Feral House #13by James Griffioen

Feral House #7 by James Griffioen

Good afternoon collectors! It's Sara on this sunny day. We're in the midst of moving to a slightly more spacious office which means that the chaos that is JBP HQ is even more crazy. Clattering keyboards and conversations are accompanied by that starchy sound of packing tape stretching over cardboard boxes. Yes, a move (!) even before we open our new show at the JBG, Mixtape, this Friday, November 20th, from 6 to 8 p.m. See you at 6 Spring Street?!

Yesterday we were all abuzz about the easter egg embedded in Jen's newsletter* and it seems to have struck a note in all of you as well—the promise of free art for the first five (correct!) responders sent a flurry of emails our way. Easter eggs near Thanksgiving-time? No we have not lost our minds; it's just part of the holiday goodness we're concocting to keep you on your toes as we unveil our master plan for the season of giving. We have all sorts of amazing editions lined up to share with you and we may be dispensing of a surprise or two along the way!

Speaking of surprises long in the works, we first approached today's artist, James Griffioen in early April, a few months after James entered the 2008 Second Edition of Hey, Hot Shot!. In photographing, writing and living, James gives due attention to a city that has been long neglected. Feral House #7 and Feral House #13 document two of many abandoned homes in Detroit. Now a strange sort of media darling, luring the likes of former NYT reporter Charlie LeDuff, the city is still sad, rough, unchanged and mostly un-bettered from all the attention. (James too is no stranger to the spotlight!)

As Thomas Morton notes on Vice, "Journalists love pictures of abandoned stuff." But then what? Writers and photographers go home, readers put their papers down and return to their relatively comfortable lives; heads are turned away again from the disintegrating center of our country.

But if you are James, and you live in Detroit, you can't just look away. James instead looks harder. He looks at what happens not only when we stop seeing but when we leave things alone entirely. While Alan Weisman's The World Without Us is hypothetical, a "thought experiment", about just that—what would happen to cities and infrastructures if humans ceased to exist—Griffieon's photographs are reflections of reality. As people leave in droves, slowly but surely, green growth returns and dominates, covering and suffocating engineered, architectural elements until only the outlines of formerly solid structures are apparent.

While James notes that feral means "belonging to the dead," there is something reassuring about the ability of nature to recover and to reclaim. These old buildings are made beautiful again.

*For a chance at easter eggs hidden in upcoming newsletters, sign up for the 20x200 mailing list!

Untitled #6 by Jessica Bruah

Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! The crisp air and colors of the season have me walking about in a haze of cinematic nostalgia. And while I have memories specific to my own history—a certain flower-patterned corduroy* jumper and the woolly tights that went with it, a full harvest moon that hung improbably low in the sky on Halloween night when I was 6 or so—it's the nostalgia of movies that capture this time of year in eras and places that have little or nothing to do with my own experiences that have me most captivated. Today's edition hits that cinematic sweetspot similarly. (And not to mention alliteratively!)

Untitled #6 is our second edition from talented photographic tale-teller Jessica Bruah. When we last visited our heroine in Stories #46, she'd ransacked the supply closet and gone a bit overboard with the Post-it Notes. In today's edition we find her in a considerably more explosive situation.

The tableau Jessica's created in Untitled #6 brings to mind two of my favorite yesteryear fixes: Todd Haynes' gorgeous Douglas Sirk homage, Far From Heaven, and the series that's been the toast of basic cable for a few seasons now, Mad Men. Our circle-skirted protagonist looks like she's hitting the road with her Samsonite in tow, and burning down the house she's leaving behind to ensure that there's no turning back. And who could blame her, really? Life in the bell jar sure wasn't the fairy tale it was made out to be—just ask Betty or Cathy Whitaker!

*Today is Corduroy Appreciation Day, afterall!

Chemical Schematic by William Swanson

Balmy November greetings collectors! It's Sara filling in for Jen on this eerily warm afternoon. Temps are supposed to hit the high sixties today even with winter supposedly right around the corner. I don't want to beat the global-warming-dead-horse with a stick but I am—this unseasonable weather is strange, isn't it?

Still, not pulling on the winter wools just yet is pleasing, almost as pleasing as the pinks and purples in today's edition from William Swanson: Chemical Schematic. Pretty as it is, Swanson's palette is also unsettling.

Swanson highlights the direct relationship between the variety of colors that appear as the sun falls over the horizon and the level of pollution in the air. The more brilliant a sunset, the dirtier the sky, and yet we still ooh and ahh over it. Just as we're happily forgoing a hat and gloves for now, we take an odd pleasure in conveniently forgetting the facts surrounding glowing skies in the evening hours. Ignorance is bliss! But, cleverly, Swanson inserts reminders of human interference in his paintings—an architectural grid, evidence of an oily pool of water and slightly foreboding skies.

Just as last week's edition from Tyson Anthony Roberts hinted at our ever-changing environment, Swanson's work fuses our planet's past, present and future, foreshadowing sparks, glory and doom. As the boys over at DCKT said, "Holding to a belief that disaster can be a transformative process, Swanson's spaces play with end into beginning as in all natural cycles."

New York (Peony) by Gregory Krum

Thursday greetings, collector friends! Unlikely as it may seem, I've genuinely missed you all. I consider it a privilege to write about art and artists, and it's an even greater one to do so knowing that at least a few people are going to actually read this newsletter. Even better still? Some lucky few of you will be living with the art I write about!

Today's edition—New York (Peony)—is a special one indeed. Its elegance, beauty and melancholy are so evocative of its creator, Gregory Krum, that I've come to see it as a self-portrait of sorts.

You might be wondering why you would want a self-portrait of one of my dearest friends hanging on your walls. Or how on earth I see a self-portrait in a vase of dying flowers. And maybe you're even thinking that Gregory's going to be mighty peeved that I've likened him to a subject so sad. (Fortunately, when I mentioned this to Greg on the phone the other day, he was actually quite pleased.)

The ability to feel an ache all the way to your core—to have that openness to emotion at all—it unlocks all the beauty in the world. Sometimes it's too much. If you're someone like my dear Mr. Krum, this too much-ness will cause you to knit up your eyebrows and sigh in the most heartfelt of ways. When he does this, I think of my most beloved short stories, tragic heroines, classical paintings in the dusty halls of museums and of my favorite poet, Frank O'Hara.

This photograph reminds me of him when he's like that, which reminds me that to feel anything at all, and to feel it deeply, is to be alive.

Contact Sheets by Parsley Steinweiss

Contact Sheets
8"x10"($20) | 11"x14"($50) | 16"x20" ($200) | 24"x30" ($1000)
by
Parsley Steinweiss

Wednesday greetings, collectors! I'm glad to be back! With all my recent dashing around the country and lots of exciting news here at JBP, time has simply flown by faster than I can believe. It seems just yesterday that we were mulling over the work of today's edition-maker, Parsley Steinweiss at the 2009 First Edition Hey, Hot Shot! panel, and now here we are with Contact Sheets for you on 20x200!

Soon after that, Parsley was named one of our five Hot Shots and we were able to see her work on the walls of the gallery, where the pages that comprise Contact Sheets became even more material. If you haven't seen them in person, you must: they are amazing. In fact, I went back to the gallery to revisit the prints several times, captivated by how different the digital version was from the printed photograph, thinking that I'd really like to own one myself!

Parsley is also amazing—after meeting her in person, I can say that she more than lives up to her name! She is also a dedicated collector of both object and print material just like I am and if you've seen my apartment, you know that books and magazines are piled up in every crevice of my living space. So, upon seeing Parsley's Stacks, which befittingly take their name from their macro-view of the books, papers, magazines, journals, sketchpads and photographs in her abode, I felt an instant kinship.

Contact Sheets, specifically, brings up another personal obsession: the photograph as an object, and the murky line that lurks between. Each of the individual sheets in Parsley's "stack" is a two-dimensional object and record of her own creative history. She has compiled the sheets, with various edge color, tension and thickness, into a three-dimensional pile, then photographed and had them beautifully printed into the image you see here. In one sense, a greater distinction is created between the image and the original contact sheet because the photograph is no longer identifiable in its first form. From another angle, the distance between the object and image is diminished by the return to a print as a single sheet of photo paper—that which was originally stacked.

And so we open up a debate about the transposition of the thing into an image of the thing. In our recent Summer Reading exhibition at the gallery, we looked at the book as art object, the object (books) as photograph, and the object transformed into two dimensions to be used as the medium for the art. Each of these pieces, as with Parsley's, reveals a great duality in photography: the image is more than a representation of the object, and the object is more than is apparent in the image.

As you can see, we could go on and on with this discussion! But I'll instead leave you with this poem from Wallace Stevens, who also immerses himself in the eternal debate between the idea and the thing itself:

Not Ideas About the Thing But the Thing Itself

At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.

He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.

The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.

It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache...
The sun was coming from the outside.

That scrawny cry--It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,

Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.

       —Wallace Stevens

Waiting Dangerously in Rio by Scott Listfield

Rainy Tuesday greetings, collectors! It's Youngna here, very excited to bring you today's irreverent and blue-sky-filled edition, Waiting Dangerously in Rio from Boston-based painter, Scott Listfield. Jen first paired one of Scott's paintings with a poem by James Tait on Personism after coming across his work on Booooooom. Scott took note of the mention in Jen and Booooooom curator Jeff Hamada's conversation on 20x200, and wrote in, with the sense of humor that is also apparent in his images:

Forgive me if there is another "Scott, the astronaut dude," because lord knows I don't want to step on his toes. But if you were indeed talking about me (and I think you were), I'm incredibly flattered you mentioned me (I don't even mind being called 'the astronaut dude'), particularly as someone you would like to see on 20x200.

So we are here today with Scott's edition, which occupies the mysterious place between the Mesozoic era and Stanley Kubrick's imagined future. Listfield paints the strange and unusual present, where both astronauts and dinosaurs roam—though rarely together. In Waiting Dangerously, a suited James Bond-like figure leans on his DeLorean, the famous sportscar released in the early 80s with gull-wing doors that flap open to reveal a fiberglass underbody. The car was made iconic in the Back to the Future series, where the vehicle acts as a time machine, taking Doc and Marty McFly to the year 2015, then back to 1885. As they dart around, the modern and archaic intersect in oft-comical ways, much like they do in this painting, where a fully-suited astronaut serves casual company to the car.

If you've ever visited Scott's website—he is the envy-inducing owner of astronautdinosaur.com—you'll see he also incorporates myriad pop cultural and tongue-in-cheek sci-fi references in between the frequent astronauts and dinosaurs. He writes, "from Lost in Space to the Jetsons to Jurassic Park, it seems that popular culture fostered this space-age perception of the future." So, it makes perfect sense that in his paintings an anonymous astronaut is hanging out at a laundromat with Boba Fett or roaming a city street next to a giant statue of the Notorious B.I.G.; this is simply Scott's version of a very probable and imaginative present.

Before we take off for the day, we want to remind you that your last chance to apply to Hey, Hot Shot! in 2009 is TONIGHT, October 27th at 11 p.m. (EDT)! Our panelists are excited to see the submissions of this edition's contenders, who have entered work from all over the globe. If you want a sneak peek, we've been writing about them on the HHS! blog, sharing entries on Flickr, and will continue to do so until the Hot Shots are announced on November 30th.

Don't miss out on the opportunity to have your work reviewed by our stellar panel, a chance to exhibit at Jen Bekman Gallery and the potential to release work here on 20x200.

We'll be back tomorrow and Thursday with brand new editions, including one from a recent Hot Shot, so see you back here then!

Rodeo Stars, Strong City, Kansas by Mike Sinclair

Chilly Wednesday greetings, collectors! It's Youngna here on this brisk but sunny day in NYC, excited to bring you today's edition, Rodeo Stars, Strong City, Kansas by Hot Shot! Mike Sinclair. Jen, though she can't be here writing to you today, is also extra thrilled to bring you Mike's edition. It is part of a body of work she describes as "satisfying my idyllic image of America in a way that doesn't feel contrived" and adds that his images depict an "America I didn't grow up in" as a born and bred New Yorker, but still evoke a strong nostalgia. She associates his work with photographers like Justin James Reed and the American photography legends who captured the domestic national landscape in Where We Live, a book that accompanied the exhibition at the Getty Center.

Mike is one of the photographers who stopped our own Raul Gutierrez—also a Hey, Hot Shot! panelist—in his tracks during last round's review. Mike's selection as a Hot Shot has elicited excited reaction amongst the rest of the JBP-team and gallery visitors alike. His brilliant portraits of sun-dappled barbecues, fairgrounds, group fishing extravaganzas and street parades hit the hearts and minds of viewers who find dual comfort and wonderment in his images of these loosely organized forms of mass congregation. Seeking out quintessentially American celebrations and rituals in his Midwestern stomping grounds, Mike finds himself in crowds where he is often staring at the spectacle that everyone else is immersed in.

So, it is only fitting that in Rodeo Stars, Strong City, Kansas, we find ourselves gazing into the eyes (as seen by Mike) of the Roberts family: E.C. and three of his children—Gerald, Margie and Ken—all world champion rodeo riders. The billboard of these painted local heroes sits outside the rodeo grounds in Strong City, a grand and celebratory entrance to an annual event which welcomes visitors from far and wide.

Mike's edition is another in a series of recent 20x200 releases by our Hot Shots. Last week's West Nineteenth Street (Yellow Dress) comes from two-time Hot Shot and 2006 Ultra Joe Holmes, and two other First Edition Hot Shots, Michelle Arcila and Kurt Tong, have also recently graced your inboxes with their editions Kind Intruder, Eivind, Gosling Lake and RAF Vulcan XL-361. You can look forward to upcoming editions by two more of our 2009 Hot Shots, Parsley Steinweiss and Daniel Cheek, on 20x200 very soon.

One of the best parts of working with Hot Shots is we get to meet many of them in person, see their work on the walls of the gallery and collaborate with them on 20x200 editions like Mike's here today.

On this note, we want to remind you that the deadline to apply to the 2009 Second Edition of Hey, Hot Shot! is next Friday, October 23rd @ 8 p.m (EDT)! All entrants have their work reviewed by our top-shelf panelists and enjoy the potential to be promoted online, selected for 20x200, and exhibited at the gallery. Entering the competition is the only opportunity for photographers to have their work considered for 20x200, so we hope you'll submit your images!

To apply: submit three photographs from a single body of work using the online upload tool, with an entry fee of $60.

Our panel will select five Hot Shots for inclusion in a two-week group show at Jen Bekman Gallery in January 2010 and, in conjunction with the exhibition, editions of each photographer's work will be released on 20x200! If that weren't enough, each Hot Shot is awarded a $500 honorarium. At year's end, two Ultras are selected from 2009's ten Hot Shots. The Ultras are represented by Jen Bekman Gallery and slated for solo exhibitions.

A Square, the United States solo debut of Hot Shot Hosang Park is currently on view at the gallery through Saturday, November 7th, so if you are in New York, we hope you'll stop by to see his prints in person.

Apply here and see some of this round's contenders on our Flickr and Facebook pages. Have questions? Check out our FAQ page.

Reading & Writing by Jason Jagel

Autumnal Tuesday greetings, my collector friends! I'm actually sitting at my desk at JBP HQ, which is a rare treat indeed as of late. Being able to IM from midair (and everywhere else) means that we're never out of touch for long, but it sure is nice to be hanging out in-person with our fantastic crew. We're all feeling pretty energized by the gorgeous weather and the months ahead, which are full of art and promise.

Today's art — Reading & Writing — well... it's rather full itself! Positively bursting, in fact, with complexity, narrative, detail, color and inspiration. Read on for my take, and a bit of background on its talented creator, Jason Jagel.

Jason describes Reading & Writing as a manifestation of his "desire to make a novel-length work", correlating his relationship between artist and viewer with that of the writer and reader. His description brings to mind the conversation about the future of books and publishing that I had on Twitter over the weekend. Disjointed by Twitter's nature, thoughts and links were traded, plumbing a variety of perspectives: publisher, bookseller, writer and reader. Bob Stein's statement in his thoughtful post on the if:book blog succinctly summarized the challenge and potential of our reading future. "A book", he wrote, "is a place (where readers, sometimes with authors, congregate)."

Jason's composition, chaotic yet contained, also brings to mind my all-time favorite short story, James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues — introduced to me by my high school writing teacher Frank McCourt. It's a brilliant piece of writing and my favorite passage describes the musician's struggle between playing and listening in similar terms.

I'll end today's newsletter with where the excerpt starts. I urge you to read the entire passage and get your hands on the full story — it's totally amazing! Hopefully you'll enjoy piecing together the words and pictures and music described here, there and elsewhere as much as I have.

All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. And even then, on the rare occasions when something opens within, and the music enters, what we mainly hear, or hear corroborated, are personal, private, vanishing evocations. But the man who creates the music is hearing something else, is dealing with the roar rising from the void and imposing order on it as it hits the air.

West Nineteenth Street (Yellow Dress)
by Joseph O. Holmes

Thursday greetings, collectors! It's Youngna for the last time this week, bringing you an extra special bonus photography edition from Jen Bekman artist and 20x200 favorite, Joseph O. Holmes. A few weeks ago we introduced West Forty-third Street (Yellow Cabs), and today bring you that edition's sister image, West Nineteenth Street (Yellow Dress). Yellow Dress illustrates why we are glad to have guys like Joe photographing the streets of New York every day: he captures moments that feel like you're looking at the movie-set version of the city we live in.

As Joe says in his own words, he is "learning the subtle art of twisting the elements of cliche in something archetypal," and so creates images that are equivalent to the New York most of us see only in our imaginations. Whether at the museum, in the park, or walking down a city sidewalk, Joe's photos embody all the New York-ness that both those who do and those who don't live here, romanticize.

While staring at these editions, Sara Distin pointed out that yellow really is a very New York color. Yellow cabs define the streets of Manhattan and the sheen of the evening sun reflecting off the city's many brick buildings during the magic hour, radiates an effervescent golden hue. Joe hones in on yellows of both aura and object in this pair of prints, intended to hang side-by-side.

Before we say farewell for the weekend, we want to remind you that the 2009 Second Edition of Hey, Hot Shot! is currently open for entries! The deadline to enter is Friday, October 23rd at 8 p.m EDT. Our panelists are very much looking forward to seeing your work, and we will continue writing about our contenders on the blog and featuring them on Flickr and Facebook until the Hot Shots are announced. Interested? Head over to Hey, Hot Shot! to see what the competition is all about and apply here!

It is only fitting that Joe was himself a two-time Hot Shot (Fall 2005 and Fall 2006) before being selected as an Ne Plus Ultra in 2006 and gaining representation by the gallery the following year. We've been fortunate to have the chance to work with Joe on all of the Jen Bekman Projects now, an opportunity that first arose by seeing his work in the competition.

We also want to remind you that Jen Bekman Projects is hiring! We are looking for passionate, art-loving people who are the very best at what they do in the following fields: marketing, product & project management, web development and accounting.

You must also possess excellent written and verbal communication skills and eat/sleep/breathe social media, the Internet and, of course, art. Sound like you? We can't wait to meet you! Send us your resume and cover letter today. For more information, visit the jobs page, which will soon have detailed descriptions of all open positions.

And with that, we'll see you next week!

Disaster at 1:47 in the Morning, May 4, 2003 by Mike Estabrook

Google: God by Mike Estabrook

Greetings, collectors! Youngna here, once again, as Jen makes her way to SFO to board a flight back to New York. Today's two editions come to you from Mike Estabrook, a Brooklyn-based artist who morphs images from popular culture and mass media into politicized paintings, drawings, videos and animations. Disaster at 1:47 in the Morning, May 4, 2003 and Google: God frame the varied, sometimes-humorous, and mostly-absurd image results of Google searches within a painting that can live on your wall, rather than within the confines of your ever-transient web browser.

We are pleased to announce that proceeds from the sale of Disaster at 1:47 in the Morning, May 4, 2003, will directly benefit NURTUREart, the Brooklyn-based non-profit founded in 1997 to support emerging artists through exhibitions, educational outreach and community-building initiatives.

Mike's two paintings remind us that we're all subject to the temptation of the Google search, whether we are ego-surfing and entering our own names (which usually elicits a humorous and embarrassing selection of results) or exploring larger conceptual terms with loose image associations. Often, discovery of a person who shares your same name invites the imagining of an exciting alter ego: our own Raul Gutierrez shares his name with a Fu-Shih Kenpo knife fighting master.

Image searching also speaks to our fondness for making tangible visual associations, whether we are searching for conceptual terms like Disaster and God, or collecting and curating images we like for our blogs, ffffound! accounts, or tumblr logs. In Disaster, we see looming poison clouds (suggestive of a Don DeLillo-like airborne toxic event), disaster preparedness posters, a raging fire, and what appears to be the face of a chimpanzee. These are only some of the first twenty of 62,800 results discovered in 0.28 seconds, and Mike paints the familiar page-scrolling numbers guiding us to see the thousands and thousands more images associated with the search term—if we were to choose to look. That we can never see the remainder of his very temporal results adds gravity to the brushstrokes of his painted thumbnails of disasters.

There is also humor in Mike's searches; the first image in God gives us a red-haired Marilyn Manson above a result of a zoomed-in face of Michaelangelo's interpretation of God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It suggests there is delightful randomness to be found in the ever-growing catalog of the Internet, and that our collective visualization of God today is not, in fact, the same as God tomorrow.

Speaking of God, if you're in New York, you can currently see Mike's work in person as part of the group exhibit God Doesn't Like Ugly. Within a Catholic church in Midtown Manhattan, Mike is exhibiting Popes, an installation of twenty-one 4'-tall popes made out of post-consumer cardboard boxes and decorated with paint and metal leaf.

St. Paul The Apostle Church
405 W. 59th St.
New York, NY
On view through October 30th

Last, but not least: Jen Bekman Projects is hiring! We're looking for passionate people who love art as much as we do. We will have detailed job descriptions available on our jobs page very soon. But if you are the best at what you do in marketing, product & project management, web development and accounting, you might be just the person we're seeking. You must also possess excellent written and verbal communication skills and eat/sleep/breathe social media, the Internet and, of course, art.

Send us your resume and cover letter today! But first, please review, and be sure to follow, our guidelines:

- Tell us what you're the best at, what you're looking for in a job and what you find most appealing and/or interesting about working at Jen Bekman Projects.

- Please include your cover letter within the body of the email. (Do not send as an attachment.)

- Include your resume as an attachment.

- Let us know when you can start.

- Use the subject line: [Your Last Name, Your First Name: Job Inquiry: Related Position (marketing, product & project management, web development or accounting)] and email to jobs@20x200.com.

Please don't be terribly formal. That's boring.

We'll be back once more tomorrow with a photography edition from a 20x200 favorite.

think-make-think (second edition) by Clifton Burt

Sunny Tuesday greetings, collectors! Youngna here, standing in for Jen who is briefly in San Francisco, but excited to be returning to New York very soon. Team 20x200 is slowly recovering from hectic schedules and that nasty flu that's been making its way around the city, which we're sorry to say has us a bit behind on our shipping. We're still catching up, so recent orders haven't shipped as speedily as they usually do and orders made on today's edition, think-make-think (second edition) by Clifton Burt will need a little bit of extra time too.

think-make-think may look familiar to you collectors because it's true: you've seen it here before. We initially released this edition just before we introduced our $50 size, and were immediately sad about the timing because it has continued to be a very popular and inspirational print. So, we are back with a special second edition celebrating the John Maeda-inspired words for continued creativity. Maeda—graphic designer, professor, author of The Laws of Simplicity and President of RISD—is himself a beacon of design inspiration. In April of 2007, he posted a haiku on his blog which inspired Clifton's edition seen here.

It was entitled think-make-think, and to me it fulfilled the potential of Maeda's simplicity. Over the next few months, that haiku often found its way to the forefront of my mind. When our studio acquired the remnants of a discarded arrow sign, it was clear to me that think-make-think was a perfect fit, both in form and function.

The words of think-make-think sent Clifton digging for arrow sign letters in a Mississippi junk store to bring you the words in this new and vibrant form. It joins other text-based messages encouraging the innovative powers within like Matt Jones' Get Excited and Make Things (shown right) and Trey Speegle's paint-by-numbers piece, Can You Imagine. All three editions open the door to the limitless possibilities of creating things and finding encouragement in simple and meaningful phrases.

We also thought it'd be apt to re-release this print in honor of Make/Think, this weekend's AIGA Design Conference in Memphis, Tennessee. Our own Jane Mount and the talented Kate Bingaman-Burt (Drawings from July 2009, shown left)—who just happens to be Clifton's wife—will both be speaking there, which makes Jen even sadder to miss the event. The weekend will be packed with presentations, roundtables, lectures, and workshops led by talented design-industry professionals celebrating the practice of making new things and really thinking about them.

Make/Think
AIGA Design Conference
October 8–11, 2009
Memphis, TN

Look for Kate from 7:45–8:45 a.m. this Friday, October 9th at a roundtable discussion with Andre Andreev, Dan Covert, Nick Law, Bobby Martin, and Paul Sahre.

Jane will be on the panel, Wisdom of Communities | Inspiring Communities with Jim Coudal, Liz Danzico, and Derek Powazek, also this Friday, October 9th from 2:15–3:30 p.m.

We'll be back tomorrow and Thursday with extra special editions—a benefit and new photography from an old favorite. So long 'til then!

Collocation No. 14 (NATURE) Left Panel and Collocation No. 14 (NATURE) Right Panel by Mickey Smith

Happy October 1st collectors! It's Sara, one more time. The flu has most of us in the office down for the count so this note will be short but sweet.

