Day 9: Progress (Let's Get This Show on the Road)

I spent the day researching and writing (for 7 hours!). I am formulating ideas about the California portion of the VB trip which will be here before I know it and the majority of the day was devoted to this task. There's nothing like thinking of commonalities between artists like John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha and what work I would like to delve into that explores that (or what work I already make that comments on theirs and how I never realized it).


Ed Ruscha, Spam Product Shot, 1961


John Baldessari, The spectator is compelled..., 1968-79 (perhaps he's looking for Spam)

More time was devoted to Marilyn Monroe as visiting David C. Nolan's address in San Francisco is part of the California project and it would have been her 85th birthday today. The Lost Look Photographs by John Vachon arrived at the library and I've been perusing it. On a side note, I did see The Misfits while in Astoria (horrifying/fascinating = last film for both Monroe and a very sweaty Clark Gable). It was nowhere near the snooze fest of Seven Year Itch and still didn't beat Some Like it Hot but it was worth seeing even though the horse scenes were hard to watch. Speaking of The Misfits, this is what the back of a press photograph is supposed to look like (ahem, David C. Nolan):



Four more applications were sent today as well. Jennifer sent me the link to Mary Bennett's new exhibition, 1983 Rejections: 3 Acceptances and my odds better not be that bad (.15% = yikes). I never keep my rejections letters thankfully as that would be too painful to behold.


Mary Bennett's installation at 23 Sandy Gallery, Portland, Oregon

From the website: "This unique documentation of a poet’s struggle and success was found in a dumpster in San Francisco’s Noe Valley neighborhood in the mid 1990’s. The tattered, annotated index cards show a record of submissions to literary journals from 1973 to 1978. The installation is an attempt to recognize and honor this poet for her forbearance and patience."

There is definitely a connection to the Art Guys' Wailing Wall: