The next best thing to skull art...at least to my mind...is marginally disturbing clown art. At first, the mind is uncontrollably drawn towards thoughts of the paintings on velvet that you find at flea markets...more in-depth consideration leads one to the jaded, yet slightly bon vivant, traveler in Sean Landers' "Around the World Alone"...

The other day...whilst wandering through a local art gallery...I came across the work of Agnes Denes, a Hungarian artist who was one of the pioneers of site-specific installations. Human Dust...created in 1969...is a group of eight gelatin silver prints...and a text. Together they form the life...and death...of a man. All of his hope...dreams...medical history...loves...and travels...are condensed into two paragraphs. Reading it was haunting...beautiful...and depressing (in the way that things which cause you to question "life" can be).

The last two weeks have been ennui inducing on a whole other level...mainly due to the fact that they have featured a distinct lack of taste. I miss chewing...I miss the conviviality of having a meal with someone...I miss (in no particular order) cheese, charcuterie, wine, yogurt, bread, pasta, tomatoes, the list goes on. I know my cleanse is working...I feel better...I look better...and I haven't slept as soundly since I was a teenager...but I'll be glad when it's over. In celebration of which...even though the mere sight of it is going to depress me for the next couple of weeks until this self-imposed abstinence has drawn to a close...a massive hunk of slate made its way home with me. The slate is memories...the scree that you find at the bottom of hills in the north of England...my mother's kitchen floor...solidity...eternity...a home for cheese when I can welcome it into my heart (and intestines) once again.

Art...with a capital "A"...as opposed to art...small "a"...generally comprised of posters that you bought in college and paintings that look suspiciously like numbers may be lurking underneath...is often seen as expensive and (keeping this good, clean alliterative fun) elitist. Though not if London-based Culture Label has anything to do about it...

It would be enough if the site just contained (you guessed it) Art...curated by some of the world's best museums and galleries...the best part, however, is their Own Art, Pay Later area. Capital "A" Art...on an interest free installment plan...how wonderfully Egalitarian.

A year or so ago I was lucky enough to visit the Turner/Mark Rothko exhibition at The Tate Britain in London...The Telegraph thought the same exhibit "specious" and "disingenuous" but, what can I say...I enjoyed it.

'Petworth Morning Light' - Turner

Rothko's paintings...originally created for Seagram and Sons Company's restaurant...were designed to be, in the words of the artist, "something that will ruin the appetite of every son-of-a-bitch who ever eats in that room." He went on to add, "If the restaurant would refuse to put up my murals, that would be the ultimate compliment. But they won’t. People can stand anything these days."

'Black on Maroon' - Mark Rothko

I, for one, could stand hours of wordless contemplation of Rothko's works...as a slightly more portable...and, let's face it, affordable...option...I'm considering one of these Rothko scarves...

You also cannot fit a 15" laptop into a 13" laptop sleeve...a rather basic fact that failed to permeate my subconscious until I was casting loving (and rather nerdy) glances at my new MacBook Pro. Somewhat belatedly I realized that I had absolutely no way to protect it as I carried it hither (and potentially even thither).

The solution...after a rather dispiriting search through a rather large selection of unexcitingly bland options...this faux leather, striped cotton lined, version from incase...one of a series curated by art magazine Arkitip...by Paris based graffiti artist/club owner/subject of many of the images on Purple blog/and general man-about-town André.

The accompanying video (because nowadays there's always a video) is pure French cool...black and white...featuring a passage from Le Paysan de Paris and an original arrangement of Serge Gainsbourg’s “L’alcool”.

Sometimes all you need to make you happy is a long walk...the sun...an art gallery...and a grainy black and white setting on your camera...

On a random stroll through etsy I came across PlasterDoll. I know nothing about her...except she's from Kuala Lumpur...is obviously as big a klutz as I am...but has a much better wardrobe. Not that I'm jealous of an illustration...oh, dear me no...perish the thought...well, maybe just a little...