It finally feels like fall and we have the perfect prints to mark the change of the seasons: Collocation No. 14 (NATURE) Left Panel and Collocation No. 14 (NATURE) Right Panel by Mickey Smith. This new pair is a brilliant follow-up to Mickey's enormously popular and entirely sold out MORE BOOKS and WORD STUDY editions. Like Austin Kleon's editions from earlier this week, Mickey's work aligns with our well-known affection for text, typography and all things related to books and media.

Unlike Mickey's previous two editions which stood alone, Left Panel and Right Panel are intended to work together, bolstering each other side-by-side. The images are excerpts from Mickey's first major public art commission at the University of Florida in Gainesville. The entire Collocation No. 14 (NATURE) is installed in the university's new biomedical science building on 40"x60" glass panels. The endeavor brought Mickey all the way to the Franz Mayer studio in Munich where she worked with a team to produce the glimmering final product: each photo was printed and fired on art glass and finished with engraved, lacquer-filled text. Sounds stunning, doesn't it?

Not quite so far from home, you'll be able to see Mickey's large-scale works on display at the NY Art Book Fair this weekend. Collocation No. 4 (TODAY)—a fifty panel piece printed on canvas—will be on display at the Invisible-Exports Booth #005.

The NY Art Book Fair
P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center
22-25 Jackson Ave (at the intersection of 46th Ave), Long Island City, NY

Preview:
Thursday, October 1, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. (tonight!)
Regular hours:
Friday & Saturday, October 2 & 3, from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, October 4, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The NY Art Book Fair is FREE and open to the public.

Before running out and about, pick up your Smith prints lickety-split! If you're new to 20x200 and have been instantly smitten (can't say I blame you), I'll forewarn you now: these editions will go fast! Check out Jen's previous newsletters about Mickey's work to learn a little more about why it's so beloved.

Falling leaves, crisp air, books, art and more books and art? Is there a better way to kick off the weekend?

Midwife/Middle School Science Teacher | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household (including dog) | First week after deciding to eat locally grown vegetables. by Mark Menjivar

Bar Tender | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Goes to sleep at 8AM and wakes up at 4PM daily. by Mark Menjivar

Hello collectors! It's Sara, subbing in for Jen, who is still battling what appears to be a very evil and persistent flu. It even kept her from attending last night's super fun shin-dig, our first-ever Hey, Hot Shot! Confab & Print Trade, which was a smashing success. Photographers and artists turned out in droves to meet, greet, share a couple of beers and trade artwork; it was truly a lovely evening over at White Rabbit. Thanks to everyone who could join us!

Today's photographer would have been most welcomed among the party crowd. He made several friends during his last visit to NYC and is certainly a great example of why we love HHS! so much. We first spotted Mark Menjivar's You Are What You Eat series when he entered the competition last winter. Mark was featured as a contender on the HHS! blog. And from then on, Jen and I were plotting and scheming to get Mark's work on 20x200. So, I am happy to present to you today—finally!—Midwife/Middle School Science Teacher | San Antonio, TX | 3-Person Household (including dog) | First week after deciding to eat locally grown vegetables. and Bar Tender | San Antonio, TX | 1-Person Household | Goes to sleep at 8AM and wakes up at 4PM daily.

The titles and the images, in a sense, speak for themselves. Mark has essentially outlined portraits of the owners of the featured refrigerators, examining the notion, that yes, we are what we eat. With the fast-growing Slow Food movement, the recent popularity of books like Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the release of the film Food, Inc, what and how we eat has never received more scrutiny.

Mark was slightly ahead of the curve, beginning his project a little over three years ago. Since then, rightly so, he's received a lot of attention for the series. It was selected for CENTER's Director's Choice in the Project Competition, GOOD magazine featured the work on their site, sparking a lively dialogue in the comments, and right now, the series is on view at Ampersand Gallery in Portland, Oregon, through October 25th. If you're anywhere on the West Coast, I highly recommend that you scoot over to Stumptown and check out the show. You'll also be able to get your hot hands on a copy of the limited-edition food journal that Mark produced with Consumption Queen Kate Bingaman-Burt.

If you're really not anywhere near Portland and are feeling bummed that you missed last night's confab, it's not too late to get in on the action! The Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 Second Edition Competition is still open. We're accepting entries until October 23, 2009 at 8:00 p.m EST. Yes, that seems like a little ways away but it will be here before you know it. So, jump on it and enter your photos today. And we'll see you tomorrow with a bonus, bookish edition from another HHS! favorite. Till then!

The Figure Skater by Austin Kleon

How It Works by Austin Kleon

Gorgeous Tuesday greeting collectors! It's Sara, filling in for Jen who is sick as a dog. Jen never takes a day of rest, so the fact that she's vying for some shuteye in the middle of a perfect, crisp and clear, NYC fall day, is a sign of serious flu-ish-ness. Please send get-well thoughts her way!

As Jen rests and recovers, I have two charming editions to introduce you to from Austin-based Austin Kleon. As you can see in The Figure Skater and How It Works, Austin is a writer who draws. He also blogs, Tumblrs, Twitters, Blips and Flickrs. In short, he is an artist who is as in love with The Internet as we are at 20x200.

He also shares our affection for the good old-fashioned printed page. While we heart the internets for so many reasons, perusing actual paper and ink is often more satisfying than skimming pixels and light. Sometimes there's just too much information on the web and the opportunity to digress is great. We are tempted to either wallow in the shallows with bite-sized bits of info or drown in the coverage of a single event from hundreds of sources. It seems, there might be just enough information in finite columns. If you're Austin, there's too much. So, he simply blacks out what he doesn't need.

This is where Austin departs from the rest of us. He whittles paragraphs of words down to sweet little poems, making you wonder what else is embedded among the pages. While eliminating most of what he comes across in columns, Austin's pulled together a book featuring some of his best blackouts. You can pre-order Newspaper Blackout on Amazon and you'll get your copy as soon as it's available in April. In the meantime, aren't you glad we have these prints for you right now?

One last thing! If you're in NYC tonight and you haven't already RSVPed for our Hey, Hot Shot! Confab + Print Trade, it's not too late! We'd love to see you at White Rabbit (145 E. Houston), tonight, from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m., for drinks, chatting and great photography with good company. If you're not in the neighborhood, never fear, we'll fulfill your photography cravings with fantastic editions over the next two days!

Bowlers, Martinez, CA by Geoffrey Ellis

Penguin, Memphis, TN by Geoffrey Ellis

Live-from-New-York Wednesday greetings, my collector friends. I'm a little woozy as I type this, still sleepy from last night's lateness. Our friends at Hunch, they of the aforementioned What print should I buy from 20x200? widget, hosted a fun little get-together for the burgeoning NYC start-up community. I skipped the pizza, but enjoyed comparing notes on our respective workspace hunts with inspiring entrepreneurs like Kenyatta Cheese and Zach Klein, both of whom I haven't seen in, like, forever. After that, I made my way further downtown for a perfect al fresco meal in the finest of company, which was accompanied by perhaps a bit too much wine. Ergo: woozy!

Woozy, sure, but I'm also happy, and (as per usual!) excited about everything that's coming up: Friday's opening of A Square, the NYC solo debut of 20x200 edition-maker and 2008 Hot Shot Hosang Park, next Tuesday's first-ever HHS! Confab + Print Trade and even the transcontinental flight that will follow hot on the heels of said event. Yup, I'm going back to Cali.

Unlike LL, I'm headed to my normal Cali destination to the north, San Francisco, the subject of yesterday's editions and also the town in which today's talented edition-maker Geoffrey Ellis makes his home. I met Geoff at our first-ever 20x200 Collectors Confab, held in SF at Crown Point Press the summer before last, where he gifted me with copies of his fantastic zine, Sadkids. It had been on my radar long before then, so I was really pleased to get a few copies of my very own from its inventor. As I'm always on the lookout for fresh art for you, I'm pretty sure I hit him up to do editions then and there.

Which brings us, at long last, to today's editions: Bowlers, Martinez, CA and Penguin, Memphis, TN. Geoff is so totally speaking my language with these images from his Horses, Dolls and Other Junk series. I too have accumulated an astounding amount of junk via thrifting and flea-market finds and based on a perusal of his series, I'd say we've got similar tastes in such things. But Geoff and I have taken different—yet complimentary—approaches to addressing our enduring addiction. I collect art and he makes it—photographs are exponentially more portable than plastic penguins, perfectly weathered vintage tin cans and aged artifacts of mid-century advertising.

We also share an affinity for printed matter in the form of books and zines. Admittedly less space-efficient than wall art, they're far easier to contain than the variable dimensions of second-hand detritus and exponentially more portable than either. Which brings me to my next recommendation: once you've snapped up a couple of Geoff's prints, head on over to the Sadkids site, and get yourself on his mailing list. Issue 6, the Around the World edition, is due in mid-October and his list subscribers will be the first to know when it's ready to go.

Speaking of ready to go, that'd be me. I'm off for the day and done for the week too, but fear not! I'll be back on Tuesday with tales from Hosang's opening, and some pre-party jitters as I look forward to that evening's HHS! Confab at White Rabbit. Look for me then!

iSketch837 by Jorge Colombo

iSketch802 by Jorge Colombo

Tuesday greetings, collectors! It's finally me again, reporting live from mi casa, the very same casa that was featured yesterday on one of my favorite shelter blogs, design*sponge. I've been spending quite a bit of time in trains, planes and automobiles lately, so it's a delicious luxury to be typing this dispatch from the comfort of my couch with The Otter napping nearby. I'm also glad that I've been home long enough to enjoy our transition into my favorite season of the year, in my favorite city, surrounded by my favorite people. The team 20x200 Shake Shack field trip Sara referenced in yesterday's newsletter is a prime example of the season's bounty.

With today's editions—iSketch802 and iSketch837—we get to pay tribute to my other favorite city, San Francisco. Jorge Colombo's New York love letters are among my favorite 20x200 editions, capturing as they do the New York of my day-to-day and my daydreams. I was utterly thrilled to discover that we had a love of the City by the Bay in common as well, and had the good fortune of getting to spend time with him while he was developing these new sketches there. (Over delicious buttery things at Tartine no less, joined by his wonderful and talented wife, Amy Yoes. Are you jealous? You should be!)

It was really hard to choose just two, since Jorge managed to do something I'd imagined to be utterly impossible: faithfully evoke one of the most magical things about San Francisco, its spectacular light. This brings me to another thing I love about Jorge's iSketch series, which he creates using the Brushes app on his iPhone. He's taken his skill—which is formidable, as evidenced by his many years of working as a successful artist and designer—and put it to work using the most contemporary of tools.

I know for certain that a few people think it's the app that makes Jorge's sketches the little slices of genius that they are, and was incredibly relieved when my friend Anil pointed out that it's the artist, not the application, that should be the focus of our admiration and support. (And I chuckled the other day when a friend, who'd bought one of Jorge's prints, subsequently failed miserably in his attempt to put his own artistic sensibilities to work with the very same app.)

Ultimately, it's not completely one or the other. I am relieved that I don't have to choose between San Francisco and New York, and feel similarly fortunate that I don't have to choose between art and technology. An interesting conversation has been ricocheting around the blogosphere, discussing why it is that NYC doesn't have the same tech community that SF does. Kicked off by Chris Dixon, who posited that NY is poised for a tech revival, Caterina, Anil and yours truly have all chimed in. My point of view in that conversation echoes how I feel about Jorge's work—I'll always be a believer in the medium AND the message.

And with that, I'll take my leave till tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I suggest you occupy yourselves with another marriage of art and technology. The What print should I buy on 20x200.com? topic on Hunch is proving to be fun AND useful, thanks to help from the Hunch crew and Kika Gilbert's patient care and feeding. I've been spreading the link far and wide, via Tumblr and Twitter and Facebook (you know how I am!) and have gotten back glowing, somewhat incredulous reports about how well it works. It'll only get better as more people use it, so please check it out.

I'll be back in tomorrow's early afternoon with a couple of photos from another denizen from one of my favorite cities—look for me then!

West Forty-third Street (Yellow Cabs) by Joseph O. Holmes

Surprise Monday greetings collectors! It's Sara with a bonus edition from 20x200 favorite, Joseph O. Holmes. Joe sent us some of his newest work and we were immediately smitten with West Forty-third Street (Yellow Cabs). From recently spotting Yellow Cabs on PDN's Photo of the Day, to contemplating our own views from the 9th floor 20x200 office, this photo has not left our collective memories for long.

Last Friday evening, the 20x200 crew was enjoying perfect end-of-summer weather in Madison Square Park, scarfing down Shake Shack burgers, when the very New York-ness of the occasion got us all to talking about Joe's photographs. As you know, Jen's been the busiest bee lately, causing her to lament that she feels like she's been missing out on New York and all of the hustle, bustle and craziness that make the city great. And truth be told, it's not often that you'd find us all out of the office. But, with some relief Jen remarked, Joe's out there on the streets, witnessing and documenting his vision of the city—its chaos and chance encounters. We are thankful that as random and magical moments like the one pictured here occur, they are recorded by Joe who shares them with us all.

Jen dug up this pitch-perfect poem to accompany today's edition for your enjoyment:

Steps by Frank O'Hara

How funny you are today New York
like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime
and St. Bridget's steeple leaning a little to the left

here I have just jumped out of a bed full of V-days
(I got tired of D-days) and blue you there still
accepts me foolish and free
all I want is a room up there
and you in it
and even the traffic halt so thick is a way
for people to rub up against each other
and when their surgical appliances lock
they stay together
for the rest of the day (what a day)
I go by to check a slide and I say
that painting's not so blue

where's Lana Turner
she's out eating
and Garbo's backstage at the Met
everyone's taking their coat off
so they can show a rib-cage to the rib-watchers
and the park's full of dancers with their tights and shoes
in little bags
who are often mistaken for worker-outers at the West Side Y
why not
the Pittsburgh Pirates shout because they won
and in a sense we're all winning
we're alive

the apartment was vacated by a gay couple
who moved to the country for fun
they moved a day too soon
even the stabbings are helping the population explosion
though in the wrong country
and all those liars have left the UN
the Seagram Building's no longer rivalled in interest
not that we need liquor (we just like it)

and the little box is out on the sidewalk
next to the delicatessen
so the old man can sit on it and drink beer
and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day
while the sun is still shining

oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much

A few notes before we leave you till tomorrow:

Joe's teaching a photo book workshop *tonight* at Adorama. More info can be found on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog.

And, one week from tomorrow—Tuesday, September 29th, 6:00 to 8:30 p.m— is our first-ever Hey, Hot Shot! Print Trade + Confab. Come mingle with Hot Shots (including Joe!), esteemed panelists, contenders and fellow artists at White Rabbit. There will be drink specials, giveaways from Arlo/Artists & Crumpler, and we've got a few other surprises in store. Space is limited, so RSVP to rsvp(at)heyhotshot(dot)com. See you there!

Gosling Lake by Kurt Tong

RAF Vulcan XL-361 by Kurt Tong

Good afternoon collectors! It's Sara, sending salutations to you all from Jen. She'll be back as soon as she can but for today I'm pleased to introduce two new editions from current Hot Shot and Blurb Photography.Book.Now Editorial Prize winner Kurt Tong. This man is on a roll!

If you're in NYC, be sure to see his work in person at the JB Gallery as part of the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Exhibition before it closes this Saturday, September 19th. We'll be opening A Square by Hosang Park the following Friday, September 25th, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Be there or be square! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) In celebration of all this photo-goodness, and more to come, we're throwing our first-ever HHS! Confab and Print Trade on Tuesday, September 29th, from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. at White Rabbit; we'd love to see you there. More info to follow but, please, save the date!

Today's photography editions, Gosling Lake and RAF Vulcan XL-361 are from Farewell in Labrador, a finely-tuned collection of landscapes, portraits, interiors and still-lifes. The series tells the tales of this remote corner of the East Coast of Canada: the closing of an air base and the scattering of jobs and families, a cod moratorium that inhibited locals' livelihoods, a government settlement program that brought the Inuit and Innu nomadic cultures to the brink of extinction and the general dispersing of youth in the search for greater opportunities. They are stories unique to Labrador's geographic location and cultural and social history but similar to that of many places in the world as progress ramps forward.

Kurt—although I regretfully missed the opportunity to meet him—strikes me as an immensely compassionate individual. Before becoming a photographer, he was trained as a health visitor and co-founded Prema Vasam, a charitable home for disabled and disadvantaged children in Chennai, South India—and his photographs reflect this about him. The series is contemplative and reveres the place and culture he has documented, replacing what all-too-easily could be pity with hope and empathy.

For me, these photographs together recall Antoine de Saint-Exupery's Wind, Sand and Stars, so I will leave you with these passages:

A man cannot live a decent life in cities, and I need to feel myself live. I am not thinking of aviation. The aeroplane is a means, not an end. One doesn't risk one's life for a plane any more than a farmer ploughs for the sake of the plough. But the aeroplane is a means of getting away from towns and their book-keeping and coming to grips with reality.

...Always and everywhere I have seen men attach themselves more stubbornly to barren land than to any other. Men will die for a calcined, leafless, stony mountain. The nomads will defend to the death their great store of sand as if it were a treasure of gold dust. And we, my comrades and I, we too have loved the desert to the point of feeling that it was there we had lived the best years of our lives ...it was here in the desert he possessed his veritable treasures—this prestige of the sand, the night, the silence, this homeland of wind and stars.

You will have to allow for the substitution of "icy coast" for "desert" and "snow" or "sea" for "sand" in these instances, but it seems that Labrador too is a beloved homeland of wind and stars.

Nonsensical Infographic No. 1 by Chad Hagen

Nonsensical Infographic No. 2 by Chad Hagen

Good day collectors! It's Sara at the helm here. Jen had a brief break last week and is back to business-in-the-name-of-art and soon to be Boston-bound, so I'm filling in. Jen was so bummed she wasn't able to write this newsletter herself that she picked up a *phone* to talk about Chad's work. That's right, we did not have an IM conversation but actually spoke.

We were introduced to talented Minneapolis-based designer Chad Hagen by design writer Allison Arieff. She recently featured Chad's work in her NYT By Design column— not the first 20x200 artist to be seen both here and there—hopefully not the last!

As Allison highlighted, "good design can make the nonsensical beautiful and what seems to be nonsense... clear." Nonsensical Infographic No. 1 and Nonsensical Infographic No. 2 are indeed beautiful representations of the far end of the scale of useful information, in that they are not relaying any data. There are, of course, infographics out there that actually impart handy stats and figures: GOOD Magazine's pages are illustrated with transparencies that dissect and evaluate all of our social, political and environmental advancements and failures. Edward Tufte is likely the king of information design, giving us glorious works to examine and interpret, paving a pristine path for info design junkies and experts alike. And, Ben Fry deftly harnesses complex information into elegant, intelligent graphs.

Nearing Chad's end of the nonsense-scale is Andrew Kuo with his music-related analyses of the last summer of pool shows at McCarren Park and top albums of 2009 for The New York Times. But Chad's drawings delve furthest into the complete nonsense spectrum of info design, most akin to this diagram that explicates the origins of mythical creatures. Like these animals, Chad's diagrams are completely fictitious—whatever information they may convey is up to us to determine. Fun little game, no? Let's give it a go.

While the numbers and letters in Nonsensical Infographic No. 1 do not align, I'd like to think that this graphic may be tracking the intricate lives of bees and honeycomb production. Also possibly plausible: the graphic is an analysis of the parallel increase in anxiety levels of Tetris players and the speed at which each geometric shape falls. Non-stop puzzle action can be intense!

I am particularly pleased by the potential use for Nonsensical Infographic No. 2: documentation of the lifespan of a bubble. Perhaps, as indicated by the past, present and future aspects, Willy Wonka is in the process of manufacturing new, more durable bubbles that may float for minutes or hours instead of seconds, before bursting. The world would become like that anti-tobacco commercial, only better.

Because of the conversation in the office this morning, I'm wondering if the round diagrams might instead measure the density of fried bologna as its edible chemicals are processed over time. It's one of those foods that would still be on grocery shelves, post-apocalypse right? The future would be a relevant indicator were this indeed the story told by Nonsensical Infographic No. 2.

Nothing like a little nonsense on a Tuesday afternoon, is there? Now get back to work!

Eivind by Michelle Arcila

Kind Intruder by Michelle Arcila

Wednesday-that-feels-like-Tuesday greetings, my long-lost collector pals. As reported by Ms. Distin, my schedule has been particularly bananas as of late. I feel really fortunate that she's such a capable channel-er of my energies and inclinations. She's got an amazing knack for spinning our hurried IM conversations into entertaining newsletters, but I've missed the writing and the contemplation that goes along with them. You won't be surprised to hear that my brain performs as a multi-channel mechanism—art is always on in some capacity, but presenting new editions to you all each week is the greatest privilege of my job. Vociferous grousing about deadlines and such aside, reflecting upon the images, artists and audience of 20x200 is seriously amazing and inspirational.

Also inspirational are the five photographers who are debuting work at tonight's Hey, Hot Shot! opening over at the gallery. It's my job to be excited and enthusiastic about the artists that we show, sure, but my excitement about this exhibition goes well beyond the call of duty. I'm just so proud of who we're showing! I am particularly mama-bear aglow (pun intended) about today's edition-maker, Michelle Arcila, since I first showed her photographs way back in 2004, as part of Future Perfect, an exhibition of work by recent alumni that I curated for the School of Visual Arts.

Years later, I remain intrigued by Michelle's work. Her narrative-rich interiors, portraits and landscapes are "right up my alley"—just like Sara proclaimed over IM this morning. The tales told in Eivind and Kind Intruder are infused with a hint of magical realism that's somehow grounding—Michelle's scenes are built from dreams with a refreshing moxie. She imagines it and then makes it so, and with a seeming sense of effortlessness. That's a nice prescription for living, wouldn't you say?

See you tonight!

Down By the River My Lungs And I by Pattie Lee Becker

Ramona's Bright Idea by Pattie Lee Becker

Happy Tuesday collectors! Jen will DEFINITELY be back in the newsletter-writing saddle tomorrow but for one more day it's Sara. Jen's just getting settled in, back in the office and the gallery, gearing up for the opening of the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Exhibition at the JB Gallery tomorrow night. There's a lot going on around here but they are all good things!

As is our usual Tuesday and Wednesday morning routine, Jen and I chatted about today's editions: Down By the River My Lungs and I and Ramona's Bright Idea by Pattie Lee Becker. We've all been drooling over the proofs for a couple months now. There's SO much rich detail in each image; it's easy to get lost in the work for awhile. Pattie Lee said it best in her statement:

Personal stories are transformed into imaginative invention. Color and pattern narrate; images conjure both the familiar and the fantastic.

As Jen noted this morning, Becker has an approach and aesthetic similar to that of a couple other 20x200 stars—Megan Whitmarsh and Ky Anderson—as well as art world canonical figures, Louise Bourgeois, Philip Guston and Edward Gorey. Like Bourgeois, Guston and Gorey, Becker spent several years creating in New York, making Brooklyn her home for ten years before relocating in the West. And, like Whitmarsh, her drawing practice is accompanied by some serious sewing skills. The fantastical creatures and organic details in her two-dimensional works are often echoed in three-dimensional stuffed sculptures of both small and larger-than-life scale. Youngna, who almost moved into Becker's Brooklyn apartment—for some reason, 20x200-land is a very small world!—described the home as a "magical forest house." You can see by the sheer amount of work on Pattie Lee's website, she's an artist who is always working; and there is little separation between work and life.

I think this is why the narratives evoked by her work effortlessly seem personal but accessible, with room for everyone to write their own. In Down By the River My Lungs and I, I am instantly transported to a seat on a river bank, eroded so that the roots of ancient trees are visible and the air is heavy with water splashing and mixing with decomposing vegetation. In Ramona's Bright Idea, I am reminded of childhood pranks and adventures gone awry. These are drawings that you can long spend looking at and re-creating the stories that exist within them.

If you have the chance, Becker's original works are on view in Brooklyn, beautifully framed and hung at Bird in Williamsburg through the end of the day and maybe a little bit longer. One other show that will be short but sweet—the aforementioned and upcoming Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Exhibition opens tomorrow night from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Jen Bekman Gallery, 6 Spring Street (between Elizabeth and the Bowery). Before then, Jen will be back with brand-new editions from one of the latest Hot Shots!

Untitled (Santa Barbara) (2008) by Liz Kuball

Untitled (Santa Barbara) (2009) by Liz Kuball

Bright and sunny Wednesday greetings collectors! It's Sara, sending salutations again. What's Jen's deal lately, you ask? It's hard work running three businesses (seriously!) and there are more than a few people in Cali wanting to meet + greet her. So, she's being all business-y, but business-y in the name of the art! Art—and our artists and you, collectors—are always at the forefront of Jen's mind. She does want me to remind you that we are offering FREE SHIPPING on orders over $50 till Monday!

We also had the chance to chat about today's editions, so I'll be able to share some of her thoughts below. Still, I know she's really sorry to not be here herself! Instead, I am happy to introduce you to Liz Kuball and two prints from her ongoing series, California Vernacular. I first laid eyes on Untitled (Santa Barbara) (2009) when Liz submitted her work to Hey, Hot Shot! in the last round of competition. As I wrote then, over on the HHS! blog, Liz's photographs are rich allusions to the stories, personal and public, small and epic, that we all associate with California. Liz was first a writer, and then a photographer, and it shows in her work; each image is bursting with tales to tell.

For example, I would imagine that the driver of the car in Untitled (Santa Barbara) (2008) was seeking out secret waves, long before surfing was cool in California. The car, the wooden board and the vine-covered chain-link fence speak of eons soaking up the sun. Jen had similar thoughts:

I keep thinking about this concept of new vintage... the hot Cali sun bakes everything into this timeless Mid-century moment. Liz's photographs feel like a more southerly reflection of my own California experience. When I moved to the Bay Area, I noticed similar things. And while Brad Moore notices that stuff too, he idealizes this past while Liz is sort-of reveling in its perfect imperfection.

