Scrim by Sarah McKenzie

Sarah McKenzie's second solo show, Void, at Jen Bekman Gallery, we debated which image to choose. While her previous works were an investigation into what we build and how, her new paintings ask and begin to answer the question of why we build. And, in particular, the series asks what do we seek and gain in the construction of memorials, specifically in the 9/11 Memorial. Which presented a problem: Did we really want to dive head first into the dialogue around 9/11? We couldn't not not talk about either.

Eventually we chose to present you with Scrim. In its modern, anonymous structure and quiet color palette, it humbly offers quite a bit to think about—"why?" is a pretty big question. But, a little like Sarah herself, Scrim asks questions and offers answers without pretension, giving comfort and solace above the intimidation of any intellectual debate. If you're in NYC or bound to be soon, I strongly recommend that you come by the gallery to see all of its 48"x48" in person.

Jen, tried and true New Yorker that she is, has written paragraphs about that fateful day 10 years ago. I, too, have attempted to assemble my ideas around it. But perhaps Sarah McKenzie's eloquent statement about her recent series can best close out this missive:

It's not surprising... that in the wake of a national tragedy like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina, our immediate response is to rebuild, to erase the architectural scars that remind us of the horrific event and to demonstrate our enduring spirit to the world. While this urge is understandable—necessary, even—it offers an imperfect form of healing. A void remains: all the lost lives that can't be rebuilt.

In February 2011, I had the good fortune to spend an afternoon photographing the World Trade Center reconstruction site. I was particularly moved to see the 9/11 Memorial. Even in its incomplete state, buried under a foot of new snow, it impressed me. What I find profound about the memorial design is that it acknowledges our collective loss, giving physical form to an absence that will never leave us.

— Sara

Void
Paintings by Sarah McKenzie
Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street, New York
On view through October 23, 2011

Wintourfeld by Don Oehl

Jacoppola by Don Oehl

Stylin' greetings, collector friends! Fashionistas have been stomping their well-shod feet all throughout NYC in preparation for tomorrow's launch of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. So we're releasing this pair of prints in honor of the larger-than-life personalities that are sure to sashay their way through the sidewalks and catwalks of our most fashionable town.

Today's editions—Wintourfeld and Jacoppola—came via an introduction to their maker, über-popular illustrator Don Oehl, by the super stylist (and Jen's dear friend) Robert Verdi. Don's chic illustrations have landed him gigs with fashion and beauty giants like Bulgari, Elle and Victoria's Secret. He so adeptly merges the worlds of fashion and art, creating tongue-in-cheek work that references major fashion and media moguls while giving a wink to our nation's obsession with power couples and the portmanteau. The opening of Don's solo show at Clic Gallery—tomorrow, September 8th, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.—brilliantly coincides with Fashion's Night Out, the now legendary night when stiletto-clad hordes of style mavens roam the streets of Manhattan into the wee hours, drinking and shopping as they go. His show will be on view through October 9th, for those of you planning an autumn-in-New York trip.

Not only does fashion get center stage this week, but also art, with 36 galleries, including Jen Bekman Gallery, celebrating their season opening tonight. With an official opening reception set for Friday, Sarah McKenzie's second solo show, Void, will have an early preview tonight from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. With all that's going on, this will be one busy week! So be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter to get the latest on must-attend events (and while you're at it, check out today's edition-maker's Twitter, too).

— Charlie

125 Stadiums by Jenny Odell

Fall kickoff Tuesday greetings, collectors! It's a gray day in NYC, seemingly appropriate for the back-at-it we're all up to today. I chose to leave my hair sandy and sea-washed for just one more day (my homage to a lovely, celebratory weekend spent at the shore among people that I adore), but the fact is that fall is my most favorite season of all. My calendar is chock full of exciting autumn events and openings (including Sarah McKenzie's second solo exhibition, which opens at Jen Bekman Gallery on Friday), and who doesn't love sweater weather?

Speaking of kickoffs, 125 Stadiums, our fifth edition from Bay Area artist Jenny Odell, is likely to inspire a roar from the crowd. Jenny's works, the result of hours spent scouring Google Satellite View, have proven to be utterly addictive for my data-geek pals: My algorithms-obsessed friend Kevin Slavin is possibly her #1 fan. And Ms. Odell and the fine fellas of Stamen (including Mr. prettymaps himself, Aaron Straup Cope), had plenty to discuss over cocktails one evening in SF, making for a beautiful, data-driven experience.

Jenny's fanbase is certainly not limited to the data-nerds among us—it's been increasing exponentially (not to mention internationally)! Her collections appeal to both those who experience the world on the ground via the web, or soaring above it in an airplane. I wrote about that sensation when introducing her very first 20x200 edition:

I've clocked a lot of hours up in the air... Still, one thrill that never fails me is looking down from above and watching a sprawling city become small; its buildings, roads and cars shrinking down into little bits that I'd need to pick up gingerly between two fingers so as to not break them.

Luckily for us, Ms. Odell's output isn't shrinking—we've got more work queued up from her (and I've got quite a few on my wish list that I'm hoping she'll release with us, as well). Jenny will also be in a group show next month at Intersection for the Arts (we'll give you all the deets soon as the date nears so you can plan accordingly), alongside SF-resident Wendy MacNaughton. And you can view the artist's work published in German magazines NEON and Zeitmagazin, as well as see her editorial eye at work, as the West Coast editor, in photo publication Conveyor.

— Jen

Mobius by Don Hamerman

Craving-peanuts-and-Cracker-Jacks greetings, collectors! Baseball's regular season's coming to a close in late September (much to some people's chagrin), so introducing today's edition—Mobius, by Don Hamerman—is our unofficial kick off to the last remaining days of the season, not to mention summer. It's been three years (and many, many baseball puns) since we first introduced editions from Don's enormously popular series, Found Baseballs, and the attention he's received since has been a crowd-pleasing thrill to follow here at 20x200 HQ. Equally engaging and of note is Don's series of matchbox cars, which was featured in the iPad app version of Automobile magazine.

Mobius is Don's 12th edition with us, and his 10th from the series of gnarled, mangled and weathered baseballs he's found and precisely photographed. We've penned many an introduction of his fast-selling editions, but this tidbit I wrote last year about Don's work best sums up why we love it:

The thing about this series is that it's made all of us at Team 20x200 reconsider the way we look at the things around us on a daily basis... Don was OUR gateway drug into art that references sports—most of us 'round these parts aren't inclined to walk the walk OR talk the talk of athletes. But we enjoy offering editions like Don's because they present a good point of entry for all of you who might not normally think that art's your thing (I know you're out there!), or that art and sport could so peacefully co-exist—making the discovery of these photographs an enlightening experience for all.

— Jen

ny.11.#02 by Jennifer Sanchez

Beachy-keen Tuesday greetings, collector friends! I'm writing from a well-loved cottage in Amagansett, where a leisurely five-minute walk brings us right to the shores of the Atlantic. The past few days have been filled with feverish preparations for today's Camp JBP kickoff. I'm thrilled to welcome the 20x200 team here and get down to the exciting, inspiring business of plotting the next phase of our Art-for-Everyone agenda.

With looking back being a key component to envisioning our future, it seems more than fitting to be releasing ny.11.#02 by Jennifer Sanchez today. Jennifer is part of our past (as far back as our past goes, in fact), but she is also very much a part of our future: Her work is now a part of an exciting new partnership we have with West Elm. Having her included in the debut collection of this partnership is perfect—I get all misty-eyed and farklempt when I consider all the millions of new minted collectors we can reach via this relationship. As I recently said about it:

We're excited about 20x200's partnership with West Elm because it brings great things to both our artists and our collectors. As a result of this collaboration, our artists gain exposure to West Elm's art-loving audience and our discerning collectors will find the 20x200 gallery frames at West Elm to be a thoughtfully-designed,* DIY solution for framing the art they've purchased on our site.

That so many people have discovered Jennifer through 20x200 and have supported her by purchasing her editions and original works makes the brightness of our collaboration's future much more than theoretical. The arc of our relationship with her—from emerging artist, to her sold-out editions, to her work being shown in numerous galleries (currently at the Bronx Museum AIM's Bronx Calling exhibition), to the JBG selling her work to a really great institutional collection and, now, our partnership with West Elm—is truly remarkable and gratifying. We're so proud and honored to support her as she hits milestone after milestone. Our commitment to creating an ever-increasing array of opportunities for artists is resolute, and we're looking forward to tracing similar arcs with many more artists and collectors alike as our business continues to evolve.

That evolution is the task at hand as we kick off our beach week retreat, and I am sure to emerge at its end full of the energy, inspiration and ideas that our awesome team offers up endlessly. Which means I'll be fueled up with all kinds of good stuff when I zip down to the isle of Manhattan on Saturday, the 27th. That morning, at 10:00 a.m., I'll be teaching a special class at the West Elm on Broadway and 62nd street titled "Living with Art and The Art of Living." Don't worry if you're not in NYC to attend—West Elm is holding similar classes at every single one of their stores on the very same day, and we've collaborated with them to come up with a presentation on how easy and enriching it is to live with art.

But if you do happen to be in NYC on Saturday, be sure to check out Try2 at Jen Bekman Gallery. Not only will the prolific Jennifer Sanchez have work in the group show, but also edition-maker Amy Jean Porter and JBG Director Jeffrey Teuton. The exhibit and silent auction are being held to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, so come out for a great cause and to support great artists.

— Jen

*West Elm worked with us to create frames that both our discerning audiences would love—with a modern profile, a thin face, a depth usually found only in custom frames and a pocket on the back to hold our Certificates of Authencity. They are an excellent complement to our custom-framed option—a quick, simple and affordable alternative that offers nearly instant gratification to the budget-conscious and/or the DIY-inclined. And you don't even need to be terribly crafty to get it done—watch our How to Frame Your Art video to see how simple it is!

Motel Bien Venido by Walker Pickering

Wednesday greetings, collector friends! It's day two of Camp JBP in Amagansett. As Jen and Sara are holding down the (beach) fort, I'm filling in from the road, on my way (hooray!) to join them.

Apropos, today's edition—Motel Bien Venido, by Walker Pickering—is evocative of hitting the open road. As Walker says in his statement, "This project came about largely because of my restlessness at home and constant urge to travel." And so, he and his wife embarked upon a trip. Walker is the second Hey, Hot Shot! Contender that we've fast-tracked an edition with. It's fitting to be working with Walker now, as his was the very first submission from this round of competition that was featured on the Hey, Hot Shot! blog. I wrote then:

Contender Walker Pickering's series Nearly West depicts the still, solitary moments that wanderlusters and Kerouacians long for, the instances of communion between the nomad and that which is encountered. Each setting hints at a narrative describing the deeply personal nature of experiencing a new point on a map, whether planned or not.

We know we're not alone in admiring Walker's work. Since being featured as a Contender on the HHS! blog, his work has appeared on Flak Photo and, most recently, in The Atlantic's September issue. We couldn't be happier to welcome Walker into the 20x200 family, and we extend heartfelt congratulations on the recent addition to his own family.

— Charlie

The Suspension of Physics Necessary for All Athletic Endeavors by Colin Blakely

Hello, collectors! On the heels of yesterday's Hey, Hot Shot! panel review, we present a new edition from Colin Blakely, who was a Winter 2007 Hot Shot. Since then, he's been an Aperture Portfolio Prize Runner-Up, and he has shown his work at Jen Bekman Gallery, Fotofest Houston, the Society for Contemporary Photography, the Pingyao International Photography Festival, the Griffin Museum of Photography and, earlier this year, at the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography.

A short distance west of the center of Detroit, Colin's been photographing the mostly minor day-to-day events of the 400 and 500 blocks of Keech Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan, in his series Somewhere in Middle America. Today's new print, The Suspension of Physics Necessary for All Athletic Endeavors, is the fall to the early and late winter, the spring and summer, of Colin's previous editions.

The sum of the seasons is evidence of Colin's enduring devotion to the town, not unlike fellow 20x200 artist Paul Octavious' documentations of a snow-covered and kite-scattered hill-top park in Chicago. In both series, the horizons settle each image and quietly contain their inhabitants, at least temporarily. While walking through the park that he so often photographs, Paul stumbled upon the Ghana World Cup team practicing in his hometown; in The Suspension of Physics..., I think Colin's come across a game of flag football.

Football brings me a little farther south, to the fictional town of Dillon, Texas, home of the dearly-beloved-by-many-but-recently-ceased television show Friday Night Lights. Granted, there's probably not a photographer like Colin or Paul in this fantasy heartland, but there's some semblance in the show and these photos. Sarah Blackwood summed it up so well* in her farewell to FNL over on The Awl, that I'll leave you with her words on what it's all about:

... [it's] about how silly, even tragic it is to be "about" something... how time moves so strangely, how we go from late nights drinking beer and messing around in a deserted field with our friends, our problems seemingly so huge, to late nights drinking wine with a partner, the very hair on our heads weary, our problems seemingly so huge. The thing that the show did so beautifully was refuse to belittle any of these micro-times that we all pass through during a life lived.

*Well said, yes, but this comes with a disclaimer that doubles for me, too, as wrapped up as I tend to get: "I've covered Friday Night Lights for Television Without Pity for the entirety of its run, so you'll forgive me for being slightly overwrought when I reflect on how this show has ushered me from the extended adolescence of my late twenties to this moment right now..."

— Sara

25 Scooter Drawings by Christine Berrie

Greetings, collectors. We're off to the races this morning as we prepare for the Hey, Hot Shot! panel review. Jen, Jeffrey and I will soon be joined by a slew of the finest photography professionals to deliberate and debate the incredible entries we received in the First Edition 2011 competition. It'll be a photo-full day, but first a fresh print for all of you—our fifth edition from Scottish artist and illustrator Christine Berrie.

This time around, Christine's compiled a vast assortment of Vespas, Lambrettas and other motorized bikes—25 Scooter Drawings (to be exact)—a tribute to the varied number of two-wheeled transporters she saw all over London's streets. It's a cross, somewhat, of her love of mechanical things and their simple, working elegance—as evidenced in the first two editions we offered here, Industrial Part 1 and Industrial Part 2—the adoration of objects—as demonstrated in 28 Camera Drawings and 12 Bicycle Drawings—and the sheer, sweet pleasures they afford us humans. As Christine writes in her statement:

I started drawing scooters when I first moved to London and was intrigued by the number of vintage styles that I saw weaving in and out of the busy streets, and also by the sense of freedom they afforded the riders.

While NYC's not quite the city for scooters as London, Rome, Paris or even San Francisco may be, the delight of wheeling around with the wind in your hair is not lost on me. I'm guessing, too, that it's not something lost on all of you. One more thing not to miss: Summerstock! Follow us on Twitter and friend us on Facebook for the scoop on daily deals, now through Friday, August 26th, 2011. You just might see another fave print from Ms. Berrie offered up for a steal.

— Sara

Shopping Totem by David Welch

Down-and-up-and-down-again greetings, collectors! Today's edition-maker, former economist David Welch, is someone who'd know all about the yo-yo-ing and volatile nature of the economy. While we're releasing Shopping Totem in celebration of Hey, Hot Shot!—our biannual international photography competition—and all of the good work we're seeing there this year, it's also serendipitously appropriate.

With a considerable number of outstanding Hey, Hot Shot! submissions received this year, we've been scurrying to fast-track new photography editions and bring them to you, stat! David's consumer-minded series, Material World, which today's edition comes from, had been getting a lot of traction on the interwebs, both before and after we blogged about his entry.

David's work instantly reminded me of good friends Kate Bingaman-Burt and Michelle Muldrow, whose editions also challenge the nature of consumerism and consumption. As David writes in his statement, "The photographs speak of accumulation and materiality and aim to encourage debate about consumption and the ways in which we feel compelled to consume." (On another related note: There's a new paradigm in this post-recession world, the Los Angeles Times declared in their weekend edition, and affordable art is the new reality.)

Be sure to sign up for the HHS! newsletter if you're a photographer or want to stay up to date on the competition and all the great work we're seeing there. As always, stay tuned here for the inside scoop on what we're cooking up at 20x200—there's lots of good stuff as of late that we've been tight-lipped about. Keep an eye on your inbox!

— Jen

Four Kings (from the Almost Elvis series)
by Landon Nordeman

"All Shook Up" greetings, collectors. And I mean that literally, as there's been a whirlwind of activity in the past few weeks. Of course, it also helps that today's edition, Four Kings (from the Almost Elvis series), by Landon Nordeman, is all about The King. Or, rather, four of 'em.

