Bradford Brillowski » Amy O'Neill

Top Ten of 2011

2011 was a heckuva year! It was my year, the Year of the Rabbit. We’ve done some great work this year as a people. And some stinkers, to be sure, but let’s forget all the bad things and concentrate on the sparkle times. Everyone loves a year-in-review list, and here’s mine in no particular order:

1. “The Clock” by Christian Marclay. I saw four or so hours of this 24 hour masterpiece at the Paula Cooper Gallery this February. I wrote about it here, and I’m sure I’m not the only person to put it on their top 10 things of 2011. Hell, it should go down as one of the top 10 amazing things ever. It’s a celebration of film and culture, but also of viewership and consumerism. It’s a 24 hour love letter to the movies.

2. “Love Is What You Want” by Tracey Emin at the Hayward Gallery. One of my undergraduate professors taught us that you can’t spend more than three hours in a museum and expect to retain anything that you saw. Emin’s show was one of the most comprehensive retrospectives I’ve ever seen, and to really absorb everything, you need to spend nearly three hours in the gallery. The result is triumphantly consuming. It was a great journey back through her work and also back through my memories of being an art student (a link back to my original write-up is here.)

3. Just Kids/The Chelsea Hotel. Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids was an incredible read. Her writing at times little embarrassing, using words like “chalks” instead of pencils (her crush on French poets is at high school tragedy level), but its heart and spirit are deeply moving. We all have a bit of Patti in us, or should anyways, and I was surprised by her lucidity. So much of the book is centered at or around The Chelsea Hotel that I couldn’t separate the two. The last time I stayed there was right after I read the book. It’s closed while it undergoes renovation, and none of us will ever go back to the Chelsea that was in the book. Shame.

4. Podcasts. I need people to read to me or talk to me for hours on end every day while I sit in my studio. Podcasts aren’t linked to 2011 in any tangible way, but there were a bunch of really good ones that I added to my stable of voices this year. Two of my favorites are “WTF” and “Walking The Room.” I listened/still sometimes listen to the Nerdist podcast, but I get super annoyed by the way Chris Hardwick steps on everyone’s speech. Plus, you get the sense that he’s a nerd that really wants to be a cool kid, rather than a nerd that says “fuck those cool kids.” So yeah, podcasts.

5. London’s Free Museums. This is the way museum experiences are supposed to be. Not the way they usually are, where you pay $20 and then race through everything trying to get your money’s worth. There is a relaxing of the shoulders, a slowing of the pace in the museums of London. If you don’t see everything one day, you know you can come back the next. You can linger at one painting and walk past another without a second thought. It’s civilized. One can look at art on one’s natural body clock.

6. The Los Angeles Subway System. It’s a marvel, really. It’s a subway in an earthquake zone in the largest square-mile city in America. It has about 14 total stops. And yet, the stations are so elegant. So huge, so artfully decorated. It’s an ode to the 20th century. Bradford and I walked from the Arclight at Hollywood and Vine up to the Metro stop at Hollywood and Highland simply to ride the subway back to the Arclight. Los Angeles: where everyone seems high and time is always on your side.

7. Protests. The Occupy Wall Street protests are grabbing all the current ink, but what I’m referring to are the protests in Wisconsin this year. The governor is a complete fuckwit and has no business managing a Fleet Farm, let alone a state. And he finally pushed the good people of Wisconsin out of the bars and into the streets. Wisconsinites are a proud, keep-to-yourself kind of folks, but they got back to their Socialists roots and demanded respect and representation. I may live in Massachusetts, but I am a Wisconsin citizen at my core. You, rah-rah.

8. Technology. The iPhone 4S is a marvel. The camera in it is worth the price alone. It’s so pretty and perfect. Its made me think about how we’re in the middle of a quantum leap of sorts, akin to that of the Industrial Revolution. Our notions of connectivity and access are changing before our eyes, and the dust has not settled. It’s exciting, it’s slightly disconcerting, and our lives will never be the same again.

9. Melancholia by Lars von Trier. I love movies that make you shake with uncertainty at their end, because you’re not sure how you’re supposed to react. I burst out laughing when the credits rolled. It’s like my body didn’t know what else to do. It was the best kind of unsettling. I had similar experiences with Black Swan and Synechode, New York. All great films, depending on who you ask.