We end up talking about photography's role in shaping—and its representation of—the West a lot. I grew up in Colorado; Robert Adams spent many years living and photographing in my hometown and I've long been fascinated by him and his work. Jen knows this and sent this text to me yesterday: "OMG D.M. has the most amazing photography in his office! You would die!!!! Adams, Callahan, Friedlander. Incredible." There is nothing like seeing those works in person and as we talked today, Jen admitted to being on the verge of tears in the presence of the photographs. She said:

I almost cried again talking about it [the Adams photograph] later in the day because it was SO beautiful and so reverent of the mundane... In regards to Liz's work, it's all connected for me; learning about the photographic tradition of the West is [relatively] new to me. So, I am especially appreciative of photographers like Liz and Brad for providing me a path to connect into that past.

Liz's photographs work to bridge the past and present, within the photographic tradition, and also with their own way of storytelling. They whisper about glowing trees leaden with fruit, Baja-bound surfers of the last century, the storied light of the South, attempts to wrangle nature and tumbleweeds settling in on the outskirts of town.

So, *huge* thanks to you, Liz, for giving us these excuses to California-dream in the middle of the week. Lastly, duty calls and I have to close with a few notes of business:

As I mentioned above, the FREE SHIPPING offer on orders over $50 is valid through Monday! But, please note, the orders must be over $50!

We found Liz's work via Hey, Hot Shot!. She was an honorable mention in the 2009 First Edition. If you want to see your work here, now's the time to send it our way. HHS! 2009 Second Edition is open. Read the details, then submit your work!

And please, join us for the opening of the Hey, Hot Shot! 2009 First Edition Group Exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery in one week, on Wednesday, September 9th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. See you at 6 Spring Street, NY, NY!

Assignment by Clare Grill

Cake by Clare Grill

Happy September dear collectors! It's Sara, again! Jen is seriously lamenting not being here today to bring you these two charming editions from Clare Grill. Aside from the fact that Jen's still out and about in San Francisco, attending to some very important meetings, today could not be a more perfect day to introduce Cake and Assignment.

For one, we're on the verge of major celebrations! 20x200 and Ms. Jen Bekman are both about to be one year the wiser, this Saturday, September 5th! That's right, 20x200 is two! And as Jen's birthday gift to you (she's just that kind of girl), we're offering:

FREE SHIPPING on all orders over $50, now through next Monday, September 7th at midnight EDT.

A couple details: this offer extends to collectors within the United States only and cannot be applied to orders shipped outside of the U.S. Additionally, this offer does not apply to gift certificate purchases. You do not need to enter a code at checkout, the offer will be automatically applied if your order exceeds $50.

It's easy, so may this be the sign to stave off end-of-summer blues with some new art!

For two, fall is certainly in the air. And while for us, that means moving into our third (!) year at 20x200 HQ, it also means that summer is retreating and school is starting. Clare's works are splendid partners for this unofficial shift in seasons as we linger between summer and fall.

There is something particularly nostalgic and sweet about both Cake and Assignment. Almost painted from—and of—memory itself, they are warmly colored and softened by the passing of time. These paintings are celebrations of little things: candles on cakes, assignments on chalkboards, renderings of fresh starts and first attempts. While some of Clare's brushstrokes evoke finger-paintings, they reveal a lesson that is anything but childish: we are reminded to bring the best of what used to be, "when we were little and wide open and so un-suspicious and safe," to every new step forward.

Stepping forward and celebrating is exactly what Jen has been up to in SF. In addition to the aforementioned meetings, she managed to sneak in some toasting too. The last few days have had her touring around the gourmet ghetto of 18th Street, drinking champagne at Delfina, eating ice cream from Bi-Rite Creamery and noshing on pastries at Tartine. A special thanks to Dylan of Arlo for hooking her up with a home-away-from-home in the foodie-hood.

We'll welcome Jen back here and back to NYC soon. More toasting, cavorting and general revelry are sure to come—two birthdays in one make the festivities doubly special. Like these prints, good things come in pairs! In honor of both, we hope you'll join us in lifting a glass (or picking up a print!). Till then!

Brooklyn Morning (17"x22") by Youngna Park | Globe (8"x10") by Rachel Hulin | Apple 1 (16"x20") by Mark Richards | Howon (11"x14") by Hosang Park | Houndstooth Pattern in Parking Lot, at Disney World, FL (16"x20") by Alex MacLean | Untitled (Bondi Baths, Sydney, Australia) (20"x24") by Carlo Van de Roer | iSketch104 (14"x11") by Jorge Colombo | The Office (17"x22") by Rebecca Loyche

Good day, dear collectors! It's Sara, again, but I do bring dispatches from Jen, via American Airlines' excellent on-board wi-fi, as she traverses the country from JFK to SFO. And also, an IM convo (of course) between her and the one-and-only Gina Trapani. In addition to being our guest curator, Gina's a technology blogger, podcaster, author and founding editor of Lifehacker.com. On top of all this, she's built her own computer (seriously) and flown a small plane. Now you know why yesterday I referred to her as the Web Wonder Woman. She's the real deal.

As you've become accustomed to, we're offering you a list-only special on these fine prints. [Oops! Sorry, if you didn't get full details about the discounted editions in your inbox, make sure you're signed up for the 20x200 newsletter so you'll get the scoop on list-only specials and new guest curator selections next time. Don't miss out again!]

That Jen's flying high is oddly appropriate for today's introduction; as you'll see, Gina is also a fan of aerial views, and set her sights on a few photographs taken from far above. Jen and Gina had lots to talk about, so the entire, juicy conversation will be posted on the 20x200 blog in the coming days. It's good stuff, so stayed tuned!

And now, GREAT HERA!:

Jen: OMG, love your selections!
Gina: Oh, thanks! I had so much fun doing this. Normally, I'm looking at (often, pretty bland-looking) software, so this was really fun.
Jen: Well, as I've said to the other curators, it's REALLY fun for me to see the selections that our guest curators make. And I was keen to have you do it because, as you're well aware, I DO consider you a curator! I was day-dreaming about our dinner before the [2009 SXSW] Curating the Crowd-Sourced World panel just yesterday. How much fun was that?
Gina: OMG, SO fun. I still think about that dinner too!
Gina: I pitched a panel myself for SXSW [2010], so we must vote for each other's panels.
Jen: Me too! Yes, we will vote. Mine's called Inbox Hero and it's about how newsletters are awesome.
Gina: Love it! GREAT title. That's fantastic. Mine's called How'd They DO That? Secrets of Web Superstars.
Jen: Yay! That is really great.

[Ed. note: this is where the ladies start talking about the art and curating.]

Jen: It's kind of like a Rorschach to see what people choose... I think it's hilarious that Rebecca Loyche's photo is your favorite by the way.
Gina: I *love* that photo. It made me laugh out loud. That is totally me, on many days of the week.
Jen: It's a really great photo and it gets better and better as you dig into the details.
Gina: It's true, all the gadgets and computers everywhere, her outfit, the shoes... Love the wicked witch death hint.
Jen: The other thing I like about it is the really discordant color palette.
Gina: The pink window sill outlines are so great!
Jen: So are you trying to start a nerd war by choosing Woz's Mac instead of the IBM mainframe?
Gina: Yes! Macs are prettier! This proves it! ...You have so much good stuff for geeks. I love it.
Jen: Well, I am pretty geeky as art dealers go, perhaps among the geekiest. But also, I am very intent on engaging that audience with the artz...
Gina: I got really nostalgic about several of the NYC photos (speaking of location)... I really miss Brooklyn so much, which is why I chose Brooklyn Morning. It photo-tugs at my heartstrings. Those little pieces of colored paper on the sidewalk got me.
Jen: Aww! That is by Youngna Park, who is a very webby photographer. She did one of our very first editions and now she's the Associate Producer of all the JBP sites! ...Plus, she's been involved with the gallery forever. She was one of the very first Hot Shots in 2005. Plus, she was a photo-blogger. Remember those? A dying breed.
Gina: Oh yes, I do remember those, fondly! And, of course, Colombo's iSketch104 is also a predictably geeky pick on my part... I must confess: I'm a little judgmental about people who stand around staring at their phones when out in public. It's the whole disconnection/being absent thing. Keeping in mind that I do this all the time; we judge things in others we don't like about ourselves. So, what I love, is that Jorge turned that right over on its head. And now I can think, "well, maybe that person is making art."
Jen: Hah! Wow, that's totally great. And yes, they just might be. Have you seen the films of the process that are on The New Yorker's website? They are incredible.
Gina: Yes, that New Yorker cover blew my doors off. The video was amazing.
Jen: I was SO PROUD! They have been posting new ones every week... OK, did you pick up on the fact that you chose three aerial shots and a globe to tie it all in? Was that intentional or instinctual?
Gina: It was kind of intentional. I love aerial photography, kind-of obsessed with flight in general, I actually flew a small plane once! And, I love small things representing big things and vice-versa, which shows in a bunch of my picks... And the Howon photo, my goodness. Circuitry, neurons, urban landscape... all that stuff in one photo.
Jen: He is incredibly talented, that Hosang Park. He's going to have a solo show at JBG in the fall. And how did we find such talent? Hey, Hot Shot!
Gina: That photo really got into my head. I can't stop looking at it.
...
Jen: And actually, because you opened that door for me, thankyewverymuch, I sort of sense a less obvious kinship between Alex's wonderful Houndstooth Parking Lot and Mark's other edition, the aforementioned IBM mainframe.
Gina: Yes, indeed.
Jen: And as for Carlo's swim series selection... I could be confusing you with another kick-ass female tech-world superstar, Ms. Esther Dyson, but are you a swimmer?
Gina: I love swimming, and years ago I was pretty diligent about hitting the pool more often. I did my first triathlon last year—a super mini-sprint—and got back to the pool to train, and this photo took me back there. I love how the water bends the repeating lane lines, and that angle is perfect, with the tiny swimmer. So good.
...
Jen: Hehe. Now, we have to zoom out for an overview at the end! Which brings us to Ms. Hulin's wonderful globe photo, which I adore too.
Gina: Oh, yes—this was also a mix of geeky nostalgia for me with a little aerial fetish thrown in. I felt like I was a kid again.
Jen: Yeah, totally, and yet, it's a sophisticated photo. Because it's an interesting perspective on the mundane, which means that some people look at it and think, "snapshot!" But now that you've honed your curatorial process, it's not lost on you, nosiree.
Gina: It makes me feel like I'm nine years-old and about to go to bed, the door about to get pulled shut, great moment, even though this was a shot from her adult life of her room as a child.
Jen: Heh, totally. It was in her childhood bedroom and she took it from bed. I loved talking to her about it, it was another recent newsletter highlight for me. My job rocks. I can't help but brag about it. And speaking of which, I've monopolized a LOT of your time already. I'm guessing your job might need some attending to itself.
Gina: Yes! Let's keep in touch and be sure to catch up.
Jen: So talk/see you soon and have a great lunch. Thanks again.
Gina: Thanks Jen, talk soon.
Jen: Byeee.

* Sorry guys, not as exciting, I know. But still (!) you will no doubt receive many a helpful pointer in the midst of charming conversation, I promise you that. She will also entertain traveling to other interesting locales—Austin (TX), Paris (France), Memphis + London are already upcoming itineraries—let us know where you're at! She's excited about this! Really! I can feel the energy from the airplane!

False Memory by Ricky Allman

Disco Peak by Ricky Allman

Happy Tuesday collectors! It's Sara, moving on from a serious case of the Mondays. We've lined up some gorgeous new editions and hope that you'll join us as the week unfolds. Tomorrow we'll feature a new guest-curated set from Web Wonder Woman, Gina Trapani.

Today's 20x200 artist, Ricky Allman, was born and raised in the middle of the country, surrounded by Mormons and the Rocky Mountains in Utah. There, as he put it, he was subject to "weekly earthquake drills at school and lessons about the apocalypse and the 'evils of the world' on Sundays." While he made a break for other lands both far and near later in life, the geography and ideology that suffused his formative years made a lasting impression on his work as a painter.

In False Memory and Disco Peak, the jagged edges and intimidating outlines of the high Rockies are omnipresent, serving as both subject and background. Stylized and vividly colorful geometric boxes intersect with the organic environment, highlighting Ricky's interest in architecture and nature as well as a foreboding sense of false security. The walls of these structures, weighty as they are in their precision, are either transparent or emanating colors, belying their soundness. It is the questionable characteristics of these walls that lead me to a discussion about the nature of religion.

Like Ricky, I have spent some time in Mormon country and will digress for a minute to share two stories:

The 1989 VW Jetta I drove in college broke down twice on cross-country road trips, first in Salt Lake City, Utah and, for the second and last time, in Boise, Idaho.

When my timing belt went out and I slid down the off-ramp in Utah, a truck immediately pulled up behind me and the driver emerged from his seat with tow ropes in hand. Turned out the kind fellow happened to know the only foreign car specialist in town and happily lugged my sad car to his friend's garage. Nothing short of a miracle! Even more remarkable, I was charged a reasonable fee and returned to the road before the end of the day. LDS pamphlets were left on the passenger seat for my perusal but as I headed west, I vowed never to pass judgment on Mormons again.

When the Jetta's transmission went out a year later, just east of the Washington/Idaho border on I-84 and miles away from the nearest big city, I held the clutch in gear, in fourth for as long as I could muster, then in third, and was crunching along in second at a speed rounding up to 20 MPH as I passed Boise's LDS Temple en route to a friend-of-a-friend's mother's house. The car ground to a halt in her driveway. I was well taken care of by my friend's friend's family, sold the Jetta for $250 and flew home. Things could have been a whole lot worse.

The moral of the story: you don't have to be a Mormon to be saved in Mormon country, or anywhere for that matter. Really, what you have to be and should be, is a good person; do unto others as you would have done to yourself (or something like that). What goes around, comes around. I think this golden rule is the one we should all strive to live by, within or without the glowing walls of a church. And I think that is what Ricky is getting to in these paintings; religion may be a centerpiece in many people's lives—not to mention fodder for some entertaining television—but people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. So, live by the golden rule, whether you are inside or outside of that glass box.

Victoria's Peak, Hong Kong by Emily Shur

Victoria's Peak, Hong Kong
8"x10"($20) | 11"x14"($50) | 16"x20"($200) | 24"x30"($1000)
by
Emily Shur

Heated Wednesday greetings, collectors! NYC remains downright steamy and most people in their right minds have skedaddled for their holidays. I'm leaving for the more temperate climes of the West Coast next week; it's business that's taking me there, but I can't wait to get going! (And hope to squeeze in a small bit of R&R while out there, pretty please.)

With penning this newsletter on my mind, this morning's interior monologue has been accompanied by a soundtrack of just two songs on constant repeat: Vacation and American Girl. The choices are so totally me — I was gaga for those sassy Go-Gos when I was a teenager, and adore Tom Petty (shutup!) but I actually find the tracks particularly well-suited to Victoria's Peak, Hong Kong by hip West Coast girl Emily Shur.

Emily's quite busy professionally with an impressive roster of clients. Her fine art projects reflect her globe-trotting lifestyle, but what makes her work most compelling is a stylization which embodies a specific swath of American nostalgia. When I look at her work, I think of our Kodachrome-idealized mid-century past. When considering it this morning, I realized that it was the first time I truly felt like the twentieth century was a thing of the past; it's probably got something to do with the year 2010 now being firmly figured into my near-future plans. We're breaking away from a new century's dawn and hurtling quickly toward its interior.

With things moving so quickly, it's natural to want to look back a little, even as we document the present. As Emily writes: "Photography has allowed me to give due importance to all of the bits and pieces of my life—these images are not idealized views of life experience. Instead, they are representative of a conscious choice I have made regarding how and what I choose as my memories." Even as these memories are being created, we tend to put a little gloss on how we would like to remember them.

In my own glance backwards, I ordered up some of the photographers we've featured on 20x200 who all tend to put their own spin on the present with subtle references to the historical. This little (de)tour back through time starts with Justin James Reed's photographs of Idaho Springs, Colorado and Norristown, Pennsylvania and moves forward to Colin Blakely's dreamy black and white images, Recollection of the Battles Fought and The Seeming Impenetrability. We'd end up between here and there, in both time and space, with Tema Stauffer's Palm Aire—which brings me right back to Emily's Victoria's Peak.

While taken in Hong Kong, Emily's photograph of binoculars turned toward Victoria Peak (known colloquially as Victoria's Peak) could also be found in one of our own great parks in the U.S. It's this ability to make the foreign familiar with her own special blend of color, light, clarity and distance that appeals to me in Emily's work. Amidst my internal ramblings this morning, I also thought of the Obama Family's National Parks tour and my own road-tripping adventures out west. I was in New Mexico for Review Santa Fe in 2007 and was sorely sorry to have missed this year's event. I knew the talented Emily would be present and having become familiar with her work via the interwebs, lamented losing the chance to chat with her in person.

I guess that's another drawback in all this catapulting forward, no? Not enough time to do all that we would like to. And with that, of course, I'm off 'till we meet again next week!

Drawings from July 2009 (One Week) by Kate Bingaman-Burt

Drawings from July 2009 (Two Weeks) by Kate Bingaman-Burt

Drawings from July 2009 (One Month) by Kate Bingaman-Burt

April, May, June, July 2009 by Kate Bingaman-Burt

Drawings from July 2009 (One Week)
10"x8"($20)
Drawings from July 2009 (Two Weeks)
11"x14"($50)
Drawings from July 2009 (One Month)
20"x16"($200)
April, May, June, July 2009
30"x24"($1000)
by
Kate Bingaman-Burt
--

Tuesday greetings, my collector friends. How are these waning days of summer treating you all? I'm feeling like a wanderlustful lazybones myself, and yes, it's confusing! It's also making it awfully hard to sit still and write a newsletter, forcing me to solicit forgiveness in advance — via IM, natch — from today's edition-maker, and last week's newsletter-contributor, the wonderful, warm and wickedly talented Ms. Kate Bingaman-Burt. She was quick to ping me on IM after I wailed about my writer's block on her Facebook page, assuring me that she knows I love her even if I'm not able to deliver an epic newsletter. Phew!

My brevity is certainly no indication of the level of affection I have for KBB or her new editions. I've been waiting for her to give us some fresh stuff for a while now, and I'm thrilled with her Drawings from July 2009 — a variation on her Daily Drawings theme, tailor-made for 20x200 and collectors like y-o-u. The number of purchases depicted range from a week's worth in the 10"x8" edition, all the way up to the whopping four months' worth illustrated in the 30"x24" print.

I've got a few of Kate's originals myself — it's how we met, in fact! I found her in the same way that I find many of the things I love best in the world — on the internet. (The internet itself is one of the things I love best too, obvs...) I can't remember exactly where and how, could've been Flickr? It's a blur of bookmarks, but regardless of how I got to her site, there's no doubt that I was completely smitten when I did. I purchased a handful of drawings, keeping several and giving the others as gifts. (Oh, she made me look so GOOD.)

Years later, they still look totally fresca and charming and their relevance has only increased. My most recent obsession, amply evident on my Twitter stream, is what I've been describing as the Slow Web. I only started documenting instances of "a web that's well-considered and worth savoring" this past weekend, but they've (ironically?) accumulated quickly. Taking a cue from the Slow Food movement, I'm trying to draw more attention to the sites that pay attention to you. And by you, I mean me, and by us, I mean the universal consumer. And by pay attention, I mean show respect for the fact that we're giving them our time and attention. This is something well-applied to almost any experience, whether it's food or web or, in the case of our KBB, shopping.

If we really take the time to savor what we consume, we're more inclined to be discerning about what exactly the input is. Conversely, if the makers of what we consume know that we're paying attention, they're more likely to give us the good stuff. Oh yes, my theory is riddled with flaws, I realize as I type this, but allow me some idealism, won't you please? Work with me people!

It's kind of how I see this here newsletter too. I take a lot of time to make them, and I certainly don't make them alone. A lot goes into forming my ramblings into something fit for your consumption. We go through several phases of editing, and that's just for the words. We're not perfect, but we sure do try hard — we figure that if you're going to take the time to read, we should take the time to put something together that's worth your while. Conversely, I've gotten a lot of wonderful feedback (constructive criticism included!) from people who look forward to what I have to say because they know how much work I put into it. What a virtuous cycle no?

Speaking of virtuous cycles, I have a request to make of you before I go! A few of us here at JBP put together proposals for talks at next year's SXSW and they've just opened up voting for the 2010 schedule via their PanelPicker. Please have a look at our sessions; we're hoping that you'll like what you see and vote YES for us:

Inbox Hero: Why Newsletters Matter More Than Ever — presented by yours truly.

Supporting Artists With Social Media — presented by Sara and Youngna.

That's all for now, but I'll be back in a flash. We've got a great photo edition lined up for tomorrow, so tune in then for its big reveal.

Contact High by Jeff Lewis | Untitled (Let's Get Lost) by Shaun Sundholm | 87 Suns from Flickr - 29 Visible by Penelope Umbrico | 79 Moons from Flickr - 51 Visible by Penelope Umbrico | The Drive with Christine by Chad Muthard | Squeeze by Gary Peterson | Shill by David Corbett | Globe by Rachel Hulin

Happy *hot* Tuesday collectors! It's finally feeling like summer around here but thankfully our second guest curator, the brilliant Lesley A. Martin, publisher at Aperture Books, has selected a gorgeous set that's all about getting away. Like she said as we were chatting it up last week, wouldn't we all like "a few more sunny beautiful 'lost days' before this summer ends"?

We get into deep (deep space!) conversation about her selections—and you can read on below and check the blog for the full conversation—but first, some news of note for you dear newsletter subscribers.

[Oops! Sorry, if you didn't get full details about the discounted editions in your inbox, make sure you're signed up for the 20x200 newsletter so you'll get the scoop on list-only specials and new guest curator selections next time. Don't miss out again!]

You'll also see that if you do the math, we're offering Lesley's entire set for a steal— snatch up all the prints for $2,500! While you're stocking your home with art, check out Aperture's site as well: their Summer Blockbuster Sale is in full force, offering 15% off limited-edition photographs and already-reduced books. Just enter APADV9 at checkout.

And, without further ado:

Lesley: Hola!
Jen: Hi there, long time no IM, or talk at all! How are you? I was really pleased by your selection because it was totally unexpected.
Lesley: Really?
Jen: I mean I did expect the Umbricos, of course. But I love the other selections you made and how they look together.
Lesley: I'm glad. I thought the selections might be somewhat expected but I couldn't help it—they all fell together pretty naturally and followed a nice thread—in my mind in any case.
Jen: I'm curious about the Let's Get Lost inclusion.
Lesley: That image resonates for me on several levels. First of all, I really, really wouldn't mind a few more sunny beautiful "lost days" before this summer ends. Second of all, how can I resist the Chet Baker reference? It's slightly paraphrased, but still... And well, in this case, it's a nice double layering of places where jazz and photography overlap. The Bruce Weber film, Chet Baker and a cool image that kinda brings these things together in a way that makes me think: yes, please, why DON'T we just get lost. It is the jumping off point for the rest of the selection.
Jen: You jazzy lady, you. That is true. What I really love, and what reinforces my feeling about it being a good idea for CURATORS to make selections from our archives, is the rosy glow you coaxed out of them.
............
Jen: Let's talk about the non-photo selections.
Lesley: Sure.
Jen: So Gary Petersen—who is a super nice guy by the way—and David Corbett: they're both working in/out of strong traditions, building on abstract-expressionism and minimalism. But also, there's a really clever interplay between the two and in an odd way, now that I look at it, Jeff Lewis's work is sort of alike.
Lesley: I love the way David Corbett uses the frame.
Jen: They all have that curvature in common, and yet: three totally different treatments of the surface...
Lesley: Curvy and roundness, yes—but the motion within each image pulls the eye in unique ways.
Jen: I moved ahead in my head, and started looking at all the orbs. Jeff leading me to Rachel, and back around to Penelope's and then putting Chad's piece in there.
Lesley: I got into it. Really, the theme is, in fact, escape. But yeah, the orbs were a key visual motif. This is one of those things that I had to work against, truth be told...
............
Jen: Well, this imagery is certainly celestial, literally and figuratively. But the inclusion of Chad makes it about light rather than shape, in my mind, maybe light AND shape, but when I start or end with him, it's more about that—light.
Lesley: What I like about the mix of the photos and the other mediums, is that the non-photographic material contributes movement and dynamism—the shape and motion thing. And then, for me, the photo-based work contributed an underlying narrative. It truly is about escape.
Jen: Dreamy and kinetic—all at once. You're a freaking GENIUS I say!
Lesley: Aw shucks, I just like to read the tea leaves.
Jen: Yeah, it's a little weird for me to ask people to go through what I've selected and re-sift them.
Lesley: It felt really good to me, to be able to manifest a particular mood based on the possibilities. There are a lot of possibilities for interpretation—I could have gone in several different directions. I started out thinking along the lines of a tech-driven theme—Mark Richards, for example.
Jen: Right. I like that you went for something abstract, and I like how every time I look at it, I notice some different interplay.
Lesley: Yay! I'll also add that some of my other favorites, the Rogowski and the Mann, were on the blog last week, so I didn't pick them. But they're my two favorites not within my theme of inter-planetary escape!
............
Jen: So, what do we listen to on the intergalactic Lesley Martin trip? Any particular track or album?
Lesley: Sun Ra! Sun Ra Visits Planet Earth + Interstellar Low Ways.
Jen: Nice.
Lesley: Space is The Place. Ok. Back to reality though. This was fun!

Boots and raincoats, San Diego, California

To live with you alone, Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee

Hot and sunny Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! I am grateful to Sara for filling in for me as of late, but I must confess that I am especially jealous that she got to write about our own Ms. Mount and her delightful Ideal Bookshelf. As I said to Jane yesterday: it's like she read my mind! I love every single one of those books, and it seems I'm not alone. Their utter ideal-ness seemed to roust many of you from your lazy summer slumber... the $20 prints were gone in a flash!

Today's photography editions from the talented and sweet-as-pie Taj Forer are also quite fetching. After a lovely chat with the photographer himself about To live with you alone, Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee and Boots and raincoats, San Diego, California, I am that much more enchanted.

We had quite a lot to talk about, it turns out! We started with Taj's Threefold Sun series, inspired by Waldorf school founder and biodynamic farmer, Rudolf Steiner and went on (and on!) from there. I'm only including a snippet below, so if you just can't get enough, look for the full transcript on the 20x200 blog.

Jen: Hi there. Love your editions so! I am excited!
Taj: Oh, shucks. Thanks for doing this. I'm very psyched myself.
Jen: Sure thing, I am sorry that we didn't connect sooner. But what's funny is that this weekend I was at the Hawthorne Valley Farm store. So I've had Steiner on my mind.
Taj: No way! That place is amazing.
Jen: And I also got to drink raw milk. For the first time ever. And it is delicioso. Buttery.
Taj: So tasty. Amazing! Amazing that that's the ONLY way milk used to be consumed and now it's the rare exception...
...
Jen: It's super regulated although I can't tell if it's because of real danger or powerful Dairy Industry lobbyists. So, can you tell me how you connected with Steiner?
Taj: oh, I would imagine it's all lobbyist pressure.
But, to answer your question re: how I connected with Steiner—I attended a Waldorf school when I was a child, K-8 grade... It was a school located in an old farmhouse and surrounded by fields, forests and streams. Just gorgeous. As I got older and began the process of exploring my own life (rather than the lives of others) through photography, I turned my attention to the landscape of the Waldorf school that I attended as a child.
...
It's interesting, Steiner's biodynamic agricultural method came out of many of his followers begging him to address the negative effects that farmers in Europe were beginning to notice as a direct result of the beginning of industrialized farming. Something affecting everyone... Steiner was a devout Christian and often times I felt that his religious beliefs got in the way of more tangible forms of communicating his ideas. Having said this, he was a very open-minded person who borrowed from all of the major faith traditions when formulating various aspects of his philosophy.
...
Jen: I said connectedness and community is what I get from [your images], and you know, I've been looking at the work since the book came out.
Taj: I like that that's what you get from the pictures. ...
Jen: I love Boots and raincoats so much because on a surface level it's just delicious eye-candy.
Taj: It's an old public school that the city of San Diego no longer wanted to use so it rents to the Waldorf school for a good price.
Jen: but also it has such a wonderful cozy warmth about it, and a nostalgia.
Taj: I find that so lovely and metaphorical...
Jen: I mean it has a soundtrack in my mind, when I look at it.
Taj: Thanks. That image seems to resonate with many.
Jen: That is actually super interesting/great to know. And then of course the chalkboard poem—which is ever more charming b/c of its small errors.
Taj: Yes, the flaws MAKE that image for me. Tell me about the soundtrack!
Jen: Well, the soundtrack is that distinctive din of kids in a school yard, and oddly the ocean, for some reason, in the background.
Taj: So representative of the whole movement: beautiful, well-intentioned but, like anything worth a damn, also flawed. Like people!
...
Jen: It's comfortable and nostalgic, even though it's not something I ever experienced. I mean I think my teacher was kind like that, in pre-school, but I grew up in Queens NYC! heh. OK. This is super fun, I actually love talking to the artist about an image and finding out that the little stories I make up make sense. Sometimes they make no sense at all, which is fine too. But I can't lie, I enjoy being right. ;)
Taj: Nice. I always enjoy talking about the work as it often leads to new discoveries/ways of thinking about my own images and process.
Jen: Well, we can always talk more, right now I am going to write an intro... Yea we're a little late, so I gotta hustle like mad.

Ideal Bookshelf 1, JMM by Jane Mount

Happy Tuesday collectors! Jen is out and about again on some very important business, so it's Sara here, with the honor of introducing today's edition from our beloved Jane Mount. Jane created Ideal Bookshelf 1, JMM just for 20x200, choosing her favorite—and most influential—childhood tomes.

I have a theory about this. Most impressionable when we're young, books and other sources of great ideas are given more weight. These books have also, often, been given to us by adults who regard these gifts as important and inspirational in their own lives. The Little Engine That Could, Goodnight Moon and The Little Prince are all titles that have passed the test of time.

How often—recently or long ago—were you able to accomplish a great task while chanting in your head, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!"? Am I the only one who still nods off some nights with sweet thoughts for the moon and all the other good things in life? And really, where would we all be if we hadn't learned from the young prince to listen to our hearts as often as we listen to our heads? Generations of us owe these books thanks! And so it is fitting that Jane has memorialized them here in Ideal Bookshelf 1, JMM.

While Jane's previous literary editions, Bookshelf 20 and Bookshelf 29 tell us a little bit about the owners of these collections, the ideal bookshelves of this new series tell us more about the books themselves, and their roles as cultural and physical objects.

The significance of books and their various roles in our lives are thoroughly explored in Summer Reading, currently on view at Jen Bekman Gallery. Jane is joined by Lizzie Buckmaster Dove, Nina Katchadourian, Michael Mandiberg, Victor Schrager and Mickey Smith in her exploration of the book as an object. In particular, several of these artists examine the spines of books and the details that help us identify books for what they are, even though, as Jane writes, "It's such a small place for a lot of information, with very little room for distinct characteristics". Each artist makes more or less of these characteristics in their work.

Have you seen the show yet? If not, hurry on over before we close this chapter in JBG history. It'll be worth your while, I promise. NY Art Beat critic Laura Meli writes, "Just as a summer read should be, the exhibition is intriguing, short, and fast-paced, with a few welcome surprises buried within." If you don't want to take our words for it, see what Elle and Artlog have to say. Also, find regular updates about the show and all of the Summer Reading artists on the JBG blog.

Summer Reading at JBG won't last and I have a hunch that Jane's edition won't either—both of her paintings in the show have sold—so it'd be wise to pick up a print while they're available! The exhibition closes in just a few short weeks, on August 22nd.

Globe by Rachel Hulin

Happy Wednesday collectors! It's Sara. Jen's been chatting with today's super edition-maker, the one and only Rachel Hulin. We've been looking forward to today for quite some time and it's been a pleasure to work with Rachel every step of the way (one of the very best things about my job is the people I get to work with!). It seems as though the two had a lovely talk. You'll find the whole conversation on the blog [below] later today but for now, here's a little bit of what the ladies had to say about the gorgeous Globe.

Jen: Hello my dear! How are you?
Rachel: Hallo! Oh, very excited! Today is the day, you know.
Jen: Seriously, how exciting is this? First off: old skool HHS! I was walking home thinking about the '05 stuff that you showed and how it reminds me of Andrew Wyeth...
[Ed. note: insert lots of good photo talk between Jen and Rachel here.]
It might seem random, but your 20x200 edition reminds me of Tema's White Ice and it's not because there are round things in both of them. I bet you're all... Whaaaa? But check it out!
Rachel: Ha, that's interesting. I love Tema's white horse picture. I wish I took that image (which is my biggest compliment).
Jen: Here's what it is: to me some of the most successful photographs are ones that capture something that I would've totally overlooked if I'd been there myself...
Rachel: ...I look at everything around me as a potential picture. I have been looking at the glowing globe for ten years, and one day I just finally hauled up the tripod and made it.
Jen: With Globe, it's that there's something so universally comforting and familiar about the room that I'm seeing that I can imagine myself in it.
I feel like you took it from the perspective of your bed. Which may or may not be true, but that's the intimacy it has for me.
Rachel: Yeah, that's true actually.
Jen: And it serves to remind me to look around and notice what's familiar, like I was talking about in yesterday's newsletter. And it makes me want to get a cool vintage light-up globe—that's a whole other thing.
But you know, the glowy-ness gives it a cinematic/narrative quality which makes me think of that feeling I get when I walk around the streets of NYC on cold winter nights and peek in people's windows. And everything inside is impossibly warm and cozy and rich.
Rachel: I love anything glowy... I have to say, I love warm tones, I always print things too yellow, I'm so drawn to that feeling.
Jen: I could see how it's baroque-ness is perfect for you: glowy AND glittery.
So how does this particular image relate to your practice overall, at this point in time?
Rachel: It's pretty indicative of where I am right now... I'm making a lot of still-lifes. Some are a bit spooky feeling, like this one, at my grandmother's house. And, this one. I need to update my personal site!
Jen: There's an amazing narrative pull to your work. It's subtle, but strong like ox! It makes me think of the kinds of short stories I grew up reading in The New Yorker. And it also has a very kind-of mid-century feeling to it, but that might be personal.
Rachel: Yeah—I like to think of it as an extension of my writing. I'd love to write a novel with images interspersed. I was always obsessed with The New Yorker fiction imagery.
Jen: There's nothing disaffected about you, or your images, but for some reason it puts J.D. Salinger in mind.
Rachel: I just re-read Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam. That's funny.
Jen: But you know, a novel with photographs would be amazing—makes me think of the brilliant Leanne Shapton. Aside from being a totally freaking brilliant artist herself, she's the L in J&L Books AND she's the art editor of the NYT editorial page. I LOVE the idea of a Shapton-esque Rachel Hulin novel avec photographs, but one that's utterly you, of course.
Rachel: Oh yes—any publishers out there, call me!
Jen: Yeah and we can use Globe on the cover!
Rachel: Seriously—I have been thinking about finding a deserted cabin and going at it for a few months. Definitely a goal.
It could be good, I think.
Jen: I think you're on to something with that, I like it.
Well, my dear we could keep talking forever, but I'd prefer to save some of our chitchat for an in-person encounter, over adult beverages.
Rachel: Oh, that is an excellent idea. Let's do that soon.
Jen: Perhaps we'll need to meet soon and clink champagne glasses over the sell-out success of your edition?
I have a feeling we will—and soon!

Stairway by Tamara Thomsen

Winter Kitchen by Tamara Thomsen

Tuesday Edition: Tamara Thomsen

Tuesday greetings, collectors! I've returned from a week of typical San Francisco summer weather (freezing, foggy) to find that typical New York City weather (hot, humid and also: stinky) has made its late entrance. I'm only two days in and I've had just about enough, thankyewverymuch. Foul weather aside, it is good to be back — I've missed the JBP crew and, after nearly two full weeks of an Otter-free existence, I was antsy to reunite with my adorable pooch.

Today's pair of editions comes from a fellow animal lover, Tamara Thomsen. I've met Tamara twice, but with no opportunity for proper conversation on either occasion. Digging into all the supporting documents accompanying Winter Kitchen and Stairway has me intent on carving out time to chat with Tamara when our paths cross again. Her bio reveals our shared affinity for canine co-inhabitants, along with an intriguing history of accomplished design nerdery. Her editions, taken from her ongoing Chambers series, are the product of her sustained interest in architecture and interiors, also revealing an irrepressible urge to inject these tableaux with her own "jubilant fantasies."

Tamara's words and images make it clear that we've got plenty to talk about, but encountering them today as I have has also had the unintended effect of snapping me back into reality a bit. Most everyone I know is busy and over-extended and running, running, running all the time. Reading through Tamara's bio, I was struck with a pang of regret over our encounters to date. It's not every day I cross paths with another dog-loving, entrepreneurial design nerd and today I realized that an inability (albeit an understandable one) to tune out the static led me to cross her path twice without breaking my stride.

Meaningful interactions with people who share my passions is the best balm I know for the loneliness that's part and parcel of the going, going, going lifestyle so many of us lead. (Do you like that deflecting transition from "me" to "us"? I rue the day someone pyschoanalyzes these newsletters I write!) And yet how to stop oneself from all the going? Well, I'd say that it helps to have a practice of doing so, which brings me back to Tamara's paintings.

If you go through her archives, you'll notice that she has built her artistic practice around the close examination of her surroundings; she finds her inspiration in subjects that range from the organic to the everyday, and draws lessons for the present from our historical past. Looking at what she looks at reminds me that whatever my present is, there's something interesting in it and worthy of my attention. There are few days where a moment spent savoring my present would imperil my future. And really, if I'm not going to actually take the time to enjoy where I'm going once I get there, what's the point of all this forward motion?

Inspired as I am to enjoy some here-and-now time, I'm going to take my leave and go eat some daisies or smell some roses or what have you. Look for me in the morrow, when I'll be back with a fresh photography edition from a very! enthused! Hot Shot!

Orb 5 (Long Island, New York) by Carlo Van de Roer

Orb 3 (Blue Lagoon, Reykjavik, Iceland) by Carlo Van de Roer

West Coast Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! I'm happily ensconced in SF for the balance of the week after a whirlwind weekend in sunny Seattle. That's right: sunny... not a typo, nor an indulgence of my alliterative aspirations! A bright blue sky provided the perfect backdrop for all of the Emerald City's lush greenery throughout my visit.

The red carpet treatment given to me by the wonderful folks at Photographic Center Northwest and SAM added more local color. Also rainbow bright and fabulous: the Photo Op exhibition at PCNW, curated by yours truly and expertly installed by their talented gallery director — and primary red carpet roller outer — Ann Pallesen.

I'm excited to be getting back to business with today's editions, Orb 5 (Long Island, New York) and Orb 3 (Blue Lagoon, Reykjavik, Iceland) by Carlo Van de Roer. As you collectors have come to expect from Carlo, the images are gorgeous, and we've added a bit of a twist to the editions — something you've probably come to expect from us!

We're releasing Orb 5 as a new kind of benefit edition, one offered specifically in support of the artists themselves. In this case, all profits from the sales of this print are going toward funding Carlo's critically acclaimed, ambitious Portrait Machine Project. The project also happens to be an expensive one, as the equipment he uses to make the portraits is costly.

Doing an edition like this puts the spotlight on 20x200's ability to directly support artists in their practice — it's one of the things that really drives me to want to make the site a sustainable, successful endeavor. As you all know, I work with lots of artists; what causes many of them to give up on making art is something I'm all-too-familiar with. Unsurprisingly, money is probably the biggest obstacle. It's all too easy for the making of art to become a luxury, especially these days. By participating in 20x200 as a collector, you're a patron. You're helping them not give up.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of your patronage, especially since I think it's something easy to overlook. You're not spending much after all, and in this post-industrial, mass-produced era, affordable things usually don't provide much benefit to the person who actually makes them. That's where the ultimate coolness of the internet comes in — its ability to allow lots of us to act collectively is amazing. It's vastness makes the world smaller, and being able to reach all of you in your inboxes with my newsletters means that I can connect you with art and artists in a way that's never been possible before.

All of this to say that you should feel good about the art you're collecting here, and that yes, you are indeed a patron of the arts — even if you buy just one $20 print. It's not often that getting something offers an opportunity to give something just as good, but that's how we roll here at 20x200. Which brings me to another thing — we started out with a straight-up formula of $20-$200-$2000 prints and right around Christmas last year we started introducing new configurations, like the $50 prints in editions of 500 that we're offering of Carlo's two images. There's been some grousing from art traditionalists about the edition size, but that's where the giving part of getting comes in.

You're getting a gorgeous, archival print for fifty bucks. It's worth it, I promise. Put that baby up on your wall and you'll get $50 worth of pleasure in no time flat. Plus, out of everyone in the universe, only 499 other people will have the opportunity to hang the same print at the same size on their wall. That's pretty cool. The best part is that with 500 people kicking in their $50, we can write some fat checks to artists. The type of check that keeps them from giving up. So buck up collectors, and give as good as you get.

All this proselytizing has taken up the space that I usually devote to talking about the artz, but lucky for all of us, plenty of other people have written about Carlo and his projects. I'm including a mess of links below, so go ahead! Collect yourself some limited edition Carlo Van de Roer prints, then go forth and read up on the latest additions to your collection!

Coverage of the Orbs project:

Dossier Journal
Beautiful Decay
SeeSaw Designs
but does it float
The Exposure Project
design work life
ISO50 Blog
Abecedarian

More about The Portrait Machine Project:

The Portrait Machine Project site
The Moment Blog (NYTimes.com)
Interview Magazine

Owl No. 1 by Lisa Congdon

Birch Forest No. 7 by Lisa Congdon

Wednesday Editions: Lisa Congdon + 30% off at Chronicle Books

Bright and sunny summery greetings collectors! It's Sara, pinch-hitting for Jen as she prepares for tonight's opening of Summer Reading at the gallery and her West Coast sojourn. Eventually, she'll find her way to San Francisco, the home of today's edition-maker, Lisa Congdon.

Owl No. 1 and Birch Forest No. 7 are both from Lisa's recently opened show, Little Pink Houses. Lisa co-conspired with friend and fellow artist Mati McDonough to create a series of original paintings and birdhouses inspired by their mutual love of the color pink and the John Mellencamp ode. Among Lisa's new works are the two paintings featured here. The originals were snatched up on opening night, leaving these fine print editions—lovely evidence of a lively imagination and appreciation for all things great and small—the only remaining options to bring a little bit of Lisa's vibrant and cheery world into your own home.

Finding and sharing sweet things great and small is among Lisa's many talents. We were all awed by Rare Device on our visit last spring. Founded by Rena Tom, Lisa joined as a partner in crime; the two manage to seek out seriously gorgeous stuff, tempting the thrifty among us to splurge on porcelain tumblers and this funky East/West tote (it's still on sale!).

If you're a deal-seeker, you've found the right place; we've paired up with our friends at Chronicle Books again to bring 20x200 collectors an insiders' sale. Enter coupon code 20x200 at checkout at Chronicle's online store and get 30% off your entire order + FREE ground shipping! Or, if you're lucky enough to live in the Bay Area, swing by the store and mention Lisa's editions on 20x200 and you'll also receive 30% off your purchase. Opt to pick-up one of Lisa's Birch Forest Flexi Journals and Kevin at Chronicle will also throw in a card from Lisa's Le Foret Eco-Keepsake set. Pair up a Birch Forest No.7 print with a Birch Forest journal for yourself or send off an Owl No.1 with a charming card as a gift.

Also worth checking out is this weekend's Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco. Lisa will be there and in good company for certain. Among the highlights for fine friends will be a raffle for Faythe Levine's book, Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design and admission is free! So why not check it out? Levine's book is chock-full of illustrations from our very own Kate Bingaman-Burt (who is also included in Summer Reading) and we just might have a few other 20x200 + Handmade Nation surprises up our sleeves. Stay tuned for details.

Far from the left coast? Get your Congdon dose on the interwebs. Little Pink Houses at SF's Curiosity Shoppe is making the rounds and great installation shots abound. I'd make a first stop at My Love for You, then go to Poppytalk, to see what I'm talking about. Lisa's also recently launched a new blog, The Adventures of Lisa and Wilfredo with her four-legged furry friend.

New Yorkers and visitors alike, we hope to see you tonight at the opening for Summer Reading. Find us at 6 Spring Street (between Elizabeth and the Bowery) this evening from 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. toasting all things text-related!

Tuesday Edition: Kotama Bouabane

Tuesday greetings, collector friends! After a relatively low-key July, Jen Bekman Projects is about to take it up a notch or ten for the rest of the summer. We've got lots of great editions lined up, we'll be accepting entries for 2009's second edition of Hey, Hot Shot! anyminutenow and we're also getting an exhibition of the last edition's Hot Shots prepped for September.

As for me, I'm just about to jet off to the West Coast for a couple of weeks. (How lucky am I to have such capable hands to leave all these projects in? Incredibly!) First stop: Seattle, for a big to-do at the PCNW and a lecture at the Seattle Art Museum. Then I'll continue down to SF for some business and pleasure. (Hello, La Taqueria!)

All that good stuff is happening soon, but the very next Next Big Thing is at Jen Bekman Gallery. Everyone on Team JBP is super-focused on preparations for tomorrow night's opening reception for Summer Reading.

Summer Reading is a big, beauteous and bookish show, featuring over 60 pieces (zomg!) from 27 artists working in a broad range of media. You'll find many familiar names on the checklist, and as with last year's Ornithology, we'll be featuring editions from participating artists here on 20x200 throughout the exhibition. This means that you can expect our upcoming editions to be as wordy as last summer's were birdy! (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

We'll kick things off with our third offering from Canadian photographer Kotama Bouabane. His picturesque I Told You So can soften the blow of any truth-telling you're feeling compelled to share. I mean sure — you hate to say it — but sometimes you have to, y'know? Why not do it artfully? (With the added bonus that the recipient can be reminded of your rightness every time they look at this delightful photo. Brilliant!)

I Told You So is included in the exhibition, which means that Kotama's icy honesty will be keeping company with the likes of Alec Soth and Nina Katchadourian, not to mention all the other artists whose previous editions are included in this newsletter. Here's a rundown on all the 20x200 creators whose work will soon be hanging on the walls of the gallery:

Kate Bingaman-Burt
Kotama Bouabane
Jorge Colombo
William Crump
Lauren DiCioccio
Gregory Krum
Carrie Marill
Mike Monteiro
Jane Mount
Kirby Pilcher
Jason Polan
Kent Rogowski
Kelly Shimoda
Mickey Smith
Shaun Sundholm
Brian Ulrich

Speaking of which, with the show's opening just a bit more than 24 hours away, I need to get down to the gallery and get to it. Jeffrey Teuton's been working 'round the clock to get everything in order, but with dozens of pieces to arrange and hang, even a superstar like him needs a hand.

For those of you not on the JBG mailing list, I'm including all the details of the show announcement below. I do hope you'll join us for the festivities!

Summer Reading
Opening Reception | Wednesday, July 15, 2009 | 6pm-8pm

Jen Bekman Gallery
e: info@jenbekman.com | w: www.jenbekman.com | p: +1.212.219.0166
6 Spring Street(between Elizabeth + Bowery)
New York City 10012

Please join us this Wednesday, July 15, from 6pm to 8pm, at the opening reception for Summer Reading. The exhibition features over sixty works from twenty-seven emerging and established artists who are using interdisciplinary ideas about text, in all of its forms, in the mediums of photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and installation.

The exhibition will be on view from Thursday, July 16th through Saturday, August 22nd, 2009.

Summer Reading features work from: Thomas Allen, Kate Bingaman-Burt, Kotama Bouabane, Lizzie Buckmaster Dove, Christine Callahan, Jorge Colombo, William Crump, Lauren DiCioccio, Nina Katchadourian, Gregory Krum, Steve Lambert, Michael Mandiberg, Carrie Marill, Mike Monteiro, Jane Mount, Kirby Pilcher, Jason Polan, Kent Rogowski, Ed Ruscha, Kelly Shimoda, Victor Schrager, Mickey Smith, Alec Soth, Zoe Strauss, Shaun Sundholm, Brian Ulrich and Tim Walker.

The gallery is open Wednesday — Saturday from noon-6 p.m., or by private appointment.

Greetings, collectors! I'm excited to unveil our very first guest-curated selection of 20x200 art, thoughtfully assembled by boy-genius Jeff Hamada, of Booooooom fame. With this fresh perspective comes opportunity; we've got a limited number of discounted prints available of Jeff's selections and we're offering them exclusively to our mailing list subscribers.

[Oops! Sorry, if you didn't get full details about the discounted editions in your inbox, make sure you're signed up for the 20x200 newsletter so you'll get the scoop on list-only specials and new guest curator selections next time. Don't miss out again!]

It was really cool to see what Jeff came up with when let loose in our archives. He put things together in ways that I'd have never done myself, plus, he took me down memory lane, giving me a chance to revisit some of my favorite past editions. I hit him up over IM to discuss what he chose and why, and I also got to hear more about Booooooom's short but brilliant-so-far history. You can read the full transcript on the 20x200 blog, but here's a bit of what Jeff had to say about some of the artists he chose:

Jen:
How'd you winnow it down to the choices that you made?
Jeff:
I'm not sure exactly, they had to catch my eye, which really isn't revealing anything about my process but that's what it comes down to. I have been told that there is usually a certain style to the things I post on my site and I have been trying to figure out a way to describe the things I like in a general sense. I really do like work that is hand-made or has that imperfect quality to it. I don't post a lot of slick, perfect, computer generated stuff, it's just cold, I think.
Jen:
Hah well, I can totally identify with that.
Jeff:
So, maybe there is a warmth to the majority of the work I pick.
I do like dark work as well though.
Jen:
The gallery's motto is, "Live with art - it's good for you." But my personal motto is a quote from a Frank O'Hara poem, "You just go on your nerve."
Jeff:
Yeah, totally.
Jen:
I'm all about gut instinct... I find it hard to explain why I pick what I do.
There is a certain in-commonness about the line quality of the images you picked from our archives though. And it's not something I'd have picked up on myself, like putting the two Jacobs [Escobedo + Magraw] together, when you see them, they make total sense.
Jeff:
Yeah. I guess these pieces have really skinny line-detail stuff, even the Amy Ross work. But, the Ky Anderson work is kinda the other side of it, really free and expressive.
Jen:
I love her stuff. I feel like she is an unsung hero of 20x200!
Plus she is a lovely human being.
Jeff:
Yeah, her work is amazing.
Jen:
Also Whitmarsh and Ky side-by-side! Brilliant. Really nice combination.
Jeff:
Yeah, two mountains that couldn't be more different.
Jen:
And again, not something I would've thought of. Megan's work is really incredible too.

To hear more about Jeff's background, the future of Booooooom and his curatorial process, read the whole conversation. I want to send a big THANK YOU his way, for his time and attention and for everything he does to get people excited about looking at and making art. His energy is inspiring, and I couldn't think of a better person to kick off this series for us.

I'm back next week with some fresh editions, so look for me then.

Untitled (My bad) by Mike Monteiro

Sunny, summery (at last!) Tuesday greetings, my collector pals. Hope you all had relaxing weekends full of grilling, lolling and other leisurely -ings. We are back in black today with our latest offering from my favorite Bay Area curmudgeon, the acerbically talented Mike Monteiro.

My bad is so good! Does he mean it? Probably not. A friend just said to me over IM: "i hate that phrase. which i guess is the point." I believe he is correct.

I have said a lot of nice things about Mike before. You should read them. You should also read Remixed Messages, Rob Walker's most recent Consumed column in the New York Times Magazine. Featured in that article is our very own Matt Jones, talking about the Get Excited and Make Things edition that he did with 20x200. It's awfully... exciting. Don't you think? Here's the most important bit:

Possibly the best-known response graphic was created by Matt Jones... He was "in a grumpy mood" when he happened to read an article in The Guardian about the "Keep Calm" trend. "It was full of this sort of British fatalism," he recalls. Being of the mind-set that "we have to invent our way out of trouble," he started sketching. His design — the slogan "Get Excited and Make Things" under a crown that includes wrenches — became a Web hit, leading to a T-shirt from Howies, a Welsh clothing brand, and a set of prints sold on 20x200.com; Mule Design in San Francisco is bringing out a version of the shirt [ed. note: it's here!] in the U.S.

If Mule Design sounds familiar, that's because it IS. It's the design firm founded by none other than Mike Monteiro and his brilliant partner, the delightful and always-entertaining-over-IM Erika Hall.

Now that we've come full circle and are talking about Mike and IM again, it's a perfect opportunity for me to wrap things up and skedaddle. But there's one more thing before I go:

The original My bad painting is included in our upcoming show at Jen Bekman Gallery. Summer Reading opens next Wednesday, July 15th. The exhibition will include work from many of my favorite artists, many of whom will be offering editions here on 20x200. So save the date & stay tuned.

See you all tomorrow!

Wednesday Edition: Mike Sinclair

One-foot-out-the-door Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! I feel like a kid on the last day of school, yes I do. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm heading north for the holiday weekend. What I didn't mention is that I'm going with a very loose interpretation of "weekend" and starting mine today. In theory, at least — there's an awful lot standing between me and the open road at the moment.

Trying to write about Fourth of July #2, Independence, Missouri isn't helping matters any — every time I look at this captivating image from one of our most recently anointed Hot Shots — the very talented midwesterner Mike Sinclair — I find myself slipping off into a daydream and losing track of the very important task at hand.

I had the same problem with Colin Blakely's similarly seasonal edition last year, although with an out-of-town weekend in the offing, I find myself flashing forwards while gazing at Mike's image, rather than back. In the hopes of staying focused on my most immediate future, I'm going to refer you to some of the fine writing that's been done elsewhere about Mike's work.

I'll start close to home with Youngna Park's recent Q&A with Mike, published shortly after we announced 2009's first five Hot Shots. Upon reading it, I was pleased to discover that Mike and I share similar blog-reading habits and found myself nodding in agreement with the sage words of advice offered by his wife: "You don't know what you don't know."

Sara Distin's thoughts on Mike's photography are out in the blogosphere too. She declared Mike the Jen Bekman Photographer of the Month over on Flavorwire. She does a great job of pinpointing what's so insightful about his work, writing that his photographs "contain the sort of deeply-centered observations that seep into the core of what it is to be an American, and eventually find their way out, tickling the skin with warm familiarity."

Traveling further afield to Mike's stomping grounds, I can point you towards a thoughtful review of his recent Kansas City exhibition, a series of images captured at public parks in urban areas. In At the Dolphin, Mike Sinclair sees a City Beautiful, Dana Self opens with some background on the origin of the show's title: "The City Beautiful movement — out of which modern urban planning emerged — engaged architects and municipal leaders in the beautification of industrial America at the turn of the 20th century."

As for my own contribution, I suggest you mosey on over to Personism for the latest installment of my Paired series, which matches Mike's photograph with The Motorcyclists, a poem by James Tate.

I've got my own engine to rev, so bye for now! (But not for long.)

Tuesday Edition: Ann Toebbe

Tuesday greetings, collector friends! The sun is finally shining down upon us here in NYC, and for a few days running no less. I'm considering abandoning my ark-building plans, but not just yet — I'm not entirely convinced that El Nino's done having his way with us for the year. I do have my fingers crossed for a pleasant weekend, though. The Otter and I are headed north as soon as we can, with fresh air and picnicking in mind.

Today's edition seems appropriate for the season — Red Plastic Plates are sure to be set atop many a picnic table this weekend! Ann Toebbe's distinctive style also puts me in an out-of-the-city frame of mind; her folk references and decidedly un-citified subjects remind me of weekends spent with my grandparents in the suburbs and beyond.

Red Plastic Plates also makes me nostalgic for the not-too-distant past. It wasn't long ago that I first introduced 20x200 collectors to Ann's paintings. Back in January of this year, we released the two other editions that you see here: Drying Our Boots by the Stove and Burning Down the Second House. Even more recently, while in Chicago for the NEXT fair, I had the good fortune of meeting Ann in person and I got to see the original work on which our Red Plastic Plates edition is based. What a treat it was!

I am nuts for this painting and seeing it in person strengthened my conviction to add it to our Ann Toebbe 20x200 offerings. Ann was a bit hesitant though; the original had been acquired by a fabulous collection and what would its curators think? Fortunately for all of us, you lucky collectors included, it's the fabulous West Collection that acquired the painting. They're lucky too — it's a truly wonderful piece. And me? I am green with envy — and told the collection's founder, the wonderful Paige West, exactly that. She also immediately gave us the green light to do an edition with the piece — she's been a big fan and supporter of 20x200 from the get-go.

Paige is a huge patron of the arts and her passion manifests itself in a variety of ways. We share a keen interest in supporting emerging artists and collectors, and I've got nothing but admiration and awe for the things she's done on their behalf. She was way ahead of the curve when she founded Mixed Greens* back in 1989 — its program and approach are all about demystifying the art world and supporting new collectors. She even wrote the book on it: Art of Buying Art: An Insider's Guide to Collecting Contemporary Art offers smart advice and lots of eye candy to boot.

It was the West Prize that brought Paige to Chicago for the fair. NEXT was hosting an exhibition of its 10 finalists, including our very own Ms. Toebbe. The highlight of the trip for me was the cocktail party for the prize, which was held at the W Hotel. Jeffrey Teuton, Sarah McKenzie** and I trudged over there, tired from a long day at the fair. Thankfully, the event itself was energizing — I was excited to have a chance to introduce Paige to Sarah and Jeffrey, and also thrilled to run into another West Prize finalist who Paige and I share an interest in, Hot Shot photographer Georg Parthen.***

We didn't get to stay as long as we would've liked; we had a dinner reservation to keep, which meant I had to practically pry Ann and Sarah apart. (They were deep in conversation about their mutual alma mater, Yale.) And speaking of prying apart, it's time to pry myself from the computer and get it together for the rest of the day's engagements. I'm back tomorrow with another seasonally appropriate edition — look for me then!

*Mixed Greens' Coke Wisdom O'Neal is here on 20x200 too! We introduced his work last Fall:
Needle-Needle-Nee by Coke Wisdom O'Neal.
**Sarah McKenzie has a few great 20x200 editions as well:
Support by Sarah McKenzie
Site by Sarah McKenzie
Lift by Sarah McKenzie
***Georg Parthen: coming soon to 20x200!

Wednesday Edition: Raul Gutierrez

Travels Without Maps
11" x 14" PORTFOLIO EDITION ($300)

The Travels Without Maps portfolio is comprised of 11" x 14" prints of all four images, presented in an archival portfolio folder. Produced in an edition of 30, the portfolios are priced at $300 each. Also: they are awesome.*

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Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! I'm super duper excited about today's editions, but I'm telling you right now: writing about the photographer in question makes me awfully nervous. As you're probably aware, Raul Gutierrez is the good-wizard version of our man behind the curtain here at JBP HQ. He's the first person who thought the whole 20x200 concept might just be crazy enough to work, and has been a tireless contributor to its success since I first pinged him (over IM, but of course!) back in January of 2007.

Our mutual friend, Eliot Shepard, introduced me to Raul in 2006, but I was already a fan. I'd been following Raul's blog since 2004. His words told the story of the journey that brought him and his wife, Jenn, to Brooklyn; reading from afar, I was amazed by his eloquence, smarts and versatility. One only needed to click over to his portfolio of photographs to discover that he has the rare gift of being able to tell amazing stories in twofold: with words and images.

Shortly after meeting, Raul was selected for the Spring 2006 edition of Hey, Hot Shot! and sometime after that, we started talking about the idea of working together. We weren't sure exactly what we'd do, but it seemed like our respective checkered-career-pasts had the potential to harmonize in interesting ways. To be honest, I was totally flattered that he'd even consider it! Sure, we both started doing internet stuff very early on, but his life has been significantly more adventurous than my own. We've been sitting across from each other in a very small room for a couple of years now, and Raul still strikes me as a bit of a mythical creature. (I can also tell you that he hates that I just wrote that!)

It's hard to believe that this one person, of whom I am so very fond, is all the things he is. He's had a lot of lives in his lifetime: after growing up in East Texas and getting educated in the ivy-est of leagues, he went out to LA. Out there, he lived a life like you see in the movies while working with big producers to make them. He's an uber-nerd (and I mean that in the best way) and a collector and a husband and a dad and a photographer. He's all those things, and he's also someone who's traveled — alone, without maps — through the furthest reaches of a land that I'm unlikely to ever see with my own eyes.

The photographs you see here today represent a small slice of his journeys, and they stand out as some of my favorites. They give form to the stories that he shares with us, which are interspersed throughout our days in the office together. We often repeat them to each other in the elevator afterwards, incredulous as we try to imagine the sweet, sentimental person we know trekking alone along mountainsides, a stranger in a strange land. (Inevitably, there is an "I had NO idea!" conversation with every new person that joins the team. Usually this happens after they've spent a long afternoon alone with Raul at HQ, and it's most likely to coincide with their discovery of his prodigious skills as a DJ.)

It's an honor to be able to share these photographs with all of you. As for the stories, well... those are for his family and friends, and for those of us who are lucky enough to work with Raul.

*Please note: The portfolios are custom orders and might not ship as quickly as our other prints normally do. Orders placed today will be shipped within 7-10 days.

Tuesday Edition: Jessica Eaton

Roy G. Biv-tastic Tuesday greetings, my collector friends! Our NYC sunshine is still somewhere over the rainbow, and considering what a stranger clearing skies have been to these parts lately, I don't expect we'll be finding it any time soon. Rather than singing an off-season SAD song — which would undoubtedly be delivered off-key — I've been cheering myself up with the fictive rainbows of today's edition-maker, Jessica Eaton.

Filter Samples is the photographic artifact of an admirably obsessive endeavor. As Jessica describes it in her statement, "hundreds of swatches from Lee Filter sample packs were arranged on the window, by spectral wave transmission, to turn my living room into a ROYGBIV light box." While I can only wonder what it might be like to dwell in such a living room, I'm very grateful that I get to live with the resulting imagery.

Jessica's a Canadian artist who I've been admiring from afar for a while now via the interwebs. Her high-concept, appealing imagery has made appearances on the websites and blogs of some of my favorite photography friends — Tim's tinyvices features two portfolios of her photographs and Laurel's I Heart Photograph looked twice too.

A blogger herself, Jessica incited a flurry of keyboards tapping with her recent critically acclaimed solo debut at Toronto's Hunter and Cook. I was tipped off to the show by Horses Think; like its author, the talented-his-own-self Ofer Wolberger, I wanted to be able to check it out in person, especially after reading We Can't Paint's enthusiastic review. Daily Value was similarly impressed and had this to say about the exhibition:

Eaton's work re-imagines '70s-era minimalist and conceptual art: a time when artists aimed to strip the aesthetic object down to its most essential state and concept took precedence over traditional aesthetic concerns (a serial work of Eaton's—a diamond pattern captured mid-liftoff from its foundation of grid paper—especially invokes Sol LeWitt). Like her predecessors, Eaton uses a purist's palette, but, rather than baring the aesthetic object, she reveals it in the process of undressing.

Speaking of her predecessors, one of the things that I love about Jessica's work is the long list of associations it generates, connecting her to some of my favorite image-makers. We'll start close to home with 20x200's very own Penelope Umbrico, who shares a kinship of palette and post-photographic practice, and while Michael Lundgren's work is about something quite different, his obsession with the photographic object makes me want a seat at any table that they might gather around together. Another person I'd want to invite to that meal is the amazing Lisa Oppenheim, who I have a huge photo-crush on.

Delving further into Jessica's colorful abstractions, my mind alights on many of the artists included by our friends at Aperture as part of their stunning Edge of Vision initiative. Speaking of photo friends, Blind Spot has offered editions from several other kindred spirits — from Jonathan Lewis and his candy-colored rainbows to John Baldessari and Hannah Whitaker — they've got quite a range of talented, smart photographers considering light, image and object.

Enough about all of them, though! Let's talk about Jessica's recent westward expansion. She's still north of the border, but now clear across the continent; her latest solo exhibition, Variables, just opened at Vancouver's LES Gallery. Filter Samples is included in this reportedly awesome exhibition, which remains on view through July 12th.

Phew, that was a seriously link-tastic email. And now: I am done, although not for long. I'll be back tomorrow with a very special set of images from a very special fella. Look for me then!

Sunshine-y Wednesday greetings, my collector friends, and an open-armed welcome to the newcomers among you, of which there are many. This might have something to do with our "striking, affordable artwork" being featured in the July issue of Martha Stewart Living, or perhaps you're here on the advice of Martha's crafts department? Or... maybe Jeff sent you? Jeff Hamada, that is — he being the energetic impresario behind the ever-inspiring Booooooom. (More on that later!) However you made your way here, I'm happy that you've joined us and look forward to sharing lots of amazing art with you in newsletters to come. Let's get started, shall we?

Talented Bay Area painter Sarah Spitler is making her 20x200 debut with today's fine art print, No One Can Live Outside of History. This piece has inspired an odd narrative that totally makes sense to me, and I've got my fingers crossed that Sarah will be pleased and flattered with the tale it tells.

It’s going to seem completely off-the-wall, but in its many layers and techniques I see unruly nature intermingled with tightly-controlled forms that are caught in the space between both graphic design and photography.

In this painting, Sarah's captured a moment in a very funny scene. I see the looseness of the background shades — the smoky blues and greens — as being the plates of the earth shifting, forming continents and roiling the ocean. It's a messy chaotic process, all in all. Then along comes the spirit of Ryan McGinness — seriously, stick with me here — attempting to bring order to the chaos.

The spirit of Ryan is all about order and consistency. It brings both precision and playfulness, adding a layer comprised of human-engineered forms over the messy organic process of nature's progress. The reason I see it as a photo is because the moment captured is an unresolved one, in the best possible way. Everything's still in motion; it's not clear who's winning and you're not even sure who to root for. There's the beautiful mess of splatters and drips, but they're so close to escaping, seemingly untameable. The steady hues and clean lines of the McGinness-like moments offer up the control, comfort and certainty.

I know it's wacky, but hopefully it makes a little sense. And if it doesn't, well that's cool too. You can make your own meaning, and I encourage you to do just that! Once you've got the story Sarah's painting all sorted out, I'll bet you'll be hungry for more inspiration. When that happens, you can do what scads of savvy surfers do and head on over to Booooooom. I'm generally proud of my appetite for imagery, but I have to say Jeff's curation on Booooooom gives me a bit of a complex. He finds so much great stuff, and shares it with unflagging enthusiasm.

We've been keeping an eye on his offerings for a while now, and just recently the eagle-eyed Ms. Distin noticed that he'd featured Sarah's work as well. With many new fans of her work tuning into his site, Jeff announced a give-away last week. I'm happy to announce its two lucky winners here today. Big congrats to readers Haley and Suzan, both of whom will be receiving 11" x 14" prints of No One Can Live Outside History!

With my tales told and prints en route to the lucky winners, my newsletter work for the week is done. I'm going to turn my attention to other things, like picking out a party dress and putting on some dancing shoes!

Tomorrow night Aperture is hosting their first-ever summer benefit, Some Like it Hot — flush with festivities, cocktails and art for all. I've been all about Aperture lately, thrilled to support their excellent programming with our recently-released editions from Penelope Umbrico. Her cyber-celestial works are stunning side-by-side, if I do say so myself.

I'll be attending the party with the talented and charming, Gregory Krum, perennial star on 20x200 and Summer 2007 Hot Shot. Krum was selected as a Hot Shot with the help of HHS! panelist, Aperture's book publisher, Ms. Lesley Martin.

I encourage local collectors to join us, and not just for cocktails and conversation. If you spring for the $150 ticket you'll leave with a limited-edition print from Thomas Allen in hand. Allen, one of several super book-smart artists whose work we'll be exhibiting at the JB Gallery's upcoming Summer Reading exhibition, is a wonderful and highly collectible photographer. So spend some smart money on a good cause and meet us there!

Secrets of Living 3

Secrets of Living 4

Tuesday Edition: Amy Ross

Rainy Tuesday greetings, collectors. It's gloomy (again!) in NYC, but my day's a bit brighter thanks to the latest from 20x200's favorite mad-scientist inspired painter, the talented Amy Ross. Amy is old-school 20x200; her Manshroom — purchased by a dear friend with a fondness for little brown mushrooms — was the very first print sold on the site. Her Duck Magnolia, released when I was (literally) chilling in San Francisco last July, was part of last summer's Ornithology extravaganza. With few prints left of either and nary a peep from me about birds lately, it seemed high time to hatch some fresh editions from Ms. Ross.

The delicately rendered Secrets of Living 3 and Secrets of Living 4 are the product of Amy's big beautiful brain, which contains an enviable mix of talent, curiosity, intelligence and imagination. As readers of her blog know well, Amy finds inspiration in nature and science. Her flair for the fantastical makes me think of my friend Tim Walker — both of them have the sort of unbridled imaginations that I normally associate with childhood. How great for them (and us!) that their grown-up selves have managed to keep that magic intact! In Amy's case, I have a feeling that her adorable daughter Mia, a frequent co-conspirator in Amy's frequent forays into the field, provides ample inspiration.

Amy and I have worked together for a while now. She first exhibited in a group show at the gallery in 2006 and her solo show, Anima Mundi, opened a few months later. We've shared a lot of good times and adventures along the way too — I love her smarts and her sarcastic sense of humor, and have always found her to be a bit of a kindred spirit. Knowing her, it comes as no surprise that a favorite poem would spark that aforementioned enviable imagination of hers. I'll close out today's dispatch with the e. e. cummings poem that inspired today's editions:

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

Wednesday Edition: Shen Wei

Yi, Beijing

Blessing over the Rice Machine, Guiyang, Guizhou Province

Wednesday greetings, collectors! The Cold of Late Spring '09 still has Mr. Gutierrez and me in its grips, which is beginning to make both of us a little cranky. We've got stuff to do, and we want to suffer no impediments in getting it done. Raul's been busy rolling out all kinds of improvements for the site, modifying the home page to include more images of recent editions and updating the sidebar to include recent media mentions of our talented artists. We're already bumping up against some limitations there — with Alex MacLean, Jorge Colombo and Christian Chaize all worthy of the spots they've earned, we're wondering what we'll do when the next wave of attention hits. For more details check out my recent blog dispatch.

We're also prepping a big announcement, which will land in the inbox of Hey, Hot Shot! list subscribers tomorrow: this year's first 5 Hot Shots! Which means that a day of deliberation awaits me once I'm done introducing today's editions by a Fall 2006 Hot Shot, photographer Shen Wei.

It's both inconvenient and fitting that Shen's midair, en route to China, as I introduce his 20x200 debut. Both of his photographs, Blessing over the Rice Machine, Guiyang, Guizhou Province and Yi, Beijing, are from Chinese Sentiment. In this new series, he's attempting to reconnect to his memories of the homeland he left nearly a decade ago, with a fresh perspective that's influenced by his experiences and accomplishments abroad.

I've known Shen for a while now, and my evolving relationship with him is an excellent illustration of why Hey, Hot Shot! and the gallery are such fulfilling endeavors. The opportunity to work with artists as their careers are taking shape is an honor and a source of inspiration. (And sometimes it's even exasperating!) I watch careers progress with a combination of mama bear pride and curiosity, and I learn a lot from every single artist that I work with. My interactions with Shen have been particularly enriching. Coming as we do from entirely different cultures, I'm continuously fascinated — and often surprised — by how he approaches the world in his work.

Two summers ago, I co-curated an exhibition with Jörg Colberg called A New American Portrait, which included work by Shen. It remains one of my favorite exhibitions, not only because I so enjoyed exhibiting the work that we chose, but also because it gave me cause to consider deeply a genre that's been of abiding interest to me. Releasing Shen's editions has me thinking about it again, and I'm loving the challenge.

A while back, my friend Carolina caught me off-guard with a deceptively simple question. During a conversation about Stefan Ruiz and his amazing telenovelas project, she asked me to compare Stefan's portraiture to Alec Soth's. I started to talk right away, assuming it'd be a cinch to explain because I know both of them and their respective bodies of work pretty well, but I stumbled, and fast. It was hard and I was frustrated, impressed and challenged all at once. What I came around to was this, which I later wrote to Alec in an email:

... when comparing you to Stefan, I decided that your intent is different, and the differences in your intent affect your relationships with your subjects. When I look at your photos, I feel like they [the subjects] are revealing themselves to you, and that the viewer is an outsider who you're allowing to witness that relationship you've forged. With Stefan, I feel like he is persuading his subjects to show themselves to the viewer, and that he is the intermediary who facilitates it. It's hard for me to articulate why exactly, and I wonder how much of my hunch is based on knowing each one of you. I wish I could articulate certain empirical evidence in each of your photos to support the theory, but it's hard to do.

Which brings me back to Shen... his approach, and his results, are somewhere in between those two things. He once explained to me that he uses the fact that he's foreign to disarm people and/or make them feel more comfortable. His accent, his excellent-but-not-perfect-English, his entirely different cultural background — all these things could make him shy and insecure, but instead he uses them to his advantage, making people more comfortable with their own vulnerabilities.

Photographs resulting from this approach form his Almost Naked series. There's an intimacy to these images, often revealing an unguardedness which suggests to me that the subject is perhaps more at ease revealing themselves to a photographer who they see as being "other" — not part of their world, their community at all. I kind of wonder if that assumption extends to who they think his [Shen's] audience is.

That Shen's portraits are suffused with sexuality adds another important layer to the work, especially when you consider the cultural context Shen has emerged from. As he's mentioned in interviews, "Chinese people are much more conservative and isolated than Americans. Chinese people are living in a much stricter society; there are rules and rules that came out of thousands years of history."

These differences are central to Shen's work, and I think it's his enthusiasm about being freed from such conservatism that puts his subjects at ease. His fascination is accompanied by a certain amount of incredulous thrill over the fact that he can ask someone to pose nude and that they will. It's disarming to encounter someone so curious, so genuinely engaged and interested and not in the least bit jaded.

It's not the sensationalism or the taboo that draws him in, it's his appetite for freedom — his own and that of his subjects — which inspires him. With this new project, he is taking everything that he's learned and become through his time in the States and bringing back to his homeland, attempting to recontextualize it there. Both he and his country have changed considerably in the intervening years; what a treat it is to be able to witness the effects of these changes on both shooter and subject.

Tuesday Edition: Gary Petersen

Squeeze by Gary Petersen

Snuffly Tuesday greetings, collectors! A cold is making its way around JBP HQ. Our technical (not to mention photographic) hero Raul was the first to fall, and I awoke this morning craving tea not coffee, always the clearest indicator of cold-affliction for me. Luckily, Team 20x200 is well-accustomed to working virtually — a little fuzzy-headedness isn't going to break our stride! We've got an excellent array of editions lined up this week — thinking and writing about them is a lovely way to pass the time as I'm bundled up on my couch, sipping the aforementioned tea. Once I'm done with today's introduction, I can use this idle(ish) time to catch up on some vital inbox-clearing and web-surfing.

It might be hard to imagine that web-surfing is vital, but for a curator like me, it absolutely is. Today's edition, Squeeze, is a case in point. I'm always on the look out for new artists, and as I mentioned when introducing Shaun Sundholm's edition last week, I find lots of inspired art on the internet. In fact, I connected with today's edition-maker, painter Gary Petersen, via Facebook which is sort of the internet. AOL-nouveau or not, I've been addicted to Fb since joining the party (late) last summer, in part because I found a surprisingly large artworld contingent within its pearly gates.*

Back in January, one of the 94 friends that Gary and I have in common posted an announcement for Linear Abstraction, a group exhibition that included Gary's gorgeous paintings, using one of his images to accompany their post. I was instantly smitten with the work for the typical Jen-Bekman-is-gonna-love-this reasons: the colors and the crisp, almost graphic, quality of the image combined to create an exuberance that leaped off the screen and into my heart. I love work that makes my heart race, and Gary's paintings do just that.

I went digging beneath the surface — and beyond my gut reaction — and things just kept getting better. Like many of the artists that I work with, Gary's a grown-up. He's a practicing artist who maintains a studio at the marvelous Elizabeth Arts Foundation and his exhibition history is impressive. He's had critically acclaimed solo shows, and has participated in group exhibitions curated by some of my favorite gallerists.

Gary's paintings, described by critic Stephen Maine as "so familiar to observers of New York abstraction", certainly evoke the spirit of giants, but they possess a velocity and energy that's unique. Maine's review of Gary's solo exhibition at Michael Steinberg Fine Arts, published in Art in America in April 2006, does a wonderful job of describing the elements that give the paintings the human quality I value so much in artwork. I'll close today's newsletter with Mr. Maine's insightful analysis:

As in the paintings of Mary Heilmann and Joanne Greenbaum, the components Petersen works with are familiar and somewhat generic but their orchestration is singular. Not slick, actually a little fumbling, these paintings do not attempt to hide a certain awkwardness and vulnerability behind their sunny bravado, which makes them resoundingly human.

