So there is nothing quite as un-P.C. in L.A. right now as a wood-burning stove. My house was built in like 1907 or 1917 (it has no charm, no historic value in its appearance, other than standing as an example of utilitarian blandness).

This is an old house and this is a COLD house. So here is the wood-burning stove to heat the place up in the living room. The thing works - one duraflame log and i am wearing a tee shirt instead of bundled up in a sweatshirt. The guy at 7-11 tells me that I am the only customer who buys the duraflames there (at least on his shift).

So I am contributing to pollution, global warming, probably some other environmental disasters, and all just to stay ten or fifteen degrees warmer for sheer comfort and convenience.

Tonight the duraflame did not light properly so I wrapped it in an issue of Coagula Art Journal and did what perhaps many artists have wanted to do for some years now - I lit the issue on fire and watched the whole thing burn. It literally warmed my heart!

When I was in college, I stayed at a friend’s house in a little town in Minnesota, and their dad would get up at 5 a.m. every morning to light the wood burning stove to heat the house for the family. It struck me then as so noble. People do a lot for their families. People do a lot to stay warm. I burned my “art” tonight and only now saw the irony in it, it was such a reflexive thing to do - grab the zine, toss it in, flick a match, everybody’s happy.

Coagula publisher Mat Gleason has been curating for over ten yeas and wanted to write a book about it, so he has organized a series of lectures and projects called Curators College which is open to enrollemnt thru the ned of the year.

While he intends to compile the notes into a book (…someday…), there is not time like the present … so if you have the time, the tuition and want to get immersed in curating art shows, CHECK OUT THE DETAILS and join in the experience this January!

So I have been curating for over ten yeas and wanted to write a book about it, so I am organizing a series of lectures and projects called Curators College that you can attend and I will compile the notes into a book (…someday…), so if you have the time, the dough and want to get immersed in curating art shows, CHECK OUT THE DETAILS and join me in January!

Kenny Harris and Roland Reiss have Solo Shows opening at Gallery C tonight, Thursday November 15, 7-10 PM.

Kenny’s paintings depict of moody empty rooms in the urban enclaves of South America. This guy is as adept with a paintbrush as they come and the sensory familiarity of places you have never visited is an effect few artists are able to attain.

Roland Reiss is the senior spokesman of an artist never resting on a signature style - I did a studio visit withhim in August and here it is November and the work has evolved into a different direction altogether - still with synthetic abstraction as its foundation, he is finding forms in nature to challenge the non-objective credos that hold so many artists down.

Anyway, join us, it will be cool to have you down at the beach tonight.

A similar thing happened when I was running the Coagula Projects Gallery at the Brewery Art Colony in 1999. We had hung a solo show of Marion Lane’s work and people made appointments to buy art ahead of the opening. It was like a mini-gold rush.

So there is one on now for the Kenny Harris show here at Gallery C - many of his collectors have made appointments to seal the deal - to get an artwork before anyone else does, before the opening reception when we may likely sell out! Gold rush indeed. I put my money where my mouth was in penning the essay for Kenny’s catalog that accompanies the show. A realistic painter in these days is not a tough sell to collectors, but to cognoscenti who pledge allegiance to an alleged edge of where art may be going.

Duchamp’s best ideas are nearly a hundred years old and so may be the proposition that an advanced guard (avant garde) is leading the way toward where art and culture are aimed.

That is my attitude in the chaos of the art world’s democracy in denial.

So of course my girlfriend is the greatest artist on Earth.
So you would probably want to therefore see the art of the greatest artist on Earth in person, right?

Well, she is in a two-person show at Ave. 50 Studio that opens this Saturday, November 10, from 7-10 pm.

She has a website and a myspace page, but they need updating, I could link to it all but the new work is different - it is a continuation of her themes and methods but she is constantly pushing into new territory and this show has its own unique look.

We haven’t been together 5 years just so I would give her this plug. The show is up until December 2 if you cannot make the opening, but her stuff has a following and will likely sell on the night of the party. But you can at least SEE the art of the greatest artist in the world, let alone OWN it…

If you ever wanted to know what famous L.A. Photographer GAry LEonard looks like, HE IS JUST TO THE RIGHT OF JOE TORRE in this picture looking pissed off at the other photographers getting the money shot…

We went out tonight and it was funny in that I could tell you what we did tonight but in the narrative of someone telling you what their dream was, it just had this slight, slight tinge of unreality.

We went to see an art show where the Atomic Cafe used to be and they had combined the space to where Cafe Troy used to be, but it was all different – but it was those places. So we can’t find the art show, it is mostly empty, people are there, but we walk around and find a bar, a full bar in a new section of the building and there is the art on the wall but the lighting is dim and we see Glen Waggner’s paintings but he is not there. They are Day of the Dead surfer paintings.

So then we were across the street at the Japanese American museum, there were all these people out front and we walked in thinking that it might cost to get in or be a private party and we would be turned away but they just handed us an admission sticker to wear and walked in and there was all this food and we ate and went upstairs and saw an art show for Giant Robot magazine and then we walked through Little Tokyo outside and were talking to old friends and then the neighborhood had all changed, there were new buildings everywhere and more people than ever walked around downtown back in the day, and then we bumped into Rick Ankrom and Z and they had a friend they introduced and we all went to sushi and the portions were just outrageous and then we were walking, looking for our car

And then I woke up. Except that all really happened. I found the car and we drove home.