Whether you're an Elvis fan or not, Landon's photograph captures a pretty funny moment as four impersonators gather in a dressing room—perhaps for a pre-show pow wow over cigarettes and voice exercises, or for a recap of the night's performances.

It's a testament to the legendary musician's enduring reach that every August, since 1978, hordes of Elvis fans and impersonators, as well as musicians, continue to descend upon Graceland to commemorate The King for one full week of love and heartache, hound dogs and jailhouse rock. With Elvis Week just days away, there couldn't be a better time to offer up Four Kings (from the Almost Elvis series) as our own 20x200 tribute.

As Landon says in his statement, "My work is about finding the unexpected in the everyday. I always have an idea of what I’m looking for, but I never know exactly what it is until I see it." The proof is not only in Nice Pants, his first edition, and Four Kings, but also in his various contributions to The New Yorker—whether it's documenting a dog show, capturing the feel of a Weezer concert or portraying New Yorkers relaxing on the Highline. Landon's ability to capture events and instances as they occur continues to get him noticed. And we're betting even "Suspicious Minds" will pull out their "Blue Suede Shoes" for Four Kings.

And with that overabundance of puns fit for The King, I think it's time for a little less conversation, and a little more action. So hurry and make Four Kings yours because, as Elvis would croon, it's now or never.

— Jen

Memories of Festivals by Tatsuro Kiuchi

Ahoy, collectors silver and gold! (We know there are quite a few newcomers among you, welcome!) Today's edition marks the fifth time we've collaborated with the utterly charming illustrator, Tatsuro Kiuchi. Tatsuro's work, aside from its charm, is also very human, celebrating and aptly capturing everyday moments that are at once broadly appealing and deeply resonant: baseball, photography, bicycles, reading and (now) a night of festivities—fitting, considering Tatsuro has released several editions perfectly befitting celebrations!

Memories of Festivals is enchanting in that it's unclear if the couple depicted are about to meet up for a night of festivities, or if they've just parted after a night of...well, partying. Either way, it's full of the possibility of romance; of first dates; of holding hands under a sky lit by fireworks... you get the picture.

Tatsuro himself has plenty of reasons to be in a festive mood. I sing his praises often (as I'm wont to do with all the amazing artists we work with), but it seems others can't stop talking about him, either. His artwork was selected by a jury of his peers for the annual Tokyo Illustrators Society exhibition (of which Tatsuro is a member). And he opened up a studio, Pen Still Writes, with fellow illustrator, TIS member and former pupil Hiromichi Ito. The clincher: If you're in Japan in late summer, you should definitely check out Tatsuro's work, which will be part of a group show at Tokyo's Creation Gallery G8, presented by the TIS, from August 30th to September 30th, 2011.

With that, I'm off. But keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow, when we'll be releasing a photograph fit for a King, or four (hint, hint).

— Jen

WATER FINDS ITS OWN LEVEL HOWSOEVER by LAWRENCE WEINER

Working vacation greetings, collector friends! Since my business is a pleasure—with editions from the likes of LAWRENCE WEINER to announce—it's hard to stay away.

WATER FINDS ITS OWN LEVEL HOWSOEVER is our second edition from LAWRENCE WEINER, a man who lives up to his ALL CAPS expectations. With the ocean a mere few feet away from the living room window, we've been doing a lot of tide-tracking here on the Oregon coast, and I've had ample opportunity to contemplate the "kindred constancy" shared by various bodies of water that I referred to in yesterday's newsletter about Chikara Umihara's new edition. How nice, then, to round out this week with the source of said constancy—namely, water's own-level-seeking ways.

After some fruitless internet scouring, I had a very early morning discussion with my boyfriend about the origin of the expression, and what it really means. He got all science-y on me, talking about the gravitational pull of earth, moon and sun and how water's frictionless particles are at their various mercies. All of which made perfect logical sense, sure, but stands in opposition to the anthropomorphized ocean of my imagination. That ocean is willful and steadfast, always pulling its edges back into itself, ceaselessly SEEKING its own inherent levelness—gravity be damned! It turned into a broader conversation about celestial bodies, symbolism, orbits and rotations, the kind of conversation I hope that Mr. WEINER himself would find quite pleasing, disinclined as he is to provide explanations of his own. As he writes in his statement:

RATHER I PREFER TO PRESENT AN EXISTING FACT AND LET THE JUDGEMENT OF THE RECEIVER REST UPON THAT.

And with that, I'm off for another hike, a birthday celebration and the contented contemplation of tides high and low.

— Jen

After the Rain by Chikara Umihara

Greetings from scenic Yachats, Oregon, where I'm enjoying a working vacation with my fella and his family. Today's edition, After the Rain—our third from Chikara Umihara—has been on my mind all week.

Being on the Oregon Coast, and hiking in its adjacent forests that are criss-crossed with rivers and streams, I've been thinking a lot about what it is exactly that's so gratifying about the simple act of gazing at ocean, sea or stream. Chikara's shimmering lake is perhaps as different from Oregon's churning coast as a body of water can be, but they're kindred in soothing constancy.

Sara and I both did quite a bit of oohing and ahhing over Chikara's sun-dappled surface, albeit somewhat sheepishly. Being the discerning contemporary art ladies that we are, we're well aware that the current cognoscenti often take a dim view of falling for the pleasures of a natural landscape. But, like ice cream for dinner (another pleasure I am absolutely guilty of), I stand strongly in favor of such sybaritic enjoyments! The art snobbiest will argue that art always has to be about something—perhaps the sort of something that Chikara explores in his Aggressive Girls series? Obviously I share that belief, too, but being so post-everything that we're robbed of making meaning from the pleasures of natural beauty seems kind of absurd.

As Chikara describes in his artist statement, these are the things that are often hard to describe in writing, so we write them off. While the essence of this kind of looking and feeling is difficult to put into words, I never want to be so post-anything that I deny myself (or any of our collectors) those sorts of basic, yet vital pleasures.

Speaking of which, with trails to hit, seals to watch and microbrews to sip, I'll take my leave for now. But look for me tomorrow with another watery edition from a legendary artist.

— Jen

National Treasures by Amze Emmons

The Sleepwalker's Language by Amze Emmons

Happy Tuesday, collectors. After quite some time of admiring his work from afar, I am pleased to present our first two editions ever from Philadelphia-based artist Amze Emmons. The thing that makes Amze's work so interesting is what is also strangely absent from his pictures—people. In our place, instead, are things that we create, manufacture, gather and leave behind—by choice or by force. National Treasures and The Sleepwalker's Language are from his series Refugee Architecture.

The subject sounds dire, but in creating his works, Amze elegantly arranges (or re-arranges) the detritus that swirls around us in the news, adding bits and pieces of things he sees walking around in his own hometown. With a sunset-color palette, his invented landscapes allow us to examine our world as it is—constantly changing, for better or for worse. And sans refugees, the places and stories we see and hear distantly in the news become our own.

I'd highly recommend that you take the time to listen to Amze himself talk a little more about his work. And if you're in New York, you have just this week to catch the tail end of Sea Worthy to see more of Amze's art in person. A broad undertaking encompassing a group exhibition, ongoing workshops and artist-led excursions on the water, the astutely curated exhibition brings together NYC-based and visiting artists, as well as several noteworthy institutions and art spaces, to celebrate New York's waterways. Amze's works—as well as fellow 20x200 artist Tod Seelie's—are on view till July 29th, when the exhibit closes. That's this Friday, so don't delay!

— Sara

Sea Worthy
Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space
323 West 39th Street, 2nd floor, NYC
On view Wednesday through Friday, noon to 6:00 p.m., now till July 29th, 2011

Apart Camera by Todd McLellan

Apart Flip Clock by Todd McLellan

Apart Typewriter by Todd McLellan

Hectic, harried Thursday greetings, collectors! Relieved to be out of the NYC heat I am, but my SF-bound flight was delayed, putting me to sleep well after 1:00 a.m. This lack of solid Zzzs and general jet lag, paired with a back-to-back schedule, feels a little like what might be the human incarnation of the objects that appear in today's photographs from Todd McLellan.*

The precursors to his more orderly editions, these (THREE!) latest prints—Apart Camera, Apart Flip Clock and Apart Typewriter—show the beauty and intricacy of ordinary (and outdated) things as they are erupting into space. His documents expose all the tiny, crucial parts that make these obsolete items function; frozen in mid-explosion, their components—minute and integral—are taut with tension.

It makes you wonder how much time goes into making something so precise... and so disorderly. Just think of the deconstructing and reassembling of these mechanical objects for photography's sake! Thankfully, Todd's meticulous attention to detail and his painstaking process in constructing his Disassembly series—which also includes Old Camera, Old Typewriter and Old Flip Clock—are all captured on video. When Todd McLellan photographs the gadgetry and inner workings of obsolete everyday objects, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

— Jen

*Speaking of hectic schedules, Todd recently welcomed a baby girl into his family! Congrats! And it seems his detail-minded, curious and mechanically-inspired eye has caught the attention of some big name clients: Todd's latest coup was shooting an ad campaign for VW. Double congrats!

After Bierstadt by Jason Burch

Hello, collectors! To compose this note, I'm borrowing the approach New Jersey-based photographer Jason Burch used to create the print that we're presenting to you today—After Bierstadt. To put it crudely, I'm going to cut and paste to give you a taste of what this work is all about. As you can see, though, Jason's approach is far more refined than mine—I hope, at the very least, I'll get points for transparency!

From the newsletter penned when I introduced the series of work—Constructed Environments—that After Bierstadt (along with Ringside) comes from:

Ringside is deceptively simple and smart. One of a series of photomontages by Jason Burch, it's part of a larger experimental practice in art-making. As in the first two photographs we released from him, Natural Selections XI and Natural Selections XIII, Jason's interest in the rich tradition—from Hannah Höch to David Hockney—of creating and re-creating meaning in photographs by plainly altering, omitting and adding information is clear. But where Jason's other images are more cerebral, Ringside [and After Bierstadt, too!] is both sophisticated and a little silly—offering a potent one-two punch (couldn't resist).

And straight from Jason's own artist statement about this print:

I really like the idea of using a painting as a blueprint for construction. It is at once both a profound idea and yet contains absurd comedy about it, as well. Albert Bierstadt's painting, I think, is a great foil here, as his idealized view of the American landscape represents an unattainable goal.

...Recently, I made a series of videos on a large construction project in Montclair, NJ. The scale of the project was immense, much like the scene depicted in After Bierstadt. One video depicts two men discussing the rebuilding of a hill next to a housing development and the possibility of adding a water feature. Because, we can always make things better.

Yes, we can always make things better—some days it's just easier than others. Jen will be back tomorrow with some more elegantly composed prose (no pressure, lady!) to accompany a trio of explosive new photographs.

— Sara

Butterfly Chair by Karen Barbour

The Trees Need To Be Cut Down by Karen Barbour

NYC greetings, collectors. The sweltering temperatures and pungent aromas that make our city summers so...how do you say?...special have unleashed themselves upon us. The air's staying thick with heat long after sundown, and, oh, how it lingers! I broke a sweat just walking to the gym in the early hours of the morning, long before the sun began heating the haze anew. With no end in sight, I'm pretty relieved to be heading west tomorrow evening—to wintry San Francisco. Until then, I'm extra über-appreciative of the art-filled and air-conditioned refuge of 20x200 HQ.

Speaking of California, today's editions—Butterfly Chair and The Trees Need To Be Cut Down—are by the enviably situated and awfully talented Karen Barbour. If I had a moment to spare during my upcoming sojourn, I'd gladly hotfoot it up to western Marin—in my own humble opinion, one of the most beautiful places in the whole wide world—to personally welcome Karen to the 20x200 family. But with every moment (and then some) spoken for, I extend my warmest greetings virtually, taking comfort in knowing that she fits right in among the 200-plus artists who are part of our extended family.

Figuring out where new artists fit in is an entertaining enterprise, especially with someone like Karen, whose work reminds me of a seemingly disparate array of our previous editions. The "walled gardens with enclosing hedges, boxwood hedges and bushes clipped into shapes" that Karen describes in her statement bring Beth Dow's gorgeous garden tableaux to mind. Both are interested in our oft-gone-awry attempts to reign in and order what nature has designed, although their expressions of that awry-ness manifest themselves very differently: Beth's black and white subtlety is an excellent foil for Karen's outside-the-lines depictions.

Switching media, I see a certain otherworldly kinship with Rachell Sumpter's celestial landscapes, rendered in a palette reminiscent of Matisse (updated for our century by the use of harder-edged jewel tones) and evocative of the layered backdrops of David Corbett's abstract compositions. Expanding my connection-making to artists that I hope to one day welcome into the 20x200 fold, both David Hockney and Tina Barney come to mind, with subjects and environs I see as being not-as-distant-as-you-might-think cousins to the figures and landscapes that recur throughout Karen's larger body of work.

All this artist introducing/welcoming and connection-making is the kind of thing that makes my job the funnest job ever, and I'm always on the hunt for inspiration and additions. And it occurs to me as I write to you all that one of the amplest inspirational sources is right before me, in all of you. So, dear collectors, I'll leave you with a question and eagerly await your replies: Which artists would you like to see popping up in your inbox and arriving in your mailbox?

— Jen

New York Valentine 1 by Tom Slaughter

New York Valentine 2 by Tom Slaughter

Greetings from the best city in the world, otherwise known as New York City. While some very few of you might want to debate such a bold proclamation, I'll give you fair warning: With so many amazing 20x200 artists bolstering my position, resistance is futile! The newest recruit to our I <3 New York art army is Tom Slaughter, a kindred spirit that I connected with in January via Tumblr bon mots, and bonded with over Dean & DeLuca cookies when Sara and I paid him (numerous) visits at his über-cool lower Broadway studio.

Tom created New York Valentine 1 and New York Valentine 2 especially for us, and while he accurately describes them as being "a little Stuart Davis and a little Roy Lichtenstein," what they really are is 100% Tom. I say this having had the good fortune of spending a good chunk of time in his aforementioned studio, where his collages, cutouts and drawings (in various stages of completion) are hung, leaned, layered and stacked. We could've limited the number of trips made to Tom's studio, but we had an awfully hard time choosing where to start our collaboration. His wide-ranging, always exuberant oeuvre is overflowing with perfect-for-us imagery, and once we got to talking about the possibilities of different media, well... fuggedaboutit!

Because here's the other thing about Tom: He's awfully charming and fun to hang out with, and his studio—its Polaroid-portrait lined entry and industrial shelves heaving under the weight of art books and ephemera, and its layers of New York City sound and soot seeping in through wide-paned windows—embodies everything I loved about downtown New York City when it overflowed with artists and galleries; when lower Broadway was desolate by early evening, its fabric stores shuttered and its loft-dwelling denizens having a drink or two (or more) just a bit west of there, at Fanelli, or maybe having a snack at one of the many cafes that're now shoe stores. The two of us could talk for hours about all that stuff, and we probably would've without Sara's gentle yet firm guidance towards some clear decisions about Tom's art and our editions.

Which brings us to right now, when I get to present our first two prints by Tom, a couple of Valentines for our fair city, with love from me to you.

— Jen

Sarah Waiting for the Tide by Laura Bell

In our writing back and forth over the last few months, Pennsylvania-based artist Laura Bell shared how much attention she's been getting since becoming a Hot Shot last year. There's been an onslaught of interviews and posts all over the internet—thank goodness for Google Translate.

All exciting and good stuff, but, alas, a gal can't pay the rent on web traffic alone. So, we're more than pleased to present to you our third photography edition from Ms. Bell—Sarah Waiting for the Tide. Like her first two prints, Ferry from Ardrossan Harbor and Gust of Wind, Sarah is easy on the eyes, but that's not the only reason for her work's broad appeal.

For the collectors who know a little art history, it probably comes as no surprise that Laura names Vija Celmins, Nadav Kander and Jan van Eyck as artists that inspire her. She's borrowed both ideas and subject matter from all three, combining them into something that is entirely her own—especially in The Alba Series, from which Ferry and Gust sprang (and from which you are likely to see more of here). From Celmins, she takes a sense of introspection; from Kander, elegance; and from van Eyck, a certain sensitivity to light.

Whether you're familiar with Laura's references or not, Sarah invites us to take a little respite from all this seriousness to sit along the sea, and to look out instead of in.

— Sara

Sunrise by Lisa Congdon

Tuesday greetings from sweltering NYC, collector friends! It's really downright icky out there today, and I expect that there will be plenty more of the same for the rest of July. Come week's end, I'm flipping the weather switch and heading off to the city famously described (although not by Mark Twain) thusly: "The coldest winter I've ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." To which I say: bring it on! And not just because of the weather, of course. SF has long been my second home, and it's also the home of lots and lots of the talented artists we work with. Today's edition, Sunrise, is by Ms. Lisa Congdon—she embodying many of the qualities I adore the most about my SF friends and colleagues: resourceful, endlessly creative, nature-loving, bike-riding, dog-loving and downright nice.

Sunrise is our eighth offering from Lisa, and its release puts her photography editions from her Collection a Day series in balance with her fine art print editions, which clearly establish that she's certainly no slouch in either medium. Sunrise is a print based on an original painting that's included in Boreas, an exhibition of Lisa's work on view at Gallery Hijinks, which happens to be in...you guessed it!...San Francisco. Here's what they've got to say about the exhibition:

This exhibition offers a vibrant palate of paintings, drawings and collages juxtaposed with cold, achromic objects and installation. Here the viewer may visually experience the continuous daylight of Iceland's summer midnight sun, autumn's Aurora Borealis and winter's endless darkness, all in one scope.

I've been promised a private tour of the exhibition by the artist herself, which I'm hoping will be followed by the sipping of delicious cocktails and the nibbling of yummy eats. (Both of those things being almost-too-easy to come by in that town.) If I'm lucky, some other SF-based artists might come along: J. Otto Seibold, Mike Monteiro, Wendy MacNaughton, Todd Hido, Jenny Odell... I might even be able to squeeze in a visit with papa-to-be Geoffrey Ellis and his lovely wife, Sarah. With so many people to see (and I've only named a few!) and so much to do, the week is starting to feel awfully short.

This week is likely to fly by as well, with things percolating furiously as ever around 20x200 HQ. We're still pretty amped about our sitewide launch of frames, which means that you can get any of this week's editions delivered to you in a gorgeous custom frame. Tomorrow brings a new release from Hot Shot Laura Bell, whose first prints made quite a splash. And then on Thursday, we'll welcome NY artist Tom Slaughter into the 20x200 fold. I can't wait to show you the two fabulous editions that he created just for us.

— Jen

Feral Church #2 by James Griffioen

I'm just one of about 800,000 people still living in the city of Detroit, Michigan, the nation's 11th most-populated city. Because of the events of the last half-century, this is a city that journalists and academics love to examine and study. In focusing on the sensational, they often concoct maddening generalizations about what they've found here. In the time I've lived in Detroit, I've come to realize that the most sensational claims and the public perception they create often have little to do with the day-to-day reality of being a Detroiter.
– From Yes, there are Grocery Stores in Detroit, written by today's multi-talented edition-maker James Griffioen.

Today's edition—Feral Church #2—is our third photograph from James' series documenting the unlikely beauty of nature's creeping triumph over Detroit's urban landscape. Detroit is a city whose image has been shaped for me by a variety of writers and artists—from Philip Levine to Karolina Karlic to Jeffrey Eugenides to Julie Mehretu to Andrew Moore, and yes, James Griffioen, whose documents and diaries of his life there have provided the most comprehensive account of its challenges and oft-overlooked riches.

My most recent (and somewhat surprising) literary encounter with the Motor City was via Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids. I didn't know that she'd lived in Detroit in the 80s and 90s (and maybe she still does? A cursory scour of the interwebs didn't yield an answer to that question) but it wasn't hard to connect her to the city I've come to know through all these great artists. Finding the heart and soul and beauty in a place or thing that most people find ugly and/or frightening is a defining aspect of the life she's lived and the art she's made, so it makes perfect sense that Detroit was a place that she made a home.

Osiris Mountain by Hollis Brown Thornton

Happy-first-day-back-in-the-office-after-a-loooong-weekend, collectors. If the return to the real world has been difficult, I just might have the salve for what ails you—a trip back in time. We're flashing way past the last 72+ hours of relaxing and celebrating—Hollis Brown Thornton-style—to the late 1980s, with his new print: Osiris Mountain.

First, a short visit to recent 20x200 history. When Jen first brought you his work in February 2010, she wrote:

VHS and Closing Credits at the End of the Movie from Hollis Brown Thornton (I found him on the internet, oh yes, I did!) offer a kinder, gentler nostalgia-tinged escape into other realms. In his statement, Brown (as he prefers to be called) writes about how our reality shifts as our present becomes our past, and the media he's depicted—video cassettes and on-screen space invaders—reference our progression towards an increasingly digital and virtual future.

We followed up with a new print later that year—just in time for holiday gift-giving*—when I introduced you to Atari, created from a permanent-marker-on-paper drawing of the infamous game cartridges:

Brown's collected and compiled dozens of cartridges to compose Atari. His marker-mellowed rendering of the games that defined our not-too-distant past documents ever-changing technology and culture, nourishing our collective nostalgia for simpler times. In the details they reveal their past lives and loves—once owned by Tom Regan, affectionately worn at the edges—evidence of good use. Like the tapes in Brown's VHS and the space invaders in Closing Credits at the End of the Movie, the cartridges in Atari are seemingly stacked against technological singularity.

I'll leave you now to revel in time travel and unpack the elements of Osiris Mountain.

* Psst: it's never too early to start your Christmas shopping!

What Is Marriage? by Austin Kleon

Like I said on Twitter, I'm so excited for all of my friends to get married.

What Is Marriage? by Austin Kleon

Like I said on Twitter, I'm so excited for all of my friends to get married.

Star Princess by Jeremy Kohm

Hello, collectors! It's Sara. I returned from vacation this week and I'm not gonna lie: As much as I like it here with all of you and team 20x200, I want to go back to Turkey! Istanbul, I love you! Sweet, cerulean Mediterranean Sea, can't we float along together, forever?

In the spirit of stowing away for just a little bit longer, today we present Star Princess by Toronto-based photographer Jeremy Kohm. Vacation via cruise ship is a strange phenomenon—you're captive, with a bunch of strangers, and none of the adventure of actually being on a boat. But, there's something so still and so mysterious—even Jeremy notes that "the tall and rectangular nature of [the boat's] structure seemed almost counterintuitive to the rules of buoyancy"—about this particular view of Princess Cruises' sweetheart that makes me think it might be nice if we could clamber aboard for just a day or night to see the sights.

For a summery escape a little closer to home (if you're in NYC), come see Jeremy's work in Dawn Till Dusk at Jen Bekman Gallery. Bask in the leisurely passing of hours as the shifting of light and shadow over landscapes and objects is examined in photographs, paintings and works on paper by 26 artists: Darren Almond, John Arsenault, Rachel Barrett, Robert Bechtle, John Button, Christian Chaize, Jorge Colombo, Amy Eckert, Candace Gaudiani, Derek Henderson, Todd Hido, Peter Allen Hoffmann, Jeremy Kohm, Michael Light, Michael Lundgren, Sally Mann, Klea McKenna, Sarah McKenzie, Stas Orlovski, Youngna Park, Ed Ruscha, Bryan Schutmaat, Mike Sinclair, Alec Soth, Esther Pearl Watson and Letha Wilson.

Exhibition details:
Dawn Till Dusk
Jen Bekman Gallery, 6 Spring Street, New York, NY
On view now through July 30th, 2011
Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 6:00 p.m., or by private appointment

Star Princess by Jeremy Kohm

Hello, collectors! It's Sara. I returned from vacation this week and I'm not gonna lie: As much as I like it here with all of you and team 20x200, I want to go back to Turkey! Istanbul, I love you! Sweet, cerulean Mediterranean Sea, can't we float along together, forever?

In the spirit of stowing away for just a little bit longer, today we present Star Princess by Toronto-based photographer Jeremy Kohm. Vacation via cruise ship is a strange phenomenon—you're captive, with a bunch of strangers, and none of the adventure of actually being on a boat. But, there's something so still and so mysterious—even Jeremy notes that "the tall and rectangular nature of [the boat's] structure seemed almost counterintuitive to the rules of buoyancy"—about this particular view of Princess Cruises' sweetheart that makes me think it might be nice if we could clamber aboard for just a day or night to see the sights.

For a summery escape a little closer to home (if you're in NYC), come see Jeremy's work in Dawn Till Dusk at Jen Bekman Gallery. Bask in the leisurely passing of hours as the shifting of light and shadow over landscapes and objects is examined in photographs, paintings and works on paper by 26 artists: Darren Almond, John Arsenault, Rachel Barrett, Robert Bechtle, John Button, Christian Chaize, Jorge Colombo, Amy Eckert, Candace Gaudiani, Derek Henderson, Todd Hido, Peter Allen Hoffmann, Jeremy Kohm, Michael Light, Michael Lundgren, Sally Mann, Klea McKenna, Sarah McKenzie, Stas Orlovski, Youngna Park, Ed Ruscha, Bryan Schutmaat, Mike Sinclair, Alec Soth, Esther Pearl Watson and Letha Wilson.

Exhibition details:
Dawn Till Dusk
Jen Bekman Gallery, 6 Spring Street, New York, NY
On view now through July 30th, 2011
Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 6:00 p.m., or by private appointment

Untitled 1 by J.Otto Seibold

Happy new-art-for-you Tuesday, friends. It's Sara.

Today's edition came together after eons of emailing, calling and corralling, until finally the stars aligned and J. Otto Seibold and I were in the same place in time and space, meeting at his home in Oakland. After admiring his art collection (I spied two personal photo favorites from across the room—a Sugimoto and a Robert Adams—hung among works of his own and his daughter's), we set to talking about, well, pretty much everything—starting with how we both got to where we were just then, sitting in low chairs in his living room. My arrival, of course, had much to do with 20x200, but neither of our actual trajectories could be clearly defined.

While Jim has had a successful career as a painter and as an illustrator of children's books, he is not someone who has plotted and plodded along from point A to B to C. He is someone who knows leaps and detours: the trusting that once you've left that path that the next thing will come, and that when you get down to it, you should really be doing something that you love—even if it's not what's been presented to you as a career/satisfying life course. Not coincidentally, this is a huge part of why he started making books—so that kids might get the idea that being an artist was as viable and important as becoming a teacher, a doctor, a banker, etc... And so, this is where our talking about life came back to art again and, in particular, the series of works that includes Untitled 1.

In the summer of 2007, when much of California was engulfed in forest fires, Jim's mom was forced from her home and came to live with him. When she moved out, she left an assortment of real estate catalogs behind. Before tossing them out, Jim paged through a few and began to see the photos in the listings as the "mugshots of un-adoptable 10 year olds" and decided to paint portraits of them. As he worked inside his studio, taking what was literally left on his kitchen table to create the work you see here—one of a series of free-falling, unattached funhouses—the world outside swirled along its own path: The economic crash that began to swell at the end of that year crested with the mortgage crisis in 2008. And with that, what initially began as a personal project became emblematic of what was going on in the rest of the U.S. All that a home symbolized—security, safety, stability—was washed away as many lost the roofs over their heads and just as many were left underwater.* Hundreds of thousands learned the hard way that going from point A to B wouldn't necessarily let them reside comfortably at C.

And, so here we are instead, floating in a sea of neon pink, with a wave of flames to remind us of all this. It's a gorgeous print (that looks even better framed!)—I want it for my own home—a small apartment in Brooklyn, which I do not own.

*I'm speaking metaphorically—though floods, fires, earthquakes and other natural disasters, too, of course, have unfortunately taken homes and livelihoods from many.

slow ending by Yosuke Yamaguchi

Triumphant Wednesday greetings, collector friends! Today's edition—slow ending, by Tokyo-based painter Yosuke Yamaguchi—is one I've been looking forward to releasing for quite a while, and it's such a joy to be able to do it. How its release evolved is a testament to what makes me love my job so very much, and also, in a weird way, why I love the internet as much as I do. (Which is to say: A WHOLE LOT.) 20x200 is all about connecting collectors like you to amazing artists like Yosuke, but it's also a thriving ecosystem of artists connecting with each other, and all the wonderful things that hatch from such intersections. I daresay that none of it would be possible without this here interwebs, and for that (among other things!) it gets my undying gratitude.

I discovered Yosuke's slow ending on the internet back in February and was captivated by it (and his other work as well). My pursuit of doing an edition of it was fueled, as things so often are with me, by the challenge of Getting It Done. Unlike many people, Yosuke was something of an enigmatic person when it came to internet presence,* and the mystery of who/what/where was further heightened by the bulk of that presence being written in Japanese. (This charming interview with the photographer Patrick Tsai sheds more light on Yosuke himself and his lovely work.) Anyhow, flush with fervor to conquer this challenge, I set about finding this mystery artist. I knew immediately that I wanted to do an edition with this particular image, and was also hoping to buy the original painting itself. (SOLD, unsurprisingly and alas, by the time we connected.)

Here's where that interconnected artist ecosystem comes into play, with Hot Shot, 20x200 edition-maker and now JBG-represented photographer Chikara Umihara playing a pivotal role in Getting It Done. I reached out to Chikara (via The Facebook, natch) asking him to serve as both emissary and translator in my quest to connect with my new favorite Japanese painter. He went above and beyond a mere email introduction, meeting up with Yosuke in person in Tokyo to talk about 20x200, the gallery and his experiences working with our whole team.

Thankfully, things proceeded swimmingly from there on out, with emails and files and certs making their way across ether and ocean at a most pleasing clip. Part of what's so heartening about this whole experience is how the tragic circumstances of the tsunami and its aftermath (the Proverbial Elephant in the Room, if you will!) did little to deter our progress. Patrick, our aforementioned photographer and interviewer explains why in a way better than I can possibly explain myself, so I'll let a quote from him close out today's missive:

A couple weeks before the quake, my friend and I... had started a blog called Talking Barnacles to introduce Japanese artists abroad, but then one day Japan got torn into pieces. Immediately afterwards I noticed a lot of little things amongst the big things that everyone was talking about; and I thought that those little things should be mentioned as well before they were forgotten, so my friend let me take over this site, and now it is what it is… an ongoing diary about disaster, family, friendships, love, pain, loneliness and everything else that goes along with living.

*It's worth noting that his online presence has evolved considerably since then—his work has gotten on the radar of several notable blogs.

12 Bicycle Drawings by Christine Berrie

Hi collectors, it's Sara. Today's edition couldn't have been better timed. And yet, as crazy wonderful things often do, it all came about serendipitously. A few months ago, Jen and I were looking at a bunch of colorful and classically clean drawings from Christine Berrie and I got so excited when I saw 12 Bicycle Drawings. It's clever and charming, yes, and emblematic of her most engaging work—to see more of what I'm talking about, browse her previous prints and pick up a copy of the latest issue of Dwell magazine, where she's illustrated a full spread on Italian design.

But that's not all I was thinking of. You see, I had been hoping to indulge the request of my sister Katie's boyfriend, Travis, to feature more art that he might like. You know, like, more art with bikes in it. So I said, hmm, I'll see what we can do. (He also asked why all of our prints don't come framed and I said, hmm, I'll see what we can do...)

A smart and articulate guy, Travis is always willing to engage in a conversation about art and what we do here at 20x200 but has been slightly resistant to the whole "art for everyone" idea. He is a fan of bikes and biking, though, and I know he's not alone. There are lots among you who love Tatsuro Kiuchi's Car Free (and rightfully so, the car-full world is crazy, even in the bike lane). And as you know, we love introducing people to art and collecting and supporting artists through something else that they already know and love—something that does not seem so foreign and inaccessible—like a favorite color, animal or sport. So after making it my mission to keep an eye out for more two-wheeled delights, I was so pleased to see Ms. Berrie's bikes. We knew right then that this drawing would become an edition and put it on the calendar for this very day.

And then, just yesterday afternoon, Travis insisted that he and Katie take their mountain bikes up into the hills to ride (she loves biking, too). And, even though the skies above Bozeman, Montana, (where they live) were heavy and dark, and even though the car didn't start after they had loaded up their bikes and their dog, Tigger, for the drive to the trail, he stubbornly persisted. Eventually, they were side-by-side, on their bikes and on the trail. And not too much later, they were stopped. Tigger ran out into the woods, and when he came back, Katie saw something shiny dangling from his collar. And Travis was off his bike and lowering himself to one knee. He asked Katie if she would help him make each next day better than the last, he asked if she would spend her life with him, he asked if she would marry him.

And my radiant, my sweet, my only sister (my fellow giraffe), she got off her bike, and she said yes.

