman who never shied away from speaking her mind. She was always there for me, and I like to think, I for her. We showed our work together, talked art, antiques, men, politics, religion and current events. She was a fabulous mother and wife and we shared so much together at the school bus stop, at art openings, parties or just in each others' houses or yards. I wish I could believe in an afterlife, but since I haven't reached that conclusion for myself, I will just say that I am so glad we knew one another and

I will miss you terribly.

Robert Heinecken's Exhibit at MOMA is Nothing Short of Amazing

I'd been avoiding going to MOMA because I was so disgusted with their stupid need for more space and the destruction of a jewel of a small museum, The once Museum of Folk Art. But I had some time on my hands and wanted to see this photography show. Trying to look away as I walked past the construction site, I had no idea how compelling I wold find this man's work. I was once told that a series of mine touched on the work of this man, so I was curious to know what an overview of his work would look like. My work in this vein had to do with taking images and using the backsides in collages in such a way to have the shape and image(s) inside contradict one another. His work explores the idea of combing disparate elements from different pages of magazines by cutting through to make a nonsensical composition.

 He was a restless artist and didn't linger with his styles or ideas long. I can relate to that, myself. His work is not traditional photography--if he did take photos he messed them up by cutting, collaging, crumpling and making sculptures and such. He also used a lot of mass media--magazines, especially. These he would cut through or reassemble into very funny, trenchant riffs on our culture. My favorite piece is his tv set with a classical transparency of a nude attached to the screen, so that the ads and shows are seen through the shape of the nude torso. Very humorous and a wonderful way to watch television, I think.

He died in 2006, not exactly unknown, but not a household word, either. Californian artists--especially those who teach for a living--rarely get their due on the East Coast.

 This show is only up until September 7, 2014, so you don't have a lot of time. It moves to LA next, its last stop.

I'm posting a Marilyn Monroe cutaway--just look at the dress area to the right to see what has been cut through by Heinecken. There are entire walls of these. I'm also going to drop in one of my "Curious Girls" collages, since there is such affinity there. We didn't tread the exact same ground, but we were in the same neighborhood.

"Root Bear"

This is a life-sized bear, originally a shooting target, that I made for the Black Bear Film Festival, to be held in October of 2014 in Milford, Pa. You can visit him or her on the Milford Library steps until then...

If you owned most of Greenwich Village...

...and died fairly young with no heirs...would you leave your vast fortune to building a vast retirement home for sailors? I am glad Mr. Randall did, because Snug Harbor is an amazing place. But when I think of old, weathered sailors, I don't think of a demographic that brings out a lot of sympathy in people.

Young orphans, disease research, poverty, education....these are areas one would think of first, even in the early 1800's, or am I wrong? Anyway, here's a photo of a window in the Main Hall. And he left his "dower" to the sailors, not a wife, lover, kids or friend...

Wednesday...

Hanging around the house tending a cold...four days of this and I think I'm on the mend. Here's a new photo....

New Collage Photograph: Oil Slick Bird, Gift-Wrapped