10. Chopin. Again, this is not a 2011-specific inclusion. But we all need to listen to him more. His is not just classical music, but rather it’s the soul of mankind music. And it’s so current. He’s my go-to guy in the studio, in the same way Tom Waits and Sarah Vaughn are my go-to guys. Whether I need to focus or need to clear my head, Chopin is it. I’m listening to him right now in fact.

And there you have it, the best of 2011. I hope you have a great holiday season with your families and friends, and I will write again in 2012. Merry Merry, everyone. Keep working.

Me, right now, as I write this blog post.

Art Crimes

I’ve left LA, babe, on a jet plane. Don’t know when I’ll be back again, though i’m guessing sooner than later. I’m coming back to Boston just in time to watch the hurricane, because who doesn’t love when weather goes bonkers? I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love that.

I had a bee in my bonnet the other day to make a stencil from a facebook status update I wrote which read “Kim Deal is my spirit animal.” I only (allegedly) did a few stencil tags around Hollywood (if you’re on Melrose, you may want to keep an eye out. Or not, whatever.) I’m not big on minor law infractions, but sometimes it’s good to be a little rock and roll about things. Petty art crimes are often pretty art crimes, and I did my part to keep it interesting.

Bradford and I got down to business on our graphic novel, and I’ll post when I can about it. I plan on erring on this side of caution since these drawings and stories will one day be published, and I don’t want our product floating around the dark corners of the ‘net before they’re meant to be seen. But I hope to see what I can do about things.

I’m en route to Boston just in time to see the hurricane, or what’s left of it. It will either be totally major, or exactly like the recent earthquake. Either way, I’m ready for a show.

Hola from Los Angeles

I’m in LA for a week or so to hang out with Bradford and Charlie. Brad and I have a new project that we’re working on, but truth be told, most of our time will be spent puttering and fussing about the house, playing guitars and banjos, and making Polish lady lunch plates every day. This afternoon, Bradford made ice cream from scratch as well as blueberry cornbread muffins. That’s what Los Angeles is all about: prairie livin’.

And I’m Back!

Hi Everyone. Sorry I left the blog high and dry for a while. My best friend Bradford and his incredible boyfriend, Charlie Dicus, came to Boston for a magical visit, and I dropped every and all project to celebrate their arrival. I talk to Bradford on the phone nearly every day, but it’s always a treat to be with him. We have been friends for 18 years, and lived in the same city for only 3 of those years. I think we grew closer by being so far away from each other. We did a lot of power lounging, house pants-wearing, eating and drinking, sight-seeing (like Salem, pictured, which turns out dazzles no one but fourth graders and burnouts), and a small but wonderful dip into New York City. The joy I felt from their visit has been replaced by melancholy due to their absence. I’m like a Victorian lady, fainting on couches and covering my eyes with my housegloves.

Friendships are so wonderful. Maybe that’s why so many songs and situation comedies are about friends.

Side Project!

You know how sometimes your favorite band has a side project? Well, I’m your favorite band, and Bradford and I have started work on a side project. We are turning one of his scripts into a graphic novel. We’re in the initial planning and sorting out stages, but things are moving quite nicely. I’m guessing this will take us about a year to complete this, but it will be a very pleasant year.

Bradford and I work very well together. My ideal way of collaborating with people is to be given specific directions, make a bunch of work, then have someone else sift through it and make sense of it. Bradford’s ideal way of working is to give those directions and make the work make sense.

What I started doing is making several example illustrations to start the creative dialogue between us. (Editor’s aside: “creative dialogue? I can’t believe I just wrote that and meant that.) Here are two of the examples. The first one is a drawing with a bit of collage, and the second one is a cut-paper illustration. I’m trying out some new ideas, and I’ll post some of them soon.

What I’m Reading Right Now

It’s Sense & Sensibility, the comic book. Bradford sent this to me a month or so ago as a reference for a big project he and I are working on, and I’m just getting around to it now. I have a very strenuous reading regimine. You know, Entertainment Weekly, the circular from the grocery store, Facebook, etc. So it took me a while to get to this gem. The page layouts are a little stale, but it’s Jane Austen by way of Marvel Comics! It’s okay if it’s a little stiff: it’s a quick, but very pretty, read.

Tuesdays are Terrific!