FUP1968010K003 + FUP1968010K052 by Paul Fusco

Buenos dias from Cadaqués, a little slice of Catalonian heaven on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. I'm here on vacation, celebrating a milestone birthday of a very dear friend, but a break in festivities is well warranted for today's editions. The monumental body of work they're drawn from—Paul Fusco's RFK Funeral Train—is historically significant and has had enormous personal significance to me as well, fueling my determination to see them released as editions on 20x200. (I can't deny that this determination felt Quixotic at times.) That they're actually being offered took quite a bit more than sheer determination, however. Gratitude and thanks go to Susan Meiselas,* a major photographer in her own right and the President of the Magnum Foundation, who smoothed and sped the path to their creation as editions benefiting this venerable organization.

FUP1968010K003 by Paul Fusco

I've always considered myself to have a relatively firm grasp on the story surrounding RFK's assassination, and of the other major events that came before and after it. A major arc of our recent history, I had vague knowledge of its location, the assassin and the public gatherings and national mourning that it precipitated. ‪Missing from all that was true understanding of what it actually meant—comprehension of its importance‬. That understanding came much later, on the 40th anniversary of Kennedy's death, an epiphany that was unlocked by the tremendously talented Paul Fusco, who captured, frame by frame, the nation's grief as it unfolded alongside the railway tracks that led Kennedy's body to its final resting place.

Encountered first online, via a New York Times slideshow, the Kodachrome images hit me like a proverbial ton of bricks. I immediately set to IMing friends and/or forwarding links to everyone I knew. For weeks (actually years…) on end, I was likely to recommend it to any person who I had a conversation with. I seriously considered buying a print from Danziger Projects, reckless as such a consideration was in light of my financial instability, wanting so very badly to support the artist who made this work, and to thank James Danziger himself for mounting the brilliantly curated exhibition that he did. I couldn't wait to get Aperture's then forthcoming monograph into my hot little hands.

FUP1968010K052 by Paul Fusco

Discovering Fusco's tremendous body of work viscerally and urgently connected me to an event that was until then a fuzzy part of a somewhat distant history. Once made, that connection led to having the most incredible conversations with people about their connections with it. It was an event so seismic, so irreversible in terms of a tamping out a certain kind of optimism and hope, and one that most certainly changed the course of history. The sheer number of people who gathered to watch the train's slow progression from NYC to D.C. is its tragedy writ large, but each individual face in those crowds tells its story in a different, quiet and unsettlingly affecting way.

It's an incredible honor to have the opportunity to share that work with all of you today, and to offer two photographs from the series as 20x200 editions. A significant portion of the proceeds from these editions will benefit the Magnum Foundation. We worked closely with Mr. Fusco himself to select FUP1968010K003 and FUP1968010K052, which are being offered only as a pair.

* Susan led the charge, but huge thanks are also due to John Jacobs, Whitney Johnson, Megan Parker, the always incredible 20x200 team and, of course, Mr. Paul Fusco himself, whom Sara and I had the great pleasure of collaborating with to select images for the series.

Off Season by Joseph O. Holmes

Happy Thursday, collectors—it's Sara, with an early summer salutation courtesy of Joseph O. Holmes. As many of you know, Joe has held a pretty special place in the JBP family for some time now: he's one of 20x200's superstars, with a total of 17 editions over the past several years—many of which have sold out. He was a Hey, Hot Shot! Ne Plus Ultra back in 2006, and the only person to ever win the competition twice (in the Fall of 2005 and 2006). He's participated in several group shows at Jen Bekman Gallery and had his first solo exhibition there last winter. In short, Joe is adored for the pictures he takes, but he's also got a way with words—so, I'm going to let him give you the spin on Off Season. In his artist statement, he writes:

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Coney Island has only ever existed in one of two discrete states—as either the rococo, wedding-cake parks of the Steeplechase, Dreamland and Luna Park, or the more recent quasi-sleaze of the Sideshow and Shoot the Freak.

But from just the right vantage point, when the sun is low and the light rakes the structures, if you squint your eyes and let the shadows swallow the razor wire and chain-link fences, it's still possible to see the silhouette of some earlier transitional state, all circles and curves and sweeping roller coaster lines. If not exactly Dreamland, perhaps you can glimpse some phantom Coney Island that flashed in and out of existence in the wink of an eye.

One final note for all of you photographers out there: If you'd like to join Joe's ranks, this is your reminder that the Hey, Hot Shot! First Edition 2011 competition closes in just a few weeks. If you haven't yet submitted an entry, you're missing out. Among the great prizes (and unrivaled exposure, support and recognition!) are a $500 honorarium for the Hot Shots and the opportunity to exhibit work in a group show at JBG. Plus (!) all of the work submitted is reviewed for participation on 20x200. Our diverse panel of photography professionals, in conjunction with the JBP curatorial team, select the winning entrants. One grand prize winner is awarded $10,000, a solo exhibition and representation by JBG.

Already, the competition has awarded over 135 emerging and established photographers (including Joe!) unparalleled opportunities and exposure. The entry fee is $70, but will rise again incrementally throughout the remainder of the competition. With the deadline set at June 22nd at 8:00 p.m. ET, the earlier you submit, the better. Don't delay. And while you're at it, be sure to check out the HHS! blog for daily contender posts to scope out what your competitors are submitting.

Let Love In by Sean Greene

Wicked Wednesday greetings, collectors. NYC is in full summer swelter, which has me contemplating greener (and shadier!) pastures and seeking air-conditioned shelter till I can make my escape. Today's edition, our second by Northampton, MA-based painter Sean Greene, is also soothing in its own way. The heat might be making me crazy, but the rich hues of Let Love In evoke the sweet refreshment found in Italian ices consumed in summers past, the kind that came in wax paper cups and were eaten with flat, wooden spoons.

Evocations of such simple pleasures aside, it must be noted that Sean has much more than Marino's Italian Ice on his mind when making his intensely pigmented, sensuously curvy abstractions, deriving a very different (and considerably more cerebral!) pleasure from their making. In his statement, he writes:

These contours, structures and paths give me a way to control the number of times colors mix, as well as locate areas of hotness or contrast, allowing me to create rhythm and balance within a sometimes tumultuous situation. I find deep satisfaction in the way that these forms imply typography, symbols, graffiti and other forms of visual expression. It makes sense to me to develop shapes that ask to be read or deciphered.

If you're going to be in the Berkshires anytime soon (you lucky duck) be sure to swing by the Geoffrey Young Gallery on Railroad Street, where you'll have the opportunity to see in person the original painting this print is based on. That original sold on opening night, however, so today's 20x200 edition is the only way to let Let Love In into your life. The exhibition, entitled Traction, features work by Vince Contarino, Mr. Sean Greene himself and another member of the 20x200 fam—and someone whose smiling face is often seen at Jen Bekman Gallery openings—Gary Petersen.

For those of us not fortunate enough to have a Berkshires sojourn on our agendas, we can look to the interwebs for a deeper exploration of Sean's work. You should check out his site, follow him on Twitter and see his not-to-be-missed first 20x200 edition, Try Letting Go.

Breidalsvik, Iceland by Bob O'Connor

Welcome back after the long weekend, collectors! It's Sara, with a much-awaited second edition from Bob O'Connor. The sequel to the sold-out Laugarás, Iceland, Breiðdalsvík, Iceland is as stunning.

When Jen introduced Laugarás, she wrote: It's peaceful and epic at the same time. The color palette of the sky, the grass and the windblown horse are subtle and soft, and their beauty is enhanced by the richness of the muddy earth in the foreground... It's one of those pictures that makes me want to tell a million stories...

Breiðdalsvík, Iceland, too, inspires tales of adventure, of travels past and future. The promise of impossibly fresh air, infinite horizons, dewy, flower-flecked grass and endless expanses of green all spark wanderlust. Like the lone horse in Laugarás, Iceland, the slide in Breiðdalsvík inhabits a surreal landscape, made all the more unbelievable by the presence of the slide itself—seemingly randomly settled in the middle of nowhere, it invites anyone and everyone who happens upon this place to play. As we return to the day-to-day, Breiðdalsvík enables inescapable daydreaming—the surest sign of the unofficial start of summer.

The Distance is Closer by Ky Anderson

Passing Through by Ky Anderson

Hi collectors, it's Sara. I've been coveting Ky Anderson's work since Jen introduced her first edition, Many Mountains, in 2007. I've since seen that print in the homes of friends, including those who work at major institutions and know art and some who are new to collecting, too. These sightings always make me feel closer to people—a mutual affection for an artist's work is one more thing we have in common, one more thing to talk about, and even if we don't talk about it, it's one more thing to chalk up in the column of reasons why we knew we'd be friends.

Ky's work is gorgeous, soft and comforting, but it's also a little unsettling. It's abstract, but there are also things we can nearly identify. In both The Distance is Closer and Passing Through, I can see the lines and shapes that make the waves in this drawing by the late, great Louise Bourgeois. You can see some of the other things that Ky might be thinking about in her work by studying the smart art collection she's amassed—which includes more than a few works from fellow 20x200 artists. Of her collection, she says: "The majority of my collection consists of people I know and have known for most of my life. I identify the art with the person who made it. It comforts me and makes me feel at home to live with their work."

Because of the sheer love I have for her work, and because it makes me think of Bourgeois, in a way that I think Ky probably thinks of her too (she does), and because I admire her personal collection so, I knew I would like Ky when we finally had the chance to work together in creating these editions. And I did. The rest is a happily-ever-after of sorts that lets you all be a part of the story as well.

Animal Locomotion; Plate 197 (Couple Dancing) by Eadweard Muybridge

Muggy, damp Tuesday greetings, collector friends. Sticky weather aside, I'm thrilled to be back in NYC after a wonderful week in San Francisco. The confab was, well, fabulous. Particularly gratifying this year: selling framed prints right off the wall. It is so cool to see so many smiley people walking out the door with their new acquisitions tucked under their arms. And, as always, the chance to mix and mingle with our collectors face-to-face is both invaluable and inspiring. It's a nice change of pace from imagining all of you as I tap away at my keyboard, and hearing all your stories, ideas and feedback makes the why of what we do that much more real.

Animal Locomotion; Plate 197 (Couple Dancing) comes with Bay Area roots and an excellent back story. Its creator is the legendary Eadweard Muybridge. English by birth, Muybridge made a name for himself in San Francisco with his pioneering work on animal locomotion, unraveling its mysteries through stop-motion photography and the earliest projections of motion pictures—the series dates back to 1887.

Releasing vintage images has always figured into the broader vision of 20x200, but like many (so! many!) of the other ideas we've got about what the site can and should be, it's remained on the back burner for a long time. A Valentine's Day blog post by my friend and fellow art dealer James Danziger proved to be just the thing to make the idea a reality. I was utterly charmed by James' tale of his pursuit of this image, its subsequent disappearance and resurfacing, and was especially intrigued by his alluding to the idea of printing reproductions of it. Being the type of person who will ask anyone anything, and having long wanted to collaborate with James on something or other, I immediately fired off an email to him with the subject line: "We should do an edition with the Muybridge!" The rest, my friends, is about to be history.

Supporting contemporary artists in their practices is, and will always be, core to 20x200's mission. The introduction of vintage editions today is a key component to furthering and expanding upon that mission. Naysayers and skeptics are sure to look askance at such a statement, which takes me back to 2007. Back then, the idea of translating the sales of affordable prints into substantive support for artists was deemed preposterous by almost anyone I told. I'm pretty excited about how we're planning to use proceeds from sales of these editions—while we're not 100% ready to unveil our full plans yet, you can purchase this print today knowing that a substantial portion of its proceeds will be funneled into 20x200's newly formed Artists' Fund.

Traveling by Mike Perry

Confab-ulous greetings, collectors! We're all running around San Francisco readying for tonight's Collectors' Confab, but I wanted to (needed to!) take a quick break to introduce today's edition. Mike Perry was one of the very first artists we worked with in 2007. Can I just share how bewildered I am at a) how fast time flies and b) how much great stuff has happened since then? When I introduced him last, I was extolling his talents in graphics and typography. Today's edition, Traveling, is no different: his layers upon layers of colors and shapes create endless mini-landscapes and sights to see (see what I did there? sightseeing? traveling?!).

Mike has been like a member of the JBP family since we met, all those years ago, through edition-maker and good friend Kate Bingaman-Burt. When I saw his cheekily-titled book Hand Job: A Catalog of Type, I knew we had to hold an event to celebrate its publication. (Both artists live and breathe their work and design, and their process is fascinating to behold.) Three books later, Mike is still putting his many multidisciplinary talents to use in his latest, Pulled: A Catalog of Screen Printing. You can (should!) order it here.

So here's where it gets interesting: Several of Mike's books have been published by Princeton Architectural Press, which was recently acquired by the McEvoy Group, becoming a part of the Chronicle Books family. Between Chronicle Books and Princeton Architectural Press, there are many artists we've worked with who have also made beautiful books (and yet, there's more to come!).

And with that, off to prepare for tonight's event I go! And if you're in the San Francisco Bay Area tonight, be sure to stop by Chronicle Books for our Fourth Annual Collectors' Confab. There will be prints (framed and unframed) for purchase and, thanks to our friends at Square, credit card transactions will be a cinch. RSVP at rsvp@20x200.com.

Fourth Annual Collectors' Confab at Chronicle Books
Who: Collectors, Artists & Team 20x200
What: 20x200 Collectors' Confab
When: Thursday, May 19th | 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Where: Chronicle Books | 680 Second Street (btwn Brannan + Townsend) San Francisco, CA

Road to Bonneville Raceway, Tooele County, Utah by Stuart Klipper

Salutations from San Francisco, friends! It's Sara—presenting our fourth edition from Stuart Klipper. Jen first introduced you to Stuart's work a couple years ago, in celebration of Collectors' Confab number two. On the eve of our fourth annual soiree, it seems apropos to come full circle with a new print from Mr. Klipper. Our friends (and hosts) at Chronicle Books published a gorgeous tome of his photos, The Antarctic: From the Circle to the Pole.

In that book, you'll find Stuart's first editions—Swell, Southern Ocean near 50 S, Antarctica and Icebreaker, Emperor penguin, Southern O., Antarctica—photographs from his travels to the coldest climates, in the most desolate of places. Road to Bonneville Raceway, Tooele County, Utah is from a different body of work—The World in a Few States—a series he's been working on since 1979.

That Stuart's been working on this project longer than I've been alive comes as no surprise, as I wrote when introducing Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica, "his sense of adventure is equaled only by his photographic fervor: he's super prolific, leaving panoramic peeks of the farthest reaches of the world in his wake." His dedication to his practice has reaped rewards; among other things, his photographs have been exhibited in, and collected by, major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and the Walker Art Center. Road to Bonneville Raceway, Tooele County, Utah, in fact, resides in the Smithsonian's collection. He's been awarded major grants, including two each from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Bush Foundation, and three each from the McKnight Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Stuart's success is just one of many things we'll be celebrating tomorrow—stellar artists, great art and good cheer will abound. See you then?

Fourth Annual Collectors' Confab at Chronicle Books
Who: Collectors, Artists & Team 20x200
What: 20x200 Collectors' Confab
When: Thursday, May 19th | 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Where: Chronicle Books | 680 Second Street (btwn Brannan + Townsend) San Francisco, CA

Mushrooms (from the series Meanwhile, Farmers' Market Farmers) by Wendy MacNaughton

Vegetables (from the series Meanwhile, Farmers' Market Farmers) by Wendy MacNaughton

Greetings, collectors! It's Sara, on this rainy NYC morning—one hop, skip and a jump away from (hopefully) sunnier San Francisco, where I'll be joining Jen and a few other 20x200 all-stars and artists for our Fourth Annual Collectors' Confab at Chronicle Books. Will we see you there? If you're anywhere near the Bay Area, do stop by this Thursday evening from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., but please be sure to RSVP at rsvp@20x200.com.

Today, I have two new prints from SF-based wonder woman Wendy MacNaughton. Mushrooms and Vegetables, from the series Farmers' Market Farmers, are a part of her larger body of work Meanwhile, an illustrated documentary series. Formerly a social worker, non-profit campaign director, used book-seller and film producer (among other things), Wendy now works as an artist/journalist, often highlighting the lives of those less often seen and studied.

Farmers' Market Farmers features both the people who cultivate, grow and sell the fine fresh produce depicted in Mushrooms and Vegetables—their family histories, daily lives, long days and interactions with others—as well as the fruits of their labors. Wendy celebrates both the metaphorical—communities built, cities changed, friendships forged—and the literal—chanterelles, white trumpets, artichokes and leeks. It's a feast for all!