*Why on earth Facebook is where they gravitated, and what they find (or don't find) there is the topic of a whole other conversation...

Wednesday Edition: Shaun Sundholm

Meme-o-licious Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! Today's edition by Shaun Sundholm is a nice follow-up to yesterday's paean to Jorge Colombo, currently the most meme-o-licious artist of all on the interwebs. Shaun's no slouch himself when it comes to internet fame — Untitled (Let's Get Lost) has been bookmarked, blogged, crushed-out on, tumblr'd, ffffound, favorited and otherwise adored approximately a gajillion and one times.

No stranger to some (ok, most... I mean all, um.. WHATever!) of these haunts myself, I've been familiar with — and fond of — Shaun's witty way with words and imagery for a while. It was no surprise to me when Ariel Aberg-Riger suggested his work in response to our little crowd-sourced curation query, sent out via Twitter a while back. And yes, it's true I love to browse images on the internet more than almost anyone I know, but... Come on, people! LET'S GET REAL, shall we?

You know how I say "live with art — it's good for you"? I really mean it, and not in the condescending, let's-help-the-great-unwashed-improve-themselves way that David Byrne referenced in a recent journal entry. I mean that it can make life more interesting, and happier. We can sort, collect and otherwise accumulate images on the internet, or our hard drives, till the end of time, but it's just not the same as having something that you love hanging on the wall in your home. (Or apartment or cube or office or yurt or igloo.)

As I said in GOOD magazine, back when this whole 20x200 thing was just a twinkle in my eye, "Buying the work of emerging artists is cool — it's nice to know that you're supporting someone who is probably struggling and dreaming of quitting his or her day job — and there's more: the wonderful feeling of living with art. Each thing you own frames your personal history and becomes anchored to the chapter of your life in which you acquired it."

Don't get me wrong, all this internet browsing is good too. I credit the wealth of imagery and information available on the internet with making me the curator that I am today. I've never been one to lock myself up in the library, sit still in a classroom or get lost in the stacks, but I can't tell you how many times a single image I've viewed on the internet has sent me down the rabbit hole, opening up whole new dimensions of the art world that I'd never seen before. And knowing that that'll happen again and again is awesome and exciting, for sure, but it's all so intentional. Serendipity isn't entirely impossible on the internet, but I still need to turn on the computer, fire up the browser, and go looking.

An image that I've ffffound will never be a presence in my peripheral vision, it won't greet me when I open my eyes in the morning and it won't ever have the chance to make its way into my psyche by its mere presence on the walls of my apartment. The art you live with works its magic on you all the time, whether you're aware of it or not. Let's Get Lost is exactly the type of voodoo that I want to get off your screens and onto your walls.

Tuesday (not Monday, even though it feels like that) greetings, my collector friends! Hope you all enjoyed this weekend's bonus track and are reacclimating nicely to your working week. I had a fabulous stay-cation in NYC, which was filled with leisurely meals with out-of-towners and a whole lot of excitement about the cover of my favorite magazine ever. This week's issue of The New Yorker, (yes! The New Yorker!) features a cityscape created by 20x200 artist Jorge Colombo, whose iPhone sketch editions were introduced in this very newsletter back in April.

It all started a few days ago, when I received a short note from Jorge that went like so: "Jen: guess who did the cover of the next New Yorker with his iPhone? I never tell ahead because things always change last minute, but it's official." Officially awesome! As I said on Facebook, it's not that I'm competitive, but... I'm awfully proud that 20x200 was first.

I'm bursting with pride over the whole thing, in fact — ask any of my Twitter cronies or IM buddies or Personism readers or dining companions or brunch dates or margarita compadres or oyster eating, champagne sipping, al fresco eating partners in crime. It's pretty much all I've been able to talk about for days.

First of all, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Jorge is wonderful, something I knew already based on past experience — but his wonderfulness was confirmed again and again this weekend as we exchanged dozens of emails about the cover, the coverage and our various collaborations. (Aside from his already released editions, you can look forward to more from Jorge in Summer Reading, the group show that's opening at Jen Bekman Gallery in mid-July, and we just might be cooking up some other stuff as well.) In fact, I don't know how he found the time to type anything to me at all! The phone was surely ringing off the hook, and he's been all over the media and yet: witty, considered and insightful emails kept showing up in my inbox all weekend long.

In light of my single-minded obsession with Jorge's superstardom, writing about anything else today seemed just about impossible. I also wanted to give 20x200 collectors a refresher course in Jorge's editions — plenty of my friends said to me "I knew I'd seen them somewhere!" but weren't quite sure where exactly till I ever-so-helpfully reminded them. So, here I am! Helpfully reminding you too.

I've also got a little something new to share as well. If you look to your right, you'll see a most cheery Youngna Park holding a very handsome 20x200 totebag aloft — with Sara Distin more reservedly revealing its flipside in the background. We've got some of those totebags, which made their debut at the San Francisco Collectors Confab, to give away today. They'll go to the first 20 collectors who place orders of $200 or more.*

As alluded to earlier, I'm hardly the only one overjoyed and ridiculously excited about all this good news: Jorge received early accolades and attention from The Guardian, The Huffington Post picked up on The New Yorker story. Which is to say: buzz is ricocheting all over the blogosphere!

It's not just words and pixels either — cut to tape! Jorge unveils the methods to his magical renderings of NYC's madness in two short videos — he gives a charming interview — not to mention 20x200's first ever (!!!) on-air shoutout — in the middle of his Times Square stomping grounds for none other than ABC news. The New Yorker also has a fantabulous video which documents the layering process he describes, from start to finish, on their website.

Aside from their excellent taste in cover art and unparalleled content, The New Yorker also gives the rundown on not-to-be-missed events, like this Saturday's music/comedy/literary extravaganza "You're Not Alone" at the Highline Ballroom, a music/comedy/literary extravaganza put on by the brilliant and funny fellas at The Rumpus, McSweeney's and Smithmag.

That's but one thing on my calendar this week, which is packed full of lots of events that combine more of my favorite things: art, the internet and, of course, collecting! Among the highlights, tomorrow, I'll be at the Brooklyn Museum for the debut of their Collecting Currently lecture series. Please join me and my co-panelists — artist and collector Danny Simmons, Joe Amrhein from Williamsburg's Pierogi Gallery and Steve Weintraub of Arts in Bushwick — we'll discuss the borough's bevy of artists and how and why to collect their work, right now! On Thursday, I'll have the honor of introducing my dear friend and HHS! panelist, co-founder of Flickr, Caterina Fake, as she is recognized for shaping today's online communities at Rhizome's 2009 Benefit at the New Museum.

Houndstooth Pattern in Parking Lot, at Disney World, FL by Alex MacLean

Houndstooth Pattern in Parking Lot, at Disney World, FL
11"x14" ($50) | 16"x20" ($200) | 24"x30" ($1000)
by
Alex MacLean

This image is also available as a 50" x 60" print, from an edition of 5, priced at $5000. Please drop a note to collector@20x200.com if you're interesting in learning more about this edition.
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Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! As I forecast yesterday, both today's sky and my own disposition are quite a bit sunnier. Could be that I'm looking forward to heading over to the gallery for Christian Chaize's opening, which starts in a few short hours. Could be all the "Cheer up — It's gonna be ok!" emails, Twitter DMs, and Facebook comments I got after confessing my little black cloud in a dress-ness in yesterday's newsletter. (Turns out people actually read these things! And love Billy Bragg like I do! And I wasn't the only one having a bad day!) It's probably all those things, really, and today's colorful, super-fun edition by photographer Alex MacLean is definitely part of the equation as well.

Houndstooth Pattern in Parking Lot, at Disney World, FL has had me singing along to The Go-Gos all morning. No, I don't want to go to Disneyland. (Sorry, mom. Not with you, or anyone else for that matter!) I do however really wanna go on vacation. Alex's aerial imagery makes me long for a plum window seat from which I might survey the American landscape while en route to some relaxing destination.

If you browse Alex's site you'll see that he's got plenty of frequent flyer miles of his own, as pilot rather than passenger. I'm assuming that there's a co-pilot manning the controls while he's actually shooting.... right?) Anyone who's spent any time in an airplane is familiar with how captivating the landscape is from above. If you're like me, you've tried to capture its essence with your point-and-shoot or phone cam, and failed miserably in the process. It's hard to take a good picture from a plane! That doesn't mean that a lot of people don't do it, and many do it well; I've seen lots of interesting aerial photography in my time, but I've never encountered anyone who goes about it as Alex does.

As it says in his bio: "Trained as an architect, he has portrayed the history and evolution of the land from vast agricultural patterns to city grids, recording changes brought about by human intervention and natural processes." These are documents, but they're dazzling ones. And the dazzle is important. Bright and shiny things capture interest, and once you have someone's interest you've got an opportunity to teach them something new.

Alex's newest book, Over: The American Landscape at the Tipping Point, attempts to do just that. The epic vistas are engrossing, but once engrossed you begin to learn more about the toll of human life on earth. As it's described on Alex's site, "the book allows readers to visualize climate change and our culture's excessive use of resources and energy... demonstrat[ing] the extent to which the human ecosystem, and our economic and social well being, are dependent upon our wise use of land and its resources."

With some food for thought, and Alex's first (hopefully first of many!) 20x200 edition announced, I'll take my leave for the day. I'm off to figure out something super stylish to wear for tonight's reception. You know how chic those Frenchies are! I'm back next week on a Tuesday that'll feel like a Monday, but BETTER because it'll include the introduction of some fresh art, introduced by a refreshed Jen. I plan on getting some R&R over the long weekend and hope you will too.

Thursday Editions: Penelope Umbrico to Benefit Aperture

These prints are produced using archival inks on 100% cotton rag matte paper. All of our editions are supervised by the artist and come with a signed certificate of authenticity. Profits from 79 Moons From Flickr - 51 Visible will be donated to Aperture foundation.
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Benefit Thursday greetings, my collector friends! The editions I've been blabbing about all week long (and then some) are finally here and I'm super excited to introduce them. I'm also nervous... I've been thinking about Penelope Umbrico's work a lot, for a long time and I am a huge fan of the Aperture Foundation. I'm counting on all of you collectors to help us support them in a big way!

Without futher ado, I present to you: 87 Suns From Flickr - 29 Visible and 79 Moons From Flickr - 51 Visible. All profits from the sale of the Moons print will be donated to Aperture. Penelope created these prints exclusively for the Aperture/20x200 collaboration, using her brilliant Suns from Flickr as the foundation for the final images. She picked a great place to start: the Suns project has many ties to Aperture itself, and it's also the genesis of my ongoing and public fascination with her images.

My first encounter with Suns was its stunning installation at The Ubiquitous Image exhibition, curated by Aperture Books Publisher — and HHS! panelist — Lesley Martin. The show was part of last year's inaugural New York Photo Festival, where Penelope also did an artist's talk that blew me away. Her process, her humor and her fresh perspective captivated me; she sees the internet as a vast repository of source material and does ingenious things with its plenty. Her perspective transcends the confines of art and internet culture, moving beyond each discipline's tendency to be hopelessly self-referential. Being someone who dwells in both worlds and works hard to unite them, the discovery of Penelope's point of view was downright thrilling.*

I feel incredibly fortunate to be writing this newsletter today. To be presenting the work of someone who inspired me from a stage, in support of a foundation which advances the medium about which I am most passionate is truly an honor. I am so grateful to artists like Penelope and organizations like Aperture for the important work that they do — the role of artists and what they create is grossly undervalued in contemporary culture.

Aperture plays a vital role in advancing the medium of photography, which I consider to be the most crucial medium of our time. They produce gorgeous books, mount ambitious exhibitions and publish a terrific magazine. They support emerging artists and collectors via their competitions and limited-edition print programs, and their offices are populated by some of the hardest working, most thoughtful and passionate people I've met.

Most recently, they've been focused on putting together The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, curated by Lyle Rexer. The exhibition features work from a fascinating array of photographers, including Ms. Umbrico herself. Aperture's hosting an opening reception this Saturday, May 16th, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. and the show is on view through July 9th.

I've already mentioned that Penelope's got a lot of good things to say; tomorrow's your chance to hear them firsthand. In conjunction with the show, Lyle Rexer will be moderating a panel at NYPH'09 with Penelope and two other participating artists, Jack Sal and Silvio Wolfe, at 5:00 p.m. on Friday in DUMBO at St. Ann's Warehouse.

Not in New York this summer? Snatch up your prints and bring a little abstraction to your neck of the woods. Be sure to add Aperture's book that accompanies the exhibition to your wish list as well — it'll be available later this month! We got a sneak peek and it is indeed a beautiful book.

There's a lot of other gorgeousness to be found on Aperture's site, but don't take our word for it. As an added incentive to get you to go see for yourselves, Aperture's offering an additional 10% off already discounted books when 20x200 collectors shop at www.aperture.org. Use Coupon Code UMBR59 during checkout to receive this exclusive discount on some of the best photography books available today.**

*I was tempted to insert what feels like an obligatory aside here about my utter sincerity in spite of what might seem to be an excessive use of superlatives, but I'm putting it down here instead. Trust me, I am this excited, engaged, impressed.

**Offer expires May 31, 2009. Discount does not apply to Curated Collection, signed, and limited-edition books.

Wednesday Editions: Juliane Eirich

Wednesday greetings on this finest of spring days, my collector friends! Last night's Infinity Awards and post-ceremony cocktails kept me out way past my bedtime, then an early morning meeting had me up at the crack of dawn, but I'm downright perky in spite of it all. Once I'm done schooling you on today's editions, I'm off to play hooky for the afternoon — I'm heading uptown to the Cooper-Hewitt and then over the river (but through no woods) to preview the exhibitions at the aforementioned New York Photo Festival.

I'm especially curious to check out the exhibition curated by Chris Boot, which includes photographs by 20x200's very own Stefan Ruiz. Based on the amazing stories that Stefan's told me about making the work, I've got a hunch that the show will get high marks for quality and controversy. NYPH has been giving high marks to members of the JBP family too; we were pleased to see lots of familiar names on their list of nominees for the '09 Photo Awards, including today's featured photographer, Hot Shot Juliane Eirich.

Waialua Intermediate School 3 and Liliuokalani Elementary School 2 are both fine examples of why Ms. Eirich deserves a gold star. Viewed through her lens, darkly, these Hawaiian schools have a noir-ish air of mystery and danger. Their fine mid-century bones and kid-friendly colors stand out in the darkness, forming tableaux that are ripe for teen drama and mischief. As Juliane describes in her statement, the spotlight's on these schools as a hedge against such mayhem — it turns out that vandalism of schools is a major issue when the sun goes down in paradise.

Speaking of sundowns, I'm going to take this opportunity to educate y'all on some good things that are about to come to an end. First off: have you seen Beth Dow's Ruins show at Jen Bekman yet? It's closing on Saturday, and it's not to be missed. I'm biased of course, but not alone... the Village Voice and Wall Street Journal agree! If you're taking pictures and want them to be seen, don't miss your big Photo Op. The deadline for the 14th annual Photographic Center Northwest competition is this Friday, May 15th and is being juried by yours truly. So give me some good stuff to work with and meet me in Seattle for the reception in July, won't you please?

Finally, I'm thrilled to announce that Jen Bekman Projects is going to be well-represented at this weekend's powerHouse Portfolio Reviews. Sara Distin and Jeffrey Teuton are going to be there scouting new talent on behalf of JBP. I'm hoping they'll discover some rising stars while rubbing elbows with members of the JBP family arriving from near and far for the photo festivities. Check out Sara's recent post on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog for a comprehensive rundown of the who, what, where and when.

That's all for now, folks, but not for long — I'm back tomorrow with the aforementioned Umbrico editions, which include a benefit print for Aperture. Watch this space!

Tuesday Editions: Jacob Escobedo

Tuesday greetings from your wayward curator, my collector friends! I am back, and determined to stay put in NYC for the balance of the very merry month of May. I'm obligated to, in fact; I've got a calendar full of excellent events to keep me busy! This week's already off to a roaring start after a very full Monday. I had an amazing lunch with my new BFF Tim Walker, who I met in Hyères, and then spent the evening amongst some of my favorite people, all convened at Jane Mount's studio for the Hey, Hot Shot! panel review.

The coming days promise an equally brisk pace. I'm holding out hope that I'll be able to snag a ticket for tonight's ICP Infinity Awards — where Tim and my #1 photo crush, Rinko Kawauchi, are being honored. On Wednesday, I'll be venturing into the borough of Brooklyn for the opening of the New York Photo Festival. Their impressive array of events and exhibitions guarantees that I'll be practically living under the Manhattan bridge through the weekend. Other items on my ridiculously ambitious cultural agenda: the Post-War and Contemporary Art auction previews — I'm especially keen to check out the lot of Ruscha books at Christie's — and taking Tim on a jaunt uptown to the Cooper Hewitt for a lunch date with Gregory Krum.

It's a big week on 20x200 too; we've got double editions on tap for today and tomorrow, and on Thursday, we'll release a pair of editions from the brilliant Penelope Umbrico. I've been making a public spectacle of myself talking about her work for months now, so it's an honor to be collaborating with her on 20x200 editions. Proceeds from one of Penelope's editions will benefit Aperture, an organization that I am similarly honored to be associated with, and one most worthy! I'll have more to say on that later in the week, but for now, it's high time that we turn our attention to today's editions from 20x200 favorite Jacob Escobedo.

Brandon and Jake are the newest members of Jacob's growing 20x200 clique, joining the previously released Kerry and Sophie. Each of these delightfully intricate and a-little-bit-creepy-in-the-best-possible-way drawings represent the favorite animal of the friend that they are drawn for.* The idea that you can deepen your connections with people via a dialogue about their affection for animals is something that resonates with me. I've had a number of intense conversations with friends lately about the topic; the complexities of our feelings for creatures are a fascinating prism through which to examine human relationships. It's rich fodder for conversation, poetry and art.

While in Chicago for NEXT, I met up with animal-loving Hot Shot Colleen Plumb. Our review of the latest edit of her Animals are Outside Today project sparked one of those conversations, which in turn inspired a recent pairing on Personism. I coupled her work with an excerpt from Whitman's Leaves of Grass that I'd discovered in the preface of Bertrand Russell's Conquest of Happiness. The snippet happens to pair well with Jacob's work too:

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.

And with that, my friends, I'm off to pick out a party dress and confirm plans for tonight. I'll be back tomorrow with a couple of photography editions that you're sure to enjoy. See you then!

*I'm angling for a long distance friendship with the Altanta-based Jacob, hoping to add an otter to our midst!

Organic Oval by Jeff Lewis

Contact High by Jeff Lewis

Tuesday Editions: Jeff Lewis

Good day collectors! It's Sara again. Today Jen's wrapping things up at NEXT in Chicago and is finally on her way back home. The next month or so looks relatively low-key and travel-free so you can look forward to your usual dose of JB art goodness in your inbox. But for today, you're stuck with me as I introduce two new works from Jeff Lewis: Contact High and Organic Oval.

Moments after we released Jeff's first edition, Inloveness Revisited, press inquiries started streaming in. Everyone wanted a little Inloveness. But after seeing how quickly the prints were disappearing, a couple of the requests fell through — editors realized they should feature works that would be around for their readers to acquire once their pages came to print. Lewis' print was featured in amNY and we figured the best thing to do was not let anyone else be disappointed. So, we got to work selecting new paintings for Jeff's next editions.

Jeff's website features mostly newer work but he's been fixated on ovals for at least the last decade, yielding the shape plenty of time to dictate his work. Given the scale of his canvases, it's easy to see how they might, in their monolithic presence, overtake the artist, allowing him to work intuitively and spontaneously, much like his predecessors from the New York School. Peek at Jeff's pic; he's a small but dedicated presence in front of his paintings.

As we were oohing and ahhing over all of Jeff's ovals and their gorgeous palettes, Jen and I were joined by Jane Mount who mentioned something along the lines of, "my brain certainly does not work the way his does!" which is really a great comment, not only in the context of Jeff vs. Jane's differing approaches to making art, but also in recognition of all the work we've featured on 20x200. Browse the archives and you'll see, we've been able to work with an incredible range of artists with diverse interests and approaches. Consider Beth Dow's work next to Donald Weber's, for example. And often, as in the case of Weber in particular, we have the opportunity to present work that might otherwise have a hard time finding its way into the hands of collectors, despite receiving some of the most prestigious awards for artists.

A lot of the artists we work with are featured in major collections; Ann Toebbe is a West Prize finalist, along with Hot Shot Georg Parthen (we have 20x200 editions with Georg in the works too!), putting 20x200 in good company. Since the West Collection brought the work of the finalists to NEXT, Ann and Georg were in attendance and paid visit to Jen and Jeffrey. Midwesterner Kevin Miyazaki also stopped by, along with Sarah McKenzie, of course, making team JBG feel right at home in the Windy City with 20x200 friends and family.

Jen is making one last stop in Chicago to meet and greet a few new friends at the Museum of Contemporary Photography. We're all fans of their print program which gives collectors the opportunity to acquire some incredible photography and support MoCP. I know Jen's already snagged Amy Stein's Hillside from her series Domesticated.

For today, we'll leave you with MoCP's photography as our own Hey, Hot Shot! is, unfortunately, offline and unavailable due to some very mysterious and poorly-timed hosting snafus. If you've tried to visit the site and/or apply for the Hey, Hot Shot! competition in the last 24 hours and have been denied access with the unfriendly "forbidden" notice, do not fear, we'll extend the competition deadline once the site is back up. Nobody who's tried to submit images will miss their chance. And we'll be featuring the best of the best contenders on the blog again in no time. More on that later! Tomorrow Youngna Park will tide you over with a sweet photography edition from a brand-new-to-20x200 artist. Until then!

Untitled #17 by Matthew Tischler

Untitled #9 by Matthew Tischler

Thursday Edition: Matthew Tischler

Greetings from the city of big shoulders, my collector friends. We're in the final hours before tonight's preview events for the NEXT Fair. Booth 7-8033 — featuring paintings by Sarah McKenzie — is looking most fine, thanks to the labors of Mr. Jeffrey Teuton. A much-deserved shoutout also goes to the folks at DWR, who've generously provided us with lovely furnishings for our little square of art fair.

We've been busy bees, but still! I've missed you all these past two newsletters, resting somewhat easier knowing that you were in the capable, articulate care of Youngna and Sara. It's a good thing they swept in from the wings; the internet has SO not been my friend as of late, making it a Sisyphean challenge to eke out even the most meager of tweets. Surely a small price to pay, considering the amazing adventures I've been enjoying, but I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear lack of internet access leads to the onset of an ideological Phantom Limb syndrome. On the bright side: Oh, the places I've gone! Such adventures, including the one I'm in the midst of one right this very second.

All this air travel and not-being-able-to-get-on-the-internet-no-matter-how-hard-I-tried time has given me a chance to indulge in one of my favorite pastimes: overdosing on magazines. My #1 read thus far is the newly retooled Interview which included conversation with the enterprising and talented Andy Spade wherein he name-checked our very own Jason Polan and HHS! panelist Julia Leach. Speaking of Hey, Hot Shot! — we're close to 24 hours out from our deadline, so if you want to get your work in front of the likes of Ms. Leach — now's your chance.

Today's edition-maker Matthew Tischler did just that back in the early days of the competition and Julia was impressed enough by his Screens series that she added one of his prints to her very impressive, witty and gorgeously curated personal collection. Now you too have an opportunity to have some Tischler's in your midst. You could create quite a nice salon style hanging of them in fact, since today's Untitled #9 and Untitled #17 are follow-ups to our not-so-long-ago release of two other images from the series, Untitled #4 and Untitled #15. As I said when announcing those two beauties, Tischler's series triggers a remembrance of things past in the most delightful way. With the summer months tantalizingly close at hand, I'd like to also think of them as predictive of some very near future R&R. (I need it bad!)

Alas what I really need to do, righthisminute is get! going! I need to figure out my look for tonight (thank God JT's here to help!) and then we're off to put some finishing touches on the booth. Egad! I have lots more to tell you about my trip to France. (Was I really just in France?! It already seems so far away...) I met so many amazing people there!

The event's organizer, Michel Mallard, is a social engineering genius (and that's just one of his many geniuses). I also got to hang out with some friends I never get to see enough of: the estimable Mr. Joerg Colberg, editor of Conscientious and former HHS! panelist, and the now-Philadelphia-based Hot Shot Daniel Traub, who recently moved back to the States after living in China for nine years. Which brings me back to my parting bit of advice for the photographers among you, namely: enter Hey, Hot Shot!. The panel is awesome — not to mention thoughtful, engaged and passionate, and the opportunities are incredible.

Dinner. Village of Zorin, Exclusion Zone, Chernobyl by Donald Weber

Forest. Exclusion Zone, Chernobyl by Donald Weber

Rocky Mountain greetings collectors! It's Sara Distin, writing from Colorado. The Eagle River is running high and loud as the sun is melting off all the snow — I'm trying not to get distracted from the task at hand, so first things first: tomorrow is the last day to vote for 20x200 in the Webby Awards. Please help us win! It's easy: register, click on your confirmation email and vote! You can find us in the Art category, under Entertainment. We've all cast our own ballots, which is good because, as per usual, Team JBP is scattered across the country.

Jen's on her way to NEXT in Chicago and headed straight for The Merchandise Mart to meet Jeffrey Teuton and arrange Sarah McKenzie's paintings, which include two brand new works that were not featured in her recent show at the JB Gallery. If you're in the area and want to swing by the fair, drop J+J a note at info at jenbekman dot com and they'll hook you up with some free passes!