Proenza Schouler


Prada


Charles Anastase


Miu Miu

What do you give that perennial pain in the posterior, the "person who has everything"? (Apart, that is, from dirty looks and muttered imprecations.) Well...how about a dot? Or, go all out, be lavish...splurge...give them six dots (and support art conservation while you do so).

That's what The Art Institute of Chicago is offering with their "Adopt a Dot" program. The dots in question are part of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. The recipient of your gift gets a pin featuring their dot color...and a card describing the location of their dot. You get the glow of satisfaction that comes from finding an inexpensive, yet unique, gift.

Do you enjoy paint-by-numbers but feel, as so many of us do, that they no longer "stretch you...as an artist"? Did you manage to inject the last sentence...either mentally or out loud...with a satisfyingly nasal pseudo-intellectual-art-lover twang? If the answer to both questions was a resounding yes I have just the project for you...DIY contemporary high art kits from IARTISTLONDON.

Whether you want to recreate Marc Quinn's Self...and have a bloody head (either yours or a loved one) in your freezer...or spray paint your walls with a Banksy stencil...or even make your own patchwork camping tent a la Tracy Emin's Everyone I have Ever slept with 1963-1995...they have a kit to meet your needs.

My personal favorite...the budget version of Damien Hirst's Love of God...the actual piece...a human skull encrusted with 8,601 diamonds...the DIY version...a life-size plastic skull, 8,601 crystals, glue, a paintbrush, silver paint, and the all-important tweezers. The big question...do I, the woman who could never complete a model airplane kit and once stuck a wing on upside down, have enough patience to attach all those crystals. To be honest, I'm not sure...but I think it would be fun to try...

"The City of New York is like an enormous citadel, a modern Carcassonne. Walking between the magnificent skyscrapers one feels the presence on the fringe of a howling, raging mob, a mob with empty bellies, a mob unshaven and in rags." - Henry Miller

Just once I'd like to spend a day in a way that didn't involve some kind of ten mile death march...if only because it would open up a few more footwear options. Though, it has to be faced, wandering is what I do...it's in my bones...I just need to accept that (and the fact that all my dresses will be paired with Cons at some point).

Embroidered dress - Comptoir des Cotonniers, t-shirt - American Apparel, lo-tops - Converse, bag - from a MOMA exhibition

Yesterday was spent with my favorite things...Mr. Heb (just visible as a reflection in the blue painting)...art...the city...and an inordinate amount of good food and drink (iced mocha's...warm pain au chocolat...sangria...sugar snap peas with shallots and tarragon...shrimp with large crystals of sea salt clinging to their sides...Manchego cheese and quince paste).

I'm a very happy little Heb...demoralized only by my footwear and the translation of a poem from a Japanese woodblock print from the mid-1700's that I stumbled across in the art gallery...

"Despite all I do
It is of no avail -
My body has grown old;
While the waterfall remains
Unchanged in its appearance."

“In the nineteenth century the camera made a realist of the man on the street. Now the computer can make anybody a desktop Cubist. Technology may or may not be destiny, but I doubt that machines will replace art any more than wheels have replaced feet.” - Brad Holland

I don't think there's too much that needs to be said here...decent weather...a long walk...a camera...a poster that appears to have no reason other than just to exist...and a mailbox with words to live by...

A couple of weeks ago Mr. Heb bought a house...now, before I go any further and you start imagining him to be the next Donald Trump, I should say that the house in question is about three feet tall and made of cardboard. It's "wooden siding" is comprised of slices of band posters and both the house and the posters themselves are the work of Chicago-based artist (and screen print genius) Jay Ryan.

It's a very des-res...part art installation, part doll's house for boys who like indie rock...and it's filling me with an unreasonable desire for Peter Jensen's house print dress. Like a terrible visual pun I have an urge to dress like a house...standing in a house...looking at a cardboard house...

I suppose it's fitting that the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is the only US venue for the exhibition of Vanity Fair Portraits: Photographs 1913–2008 however I have no plans to be in LA before March 1st (when the exhibition moves on) so I feel slightly miffed. If only because I would dearly like to see Edward Steichen's "A Much Screened Lady — Gloria Swanson" in the...um...flesh (so to speak). This one photograph encapsulates why I watch so many "old" movies (and am so vague when it comes to current releases)...though she's not classically beautiful her eyes are mesmerizing...she grabs your attention and won't let go. From now on I feel like I only want to be photographed in black and white...and preferably behind a curtain of lace.