IMAN No. 1 by David Bowie

Greetings, collectors! I'm terribly excited to introduce today's edition, which was created by none other than legendary musician and iconoclast David Bowie. Yes, THE David Bowie. Of "Space Oddity" and Ch-ch-changes fame. That's the one (and only)! And guess what, there are 10 (yes, you read that right, only 10) prints available in this very special edition so if you want one, go on, get one, now.

IMAN No. 1 is a portrait of his wife, supermodel and fashion icon Iman. Proceeds from the sale of these prints benefit Housing Works' "Get a Room" program—which provides housing for homeless people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. Iman herself co-hosted last week's Design on a Dime event, where the first of these ten prints made its striking debut in the "dream boudoir" room vignette designed by my ever-talented BFF Robert Verdi and Iman for IMAN Home.

This marks the second benefit edition we've released that supports Housing Works' "Get a Room" program. Eccentric Glamour by Simon Doonan—Barneys New York Creative Ambassador-at-Large—debuted on 20x200 last week. Get your hands on one or both and we can all be "Heroes" (but not just for one day) by helping out Housing Works' "Get a Room" program.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HOUSING WORKS?

Housing Works is a healing community of people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. Their mission is to end the dual crises of homelessness and AIDS through relentless advocacy, the provision of lifesaving services and entrepreneurial businesses that sustain their efforts. Learn more about their services.

Tree Study I by Beth Dow

Hello, collectors! It's Sara, with a quick note to introduce our fifth edition from Beth Dow. It's also a first—a subtly saturated departure from her gorgeous black and white prints, Tree Study 1 debuts Dow's color work.

Since she had her very first NYC solo show at Jen Bekman Gallery way back in 2007 (when 20x200 was a wee baby!), we've been watching Beth's practice unfold. In Fieldwork and In the Garden, Beth married her methods—old school, printed-by-hand, platinum-palladium prints created from digitally enlarged negatives—with her subject matter—studies of the strange and mysterious ways we humans better or damage (which is it?) the land. On landscapes unfettered and fettered gardens alike, our own human nature is inflicted on nature nature.

Beth's recent addition of subdued hues lends this archival pigment print a layer of lusciousness, further obscuring the weirdness of manicured English gardens, in particular. Their slightly unnatural tint was lent by an oncoming storm that eventually rendered the light totally green. It seems, um, natural, that these works were made strikingly, unusually beautiful by something beyond Beth's precise control of exposure, process and frame.

The persistent popularity of Beth's works have left most of her editions sold out or nearly so—if Tree Study 1 strikes your fancy, pick it up, stat.

Garden Delight by Michelle Muldrow

Brilliantly gorgeous Tuesday greetings, collector friends! I've officially got spring fever, with thoughts of beach houses, lazy days and ocean breezes making it hard to focus on matters at hand. It's not as if retraining my focus is much of a chore, though, seeing as how I have the best job in the world. I work with an amazingly talented, ever-widening circle of people and spend my days surrounded by the art that many of them make.

Michelle Muldrow is a recent and most welcome addition to our benevolent ecosystem. Cathedrals of Desire, her solo exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery, was heralded with Icon, her first 20x200 print. A few Fridays ago, we celebrated its debut with a warm and wonderful opening reception that included many far-flung members of her charming clan. Today, I exhort you to go see her gorgeous paintings in person before the show closes on Sunday, June 5th and offer up her second 20x200 edition, Garden Delight.

For more background on Michelle's work, check out the newsletter I wrote introducing Icon. For further incentive to make your way to 6 Spring Street to see Michelle's original paintings, I'll leave you with some installation shots of the exhibition and a few words from our gallery's Director, Jeffrey Teuton:

The large size works really allow you to be surrounded and fall in to the image, experiencing the work in a way that does not translate to the screen. Gallery visitors really have a strong reaction to them in person; most everyone spends a great deal of time with them. It is really magical to watch people engage with Michelle's paintings, and I want everyone to have that experience.

Eccentric Glamour by Simon Doonan

Thrilling Thursday greetings, collectors! I'm terribly excited about today's edition for myriad reasons. Let me count the ways:

- First and foremost, HELLO, Simon Doonan. I adore you, your exuberance and your views on things like camp and especially your exhortations for people of all stripes to lay claim to their own Eccentric Glamour.

- Speaking of Eccentric Glamour, Simon's been incredibly kind and generous in allowing us to create this exclusive edition, which is the cover illustration of his fabulously inspiring book by the same name.

- And by generous, I mean: proceeds from the sale of this edition will benefit an organization most worthy, Housing Works.

- And (and!) it's all so perfectly timed, because Housing Works' Design on a Dime benefit is tonight, and at that benefit is a room designed by Iman (Yes, THAT Iman!) and my BFF Robert Verdi (yes, that Robert Verdi) and in that room, in all its glory, hangs a 20"x16" print of this very edition.

- Also, OMG... I get to go to tonight's event. Which is part of the reason why I am so freaking hyper this morning, because ummm: What am I going to wear?! Will it be eccentric enough? (Likely.) Glamorous enough? (Lie to me, Simon darling.) Will my heels be high enough to see eye-to-eye with Iman? (Not a chance.)

All of this is to say: I gotta go. And you should get going your own selves, because I have a feeling that I'm not the only person who loves Simon and Housing Works and glamour and everything good in the world, and all of those people are putting today's edition in their carts right now. So go on, get one.

WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HOUSING WORKS & DESIGN ON A DIME?

Housing Works is a healing community of people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. Their mission is to end the dual crises of homelessness and AIDS through relentless advocacy, the provision of lifesaving services and entrepreneurial businesses that sustain their efforts. Learn more about their services.

Housing Works’ seventh-annual Design on a Dime takes place from May 5 to 7 at the Metropolitan Pavilion at 125 West 18th street. The May 5th ticketed benefit begins at 7:00 p.m. and is followed by public days with free entry on Friday, May 6th (10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.) and Saturday, May 7th (10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.). Visit their site for a complete list of designers or to purchase opening night tickets.

Old Camera by Todd McLellan

Good day, collectors! It's Sara, with an announcement full of photo geekery, gadgetry and goodness. There is of course, the Pentax-packed print you see above and the much anticipated announcement of the opening of the First Edition 2011 Hey, Hot Shot! competition. The competition opens (drumroll, please... wait for it...) TOMORROW, May 5th, 2011.

Since its inception in 2005, Hey, Hot Shot! has provided one hundred and thirty-five photographers from all over the world with unrivaled exposure, support and recognition. With a longstanding history of incredible opportunities being awarded to hundreds of artists, we encourage photographers at all stages of their careers to enter the competition. You'll be in the running for a $10,000 grand prize with countless other invaluable opportunities to be had along the way, including the chance to see your work here. Right here, on 20x200! Yesterday's gorgeous edition from the 2010 grand-prize HHS! winner, Chikara Umihara, is just one of dozens of prints we've created with photographers found through Hey, Hot Shot! and there's more to come. The competition is the only way for photographers to submit work for consideration for 20x200 editions. Sign up for the HHS! newsletter to stay up to date on the competition's opening and ongoing news.

If you fancy yourself more of a fan than a photographer, today's print Old Camera by Todd McLellan just might satisfy the shutterbug within you. This dismantled simple machine joins ranks with Todd's Old Typewriter and Old Flip Clock. Affinities for these seemingly ancient objects run deep. My very first camera was a hand-me-down, classic Pentax K1000 and I'm guessing it was the first for many of you, too. I don't take that many pictures these days but never lost my love for the medium. And I can tell you, one of the next best things to making images is supporting those who are in the thick of making work, which is exactly what you're doing when you buy prints here—supporting artists at work. Opportunities for artists and the people who love them abound!

Rainfall, Upstate New York by Chikara Umihara

Tuesday greetings, collectors! It's a lovely springtime day here in NYC and I'm just about recovered from last week's excitement, which included a whirlwind trip to San Francisco with Sara, returning just in time for Michelle Muldrow's fantastic opening at JBG and our eagerly anticipated announcement of 2010's Hey, Hot Shot! winner. As Sara mentioned last week, it was tough to make a decision with five great artists to choose from: Laura Bell, Michael Bodiam, Amy Stevens, Zhijie Sui and Chikara Umihara. When all was said and done, though, Sara, Jeffrey and I came to a unanimous decision and selected none other than today's edition-maker, the world-wandering Chikara Umihara.

Rainfall, Upstate New York is a very different photograph than Untitled, from the series Aggressive Girls, an edition we released a few weeks back from Chikara's body of work that initially captured our panel's attention. Similarly, the Chikara we met in person was very different than the person we imagined the maker of such a series might be. During his last two trips to NYC, everyone here at JBP has been glad to have the opportunity to spend lots of time finally getting to know him. I've certainly grown quite fond of him, although differences in culture and language can be strange mediators in new relationships. I think that's why I found his statement about Rainfall to be so charming and affecting. My forthright, sometimes-bordering-on-overbearing-mama-bear way feels utterly at odds with Chikara's much more reserved nature, but the frankness of his statement accompanying Rainfall reassures me that the person beyond that reserve is as interested in being known as he is in knowing.

With Chikara starting the MFA program at University of Hartford shortly, our getting-to-know-each-other prospects are excellent. We're so thrilled to continue our collaboration with him as he enters this exciting new phase of his career, and our hope is that the good stuff that comes with being selected as our Ultra—the $10,000 grant and gallery representation—will help pave the brightest of paths.

F--- you. Pay me. by Mike Monteiro

Have you heard the news? Our very own Mike Monteiro has taken his internet famousness to new heights! His recent Creative Mornings talk about the business side of being a designer has been extremely well-received and made online headlines all across the ether. It was awfully amusing to see how the various outlets handled the title of the talk, laced as it is with such colorful language. The challenge of presenting such verbiage is something we became familiar with ourselves just a few editions ago, when we released William Powhida's You. Emboldened by the success of that endeavor, we were delighted to create this edition based on Mike's talk's title, and hope that we'll soon be seeing it hung in creative workspaces all across the land.

F--- you. Pay me. does have sensationalism on its side, but the underlying message—one that encourages honesty, transparency and self-respect—is not to be overlooked. Mike might talk big (and I like it when he does!) but he's also being incredibly generous by allowing others to learn from his mistakes. I also think he's probably the only person in the history of all time who became even MORE likeable because he brought his lawyer along.

This edition is but one of nine we've released with Mike—and just one small gem from his ongoing repartee. If you're like me and have a high tolerance for foul-mouthed straight-talkers, you should follow his (not for the faint of heart and usually NSFW!) Twitter feed.

Studio, All Over Coffee #392 by Paul Madonna

San Francisco spring greetings, collectors! It's very fitting that I'm writing from here—not only because this is my home away from home (and I've written many a dispatch from here), but also because today's edition, Studio, All Over Coffee #392, is from San Francisco-based artist Paul Madonna.

Paul's always-charming ink wash drawings touch upon the everyday, often in a playful way. We were super excited to release his Balsa planes #3 and Balsa planes #4 last winter, just in time for the Mixtape exhibition at the JBG and, of course, gift-giving season. Loaded as they are with nostalgia (both for me and Sara), the planes and Album 1 (with its prominent Fisher-Price record player), tug at the ole heartstrings.

In Studio, All Over Coffee #392, Paul brings the viewer into his workspace. He is sharing with us his studio, which happens to be (as he recently told 7x7 magazine*) his most prized possession: "Can you call an art studio a possession? I often fantasize about it—the tables, the lighting and rows of bookshelves. I daydream about amassing a great library someday." In this particular corner of his space, though, we don't see Paul's books but instead, a Pez dispenser, neatly organized inks, toy figurines and (OMG) finger puppets!

Not long ago on one-among-many trips to San Francisco, I stumbled across an installation of Paul's drawings in Ritual Roasters on Valencia, which featured, of course, the finger puppets! I've had an attachment to these weird rubbery creatures since receiving one as a gift years ago. Randomly, artist and curator Melanie Flood gave me one on the night we met, out with mutual friend and artist, Jason Polan. I can't remember where we were or what we did, but the finger puppet—whose gradient colors flow gaudily from yellow to orange to purple—is currently perched atop the ledge of my Chambers stove and serves always as a reminder of the evening. I think of Melanie and Jason every time I look at it—and also, now, of Paul.

Back at Ritual Roasters, seeing one of those wacky finger puppets made me think fondly of not just Paul and the editions we'd done with him (and the book those drawings were published in), but also of my experiences in San Francisco. It made me think, too, of home, where my finger puppet lives, of Melanie and Jason and of how familiar objects anchor and connect you in unexpected ways to others, to memories, to yourself.

So at that point, I realized we really ought to do an edition with a drawing of Paul's that had at least one of the weird finger puppets in it. Lucky us, this one has THREE. (One of which, by the way, looks an awful lot like the one that Melanie gifted me all those years ago.)

This print is also part of Paul's new book, Everything is its Own Reward: An All Over Coffee Collection. If you find yourself in San Francisco, Paul will be signing copies at Electric Works this Friday, April 29th, from 7 to 10 p.m.

* You can read the whole interview here in this PDF.

Old Flip Clock by Todd McLellan

Thursday* Surprise Saturday greetings, collectors. It's Sara, with a quick note to bring you a brand new print by master disassembler and creator of organization from chaos: Todd McLellan.

Old Flip Clock features a trusty time-telling steed, gloriously gutted. Bound only by screws and glue, its pieces easily—and more importantly, non-toxically—come apart. Cleverly, McLellan has arranged all of its spirals and springs, numbers and other unidentifiable things into a skeleton of sorts: what once made this clock tick-tock now lies here.

But don't fret, this is no sad end, friends! Just as this is not the first of Todd's

Disassembly series we've presented, it also won't be the last—we'll have another edition from Mr. McLellan in a snap and flash (and yes, that is a hint). Additional news to be excited about: next week we'll be popping up with a new crop of neatly assembled framed prints for your perusal. Till then!

* This edition was originally scheduled to reach your inbox on Thursday. Many of you might have noticed that several sites, including ours, were down that day, due to an Amazon Cloud outage. Thanks for your patience and understanding as we dealt with this widespread problem. We didn't want to inundate your inbox with both the Friday Flash and a new edition yesterday, so here we are today, instead!

Untitled (Sarah & Arnold) by Michael Bodiam

Untitled (Red Carpet) by Michael Bodiam

Good morning, collectors! It's Sara, with our first pair of prints from London-based photographer Michael Bodiam. Michael was one of five photographers selected in our 2010 Hey, Hot Shot! photography competition. He exhibited his work alongside fellow Hot Shots Laura Bell, Amy Stevens, Zhijie Sui and Chikara Umihara at Jen Bekman Gallery earlier this year. And now, all five photographers are in the running for the $10,000-and-two-years-of-gallery-representation grand prize. I'm excited to report that we'll be announcing the winner and opening the first round of competition in 2011 very, very soon. Among other things, HHS! is the only way for photographers to submit work to be reviewed for 20x200, so if that's something you've wondered about, stay tuned.

Similarly to yesterday's new print, Icon by Michelle Muldrow, Michael's photographs, Untitled (Sarah & Arnold) and Untitled (Red Carpet), highlight sites of commerce. Unlike Michelle's work, though, which focuses on the ongoing—and seemingly, increasingly pervasive and invasive—role of consumerism in contemporary American culture, Michael's photographs document what relics remain and sentiments persist after the fall of an economy.

Untitled (Sarah & Arnold) and Untitled (Red Carpet), from Michael's series Dickins & Jones, are also a good foil to Brian Ulrich's series of post-December 2007 closed storefronts, Dark Stores. But unlike Brian's photographs, which keep a distance from their subjects and seem to wonder what happens next, Michael's pictures bring us close and cryptically allude to what happened then—when these spaces were populated by people and things, shoppers and garments to be had. Michael's images of the now empty stores are carefully composed, surfacing small details—paint stains, a particular kind and color of carpet, wear and tear. What is absent becomes more present, hinting subtly at the life—both public and private—that these spaces formerly had. Associate Director of Jen Bekman Gallery Jeffrey Teuton notes that, "There is so much energy and vibrancy coming out of these static spaces. They are at once quiet and deafening. It is as if the rise and fall of the spaces is happening all at once in front of you and in a split second you are left standing there in silence, with nothing but dizzying memories."

Icon by Michelle Muldrow

Tuesday greetings, collectors, and the warmest of welcomes to those of you who are receiving your very first edition announcement after discovering 20x200 on the Today show yesterday morning. (There are lots of you!)