In spite of these events and all our adventures near and far, none of us are as far flung as today's edition-maker; Canadian-born photographer Donald Weber usually calls Kiev and Moscow home. The first time I wrote about Donald's work was right after he entered Hey, Hot Shot! at the end of 2008. He had won a Guggenheim Fellowship the previous year and before that the Lange Taylor Prize and a World Press Award, so we all knew who he was. We were, frankly, a little stunned and completely thrilled that he had entered HHS! Since then, via iPhone emails from Eastern Europe, we've talked about books, planned an exhibition, asked and answered a few Qs and As, and finally, worked out the details of these editions. It's been a long haul!

Way back at the beginning, as I wrote on the HHS! blog, Forest. Exclusion Zone, Chernobyl immediately made me think of one of my favorite books, Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and the father and son sifting through post-apocalyptic woods in their search for the very basics for survival. As I read more about the photographs, whatever rang in my gut that linked the two works proved true. Weber's been documenting the people living within the 40 kilometer ring around the city of Pripyat, known as the Zone of Alienation or the Exclusion Zone, evacuated immediately after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Since the explosion, an assortment of outcasts have returned to the area, favoring rural lifestyles over the industrial pace in the rest of Ukraine.

It may be because we idealize the pastoral life that Weber's characters, like the father and daughter preparing rabbit in Dinner. Village of Zorin, Exclusion Zone, Chernobyl appear to have stepped out of a 15th Century painting or novel. Donald's work is steeped in literature and a sense of history with strong narratives arcing throughout; it's clear he's read his Dostoevsky. Where fiction seeps into the real lie revelations that are difficult to enunciate but impossible to hide once illuminated by the camera. In this case, as Weber writes, "it's the curse of power, and the wounds it inflicts on those who don’t have it."

Weber's life also seems to be one straight from a book, led by chance and circumstance and the belief that all will work out in the end. After a stint as an architect with Rem Koolhaas, he marks his decision to become a photographer by a series of decisive moments, among them the collapse of communism, a high school teacher telling him he was a terrible photographer, and sliding across the top of a Chevy after being hit on his motorcycle. This combination of political, personal, and physical experiences resonates in all of his photographs; spend some time on his website and you'll see what I mean. It's powerful, poetic stuff — classical, elegant images from worlds not so far away from our own. It's as if Weber, like McCarthy's father and son, is here to bring us stories of the future and from the past to the present — to carry the fire.

Jen will be back tomorrow with all her fire, and more editions from another fantastic Hot Shot!

Can You Imagine by Trey Speegle

Tuesday Edition: Trey Speegle

Tuesday greetings from hot and sunny New York! It's in the nineties here, and we're doing all we can to keep ourselves cool at 20x200 HQ. This is Youngna Park, filling in for Jen today, who touched down to pink-streaked skies at JFK last night en route back from the The Hyères Festival in the South of France. She is in town ever-so-briefly before leaving for the NEXT Art Fair in Chicago tomorrow, where she and Jen Bekman Gallery's Associate Director, Jeffrey Teuton, will be at Booth 7-8033 with work on view by Sarah McKenzie and many JBG & 20x200 artists. But, before we go into what's upcoming, let's start with today's edition.

Today we bring you Can You Imagine, new work from Trey Speegle, whose large-scale collage OK, was our first introduction to the reassuring messages possible in paint-by-numbers. Can You Imagine is a mighty fine sequel to OK, with a cooling palette of sixty colors that invites us to jump right into its refreshing waves. With water in blue, green, turquoise and purple crashing against rocky cliffs, we can imagine taking a dive into this rejuvenating sea, right this instant.

Paint-by-numbers, the 50s art kit invented by Palmer Paint Company's Dan Robbins, invited the everyman to pick up a paintbrush. Far from abiding to the uniformity of a painting with prescribed colors, Speegle's personal collection of 2,500+ vintage paint-by-numbers is a nearly limitless starting point for unique reinterpretation as he enlarges the picture plane, silkscreens it onto canvas, then mixes an original palette for each work.

As you know, 20x200 is also a great friend of the intersection of text and art, embracing phrases that make us contemplate sometimes-comic, sometimes-inspirational simple statements made bold. Mike Monteiro's refrain, Let's make better mistakes tomorrow, is a—literally, black and white—statement about the humor in fallibility. Matt Jones' Get Excited and Make Things inspires us to get up and do something, a message about initiative and innovation. Like Jones, Speegle offers us an inspirational challenge: Can You Imagine is a boundless message about possibility and wonder, even when each color stays within the lines. As Mr. Speegle says himself, it is both profound and mundane, "where the impulse to create lives." If you're in New York, Trey's original paint-by-numbers are currently on view at Cheryl Hazan Gallery in the group show, Spring Sequence; you can catch them there through May 25th.

So, as mentioned, Jen's zipping off to Chicago to meet Jeffrey at NEXT. The walls of our booth will feature a lovely selection of paintings from Sarah McKenzie, including some brand new pieces. We'll also have a flat file full of paintings and photographs from other members of the JBP family, including Ian Baguskas, Gregory Krum, Carrie Marill and Christian Chaize. Please do ask to have a look at those. Jen's also participating in the NEXT Talk Shop series which is running concurrent to the fair. She'll be appearing alongside other art world renegades on the Alternative Spaces and the Creative Current panel which is happening on Sunday, May 3rd, 2:30 - 3:30 at The Merchandise Mart.

We've got lots more on tap before the fair opens too, naturally. We're back tomorrow with a double photography edition from a very recent Hot Shot, a fitting edition for a week that also includes the deadline for this year's first edition of the competition. The deadline for Hey, Hot Shot! is this Friday, so if you're thinking about how to get YOUR photography on the radar, there's no time like the present.

Wednesday Edition: Chad Muthard

The Drive with Christine by Chad Muthard

Wednesday greetings, my collector friends! I've been up since the crack of dawn, and am uncharacteristically ahead of schedule on my travel preparations. It's hard to imagine that I'll be an ocean away at this time tomorrow! I'm excited to expand my French horizons beyond the city limits of Paris, and I'm looking forward to catching up with friends and meeting a bunch of people whom I've long admired from afar. Of course, I'll also be polishing my 20x200 pitch — I'm always on the lookout for new artists to share with you. Speaking of sharing art... let's get to the business at hand, shall we?

The Drive With Christine has been in my life for a long time — I first exhibited this photograph at the gallery in the Fall 2006 edition of Hey, Hot Shot!, along with a couple of other curious and quirky images from Philadelphia-based photographer Chad Muthard. About a year after Chad's HHS! exhibition, I was pulling together a wall of art in my apartment for a photo shoot, and Christine was plucked from storage and placed just so. It's been hanging in my house ever since, oft admired and commented on by visitors. Now, thanks to the wonders of the interwebs and Chad's agreeability, I can share Christine with all of you.

I like Chad's out-of-the-frame creativity; he's always messing around and making stuff, and you never know for sure what he's up to. At the same time, you know how I feel about inaccessible art; what I love about Chad's approach is that he's not so arch that you feel like you're going to be left behind. There's enough room for your own imagination in addition to his. There's an up-to-no-good kid-stuff vibe that so draws me to this particular image. The incongruity of puzzle pieces planted on the face of a television set is akin to something my brother and I would've cooked up, left to our own devices on some rainy afternoon.

Work from his Lost in Thought 2007-08 series was just posted by our friends at I Heart Photograph, and more of his playful work can be seen on his sparely-designed website. And since the thrill of supporting a young artist is almost as great as that of owning a new artist's work, Chad points out on his blog that "a large amount of the money that I make from this sale will be put towards funding my current project The Desires of Fathers, which is being shot in Nevada and entails extensive travel and loads o'film."

Chad is the most recent of our talented crew of Hot Shots to release 20x200 editions, but he's certainly not the last! Our upcoming editions schedule is chock full photographers who have shown at Jen Bekman Gallery after being selected by our esteemed panelists. We've even got some contenders that we've featured on our blog in the mix.

We're currently accepting entries for 2009's first edition of Hey, Hot Shot! — we'll start reviewing the current crop of most accomplished contenders next month, right after the deadline which is Friday, May 1st — aka soon. If you've been considering it, there's no time like the present to gather your .jpgs and submit your work.

And with that, I'm off to The Hyères Festival! I'll touch down in NYC for just one day next week, then will be en route to Chicago to rendezvous with Jeffrey Teuton for the NEXT Art Fair. Our booth will be hung with a solo show of Sarah McKenzie's paintings, and we're bringing all kinds of additional arty goodness along in our brand new, custom-built portable flat file. Until next week, collector friends.

Vogue JUL07:pg145 (Ripeness is All)

Vanity Fair MAY08:pg269 (and, incredibly, looking not a day older)

Tuesday Edition: Lauren DiCioccio

Tuesday greetings, Collectors! As I said on The Twitter earlier this morning, the brightness and lightness of today's editions from Lauren DiCioccio seem the perfect antidote to the dreary gloom outside our East Coast windows.

Vogue JUL07:pg145 (Ripeness is All) and Vanity Fair MAY08:pg269 (and, incredibly, looking not a day older) come from Lauren's ingenious color codification dot drawings series. She describes her process thusly: "To make each painting, I lay a sheet of frosted mylar over a magazine page. I assign a color to every letter (numbers are shades of grayscale) and apply tiny dots of paint over every character on the page according to my color-code." Akin to the experience of "solving a cryptogram" her end result is "a legible blur of dots in the form of the article’s layout — like a system of Braille for the color inclined."

I have to tell you — Ms. DiCioccio is definitely speaking my language! Her work mirrors my experience and affection for the printed page in a way that I'm just not capable of. Magazines all have their distinctive rhythms, and her work strikes right to the visual core. Magazines, multi-coloredness, systems and information design — oh my! Lauren's work is like the best candy ever to a girl like me. (And I'm not just saying that because they bring beloved button candy to mind.)

My obsession with magazines is a long-standing one. I've been haunting newsstands since I was a wee lass, and my appetites often border on the indiscriminate. Sure I anticipated the September issue of Seventeen as much as the next fashion obsessed pre-teen would, but it hardly stopped there. Everything printed and periodical was fair game — my stepfather's copy of Crain's New York, the glossy pages of the short-lived Mirabella, even my grandmother's copies of The Star, half-hidden in the guest bedroom, were a delight to peruse.

I was way ahead of the curve in mourning the death of print — the demise of fine publications like Spy, Seven Days and Jane set me reeling. I still get wistful for the days when Paper and Details were over-sized publications printed on newsprint that catered to the downtown set. My parents call me the "zine queen" to this day, and with good reason — I already subscribe to more than I can find the time to read, and still manage to rationalize gorging myself on broad array of additional titles every time I travel. (And you know that's not exactly a rare occurrence!)

Aside from my keen interest in the subject, I am pretty captivated by the objects themselves. Our printers worked extra hard to find a material on which they could faithfully reproduce the translucent ethereal quality of the originals. No small task, especially since we're all such perfectionists! The lucky ducks who got the Starn Twins' vellum prints will know exactly how particular we are. All's well that ends well — everyone's pleased as punch with the final proofs, which means that you all should get that same jolt of transparent excitement that I did upon first seeing Lauren's work.*

That lots of people will get to hold these bits of gorgeousness in their hot little hands is the whole point after all, isn't it? Sure, Lauren asks the big questions like "What will happen when we no longer touch information?" but her participation here speaks to the impossibility of that future. 20x200 is all about using the internet to put real stuff into peoples' hands. I welcome our digital future, but I don't anticipate it creating a viable substitute for that experience.

Speaking of experiences, I'm about to embark upon what promises to be an exciting one of my own. I've got another fantabulous edition to share with you tomorrow and then I'm off on another arty adventure. I'll be spending a long weekend in the South of France, where I've been invited to serve as a juror at The Hyères Festival. Ooh-la-la!

*Alas, this particular bit of particular-ness comes with a price. It took us longer than we anticipated to settle on a final version, so Lauren's editions will take a little longer to ship than usual. We expect that we'll be sending them out early next week, but rest assured — they're well worth the wait!

Ironwood at Dusk by Michael Lundgren

Yuha Basin by Michael Lundgren

Wednesday Edition: Michael Lundgren to Benefit Radius Books

Proceeds for Ironwood at Dusk will directly benefit Radius Books, the publishers of Michael's monograph Transfigurations.

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Wednesday greetings, collectors! I'm a little tongue-tied and nervous about introducing today's editions: first and foremost because I am so in love with the photographs themselves in all their mysterious gorgeousness and also because of the admiration, respect and affection I have for the photographer who made them, the very talented, devoted and brilliant Michael Lundgren. My encounters with Michael's work — first via his recent exhibition at Clamp Art and continually since then via his stunning monograph published by Radius Books, which is well-thumbed and kept handy in my home — have been the source of a lot of meaningful interactions. I think about it a lot, and love having it close at hand.

Yuha Basin and Ironwood at Dusk are not the easiest images to convey via the .jpg format, but I just had to roll the dice and hope that you, dear collectors, will trust me when I say that they are totally, breathtakingly stunning in person. When I saw Michael's show at Clamp Art back in November, the photo that took my breath away was the one I nearly missed to start with — a photo which at first glance seemed uniformly black, its surface and detail revealed to me as my eyes adjusted. I knew then and there that this was exactly the sort of photo that I wanted to do an edition of, in spite of (maybe because of?) the challenge. To coax the tonal range required to make them work as pigment prints is quite a daredevil-ish feat, but I was also certain that our Minneapolis printers were up for the job.

Just as Eric Recktenwald and his colleagues at The Lab produce the best black & white pigment prints I've ever seen, Radius produces the most gorgeous black & white books. They're still very new but they've already made quite a mark with a stunning array of releases, many of them monochromatic volumes. One of its founders, Darius Himes, is a dear friend, not to mention a Hey, Hot Shot! panelist. He's also a total book freak. I couldn't think of a better role for him, and I'm so happy that we have an opportunity to support these amazing publishers.

If you don't have any of their publications on your shelves yet, you really ought to get some! Knowing that 20x200 collectors are just the sort of people who'd love their books, Radius is offering a special 20% discount to each of you, applicable to everything in their online store, including their tempting array of limited edition volumes. Enter the code RADIUSML to have your discount applied.

20x200 has a Radius just-for-you opportunity of its own to offer: Collectors who purchase the (OMG, so totally gorgeous!) 24"x30" editions of Ironwood at Dusk or Yuha Basin will receive a complimentary copy of the Transfigurations monograph, signed by Michael.

And with those tantalizing offers extended, I'll take my leave for the week. I'll see you soon, of course — next Tuesday to be exact — but I'll see you sooner if you put the Lower East Side on your weekend agenda! Jen Bekman Gallery is pleased to be participating in artlog's Collect LES Art Crawl which is this Saturday, April 18th from 6:00 - 8:30 p.m.

The evening kicks off with a private, curator-led tour of the New Museum's triennial exhibition Younger Than Jesus. After touring the LES, the evening wraps up with a reception at The Sixth Ward and after party at Gallery Bar. Purchase tickets in advance to secure your spot for this 21+ years of age event.

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About Radius Books
Radius Books is a non-profit publishing company rooted firmly in the belief that the arts and dialogue among writers, thinkers, artists, and all members of society are vital to our nation's and culture's future. Radius Books encourages, promotes and publishes books of artistic and cultural value and donates at least 300 copies of every title published to libraries and schools, in order to reach and inspire new audiences, particularly young people.

iSketch140 by Jorge Colombo

iSketch084 by Jorge Colombo

iSketch104 by Jorge Colombo

iSketch098 by Jorge Colombo

A Collection of iPhone Sketches by Jorge Colombo

Tuesday greetings, my friends! I'm feeling awfully upbeat today, in spite of Old Man Winter's stubborn persistence. We got word this morning that we've been nominated for a Webby Award — in the Art category — and I'm just tickled pink. As many of you are aware, I'm a web nerd from way back, and have been tracking the Webbys since their inception. I'm thrilled that we're nominated, and today's editions from the very talented and most charming Jorge Colombo are a perfect example of why I feel 20x200 is the site that will have the honor of adding one of these to its mantle.

iSketch140, iSketch084, iSketch104 and iSketch098 are four of my favorite pieces from Jorge's ingenious and delightful iPhone Sketches series. I've had the pleasure of chatting with Jorge at cocktail parties and openings on many different occasions over the years, but it was via the venerable Design Observer that I was tipped off to Jorge's most recent and widely lauded project. Jorge and I supplement cocktail party chatter with a steady stream of Facebook banter, so I contacted him there immediately after perusing the sketches to see if he'd be interested in doing editions with us. Which brings us all here together today.

Jorge makes his sketches using the most modern of media. As he writes in his statement, they're "drawn on location using an iPhone application called Brushes. No photo references, no tablets, no brushes to wash: just my finger on the tiny touch-screen. Don't even need a proper light: the drawing itself glows in a dark corner." Translated from screen to print, these little masterpieces are really wonderful. I was amazed and giddy for days with the proofs when they were delivered to me during my recent San Francisco sojourn. I kept them laid out on my countertop for the duration of my visit, lovely to behold and a persistent reminder of my beloved hometown.

As I said to Ms. Sara Distin over IM earlier today, Jorge's sketches remind me of a favorite book from my childhood, Snowy Day. Sara pointed out — and I agree — that Jorge's pieces have a "really ethereal-much-more-grown-up kind of glow about them" but what they have in common for me is the strong pull of how my memory of New York feels. As the city of Snowy Day maps to the city of my childhood, Jorge's sketches of Grand Central and the exterior of Katz's are the New York that gets drawn in my mind as I move through it. It's their broad strokes and imprecise shining lights, the sense that everything is moving — the traffic and the people, each one of us contributing to the shimmering shuffle of the city's pulse.

One of the things that I love about traveling is that the feeling of being a tourist remains with me for quite a while after returning home to New York. Accustomed to being disoriented, I don't quite snap back into habit right away; instead, I find myself looking up and around, scanning the skyline and plotting my paths more deliberately. It always makes me fall in love with the city a little more.

This most recent return marked the same pattern. On my first evening home, I was heading south, cutting through Cooper Square and looked up to see the Empire State Building aglow, shining in the earliest-of-evening light. Noticing it, it became fixed in my memory and I think it'll stay there for a while, reminding me of feeling at home and in love with where home is. The image dwelling there is no picture-perfect snapshot; there's no way I could explain it to you or draw it myself, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it looks a lot like one of Jorge's sketches.

Thread 2 by Don Hamerman

Rawlings by Don Hamerman

Greetings from the East, my collector friends! It's good to be back home, although it's apparently going to take me some time to readjust to my atmosphere — I woke up with a start in the wee hours of the morning and had no idea where I was. You'd think that Ollie's foot-warming presence would've snapped me into place, but no! It took me longer than it should've to get my bearings, and with the balance of the week being jam-packed, I have to get with the program. I'm in it for the long haul today, for certain.

Once I hit today's new editions from Don Hamerman out into the inter-ether, I'm off to check in on the installation of Beth Dow's new exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery, Ruins. I know I'm always excited about something, but I am seriously over-the-top thrilled about this work. It's gorgeous and it's ground-breaking and I'm very proud to be showing it. The exhibition opens tomorrow night, plus we're hosting an Artist with Beth on Saturday afternoon. Once I've feasted my eyes, I'm off to do a talk at SVA. I'm counting on my West Coast frame-of-time to keep me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this evening when I meet the students in their MFA Photography program. But first: today's pitch!

Thread 2 and Rawlings are the latest additions to Don's enormously popular Found Baseballs editions here on 20x200. He's previously hit it out of the park with Hemi, Mossball, Stricken and Untitled (Elephant), and with baseball season going into full swing, today's editions are pitch-perfect.

We're not a sporty lot at 20x200HQ, but it's been hard to ignore the ambient sports buzz as of late. March Madness was everywhere, even if we barely paid it any mind, and now that that's settled, suddenly the chatter in airports and elsewhere is all about baseball.

Sure, what got the season on my radar was bacon-wrapped... something — anything bacon-wrapped is sure to catch my attention, actually — but apparently there's more to it than that. I might not make it to the Seventh Inning Stretch, but this season marks the arrival of lots of things that have my architectural and foodie interests piqued. I left it to the intrepid Youngna Park to track down some details:

As Jen mentioned, we're more likely to have our ears and eyes attuned to food and architecture than baseball itself, but with the regular season officially underway at the city's two new stadiums, there's a lot to catch our attention. First, both stadiums, for our rival teams — the Yankees and Mets, of course — were built by Populous (formerly HOK), with architectural personalities that speak to each team's history.

Players are excited about the stadium's cold therapy pool, sauna, and deluxe food, which includes lobster rolls, BBQ, Shake Shack burgers and a milkshake stand. Yankee Stadium ain't too shabby in the edibles department either, with a gourmet carving station and Cuban sandwiches. So, whether you head to the outer boroughs for baseball, snacking, or to admire grass patterns in outfield, Citi Field and Yankee Stadium, born anew, have a lot to gape over.

And with that, this week's editions are done! All that food talk's made me want to nom nom nom, so I'm going to grab a bite to eat and go gape at some art. I'll be back next week with new editions and a belated recap of our wonderful SF Collectors Confab.

Get Excited And Make Things by Matt Jones

Greetings, collectors! I am post-party and pre-airport, so I'm going to keep this last dispatch from the West Coast pithy. That's fine though, since today's edition from super-genius designer Matt Jones speaks for itself. (He really is a super genius! Ask anyone who knows him.)

Matt's edition, Get Excited and Make Things is certainly not the only response to the iconic Keep Calm and Carry On poster, but in my opinion it is the very best one. It's a sentiment I agree with wholeheartedly, and a perspective that I exhort you all to adopt as your mantra of our new era.

It's easier than ever to submerge oneself in gloom, doom and hand-wringing, but resourcefulness, innovation and opportunity abound. I've never seen much point in wallowing in the suckitude, I mean rrrreally: enough already! What are you going to DO about it? Because you can do something, and more importantly: you should.

Matt's print pithily embodies the attitude I aspire to live by and look for in others. I look forward to living with his bold reminder, and hope you will too. Should you need further encouragement to possess such inspiration, consider this: the profits from this edition will benefit Creative Commons, an organization most worthy of your support.

Creative Commons provides copyright licenses and other legal tools that expand the range of creative works available for others to legally share and build upon. "All Rights Reserved" is replaced by "Some Rights Reserved;" the creator has the freedom to determine what others can share, remix, or reuse. You can read more about them here and also here.

I have lots of stuff to tell you about, but no time to do it — the party report will have to wait till tomorrow's dispatch. For now, I'm going to tend to my packing and round up the amazing 20x200 crew that made the party — and so much more — possible. We've got a flight to catch!

Stuart Klipper

Icebreaker, Emperor penguin, Southern O., Antarctica by Stuart Klipper

Swell, Southern Ocean - near 50° S, Antarctica by Stuart Klipper


Greetings, collectors! Welcome to our special Monday edition, released in honor of tonight's Collectors Confab hosted by the fine folks of Chronicle Books. 99.9% of Team 20x200 is here in SF for the Confab and a whole bunch of artists will be joining us tonight too. More details on that after a brief introduction of today's editions.

Icebreaker, Emperor penguin, Southern O., Antarctica and Swell, Southern Ocean - near 50° S, Antarctica are by Antarctic explorer Stuart Klipper. Stuart's made six expeditions to Antarctica, creating a stunning body of panoramic images* of its surfaces which he describes as "more in common with the alien surfaces of other planets and moons" than it does with other continents on our planet.

I was introduced to Stuart's work by his Minneapolis friend and neighbor, Beth Dow, who recommended that we collaborate on editions with him. It turns out that our friends at Chronicle Books recently published a gorgeous book of his photos, The Antarctic: From the Circle to The Pole, making today a fitting day for his 20x200 debut. You can pick up a copy tonight at the Confab, or buy one online at www.chroniclebooks.com. Wherever you do it, don't forget to invoke your special 20x200 Collectors discount! Enter code 20x200 at checkout on their site for 30% off and free shipping. (If you come to the party tonight, you'll get the discount on any purchases you make there too.)

Speaking of that party — I have to go get ready for it! Please join me, the 20x200 crew, including edition-makers Jane Mount and Youngna Park. Tons of artists are coming too: Mark Richards will be there, so you can snap up a copy of his book and have him sign it then and there. Other artists who have rsvp'd include: Clifton Burt, Noah Kalina, Jessica Snow and Mark Ulriksen. Local friends and heroes from Electric Works, SFMOMA, Rare Device, 7x7 and Wired are slated to attend too. And speaking of 7x7, check out the lovely interview they did with me last week: 20x200's Jen Bekman on Collecting Without Breaking the Bank.

If you're in SF, or anywhere near it, I hope to see you later at the Collectors Confab. If not tonight, look for me tomorrow — I'll be back then with an edition that I'm most excited that we've made, one which will benefit Creative Commons.

*Because panoramic images are long and narrow, these prints have very generous horizontal borders. Each edition's page includes a thumbnail that shows the image's size on the page. You can also click on the "View Large" link on each editions' page to see a bigger version. Please be sure to have a look at those before making your purchases!

IBM 360 Model 30 Tape Drives 1965 by Mark Richards

Apple 1 by Mark Richards

Wednesday Edition: Mark Richards

Wednesday greetings, collectors. The rattling jackhammers that commenced around 7 a.m. have me somewhat crankier about industriousness this morning. Jangled nerves aside, I'm looking forward to today, which is jam-packed with geekery of the best kind. We'll kick things off with today's nerdtastic editions from Mark Richards and then I'm going to focus on prep for tonight's Ignite SF event. On with show!

Apple 1 and IBM 360 Model 30 Tape Drives 1965 are the prefect editions to close out this week with. Not only do they pair nicely with yesterday's editions from Christine Berrie, they're also very well-suited for the crowd I'm running with this week. As of today, Web 2.0 Expo is officially in full swing, and if I manage to pique the curiosity of the crowd during my presentation at Ignite tonight, they're likely to be pleased to discover Mark's photographs when then land on our homepage.

