A meditation on drawings made by David Grim

A meditation on drawings made by David Grim. His show recently closed at Panza Gallery.



Ink drawings of people, maps of human bodies, made on phone book pages.

Image of the person, the picture made by looking at them, drawing in lines over lines of information about people, lists of numbers that allow us to reach out and make contact with a person.

White pages, lists of people, people with numbers next to their names. Index of human beings reduced to ten digits by which they can be reached. Connectivity.

A portrait of a person drawn over a list of people. An individual as a collection of people.

Knowing a person by seeing them. Knowing a person by reading information about them. Knowing a person through the metadata attached to that person. Phone number as tag.

Knowing some one on sight. Knowing some thing about some one. A piece of information is intimacy. Nudity is intimacy. Hearing a voice on the telephone is intimacy.

Drawings are seen. The numbers are seen. The numbers imply voices. Figures on a ground of numbers. The numbers imply connectivity. The numbers imply communication.

Art as the mediating object between bodies, carrying information in a container more dense than words.

PostApocalyptic Movie Theater @ Gooski's

While I was out and about in Polish Hill this past weekend for the Polish Hill Arts Festival, I spent a couple hours watching the works of local filmmakers at Gooski's. The PostApocalyptic Movie Theater is an installation of works curated by Jessica Fenlon. A portable and changing installation, the work is meant to be seen on walls that have their own character.

Ms. Fenlon did present one of her own works at the events, which I found very beautiful and compelling. Flight was scored by a live band at a screening in Pittsburgh. The work is richly layered, the color is other worldly.

For this installation, Ms. Fenlon chose works from her library of local filmmakers that ranged from narrative to abstract. Works by Matt Wellins, Ben Hernstrom, and Jessica Fenlon were represented in the event at Gooski's.

Clip from Flight, by Jessica Fenlon

Literary Reading at Modern Formations

Tonight at Modern Formations Gallery in the Garfield section of Pittsburgh: literary readings, music, and crowds, courtesy of Pittsburgh's own Six Gallery Press.

The Architecture of Loss

Digging Pitt artist Jessica Fenlon is a woman of many talents--video artist, violinist, still photographer,
printmaker, graphic designer, and a poet with a book due out on Six Gallery Press later this year. Currently she has a lovely show up at the Te Cafe on Murray Avenue in Squirrel Hill. In addition to the prints on the walls, the closing party this Sunday night will feature a three hour loop of her newest video project, "VIGIL: Miro Street: Ninth Ward: New Orleans: June 16 & 17" shot last month in the Crescent City's most devastated section. Don't miss it. (Pictured here, a video still, shot in the lower 9th Ward.)

Jessica Fenlon
"Body and Soul"
Closing Party and Video Premier of "VIGIL"
Sunday, July 15th 6:00-9:00pm
Té Cafe
2000 Murray Avenue at Beacon Street
Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh

If the Brillobox Were a Chapbook, This Might Be It

A Taste of River Water: An Anthology of Pittsburgh Poets is now available exclusively at Caliban Books on South Craig Street in Oakland. Contributors include Claire Donato, Jessica Fenlon, Kristofer Collins, Andy Mulkerin, anthology editor Ed Steck, Scott Silsbe (pictured above reading at the Six Gallery Press event at Mac’s Paperbacks in Cleveland), and numerous others from “the new Pittsburgh poetry.”

For only three bucks, check it out and see what you think.