We are pleased and proud to be hosting Cathedrals of Desire, the NYC solo debut of the fabulously talented painter Michelle Muldrow at Jen Bekman Gallery. We're so looking forward to the opening reception next Friday, April 29th, from 6 to 8 p.m., and we're not the only ones! Her gorgeous paintings created quite a buzz when we showed them at the PULSE Contemporary Art Fair last month, selling out in a snap. Many of her would-be collectors marked their calendars for the event, and quite a few of them have eagerly inquired about available inventory ahead of time. Icon, Michelle's first 20x200 edition, is an archival pigment print based on an original painting that's included in the exhibition.

At its heart, Michelle's work is an exploration of the idea that consumerism has replaced religion as a social anchor in contemporary culture. The places and things she is depicting are so mundane that there is no doubt as to what they are as actual things. But, to some extent we've blinded ourselves to the meaning that we've invested in them. By placing manufactured landscapes and their contents in a religious/devotional/ecstatic framework, Michelle makes plain the uncomfortable truths of our consumer culture. Our cathedrals are big box stores and our icons are shopping carts.

Michelle's pursuit is a calculated one; surely she understands the futility of trying to imbue these barren, generic landscapes and the things in them with a depth of meaning on par with the foundations of religion and of God himself. But in attempting to do so, in a strange way, she underscores how all of it is an invention, a manifestation of our urge to make meaning out of what's unknowable.

You by William Powhida

Special-edition Thursday greetings, collector friends! Today's edition is a For-Mature-Audiences-Only salvo from everyone's favorite art world provocateur, William Powhida. We here at 20x200 couldn't think of a better day than what we thought* was Tax Day Eve on which to release You.

William posted the original on his blog back on November 2nd—which happened to be another day that registers highly on the government vexation scale, Election Day. I posted it to my Tumblr immediately and with great glee—I was quite certain that an edition was a must. After all, I'd said months before that I looked forward to assisting William in ticking off the 20x200-related accomplishment from his list again soon.

The challenge of exactly how to release this edition has been such an engaging, amusing and interesting process that it's somewhat bittersweet to be moving on to the next phase of its existence. (Although, I'd hazard to guess that continued interesting-ness is practically guaranteed.) I showed the image to my boyfriend a few weeks ago, saying how excited I was that we'd gotten it definitively scheduled, and his response completely surprised me. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and said, "Well... I kind of don't like it." That he didn't like it was definitely something to talk about. But what was most striking was his level of discomfort: he couldn't possibly hang it in his house where his young son (who'd probably find it kind of hilarious) and his mom—who visits pretty frequently—(she'd be absolutely unamused, let me tell you) would see it. The whole parental disapproval thing simply hadn't occurred to me, blessed as I was with a mom who gave me license to curse at a scandalously young age. (Actual quote: "I'd much rather that you cursed someone out instead of throwing punches.")

Up until that very moment, I hadn't given an enormous amount of thought to how we'd present the print to you, dear collectors. I knew that it was going to require some special handling, but seeing Steve mildly scandalized made me think that perhaps I'd underestimated the potential impact of You. Earlier this week, I presented the conundrum to the team, and the process of figuring out a solution provoked myriad "I-can't-believe-this-is-my-job" episodes. We're a pretty liberal-minded crew around here, but it was important to us that our own sensibilities not alienate those among you who are well within your rights to be offended by a screen full of profanity. Conversely, we didn't want to compromise or disrespect the image or its creator in any way, shape or form. Then there was a whole other vector that we'd never had cause to consider up until today—namely, whether we'd be violating any internet obscenity laws with the edition's release.

And then there's the question of whether artwork like this threatens to dilute the word's potency. "That's the most important thing!," Steve told me, then added, "I really like saying it and don't want that to go away." That it won't is part of what's so fascinating about the word to begin with. It's pretty commonplace in many spheres. I could count at least three times Jon Stewart was censored during his recent Glenn Beck tour de force, for instance. As someone said to me at a cocktail party last night, it's among the most severe in the pantheon of four-letter words, and yet it's potency remains, by and large, unabated. I kind of don't understand why, and have thought quite a bit about why it's so scandalous to utter it. What I do know for sure is that it's a deeply satisfying word to say, the corporeal embodiment of blowing off steam. The "F" forces your upper teeth against your lower lip, the opportunity to extend the uhhhhhhhhhh in proportion to however regretful, frustrated or angry you may be, but always ending crisply with the decisive full stop of a "kuh." There, don't you feel better now?

* Turns out that Tax Day falls on Monday, April 18th this year! Who knew?

Old Typewriter by Todd McLellan

Wednesday greetings, collectors! We're in the midst of a three-day curatorial fiesta here at 20x200 HQ; it's exciting and fun, but I'm happy for the opportunity to take a break from choosing things to talk about why something has been chosen. Old Typewriter is our first offering from Canadian photographer Todd McLellan—it's but one of the many fascinating photographs in his Disassembly series.

The series has been the subject of ooh-ing and ahh-ing all across the interwebs as of late, garnering the attention of sites like Boing Boing, The Fox is Black, Laughing Squid, Flavorwire and (of course!) Things Organized Neatly. All these sites being frequent destinations of mine, Todd's imagery kept popping up in my RSS feed again and again, and I was just pleased as punch when he accepted our invitation to create 20x200 editions from the series. (That's right, I said "editions." As in plural. As in: there's more to come!)

While it's true that I am an inveterate digital hoarder of the aesthetically pleasing, it's also dismaying to me that so many are sated by the cheap thrill of bookmarking when the rich experience of living with art is so readily available. That's one of the reasons why it's so deeply satisfying to transform imagery that's internet-famous into a tangible, collectible, live-with-able object that everyone can afford. The richness that I refer to is a multifaceted one—living with a piece of art takes someone else's creative output and makes it part of your story, and the serendipity of proximity amplifies your opportunity to reconnect with the emotions, interest and/or excitement that the image sparked in you to begin with. As someone who lives with lots of art (Too much? Never!) I can attest that this happens again and again—sometimes when you least expect it and often when you need it most.

In The Library by Tatsuro Kiuchi

Hello, collectors! It's Sara, with a timely tribute to books—it's National Library Week, in case you didn’t know. How could you not know?

Tatsuro Kiuchi's ode to tomes (and their home) is stacked thick—in In the Library, stripes and colors assemble themselves into spines and shelves. It's a print that would find itself in good company with Jane Mount's Ideal Bookshelf series and Mickey Smith's elegant volumes. It also pairs well with Tatsuro's other prints, which celebrate a few more of our favorite things: biking, baseball and photography. Tatsuro's tribute to an institution founded on sharing and giving is apropos for reasons other than this week's national holiday.

Based in Tokyo, Tatsuro is offering support for relief efforts by giving away high-resolution files of three of his works. Donate $50 or more to Red Cross (Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami), then email him your receipt and image selection and he'll send you the file to print on your own. In case you missed them earlier last month, we have two benefit editions available as well. All proceeds from the sales of Shinjuku, 6:43 by Joseph O. Holmes and Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo by Emily Shur will go to support the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund. So far, with your help, we've raised over $12,000.

That's all for now, but this is just the first of three great editions we have lined up this week—just you wait and see...

Sleeping Lion by Colleen Plumb

Greetings on this fine, spring NYC Wednesday, collector friends. Colleen Plumb's stunning exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery is well underway, and we're all looking forward to her return to 6 Spring Street later this month. She'll be back on the evening of April 21st to chat with Associate Director Jeffrey Teuton about the exhibition, and to sign advance copies of her gorgeous debut monograph Animals Are Outside Today, published by our friends at Radius Books. So let today's announcement serve as a save-the-date for another festive event with this talented, articulate artist. It's also an opportunity to become a patron by acquiring our newest edition from Colleen, Sleeping Lion.

I spent the early part of this morning contemplating leonine inspirations—cinematic (the Cowardly Lion) and nostalgic (Leo, the Steiff hand puppet that my mom got me as a get well gift when I was a wee lass)—and also indulged in a little anthropomorphic speculation (is Sleeping Lion sad? bored? above it all?) This was followed by a quick revisiting of Why Look at Animals?, an essay in which John Berger firmly debunks such folly, which made me feel awfully silly about all the emotional baggage I was burdening this regal beast with.

Sent back to the drawing board in search of something more pragmatic, I rediscovered a long-ago post to my (now-neglected) blog Personism. In 2009, I paired Sleeping Lion with a passage from Leaves of Grass, wherein Whitman considers going to live among animals, imagining an existence uncluttered by existential angst:

32
I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long.

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.

Well-being 1 by Valerie Roybal

Good morning, collectors. It's Sara, writing from a finally-feeling-spring-ish New York. It's humid and warm—you can't help but be reminded that the city, for all its concrete, is surrounded by water and dappled with parks—cherry trees are starting to bloom, crocuses are coming out of the ground. It's cliché but, really, things are starting to feel new again.

It's about this time of year that we usually bring you a new edition from the perennially-popular artist Valerie Roybal: Well-being 1 is her fifth. Well-loved on 20x200, Valerie's work is celebrated in much broader circles, too; it's most recently been included in the book Cutting Edges, published by Gestalten earlier this year.

Like the work featured in the book, and in her previous 20x200 editions, Valerie's collected, culled, cut and arranged bits of ephemera—pages from old encyclopedias, postcards, letters, found photographs—making them all new again. Well-being 1 is a bit like spring itself, especially as described by E.E. Cummings.

Spring is like a perhaps hand

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and

without breaking anything.

–E. E. Cummings

Golden State Freeway/San Fernando Pass; from Los Angeles 02.12.04 by Michael Light

Hello, collectors—it's Sara. I'm picking up where I left off yesterday—departing from the whats and hows for the whys and what fors. All of which is well trod in an interview in the book that today's and yesterday's editions come from—LA DAY/LA NIGHT—between the maker, Michael Light, and the legendary Lawrence Weschler.** It is in the thick of this interview that the two get to talking about airlight—the visible particles of scattered light that flood Golden State Freeway/San Fernando Pass; from Los Angeles 02.12.04.

A product of emissions, airlight is one of those things that shapes the way we see the world as it exists today—as often as it obscures a view straight ahead, it also appears, magically, in our periphery. I knew airlight long before I knew its name. On family trips in Dad's four-seat Cessna—hop-scotching to destinations as far flung as Martha's Vineyard (where we camped in the airfield)—the sun and clouds that filled the plane (airlight) were the only things I could see. I was small, much too small then, to peer up and over the windows and see and know what was below.

In yesterday's photograph Untitled/San Fernando Valley; from Los Angeles 07.27.05, it is that shroud just below the horizon. There, the surrounding lights of the city begin to look, a little, like stars. What distinguishes the world as we humans have created it from the earth as it existed before us (and most likely will continue to persist as when we are gone), is less and less clear. The things that seem most unnatural—namely, neon and incandescent lights—become plasma bound by gravity. (While gravity itself, remains suspended.) Looking at Golden State—with its semis and cars, braille rolling over a faux-river—the air and the light, and our presence in it, are inescapable. As we've built, revolutionized and industrialized, sending fluff up in the air, we have become so much a part of the earth and its atmosphere.

When we were flying way back when, this was much too much to see and know.

* The 24"x30" prints in this edition are signed on verso by the artist.
** Lucky for all of you who haven't bought the book (yet), most of that interview can be found on The Believer, too. Weschler is also the author of Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees—possibly one of the best. books. ever. on art and being an artist—about the life of LA-based artist Robert Irwin. Highly recommended reading.

Untitled/San Fernando Valley; from Los Angeles 07.27.05 by Michael Light

Good day, collectors! It's Sara—I am so pleased to introduce you to the first of two editions from photographer Michael Light: Untitled/San Fernando Valley; from Los Angeles 07.27.05.

This project began last July when friend, fellow photography lover and HHS! panelist Darius Himes, co-founder of Radius Books, sent over a fat file of .jpgs from projects he was working on. Radius has made gorgeous books with a few artists we have created editions with—including Colleen Plumb, whose solo show is up at the JBG through April 24th, and Michael Lundgren. One of the two editions we released with Lundgren benefits Radius, which, as a non-profit, "works to encourage, promote, and publish books of artistic and cultural value for a wide audience." As their mission naturally aligns with ours, it's always a pleasure to work together (plus, they're just good people).

Among the images Darius sent were several from Michael Light's LA DAY/LA NIGHT. The photos, as they loaded and opened on my monitor, were and are—at the risk of sounding inane—utterly breathtaking (really, literally, physically, that is the word for them—breathtaking). We knew we had to bring them to you! Untitled/San Fernando Valley; from Los Angeles 07.27.05 and its sister print, which we'll share tomorrow, present a marriage of two things—flying and the West—that have spawned mythologies ranging from the personal, to the distinctly American, to the universal. The work is smart and extraordinarily beautiful.

A pilot himself with a lifelong love of flight, Light hired a helicopter pilot to lift and roam with him above Los Angeles so he could hover over a rare sort of 4x5 camera—a Linhof Aero Technika—which uses roll film, allowing Light to shoot continuously without constantly reloading single sheets. Over the course of the project, he shot 900-some photos of the lights, the buildings, the streets, the trees and river below. On the ground—in the darkroom and on the computer—Light combined traditional film processing techniques with post-production work. Turning his negatives into digital files, Light smoothed out the film grain, moderating its interference with the haze and particles of light that you see glowing around the horizon.

From there, the images are printed, editioned (as here), and some, sequenced into the book. Untitled/San Fernando Valley; from Los Angeles 07.27.05 graces the cover of the LA NIGHT half of Light's publication—an object to behold. When open, it lies nearly flat, presenting 16"x20" images full bleed, so that the city of Los Angeles, by day and by night, from above, unfolds in your lap. The pages are brilliantly bound in a "Z"—as you turn it over, you swiftly and seamlessly (as if in fight) change directions—and suddenly face an alternate horizon.

As much as I love books, and this one in particular, I have a habit of buying them as if, that along with the actual bound object, I am also acquiring the time to read them—which, unfortunately, is just not true. This is where the importance of prints, or for that matter, anything that you hang on your walls and adorn your home with, comes into play. Prints, in a way, are the opposite of books, in that you do not need the time to sit down with them. They are like The Giving Tree (not the book but the actual tree)—you can take and take and take from them, without actually having to give much in return. While I think it's true that the more time you spend really looking at and thinking about art, the more you will receive from it, the things you see in your periphery daily shape the way you think about and perceive the word around you, whether or not you realize or take the time to acknowledge it.

There's lots for this project of Light's to give, but I'll save that for tomorrow.

* The 24"x30" prints in this edition are signed on verso by the artist.

Queens by Jorge Colombo

Greene and Spring by Jorge Colombo

Tuesday greetings, collectors. Today's new editions from 20x200 favorite Jorge Colombo capture and romanticize the miracle of flight from above and below, and fittingly so. I type to you from San Francisco, having just arrived last night and feeling not quite recovered from a plane ride myself. Jorge's images were at the forefront of my mind during ascent and descent.

I imagined a friend or two waving adieu to me from Soho, the corner of Greene and Spring to be precise, as my plane made its way across a pink-ening sky. I also paid special attention to the earth-from-above view, pressing my nose against the window and watching buildings fade into dioramic tableaux which in turn melded into neatly defined grids before being obscured by cloud cover, all the while thinking of the debut of Jorge's Queens edition.

While I was airborne, Jorge was paying a visit to 20x200 HQ, where he told Sara that he was particularly pleased these are the first two images that we selected for editions from his forthcoming book, a pair whose presentation was informed by his (considerable) efforts to perfectly sequence said tome. We're pretty darn pleased ourselves—proud to be co-presenting the forthcoming title with our friends at Chronicle Books and cooking up all kinds of fun in conjunction with its arrival online and in the real world.

Greene and Spring is also the first of Jorge's editions to have previously been published on the cover of The New Yorker. From phone to magazine to fine art edition—and soon to be bound up in the pages of a bona fide (and awfully good-looking) book—Greene and Spring and Queens travel well.

Praia Piquinia 11/08/10 12h15 by Christian Chaize

Praia Piquinia 11/08/10 12h15 is also available in an 80"x60" ($10,000) size.

PLEASE NOTE: These prints will not ship immediately. Working with an international artist often extends our production timeline, and because they're c-prints, the production process is different too. We will keep collectors apprised of the delivery date via email.