But wait, there's more than geeky goodness afoot here! There's also a close connection with our friends at Chronicle Books, hosts of this coming Monday's 20x200 Collectors Confab. Working with the with the excellent Alan Rapp, who's similarly obsessed with circuitry, Mark created a book full of these images entitled Core Memory. Gorgeously produced, as one knows to expect when they see CB's imprimatur on a volume's spine, it's an amazing visual survey of vintage computers.

Choosing just two was nearly impossible, so I went the Mac vs. PC route. It's not just any Mac mind you — it's an Apple I, handmade by The Woz's himself and debuting on this very day, back in 1976. (Some of you less geeky couch-surfer types might be more familiar with his recent fancy footwork.) His plywood mounted circuitry looks awfully nimble when compared with the bulky IBM 360 Mainframe, which debuted in 1969. We've come a long way, baby.

As for me, I've got a long way to go! I need to run through my slides for tonight, get my thoughts together for Friday's Corralling the Crowdsourced Community panel and check-in on how the party planning's coming along for Monday's Confab @ Chronicle.

How about a parting gift before I go? Like I said, Chronicle produces some fine looking books. They also produce all kinds of gorgeously designed stationery and have loads of stuff for kids. Our Confab attendees will get to ogle their wares in person on Monday. For those of you who can't attend, here's an incentive to get some CB books on your own shelves:

Fill up your cart at www.chroniclebooks.com and enter code 20x200 when you checkout for 30% off + free shipping.

So, you get shopping and I'll get going, but fear not! I won't be gone for long. We've got a special Monday edition on tap from another great Chronicle artist, which means you'll be hearing from me once more before we get that party started.

Industrial Part 1 by Christine Berrie

Industrial Part 2 by Christine Berrie

Tuesday Editions: Christine Berrie

Industrious Tuesday greetings, collector friends! I write to you from sunny San Francisco, where I'm happily ensconced in a very hip apartment that's situated in the ground floor of a former milk-bottling factory. It's all post-industrial chic with poured concrete and raw steel beams juxtaposed with vast slabs of marble serving as counter tops and a wall of ribbed glass that lets the light shine in. It's stylish and cozy, but would be that much more so if it had a bit more art on its walls. Today's editions by the talented illustrator Christine Berrie would be just the thing.

Industrial Part 1 and Industrial Part 2 are what I imagine the pages of a thick Global Industrial catalog might look like were it handed off to J. Peterman's people. What a catalog that would be!

Christine has a lot in common with the architects who designed the loft I'm typing from — a reverence for the simple beauty of nuts & bolts, wires, junction boxes, cinderblocks and steel beams. I share their enthusiasm for the unexpected aesthetic pleasures to be discovered under the hood or behind the drywall. The aforementioned architects decided to forego the drywall entirely; instead the walls are clad in bare plywood, and the pipes that convey heat and water to the floors above are in full view, providing an oddly soothing soundtrack to my days.

There's something kind of stirring and mysterious about this stuff, and also sentimental. My dad worked at ConEd for his entire career, and some of my most thrilling childhood memories come from visits to the control room where the engineers monitored the grid and kept the lights on. It was like something from Star Trek: a wall of interconnected lights with a bank of control panels, riddled with complicated buttons and nobs, that my dad and the other engineers sat in front of and studied during their shifts. As with Christine's drawings and my current digs, the complexity of the grid before them arose from the interconnectedness of all these simple parts which, when considered apart from one and other, are easily understood.

Christine's drawings diagram and document the humble appeal of designs that were conceived with clear (and often critical) communication as their goal. I love the way the parts flow into each other within the frame and beyond. The points of connection between Industrial Part 1 and Industrial Part 2 are clear, giving us a legend with which we might be able to imagine the paths of their other circuits as they travel off the page towards connections with other unknown systems.

Speaking of connections, unknowns and the unraveling of complex systems... I'm very pleased to call your attention to our new jobs page. We're currently in search of a half-time Staff Accountant and an Office Intern to work with us at 20x200's World Headquarters on Chrystie St. We'll be adding additional listings soon, which we'll be posting there and telling you about here.

I'm back tomorrow with another duo of images that honor industriousness, plus more details on our upcoming 20x200 Collectors Confab, hosted by our generous friends at Chronicle Books. Look for me then.

Prensa 1 by Carol Padberg

Verlag 3 by Carol Padberg

Tuesday Edition: Carol Padberg

Tuesday greetings, fine collector folk. The weather is brisk, but there is evidence in our midst that spring is about to be sprung. The sun is shining brighter and closer, and lingering longer. During evening strolls, Ollie and I have admired the nubbly tips of crocuses and daffodils on our soon-to-be-leafy block. (She's only allowed to sniff. Eating, or worse, is strictly verboten.) One particularly perfect warm evening in Austin last week gave me a tantalizing taste of the season's promise, and I've been woozy with Spring Fever ever since. Also making me woozy — with delight — are today's editions from painter Carol Padberg.

Prensa 1 and Verlag 3 speak to the typography nerd in me. That I love typography shouldn't be a surprise to anyone — this is the stuff that words are made of! Anything related to language pretty much slays me — books, words, typography, etymology, poetry, spelling bees, dictionaries, Scrabble, crossword puzzles, Bartlett's quotations, letterpress — all of it! Love. I've also had an enduring fascination with Modernism in all its forms — poetry, design, architecture, etc. And you know I love The Art. What all this means is that Carol's abstract interpretations of Modernist typography work for me on lots of levels.

As Roger Catlin said when reviewing Carol's recent Real Art Ways exhibition, Face Value, most of us don't consider what the words we write (or read) are made from. Writing for the Hartford Count, he poetically described fonts as the things "that march our ideas along, line by line, day in and day out, in column inches. There's little time to consider the spurs, tails and eyes of the letters: the neat little shoes of the serif or the sleeker simplicity of the sans-serif."

Carol's works are examinations of arts and letters in equal parts. In her statement she describes her practice as "using the 'modernist DNA' of typography fonts [to] create visual improvisations. I use fragments of found typography to take apart and put back together language."

And now, having used the language of others to describe Carol's paintings, I'll take my leave till tomorrow. I've got some gorgeous black & white photography editions to share with you, so look for me then.

Secret Language 3 by Valerie Roybal

Well-being 2 by Valerie Roybal

Thursday Edition: Valerie Roybal

Rainy Thursday greetings from NYC, my collector friends! I'm glad to be back home and have been enjoying some quality time with the best mutt in the universe, Ollie Otter. I've got lots to catch up on and look forward to, so today's introduction will be brief and constructed from recycled ingredients. It's an approach befitting the work of southwestern artist Valerie Roybal, who is herself a scavenger of bits and pieces with a brilliant talent for assembling them just so.

Secret Language 3 and Well-being 2 have much in common with our first edition from Valerie, Secret Language 1. When introducing that edition, here's what I had to say:

Valerie's choice of materials for the Secret Language series speaks to my bookish tendencies, my penchant for wandering through thrift stores and flea markets, and my predilection for proper penmanship. (Alliteration alert!) Aside from the obvious visual allure of her layered constructions, their texture and presence ignite other senses and memories that I fondly associate with all these activities. The snippets of fine calligraphy remind me of lazy comfort of curling up with a well-worn copy of Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice. Her color palette wanders across the entire range of shades I find so appealing in the vintage items that always catch my eye, whether they're water-stained snapshots or fire-red Pyrex bowls, happily transporting me to the cluttered chaos of an upstate Salvation Army, with creaky floorboards, dusty air and undiscovered treasures.

Such nice memories to spend time with! Not to sound like a cheeseball, but that's one of the things I most enjoy about living with art. Everything that I have on my walls is the seed for some sort of story or memory, giving me ample opportunity to indulge in some escapism. My here and now is pretty great, but it's nice to be able to go elsewhere once in a while.

It's also pretty great to come home again, and I'm going to be sure to make the most of it since I won't be here for long. As mentioned previously, April is a busy month! One of the month's highlights is sure to be the San Francisco 20x200 Collectors Confab, hosted by the fine folks at Chronicle Books. I'll be back next week with more details on that event, and more great art. See you then.

Prospect Park #9 by Scott Whittle

Prospect Park #11 by Scott Whittle

Wednesday Editions: Scott Whittle

Prospect Park #9
8.5"x11" ($20) | 17"x22" ($200) | 30"x40" ($2000)
and
Prospect Park #11
8.5"x11" ($20) | 17"x22" ($200) | 30"x40" ($2000)
by
Scott Whittle

As foreshadowed in my previous newsletter, I love the way the timing of this week's editions has worked out so far — yesterday we were looking at the stars, and today we're turning our gaze downward to what falls to earth. As for me, I'll be airborne in a few short hours, heading back to NYC after an amazing visit here in Austin, Texas. Once I'm done with this dispatch, I'm hoping to catch Birth of the Cool at the Blanton Museum before I head for the airport, and if there's no time for that I'm hoping to squeeze in a quick visit to Domy instead.

Alas, I fear that I'm leaving Austin with the same worn boots I rode in on — I made two trips to Allen's but was unable to make a decision. (If you've seen all the boots lining the shelves there you'd understand why.) While I'm on the topic of local shops, I'll tell you about a few other places in Austin that made me happy during my visit. Yesterday we stopped into this really great little shop called IF+D and acquired some Enron memo pads which espoused their company values in bold type along the bottom, (Integrity, honesty and respect, in case you were wondering). IF+D is right near milk + honey where I got a transcendentally relaxing pedicure upon my arrival here last week. Right now I am typing from the convivial Jo's, which has been my morning haunt for the past week.

What I've liked about this year's Texas sojourn is that I've been in Austin long enough to get to know the place a little. In spite of the fact that I travel all the time, I'm actually kind-of a bad traveler. In part it's because I'm a creature of habit, but mostly it's because I am much more interested in how a place IS rather than how it seems. And you only get to know how a place really is by spending time there.

It might seem like a stretch, but this feeling of understanding Austin a little more makes a lot of sense to me in relation to today's editions, Prospect Park #9 and Prospect Park #11 by Brooklyn-based photographer Scott Whittle. First of all, I did meet Scott in Texas — at Fotofest, almost a year ago to the day. Scott's gotten to know Brooklyn — Prospect Park specifically — over the course of years, not days. And while a lot of the things he captures are the kinds of things that you might find at a park in a city setting, knowing what his process has been makes me understand that he is knowing a place in the way that we all get to know the places that we live in. His practice might be meditative and solitary, in process at least, but there's something about it that makes me think of connectedness as well. The human trace, I suppose.

I am also thinking about him in relation to this amazing dinner that I had last night, at a place called Ranch 616, with the Kitchen Sisters, following the party celebrating the release of their new Blurb book, Hidden Kitchens, Texas. Davia and Nikki are finding stuff that no one might see otherwise too, exploring the world of hidden kitchens and sharing them with the world on NPR. I heard SO many great stories about Texas at the dinner, affirming my belief that one of the things that artists do best is help us see things in the world that we wouldn't notice (or perhaps even know about!) otherwise.

At dinner we were surrounded by an amazing array of people — the owner, the chef, a musician named Cindy Cashdollar, a cowboy actor (for real!) and a woman who works for the Texas Attorney General. For the past 17 years, she's been speaking about crime prevention all over the state and she promised to send me some speaking tips via email. I have a feeling she'll school me in speaking better than any professional PR coach might ever be able to do! By the time dinner was done, I knew Texas a whole lot better and am curious to learn more.

That's exactly what I'm going to do right this second, as the clock is ticking. I'll be back tomorrow, writing from the East Coast to introduce you to this week's bonus fine art edition. Look for me then!

The Constellation of the Elephant by Alexander Beeching

Greetings from Austin, collectors! Today's the last day of South by Southwest and I must admit that I'm sad that things are winding down here. The conference programming has been terrific and it's been great catching up with friends from all over the country. Plus: BBQ! I have an impossibly ambitious list of things I want to squeeze in before I go, so I'm hoping to extend my stay and enjoy Austin as a tourist rather than a conference attendee. Alas, that's still very much up in the air, so today's edition announcement will be ever-so-brief.

The Constellation of the Elephant is our second edition from British illustrator Alexander Beeching. His Dandy Gorilla has been in our midst since last August and I'm very pleased to add his celestial pachyderms to the 20x200 menagerie. As I mentioned when introducing Don Hamerman's Elephant and Jacob Escobedo's Sophie, elephants are my favorite animals; I must say that Alexander's depiction of them is downright stellar.

You might not be surprised to hear that my efforts to find a poem that included mentions of the stars above and elephants proved fruitless. I did, however, discover a Robert Frost poem — On Looking up by Chance at the Constellations — which is quite great, even if it doesn't mention elephants:

You'll wait a long, long time for anything much
To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud
And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves.
The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch,
Nor strike out fire from each other nor crash out loud.
The planets seem to interfere in their curves
But nothing ever happens, no harm is done.
We may as well go patiently on with our life,
And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun
For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane.
It is true the longest drouth will end in rain,
The longest peace in China will end in strife.
Still it wouldn't reward the watcher to stay awake
In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break
On his particular time and personal sight.
That calm seems certainly safe to last to-night.

With the constellations ably described by Frost's words and Beeching's vision, I'll take my leave for the day. I'll be back tomorrow with a pair of images from a photographer who takes his inspiration from what falls to earth.

Howon-dong by Hosang Park

Uman-dong by Hosang Park

Howon-dong
11"x14" ($50) | 20"x24" ($500) | 30"x40" ($2000) | 40"x50" ($5000)
and
Uman-dong
11"x14"($50) | 20"x24" ($500) | 30"x40" ($2000) | 40"x50" ($5000)
by
Hosang Park

En-route-to-Austin-after-a-fabulous-Wednesday Thursday greetings, collectors! The Dot Dot Dot lecture last night was a blast, in large part due to Liz Danzico's expert stewardship. I left White Rabbit quite enamored with the way she's structured the series — a generous amount of time for cocktails and mingling beforehand, followed by a lean schedule of four ten-minute talks, their midpoint punctuated with a just-long-enough intermission — resulting in a decidedly un-fidgety and attentive audience.

Included in the good-listening — not to mention good-lookin' — crowd were Design Notes author Michael Surtees, the blogosphere's favorite Swiss Miss, Tina Roth-Eisenberg, designer Jason Santa Maria and the fabulous Emily Gordon, Editor-in-Chief of Print Magazine, who's been at the top of my people-I-want-to-meet list for a while now.

Thanks to the genius scheduling of Liz, I also had ample time to chat with my fellow presenters, grid-loving Bek Hodgson, datalicious Nicholas Felton and the content-pirating Jason Kottke, who stole the show with the final presentation of the evening. This was a great warm-up for our SXSW panel, which is next on my list after introducing today's editions. Let's get on with the show, shall we?

A crafted-in-midair edition announcement is utterly apropos for Hosang Park's striking photographs, Howon-dong and Uman-dong. In anticipation of writing this newsletter, I made certain to take notice of the landscape spreading out beneath us as we took flight a few hours ago. Comparing the very familiar terrain of Manhattan to Hosang's otherworldly-to-me densities of Korean cities is a satisfying endeavor on its own. Viewed from a distance their grids and verticality create a tenuous kinship between my view and his vision, making his world seem a bit less alien.

Looking at the view from here, or from there, or elsewhere, I start to wonder about the view from above. Is it omnipotent or utterly banal? Prior to the ubiquity of air travel, it was a rareified view indeed. I'd argue that a surge of majesty is instinctual when surveying the planet from such a remove, or at least a sense of being closer to God, if you happen to believe that he's inhabiting the heavens. And yet, frequent and increasingly beleaguered flyers that we are, majesty might not be the first thing that comes to mind when taking in the view from coach. It's easy to feel a sense of isolation and anonymity more akin to Hopper than a beatitude a la Michelangelo when you're eating cereal out of a plastic container from a plastic spoon, with the rest of the world far away and the jet engine's din numbing you to your closest, probably too close, neighbor.

The answer isn't simple of course, and I'd imagine that there are plenty of more scholarly art aficionados who've given this question more consideration than the three hours this flight has allowed me. For now, I can say confidently that it's a little bit of both. There's a lot to worry about when looking at the world from way up here, but it's foolish to shut yourself off to the wonder: of nature, and of man and of what man has made.

The Fasten Your Seatbelts sign is on, and my battery's running down, so with that deep thought for you to ponder, I'll take my leave till next week. I'll be back on Tuesday with Texas tales and inspiring art. Look for me then.

Untitled (We are going to make it through this year if it kills us) by Mike Monteiro

Untitled (Let's make better mistakes tomorrow) by Mike Monteiro

Untitled (I told my therapist about you) by Mike Monteiro

Untitled (I’m an island of such great complexity) by Mike Monteiro

Merry and hurried Wednesday greetings collectors! I have been looking forward to today's editions for weeks; the timing of them is perfect, yet, I am quickly running out of time for this newsletter! As I write, the lovely host for this evening's Dot Dot Dot lecture, Liz Danzico, is patiently awaiting my very late slides that Youngna Park is hard at work on now. Youngna and I just got done mapping out the talk and I'm very excited!

Tonight's lecture, entitled The Curators, has me feeling very connected to the time in my life when I wasn't a curator at ALL. It was also a time when I thought of today's artist, Mike Monteiro, primarily as a designer not as an artist. Now, I'm pleased to feature four smart and sportive editions from Mike: Untitled (I told my therapist about you), Untitled (I'm an island of such great complexity), Untitled (Let's make better mistakes tomorrow), and Untitled (We are going to make it through this year if it kills us). They comprise our first 20x200 AAA since the holidays.

Mike and I met in San Francisco during the web 1.0 boom that subsequently busted in a manner that seems like child's play when compared to the Current Economic Climate (heretofore known as the "CEC"). We've stayed in touch over the course of a good number of years, thanks in large part to the wonders of the interwebs. We connected, in person, last year at SXSW, so heading there (bright and early tomorrow morning!) makes me think of Mike too. I was looking forward to seeing him THIS year because the last time around, he was mad at me; anyone who knows and loves Mike like I do knows that is an uncomfortable thing indeed. (Maybe if we sell lots of his prints he'll change his mind and come! Let's go people.)

Anyway, Mike's long headed up his design studio, Mule Design, but I was really excited when he started making art again and I LOVE his first edition with us. I have a print of it hanging right by my front door and it still makes me laugh. It's a print I've enjoyed sending, on occasion, to some of the most exasperating yet beloved people in my life.

What I love about these new prints is that they're so essentially Mike — they're heartfelt sentiments that are barely concealed beneath a layer of snarkery. Mike's humor is biting and occasionally downright obnoxious (forgive me for saying that Mike, but c'mon: ADMIT IT). As with a lot of humor of this nature though, it's an attempt to put some armor over someone who has the soul of an artist. It was really hard to choose which paintings to do editions with because there are SO MANY that I love. But, I'm really happy to be presenting these four because they're a good representation of the work overall and each one has its own special resonance, whether it's making plain something that's totally true but rarely said out loud, Untitled (I told my therapist about you); providing us with a mantra to help us face the CEC, Untitled (We are going to make it through this year if it kills us); reminiscent of a lyric that we love, Untitled (I'm an island of such great complexity); or offering some optimistic advice with words that, at first blush, seem sort of negative, Untitled (Let's make better mistakes tomorrow).

As I must prepare for tomorrow, not to mention for today's later events, I'll leave you with these words for thought. But not before I remind you about Greg Lindquist's opening for Brooklyn Industry tonight, at BAMart, which I will sadly miss since I'm so behind on preparing for the aforementioned Dot Dot Dot lecture. Jeffrey Teuton, Associate Director of the JB Gallery will be there to see Greg's gorgeous and monumental paintings in person. And you should too! I'll have news on a few more upcoming events, including our San Fran Collector's Confab, the gallery's six year anniversary (!), and a bonus edition, tomorrow! Till then!

Prospect Park #2 by Joseph O. Holmes

Tuesday greetings, collectors! I am going to keep it short and sweet with today's introduction as I have about a zillion things to do before leaving on Thursday morning for South by Southwest. More on that later, after I introduce today's edition from local hero Joseph O. Holmes.

Prospect Park #2 is a kissing cousin to our very first edition from Joe, the totally sold-out — not to mention frequently inquired about — Prospect Park. With this new edition, we're pleased to be able to offer a broader range of editions for the art-addicted. In addition to our familiar 8"x10" ($20) and 16"x20" ($200) sizes, we're also offering 11"x14" prints, along with absolutely dazzling 24"x30" prints ($1000).

When contemplating how to introduce this photograph earlier today, I found myself thinking about the smell of wet wool, the rare pleasure of enjoying an un-peopled moment in our fair metropolis and a long-ago snowball fight with one of my favorite people on the planet, Omar Wasow. Imagine my amusement then, when I summoned up my original newsletter about our first edition from Joe and discovered that those were exactly the things I wrote about way back when 20x200 was barely two months old.

On the one hand, I feel like a predictable hack, but on the other... I'm in awe of the way that these images infiltrate the lizard part of my brain, connecting me so directly to very fond memories and summoning a visceral recollection in such a satisfying way. Behold, my friends, the power of art! It's that power that makes me so fanatical about spreading the Live with Art gospel. Feeling connected to place and memory and emotion really enriches your day-to-day life. Art can function as a grounding touchstone or escape-hatch, depending on what it is your psyche is in need of; we all need one or the other, at different times.

I myself, unfortunately need to escape at the moment — into the world of Keynote (Egad!) — I have to get my deck figured out for tomorrow night's lecture, The Curators. I'm appearing on an intimidatingly impressive roster alongside Nicholas Felton, Rebekah Hodgson and Jason Kottke. Hopefully my words will amply compensate for my slides, which are unlikely to be on par with the ones produced by these highly accomplished designers.

Once that's done, I'll move on to prepping for the slide show I'm putting together for our SXSW panel, Curating the Crowd-Sourced World. Lots of slides and talking, and yes, more art's in store for you too! Wait'll you see what's on tap for tomorrow. It's awesome. (hint) Also awesome: Thursday's bonus edition. (hint) Can't wait to tell you about all of it!

Untitled #10 by Kent Rogowski

Untitled #10 by Kent Rogowski:
8"x10" | edition of 200 | $20
11"x14" | edition of 500 | $50
16"x20 | edition of 20 | $200
30"x40" | edition of 2 | $2000

These prints are created using archival inks on 100% cotton rag paper. Our editions are supervised by the artist and each one comes with a signed certificate of authenticity.
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Greetings collectors! I am typing to you from the lower very west side of Manhattan — Pier 40 to be exact — on site at the Jen Bekman Gallery booth at PULSE New York Contemporary Art Fair. Jeffrey, Lee and I just got done arranging Beth Dow's gorgeous Fieldwork prints. Now that the fellas are occupied with measuring, hammering and organizing all the other fantastic artwork we've got on hand for the show, I can turn my attention to my friends on the interwebs. Beth is the headliner here in Booth I-12, but we've got work from a lot of other artists available too, many of whom are surely familiar to all of you 20x200 collectors. Kent Rogowski — the puzzle-mad mixologist responsible for today's Untitled #10 — is one of them.

Untitled #10 is our third 20x200 edition from Kent's fantastic series, Love=Love. His earlier releases from the series, Untitled #5 and Untitled #9 were heartily embraced by this crowd. As of this typing, there are only two 30"x40" prints of #5 left! We've gotten a lot of requests to do another edition from the series, and I'm most happy to oblige you all with today's delightful addition to our editions. What's especially great is that they're available as 11"x14" prints — more room for flowers to bloom and foals to frolic!

I wrote my newsletter introducing Kent's #9 at the gallery, while the crew was putting the finishing touches on his exhibition, which opened last May. Nice to see what I said about the work then stands up close to a year later!

Kent's project really pushes the topic of object vs. document. He's taking objects made from photographs, deconstructing them, reassembling them, documenting those reassembled objects and then to top it all off, these documents become different objects entirely when you present them at different sizes... Doing a 20x200 edition is the meta-est manifestation of the concept; the effect of the grid-like fault lines of the puzzles varies enormously depending on the dimensions of the print.

Aside from continuing to construct his puzzling deconstructions, Kent's been plenty busy with other cool projects. He's served twice on the panel for Hey, Hot Shot! (and will do so again in 2009, lucky us! and he's also launched a non-profit called Scaffold. That Scaffold offers fellowships for emerging and mid-career artists in inherently awesome, but what kicks it up to visionary is its structure. As it says on their site, "Scaffold is run by artists. The funding for our fellowships will come from the community being served, through small contributions and applications fees. And as the number of applications increases, the amount and/or number of individual grants will increase proportionally."

In addition to all the fun at the fair, we're hosting a pretty swell event at the gallery this weekend. Join us for mimosas, pastries and sparkling conversation @ Jen Bekman Gallery this Saturday, March 7, 2009, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. — before the fairs!

Painter Sarah McKenzie and Eva Hagberg, editor of the architecture and design blog Edificial, will discuss McKenzie's practice, influences, and current exhibition, Building Code, on view through April 4, 2009. Read Eva's recent interview with Sarah here.

After the talk, we'll send you off with a complimentary PULSE day pass. Head over to Booth I-12 at PULSE — opening at noon on Saturday — see Beth Dow's platinum palladium prints from her series, Fieldwork. Also on hand is work from these artists: Ian Baguskas, Mara Bodis Wollner, Christian Chaize, Gregory Krum, Holly Lynton, Carrie Marill, Brad Moore, Hosang Park, Jason Polan, Kent Rogowski, and Carlo Van de Roer.

Artist Talk with Sarah McKenzie + Eva Hagberg, Saturday, March 7, 2009, 10 a.m. to 12 p.m at:

Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street
New York, NY 10012
Between Elizabeth + Bowery

Space and complimentary PULSE day passes are limited, please RSVP to: info@jenbekman.com