Bradford was telling me the other day that he has a theory about Tuesdays. He says when you work in an office, Tuesday is the real Monday, because Mondays are spent catching up with co-workers about their weekend, sifting through Facebook, talking about Sunday night HBO programs, etc. It’s not until Tuesday that the ugh factor of your job sets in. His other theory about Tuesdays is that it’s the day that Sheryl Crow gets crazy. That’s the day she drinks beer in the afternoon pulling the labels off the bottles, and it’s the night she has her Music Club.

I’m not Sheryl Crow, nor do I have an office job. BUT! Today I babysat my lovely niece Charlotte while Heather submitted her grades for the semester. She brought Charlotte over to my house, and for three hours I watched her sleep; she looks amazing when she sleeps. She has baby dreams and is relaxed and happy. I gave her a bottle, changed her diaper, and sang her sweet little songs. I love babies! And Tuesdays!

Happy Birthday, Bradford Brillowski!

Today is Bradford’s birthday! I’m 3500 miles away from him and therefore can’t celebrate in person, but if I were in Los Angeles I would make him a plate of cold cuts. We’d wash them down with a small glass of apple schnapps, and then spend the afternoon making playlists and re-arranging furniture.

Happy birthday, pal!

Here comes the rain again.

Well, it’s raining again in Boston. It is raining much harder than it did a couple weeks ago. It looks like prop rain from a movie. I just finished the long process of fortifying the basement against flooding. I tuckpointed every mortar joint, caulked the perimeter, etched the walls and floors with phosphoric acid, painted the walls with three coats of Dry-Lok, and painted the floors with cement floor paint. I took the picture on the left after I washed the acid off the surfaces, and the picture on the right is the new shiny finished product! I rolled out the final bit of the floor as the rain started yesterday. I was watching the walls and the floors for signs of leaks. I woke up this morning at 5:30 to pounding rain. I ran downstairs to check for leaks. Dry as a bone. And now it’s almost noon, and still totally dry. I can’t believe it! I feel like Doc Brown in Back To The Future when he screamed, “It works! It works! I finally invented something that works!” I did not invent the caulk or cement or the paint, but I’m pretty amped that I used them all the right way.

So now I just wait. The floor is a little too fresh for me to start moving stuff back to that side of the basement, so today I’m going to treat myself to doing not much. I got a birthday present in the mail from our friends Anya and James in London of a whole load of catalogs from the Tate, so I’m gonna curl up on the couch and dive right in.

Let me leave you with this gem of a clip that Bradford sent me a while ago. It really brings the LOLs.

Please welcome guest blogger Bradford Brillowski!

I’m still painting the studio, so I thought I’d take some time to share with you an email I got yesterday from my bestie Bradford. Even though he lives in LA, we talk nearly every day and sometimes send each other emails like this one:

I do this all the time in my head. When I daydream, I’m (often) kinda just doing this [math thing that's in this video] Nature By Numbers. I do something similar, on purpose, when I park the car– as I walk away I’m making a 3-D “math-map” behind me so I can retrace my steps later and easily return to the vehicle (or whatever). Although the mapping is intentional, it is also automatic and not at the forethought of my experience. It is in the background. I also have a similar sense of North, South East and West and can rotate the map around me to figure out where I am and which direction I am facing or need to go.

Before I physically move furniture around the house, I experience days if not weeks of glee rearranging everything in my head over and over again with a touch of this 3-dimensional math-y measurement going on. I actually move the furniture once I land on a complete picture that is pleasing and functional to me.

When I read tarot cards, the pictures combine with the numbers, combine with the suits, combine with the placements — and a very fast kind of electric-picture-equation takes off. It is usually faster than I can keep up with. That’s why I get so spazzy and talk really fast when I do readings. That’s also why the experience of reading the cards is pleasing to me. It’s like a game for me to to keep up and “narrate” the process. —And then (often) people say that they heard exactly what they needed to hear, or (most often) that they already knew everything I told them but they never saw it all together from the perspective I presented. That feels good too. And it also both surprises and amazes me every time.

When I see things like that cool astronomical animation at the beginning of Contact I can alter the process, put myself at the center (or anywhere else in the model) and expand that same animation around me. Then I feel that I have a good idea of how small I am (we are) in the Universe.

For a long time (since around the same time I got into “voodoo” stuff -early college.) I’ve felt comforted by looking at math and physics books. The equations are pleasing to me. I don’t understand what they mean, but I am relieved and elated to know that something beyond my comprehension, has order and meaning.

I trust big math = I trust the bigger picture, however it came to be.

I still despise story problems.