Disconcertingly brisk Monday greetings, collectors. Our hunger for spring after a long, cold and incredibly snowy winter makes this morning's sub-freezing temps that much harder to take. David Steward walked into the office this morning and said "I'm so glad we are releasing another gorgeous beach photo today! It's the perfect antidote to today's weather." It's a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree, so it's a real pleasure to introduce our sixth edition by Christian Chaize, the brightly-hued and decidedly summery Praia Piquinia 11/08/10 12h15.

When introducing Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20, I posited that, all gorgeousness aside, it's love that's at the heart of Christian's entire Praia Piquinia series. I've had ample time and opportunity to live with and consider this work, and also see how collectors of varying levels of experience and appetite have responded to it. I've come to the conclusion that the series's natural beauty has led many, myself among them, to underestimate both its essence and impact.

It's clear that this beach is easy on the eyes. But Christian's choice to persistently return to it, again and again, throughout the years, is more than what it seems at first glance. Seeking something new and engaging in what is intimately familiar deepens your relationship with it.* For most people, it's hard not to become bored when looking at the same thing again and again, even if it's beautiful. There's a certain kind of bravery in doing just that. So while there's something tender in his enduring interest and discovery, I also see a sort of courage, and love. I have been thinking a lot about this idea: that the key to love and being loved is courage. Courage is to be brave of heart.

It's the ability to remain devoted, to not become bored, that separates love from infatuation. There's so much distraction to be found in the new, the different and the exciting, all energy going outward toward understanding what's unfamiliar—it is what drives infatuation. The opposite of this is the hard thing, the thing that requires courage—the wish and the will to seek something thrilling in the familiar, and to find it.

* And also, I'd wager, with yourself—looking at the same thing over and over turns it into something of a mirror.

Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20 by Christian Chaize

Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20 is also available in an 80"x60" ($10,000) size.

PLEASE NOTE: These prints will not ship immediately. Working with an international artist often extends our production time line, and because they're c-prints, the production process is different too. We will keep collectors apprised of the delivery date via email.

Surprise! Bet you didn't expect to see me popping up in your inbox on a Saturday morning, and yet: here I am. If you're hanging out with us on The Twitter, you got early word about today's special newsletter dispatch announcing our new edition by the photographer who's transformed vacationing into high art, Christian Chaize. Our newest edition from Christian captures a perfectly imperfect day at the shores of his favorite (now fabled) Portuguese beach. Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20 is the same shoreline seen in our beloved previous editions by Christian, this one veiled with the thinnest layer of fog.

The fog's softening of summer sunshine makes a day at the shore seem much more palatable to my lily white self, while also enhancing the misty water-colored-memory vibe that gets a girl daydreaming about summers past and future. Regular readers know well how much I love the ocean, and have heard my various theories about why my "like" of this body of work has gradually transformed itself into "love, Love, LOVE". Surely some of it is personal, having lived with various prints of the work over the past few years, and also getting to know Christian himself, who is really just awfully swell. And then professionally, the work has been meaningful as well—garnering both 20x200 and the gallery enviable media attention, but more importantly, bringing incredible joy to our collectors.

When I first wrote about Christian's work, I described how I came to understand the Praia Piquinia series as being very different than the work that it's most frequently compared to—Massimo Vitali, frequently, and then sometimes Richard Misrach. With sea, shore and sunbathers in common, it's easy to see the similarities between all three photographers, but if you consider the people, places and perspective (omg, so alliterative!) a major difference emerges. Back then, I talked about how Vitale and Misrach were making work about humanity, and that Christian's is about being human.

Today I'll go a step further, and say that Praia Piquinia is about love—of place, of memory, of being alive. Christian leads his artist statement with a quote by Proust: The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. To remain on this voyage with everything that is familiar is what differentiates love from infatuation. It's a bold statement, but it's one made with confidence. I'll give you the weekend to form your own theories about why I think this is so, and then fill you in on my POV in just 48 hours when I return with a second brand new edition from the series.

Both editions' unusual structure is based on both image and audience: they start at the 14"x11" size because those are the smallest dimensions at which the images' complexities unfold. It's also available at three larger sizes—40"x30", 60"x50" and 80"x60"—first and foremost because they look ahhhmazingly amazing at such proportions, and also because collectors like you have frequently requested these sizes. This is the first time we've ever offered a print that's 80"x60", in part based on the overwhelming response to similarly proportioned print from the series shown in the gallery and subsequently published in an ELLE DECOR feature about one of our collector's homes.

Ferry from Ardrossan Harbor by Laura Bell

Gust of Wind by Laura Bell

Greetings, collectors. NYC feels a bit...moorish today, with its wind-whipped rain and bone-chilling dampness, which sets the stage nicely for today's pair of moody beauties by 2010 Hot Shot Laura Bell. In considering Laura's work for 20x200, Sara and I were in wholehearted agreement that just one would never do, so it's with great pleasure that I present to you Ferry from Ardrossan Harbor and Gust of Wind.

The ease with which we're able to share art and photography online is what makes 20x200 go. That people are looking at art and reading about it twice a week is essential to what we do; in many ways that habit is as important to us as the prints you choose to own. Still, there is so much joy to be found in the physical thing itself—experiencing it in the real world and living with it within your serendipitous vision.

I participated in a panel about photography and technology at AIPAD this past weekend, where (much to my chagrin!) one of my colleagues asserted that the photographic print is hurtling towards a near-at-hand extinction, and we are facing an inevitable future of images enjoyed exclusively via LCD display. Now, I might have been the biggest proponent of digital images in that room, but I certainly don't share that vision. The beauty to be found in a physical print is irreplaceable and sure to be enduring. Laura Bell's images—beautiful objects that also imbue the things in them with a lushness and dimension that make those things even more beautiful than they might be in the real world—make me ever more certain of a future that includes the enjoyment of tangible things, their surfaces, subtleties and inevitable imperfections, and what they unlock in our individual imaginations.

Ferry from Ardrossan Harbor makes me think of a A Room With a View. (Quite happily so, as I've always been a major sucker for period dramas.) I imagine some party of fancy ladies and dandified men out for a picnic at the seaside, and looking at the horizon through a gilded telescope. And yet, its resulting image is somehow not at all cheesy, as Sara and I discussed over IM this morning. Its infinite horizon is so amazingly soothing, which doesn't surprise me—ocean lover that I am—but there's something about it being neatly contained within a circle that makes its endlessness more mysterious.

Gust of Wind has a soundtrack of heaving doors and creaking wooden stairs, and of air whose particles of dust are moved about with supernatural breath. Laura's title might blame it on the wind, but in my mind, the candle's flame has been tamped by a ghostly hand. Hopefully such evocations of the imagination don't appear too far-fetched as you view these images on your computer screen, but like the Old Masters paintings that inspired Ms. Bell, these gorgeous objects are best enjoyed in the physical world.

Black Box by Sarah McKenzie

Hi all! It's Sara, welcoming today's sunshine. Amid skies spewing gray sleet, yesterday's highlight was our March Madness steal—every single 11"x14" print by Mike Monteiro was available for just $30. If you missed out, don't let it happen again, find us on Twitter* or Facebook for the scoop and save $20 on one print every day through the end of the month.

Deals aside, let's just say the week starts now—who needs a cold and rainy Monday when Tuesday holds the bright and shiny promise of brand-new prints? Today's addition to the 20x200 archives, Black Box, derived from an original work by Sarah McKenzie, doesn't disappoint.

It's been awhile since Jen first introduced you all to Sarah's work, soon after discovering it herself at Minneapolis' Walker Art Center, where Site was included in the traveling exhibition Worlds Away: New Suburban Landscapes. A lot's happened here and in Sarah's career since we released that first edition, including the release of a second pair of prints, the steady Support and studied Lift, in celebration of Sarah's NYC debut solo exhibition at the JBG back in February of 2009. At the end of last year, Sarah had another solo show at Denver's Rule Gallery which earned her this glowing review in the Denver Post.

Sarah will have her second solo show at JBG later this year—museum exhibitions, solo shows and accolades—it seems like all's coming up roses and Sarah's career is simply ascending. And, it is. But, if there's one thing that Sarah's paintings highlight, it's that nothing is what it appears to be at first glance and all this glory hasn't come without a lot of hard work. Her canvases use buildings and construction as metaphors for painting, which in turn could serve as a metaphor for building a career as an artist (or to that end, creating anything that really matters). And, Sarah approaches her paintings in the same way that she approaches her career—with extraordinary skill and dedication. While the end result is an elegantly balanced, serious(ly) playful, and from a distance, seemingly effortless, interpretation of mimimalism and modernism, Black Box encompasses a whole lot more than that—all smoothed over by years of refining her own command of her craft.

As critic Kyle MacMillan notes in that aforementioned review, "While each of [Sarah's] compositions has much to offer as a whole, much of the pleasure of these works comes in getting in close and really taking in McKenzie's skills with a paint brush." I know you have to take my word for it now, but, this pleasure is in the print, too. Hold it near and you'll see: there are layers and layers of paint, multiple approaches and variations in its application, scores of effort, thought, nods to what's been done before we came along, and evidence of lessons learned from others—accompanied, of course, by the urge to leave what's been done in the past and forge on without looking back.** And while being in it, looking closely, smelling the paint (or ink!) and getting your metaphorical fingers dirty affords the opportunity to absorb all this, it's only when you stand back, and I mean a few feet, at least, if not farther, and look at what's been created that it all comes together.

* If you haven't embraced your social media future: bookmark our Twitter page (or just make a mental note of it) and check in at 11:00 a.m. ET to see the March Madness deal every day through the end of the month.

** A smart lady I know often says you don't change anything by doing things the way they've always been done.

Shinjuku, 6:43 by Joseph O. Holmes

All net proceeds from the sales of Shinjuku, 6:43 will go to support the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

The introduction of our second edition to benefit the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund is one that I feel compelled to relay with little embellishment. Today's edition—Shinjuku, 6:43—is by the well-traveled and much-beloved Joseph O. Holmes.

As with yesterday's edition from Emily Shur, Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo, all net proceeds from this photograph will be routed directly to organizations involved with the ongoing relief efforts in Japan. The challenges faced there are ever more formidable as the impact of the Tohoku Earthquake continues to unfold amid scores of aftershocks. As of this writing, things have only grown more dire at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Rescuers are racing against time to find and extricate survivors from the wreckage left by the quake and the tsunami it triggered. Nearly half a million displaced people are living in shelters. All of this is to say that the beauty of this photograph is only enhanced by the virtue of its purpose, and in choosing to buy it, you're contributing in some small way to address the crisis that Japan is currently facing.

To learn more about how the Japan Society is routing donations, have a look at their recently published FAQ. Also, please keep in mind that we're not able to ship Emily and Joe's editions as quickly as we normally do. Everyone involved—the artists, the 20x200 team and our printer, Eric Recktenwald— wanted to start contributing to the relief effort straight away, so rushing the editions' announcement out seemed appropriate. Still and all, the photographs you receive will get the same level of care and attention that all of our prints do, which means we'll need a bit of extra time to send them on their way.

All of the proceeds from the sale of this print benefit Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo by Emily Shur

Hello collectors! It's Sara writing. We're interrupting our previously-scheduled editions to bring you two back-to-back opportunities to support the relief efforts in Japan. Emily Shur emailed over the weekend asking if we could pull together a benefit edition, to which we replied, of course.

All net proceeds from the sales of Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo will go to support the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

LA-based Emily's been traveling and photographing through Japan since 2004, building a personal body of work that is, as she describes it, a "celebration of introspection." Like much of her work, many of the images look as if they could have been taken anywhere in the world. Without the title, Imperial Palace Gardens with Wall, Tokyo, might be mistaken for the groomed gardens found around Southern California, near Emily's own home.

The nature of this work highlights why disasters like the earthquake and tsunami in Japan are so unsettling, engrossing and disturbing. What happened there could have happened anywhere. All things that are steady, constant and beholden, yours, mine and ours, can be swept away. While it's nearly impossible to understand that kind of loss until you are faced with it—to the extent that, in writing this, I'm aware that it sounds borderline, if not entirely, trite—we all know, it's true. Because words like this are terribly insufficient, it's all the more reason to do something. Plus, we're doubling up the feel-good factor: you'll be benevolent and get some great art.

After Emily emailed, I dropped a note to Joe Holmes—who just returned from Tokyo—asking if he'd donate an image too. Good-natured and generous as he is, he immediately agreed. Tomorrow we'll share one of his new works from Japan with you. All net proceeds from Joe's new edition will also support the Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund. Emily and Joe's kindness has been bolstered by our printer, Eric Recktenwald, who has donated his time for the production of these prints which makes your money go even farther to support the relief effort.

While all of us are working just as fast as we can to put these editions together, these prints will not ship within five days of your order as we normally promise. Please be patient and know that good things come to those who wait. Till tomorrow!

All of the proceeds from the sale of this print benefit Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

1,376 Cylindrical Industrial Buildings by Jenny Odell

Hi y'all. Jen's about to be Austin-bound, so it's Sara filling in. We'll take a virtual trip alongside her by satellite, Google satellite to be specific, courtesy of San Francisco-based artist, Jenny Odell.

As we fly over the grand swath of United States sprawling between New York and Texas, we'll spot several cylindrical industrial buildings, probably too many to count. But, as she did in her other ever-popular prints—195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships, 144 Empty Parking Lots and 125 Swimming Pools—Jenny's arranged and tallied images she's scavenged while virtually zooming over the earth. This time she's culled towers, tanks and silos, neatly organizing them to form the image you see above (not to be confused with what you might see below, if we were, actually, airborne): 1,376 Cylindrical Industrial Buildings.

On seeing Jenny's prints in real life: they're stunning. And, depending on their scale, they change. Viewing a smaller print next to a larger one is a bit like scrolling in and out on a Google map—as you get closer, the images get bigger, and the pixels and bits of information making up the picture start to fall apart. The towers and silos (or ships or swimming pools) shimmer and blur, becoming more and more like the mirages they are: ephemera from a specific and brief but indeterminable period of time—copied and pasted (permanently recorded) by Jenny before being updated (and changed) by satellite, again, and again.

When talking about* her very-related-to-virtual-travel, Travel By Approximation and satellite series, Jenny notes that there's something satisfying and reassuring about fixing pieces of information in place, creating a stable world within one that's constantly changing. And, thanks to her, we're all along for the ride.

* Jenny's clip starts 13 minutes into the video.

Quality Meats by Colleen Plumb

Warmest of Wednesday greetings, collector friends. We're having quite a day around here, as usual, with too much to do and not enough people to do it. Which brings me to our first item of business: Did you know that we are hiring? We are. One of the plum positions we're seeking to fill is that of Photography Competition Manager, which is to say: someone to run Hey, Hot Shot!. And speaking of plum(b)s and HHS!, today's most important matter is to introduce you to our fourth edition by 2008 Hot Shot and Jen Bekman Gallery artist, Chicago-native Colleen Plumb.

Quality Meats is a let's-get-real counterpoint to Colleen's most common subjects, the animals with which we coexist. Let the record show that I, for once, have opted to not feature a creature. Sure, it's a text edition of sorts but still! I am not utterly enslaved to my weakness for our furry friends.

Colleen's work is all about the bizarre range of interactions we have with animals. We've all encountered extreme cases of both adoration and neglect. We strive for their conservation and also consume them. I myself struggle with how it is that I can eat bacon when I know it comes from what my beloved Wilbur was made of, and that the Wilburs of the world are likely more intelligent and evolved than my beloved Ollie Otter. I'd never in a million years dream of dining upon the Otter, and yet! I know that my distaste for such a concept is more cultural than culinary.

Honestly, it's all so confusing and upsetting that I often don't have the stomach for thinking it through. Ms. Plumb, in possession of a certain Midwestern practicality, is a different story. Her exploration has been both enduring and unflinching, resulting in a compelling body of work whose evolution I've had the good fortune to witness over the course of the past several years. Two major milestones in said evolution are happening in tandem: first is the publication of her first monograph Animals Are Outside Today by our friends at Radius Books and the second is her NYC solo exhibition debut, which we are exceedingly proud to be presenting at Jen Bekman Gallery. We'll be celebrating the opening of her exhibition next Friday, March 18th, from 6 to 8 p.m.

Both of these milestones are major, and the result of Colleen's considerable efforts, expense and yes, perseverance. They really underplay that perseverance part in art school, but let me tell you: it matters. The expense part, so unseemly to converse about and also underplayed, is considerable. Which brings me to the part of 20x200 that I couldn't be prouder of: patronage. Buying art from our artists makes monographs and exhibitions possible. So, get a print and come to next Friday's opening to witness the magic that your patronage makes possible.