Just the thing for whiling away a few hours on a dreary Sunday...or for adding a comforting, hazy blur to any photos that aren't quite as flattering as you could wish them to be...the Bakumatsu Koshashin Generator. A website which plays with time...in that your images gain an antique quality...and you lose several hours of your life as you play around (seriously, this site is so addictive it should come with a warning label, do not click through unless you have some time you wish to fritter away).

Completely random...and perhaps brought about by the fact that I just sat through Rambo (thank you Netflix for saving me the cost of a movie ticket...now if I could just figure out how to get that hour and thirty-three minutes of my life back)...the "Anger Release Machine" from the Swiss and Danish artist duo of Ronnie Yarisal and Katja Kublitz.

Insert a coin. Select the piece of china you want to destroy. Then watch it crash.

Of course...when I think about it...this could have nothing to do with Rambo and everything to do with my great-grandfather (who was, by all accounts, a bit of a plate smasher...especially when he didn't appreciate that day's menu selection).

At first glance, this viewmaster from Belgian conceptual artist Wim Delvoye reminded me of the version I had as a small child. Then I delved a little deeper and all similarities ended. My viewmaster featured slides with, I believe, scenes from Snow White and Sleeping Beauty...

Wim Delvoye's version contains 12 discs of 3-D photographs of his "Cloaca-installations". Having no idea who or what a Cloaca was I decided to do some investigating. And I found that Cloaca are combinations of art and science which duplicate certain bodily functions or, to be more precise...

"Mini Cloaca is a tubular structure made of metal and glass, and composed of mechanical organs that swallow, grind, digest and defecate a given amount of food. The quantity of food ingested is equivalent to that of a French-style breakfast. The particular aestheticism of this machine, with its transparent organs and visible Archimedes-screws, is an attraction in itself." Apparently Delvoye tries to rid the figure of the artist of "the romanticism commonly attached to it". I think he's succeeded, how about you?

At some point I think almost everyone gets a yearning to run away with the circus...yours may have occurred during childhood...or a little later, as mine did, at age nineteen...or you could still be waiting for it to come out of the shadows, lure you with cotton candy, and drag you away. And what's a better way to pass the time until circus fever strikes than by doing a jigsaw puzzle?

The only problem is that the majority of jigsaws seem to fall into the "chocolate box art" category and finding one that you actually want to finish so that you can see the full picture is something of a challenge in itself. Enter photographer Terry Richardson and his broken-down clown puzzle. It's a triple-threat...interesting artwork...a way to work off your circus demons...and all proceeds from the puzzle benefit RXart, a not-for-profit organization that provides fine art to health-care facilities.

Repeat after me, "I must unleash my inner clown..."

Disclaimer: if you're not British this post is probably going to make no sense whatsoever. Apologies.

But when Polite left a comment on my David Shrigley post, and included a link to their online shop, I found something which roused my sense of nostalgia to an alarming degree. If you were in Britain in the 90's you would have encountered, amongst other things, the humor of Vic Reeves...difficult to classify, absurd is the first word that comes to mind, but very funny. I actually still have a cassette tape of Reeves' album "I Will Cure You"...a hodgepodge of cover songs, original material, and the song that made it to #1...a cover of "Dizzy". After prolonged pleading from my husband the tape only gets played when I am alone...that's the thing with Reeves...you either love his work or hate it.

But back to the reason for my ramblings...the boxed sets of greeting cards and postcards featuring Reeves' art work. There are three sets...Celebrity with Donald Sinden and Elvis doing the ironing...Elvis gets his own box where he goes to the shops or dresses as Walter Raleigh...the triumvirate ends with everyone's favorite theme, Treason. Each box contains six greeting cards and eight "celebrity caravan" postcards (quite literally, if a celebrity was going to live in a trailer what would the trailer look like).

Finally, some greeting cards that I actually find amusing...