Overheard on the Titanic by Austin Kleon

Bright and brisk Tuesday greetings, collectors near and far. It's the day before the eve of my departure for the nerd-spring-break Nirvana that is SXSW; visualizing myself nibbling on a breakfast burrito at Jo's after a night sipping cocktails in the courtyard of the San Jose is providing strong incentive to plow through the seemingly insurmountable pile of stuff I need to get through before I'm Austin-bound. And speaking of Austin, there's also our Austin, who I last saw (and will see again!) in Austin. Our Austin, he of the Kleons of Austin, is the prolifically poetic edition-maker with whom we've had the good fortune to collaborate with to produce several well-worded works. Today's clever addition, Overheard On The Titanic, brings us to my favorite number's worth of editions, which is five.

I introduced Austin's The Travelogue shortly after returning from my Austin-with-Austin travels and what I wrote back then is still the best description I can think of to describe why I find Austin's work so enchanting:

His selection-by-omission practice is the semi-illogical next step in a process that I go through constantly, one which I've pursued, involuntarily at times, for as long as I can remember being able to read. Nearly all my reading is a swim against an undercurrent of my unending search for a motto, a rallying cry or a mantra. Whether it's a poignant refrain of a pop song, a quote from a dead person or a few lines swiped from an admired poet, my constant search for a few good words is... constant. But, my ceaseless scanning of a page for a string of resonant words is thoroughly trumped by Austin's talent for stringing them together. He doesn't find poetry, he makes it—and he doesn't just make it, he publishes it. Which is to say that this creative-writing-major-with-a-concentration-in-poetry college dropout makes me both green with envy and glowing with pride.

Today, Austin can add acclaimed author to the list of his accomplishments of which I'm envious. When I last saw our hero, it was while sipping sweet tea, eating barbeque and debating poetry. Two (signed!) copies of his fresh-off-the-presses book sat on the picnic bench beside me. Austin had shrewdly arranged for the SXSW bookstore to stock a boxful of them, well in advance of their availability in bookstores. Back then, he was really thrilled about its impending release, but also anxious about its reception. I beseeched him to please be sure that the black cloud of uncertainty he had brewing didn't keep him from basking in the glow of his major accomplishment. A book! Of his very own! Released by a major publisher. Pretty cool stuff, you know? Today, Newspaper Blackout is a real out-in-the-world thing, with rave reviews and everything, its poems described in The New Yorker as being "like a cross between magnetic refrigerator poetry and enigmatic ransom notes, funny and Zen-like, collages of found art".

Untitled, from the series Aggressive Girls by Chikara Umihara

Hello collector friends, it's Sara. As an undergrad studying art and English, I realized lots of advice for writers also applies to photographers and other artists. Among the things told to writers, "Write about what you know" is probably the most common and the least helpful. At best, it assumes you already know a lot—enough to be some sort of authority—about something, anything, which often, is intimidating, or just isn't true. At worst, it denies that the process of writing or making art is all about figuring things out, or even, asking more questions than you answer along the way.

The more relevant counsel, I think, is "Write about what only you can write about." Or, if you are an artist, make the work that only you can make. Today's photographer, 2010 Hot Shot Chikara Umihara, photographs what only he can photograph. To make Untitled, from the series Aggressive Girls and the other images in the series—a few of which are on view as part of the 2010 Hey, Hot Shot! Showcase at Jen Bekman Gallery—Chikara earned access and permission, through persistence and genuine interest, to document an underground community of lesbian women in Brooklyn who have adopted male-dominant hip hop culture as their own.

As a male studying photography for one year in New York at the International Center for Photography, it wasn't a community he would have probably, naturally, known superficially and even less likely, intimately. But because of the type of person and photographer he is—wholly compassionate, intelligent, never condescending—documenting these women, their lives and surrounding details, was a project that only he could do.

"I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them." If Chikara said this, he would most likely be right—I can't imagine stumbling across this pre-celebration set up of balloons, streamers and trophies that seem to defy the age, dirt and crumble of their surroundings. But the quote comes from an artist Chikara cites as an inspiration: Diane Arbus, the photographer who is known for her portraits of people, many who probably wouldn't have been photographed if she hadn't. Arbus also said, "The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way."

NYC Art Fairs Weekend Reminder
While you're out and about this weekend, at the fairs all over the city, swing by JBG downtown, and catch the 2010 Hey, Hot Shot! Showcase before it closes. Or make your first stop the Jen Bekman Gallery booth at PULSE and pick up an Art Fair Survival Kit. Follow us on Twitter to find out exactly where else we'll be all weekend long.

PULSE NEW YORK
125 W 18th Street, New York, NY
Booth #b-4
Thursday, March 3: 1 p.m.–8 p.m.
Friday, March 4 + Saturday, March 5: noon–8 p.m.
Sunday, March 6: noon–5 p.m.

Flora #2 by Christina Muraczewski

To say that this print packs a punch is a little bit of an understatement. I mean, look at it! True to form, Christina Muraczewski has laid it on thick in her newest edition, Flora #2. And with everything that's going on today, the timing couldn't be better to be sharing this layered burst of loveliness with all of you.

It's Sara, pinch-hitting for and well-wishing a sick Ms. Bekman. She and Chrissy go way back. Ms. Muraczewski was one of the very first artists to release an edition on 20x200 and has graced us with her presence every so often since. Jen's a big fan of the clever faux bois that papers the backgrounds of her compositions. That's where Chrissy's smart surface interpretations begin but her blending of real and fake extends to the objects painted over them. The flowers, birds, polka-dots and patterns are borrowed from the design language of desire that we're all vaguely (if not intimately) familiar with, thanks to Ikea, Crate & Barrel, and the like.

Subversively, Chrissy inserts them into her paintings—playing a game that's something like design-borrowed-from-art-borrowing-from-design-to-make-art-again. As domestic and comforting as her subjects may be, there's something slightly (excitingly) unsettling about the sprinkling of them here. While I'm not going to get into the art vs. design debate, that feeling is the part, for me at least, that affirms what Chrissy's doing is definitely art.

If you're more of the art than design type, this weekend was made for you. The Armory Show art fairs kick off this Thursday in NYC! And we're seriously spinning about them this year. We'll be there, with a booth at PULSE, AND infiltrating on foot just about everywhere else, armed with our Art Fair Survival Kits. Back by popular demand, they're filled to the brim with goodies and essentials, designed to save you from art fair fatigue. Read all about them and follow us on Twitter to get updates on all the fun and games throughout the weekend. We'll hope to see you soon!

North of the Tennis House by Joseph O. Holmes

Surprise! It's Sara this morning. We have quite a week in front of us so we're kicking things off a little early—taking a look back as we anticipate all there is ahead.

We proofed North of the Tennis House by Joseph O. Holmes when we were readying to open The Urban Wilderness at the JBG. Back then, to celebrate the show, the snow, the holidays, and everything that keeps us warm and cozy through the winter, we released The Sledding Hill at Dusk. We delayed sending this particular image out into the world, stashing it away for the dreariest of days when it could emerge as a silver lining. I'm happy (in a twisted sense, I guess) to say that today is the day!

We're not alone in looking to Joe's work for comfort. As the show was closing, James Danziger of Chelsea's Danziger Projects, as well as the always delightful blog The Year in Pictures, called on Joe's photos to remedy what he cited as the most depressing day of the year. He wrote:

Joe's pictures were taken in Brooklyn's Prospect Park, not Central Park, but they convey the same magical feeling of the urban metropolis transformed into a wintery Eden. And they're nearly all about dog walking! (As well as about light, and color, and composition.) Joe values may be old-fashioned—he's someone looking to find the sublime or the memorable in the everyday—but his pictures have a nice contemporary feel due to their color and scale. And the show is a sure cure for those January blues!

While today we're drenched in a dark downpour, fear not, the signs that spring is ahead are abundant. At the top of this list: Armory Arts Week—it's here! And we're just about ready to unfurl this year's Art Fair Survival Kits. Like last year's, they'll include a hand-drawn map by one of our stellar artists, pointing you to the best locales for art and other refreshments. More details to come tomorrow but here's where you can find us, starting this Thursday:

PULSE NEW YORK
125 W 18th Street, New York, NY
Booth #b-4
Thursday, March 3: 1 p.m.–8 p.m.
Friday, March 4 + Saturday, March 5: noon–8 p.m.
Sunday, March 6: noon–5 p.m.

Our 2011 NYC Art Fairs map—an opinionated guide to what matters and where to find the artists we adore—is also up and ready for your perusal. So, we'll hope to see you there. Jen will be back here, tomorrow. Till then!

Mandala 1401D by Bill Armstrong

Mandala 1402D by Bill Armstrong

I'm surprised when the work appears beautiful, and very pleased. And I think work can be very good and very successful without being able to call it beautiful, although I'm not clear about that. The work is good when it has a certain completeness, and when it's got a certain completeness, then it's beautiful.

I spotted this quote on Tumblr late last night, and it made me think of today's editions. I've actually been thinking about the editions a lot lately, excited that they've finally come to fruition after a long and fascinating process with photographer Bill Armstrong. It's certainly no surprise that Mandala 1401D and Mandala 1402D are beautiful. I mean, look at them! They're gorgeous. What's extra wonderful about them though, is that they're also very good and very successful. Achieving such feats of artistic daredevilry is nothing new for Bill—he's been making and exhibiting critically-acclaimed work for years and some of the world's finest museums have his prints in their collections.

So yeah, you could say that Bill's a Famous Artist, but the time that Sara and I spent with him was a window into the mundane ways in which Artists Are Just Like Us. It was in the familiar surroundings of a filled-to-the-brim NY apartment of busy people living busy lives—the clutter and chaos that comes with sharing that home with a small child, and that child's drawings and extra-curricular schedule stuck on the fridge—that we had the novel opportunity to work with Bill for an afternoon, assembling pieces to be photographed to make the editions for today, which kind of made us feel like kids. We stacked shapes and combined colors with abandon, arrayed them across backgrounds of varying hues, and then gingerly carried our compositions across a clackety parquet floor to Bill's deceptively simple studio set-up. As he rather matter-of-factly went about his business of photographing, it was painfully obvious that there was nothing about what we were doing that could have been art unless it was looked at through Bill's eyes.*

That was reinforced again when we received the first round of proofs from Bill. His process and commentary was so alien to I'm-so-not-an-artist me, and also utterly delightful and sort of magical to boot. And yes, his was also the voice of experience—that's the mundane that makes the magic—the day in and day out of making work and refining a practice. And there's something magic in the mundane, too—that's the romance of the artist-in-his-garret meditating on a small and special thing and honing it into ART.

How lucky we are for the artists in this world, who create these amazing things, some of which we even get to live with. I'm certainly looking forward to living with Bill's photographs—the intense colors are surprisingly soothing to contemplate. High-strung as I am, the idea of meditating on anything usually makes me twitchy, but these energetic images hold my attention in a way that replenishes my capacity for joy.

* Which makes me think of another edition I'm particularly fond of, Craig Damrauer's Modern Art.

Bird Power by Carrie Marill

Happy Tuesday-after-a-holiday-weekend, collector friends. It's Sara—today, I have the distinct pleasure of kicking things off on the bright side with all of you.

Our eleventh edition from Arizona-based artist Carrie Marill, Bird Power, is a kaleidoscopic, slightly-psychedelic, kinetic promise of what's to come. Carrie's spun ten (count 'em!) different species together, all radiating color and bursting like spring bulbs from the ground. Dew drops are sprinkled across the surface, leaving winter in the wake for spring's showers and May flowers.

Over the years, we've come along way with Carrie. She's represented by JBG and has had not one but two solo shows at the gallery. If you're in NYC, or will be next weekend, you'll be able to see some of her original works, along with photographs by other 20x200 faves Christian Chaize and Gregory Krum. In art-for-everyone style, we'll have goodies to give away from our booth and all over the fairs. Stay tuned for more details! To be sure you catch us in action, say hi here:

PULSE NEW YORK
125 W 18th Street, New York, NY
Booth #b-4
Thursday, March 3: 1 p.m.–8 p.m.
Friday, March 4 + Saturday, March 5: noon–8 p.m.
Sunday, March 6: noon–5 p.m.

Jen and I have penned fountains about Carrie and her interest and investment in the environment, the natural world and extinction. But, Bird Power is decidedly fun—as Carrie herself said, sometimes you need stuff that just makes you feel good. So, I'll depart with a poem apt at describing what this painting might be about, in case you weren't instantly smitten with it. Like the hope that Ms. Dickinson writes of, for all the happiness and seasonal signs they bring us, with their songs and flight and migrations, birds ask very little of us humans—this celebratory pinwheel seems just the thing to say thanks.

Hope is the thing with feathers
by Emily Dickinson

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Baby Monkey No. 5 by Sharon Montrose

Baby Monkey No. 6 by Sharon Montrose

Wednesday greetings collectors and welcome to the second (and last!) day of Monkey Week, with editions by none other than Sharon Montrose. Who else could be more perfect, really? It's been proven that even the most gimlet-eyed among us aren't immune to the charms of Ms. Montrose's menagerie of Piglet No. 2, Lamb No. 3, Baby Giraffe No. 5 and Baby White Tiger No. 5. It being Monkey Week and all, it seemed just the right moment to add these two simian sweeties—Baby Monkey No. 5 and Baby Monkey No. 6—to 20x200's cast of creatures.

These fellas pair well with yesterday's new edition from Amy Jean Porter for reasons that go beyond this obvious monkey business. My chat with Choire about Mandrill was focused on how delight is a perfectly fine reason to love a piece of art, and we lamented how hard it can be to get people to buy into such a thing. I referenced a blog comment that I wrote about how yes, baby animals do indeed make me happy, and that alone affords images of them a place in my home. The enduring popularity of Sharon's editions would lead one to believe that I'm hardly alone in feeling this way, and their broad appeal is one of the not-so-secret weapons of what we curate here and why:

As for how we make our selections: it's less about making a buck and more about offering an array of work that will engage a broad audience. We love working with artists like Roger Ballen, but we also love the idea of people who feel intimidated and/or alienated by the art world discovering something that they love via our site. Once they're there and engaged, they can dig in deeper and learn more (perhaps better appreciate?) the challenging stuff.

Sharon's work is beloved by the many and the varied: from stylish and savvy parents who are enamored with the idea of starting their kids collecting from the crib and hang them in nurseries, to bona fide, grown-up sophisticates who install Sharon's prints alongside work by some of the heaviest hitters in the art world, to members of New York's finest, which brings me to one of my favorite municipal-workers-can-be-art-collectors-too stories:

Not too long ago, an NYPD car sidled up to the curb in front of Jen Bekman Gallery. The car's driver, a cop, recognized the name on the awning, and strolled right up to the gallery's front desk without a shred of that "galleries-are-so-intimidating-and-what-if-they're-rude-to-me" hesitation, excited to check the place out and happily divulging his affection for his growing 20x200 collection by... you guessed it: Sharon! Montrose!

I love that an NYC police officer is collecting art from us! That he walked into our gallery to let us know how much he enjoys the site and had things to say about one artist in particular is freaking awesome. The postman in Oregon had never heard of Ballen before his conversation with Matt; I'd like to think that him loving 20x200 means that he's much more inclined to consider that work like that could have a place in his home too. One thing that's so cool to me about the whole idea of engaging all kinds of people is that once they're engaged and grow to trust us, there's an opportunity to expand horizons, challenge preconceptions and evolve taste.

Today's monkeys aren't necessarily as effortlessly engaging as Sharon's previous editions have been—in fact, a few members of team 20x200 have been downright creeped out by them. Conversely, some people who've not been as easily captivated by our animal menagerie are awfully charmed by these two. So, in their own way, these editions are challenging too... and we see that as a good thing.

Mandrill by Amy Jean Porter

Tuesday greetings collectors! Today's edition Mandrill is by back-by-popular-demand artist (yes, some of you are terribly demanding!) by the name of Amy Jean Porter. As detailed when I introduced her first edition, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, world-renowned internerd Choire Sicha—founder and Editor in Chief of The Awl—played no small hand in helping bring 20x200 editions by Amy to fruition. In consideration of this auspicious lineage, it seemed appropriate that I consult with said nerd to discuss today's release. Forthwith, our terribly highbrow and wide-ranging conversation about art, delight and loving what you love because you love it.

An Inability to Shake the Feeling of Running the Wrong Way into the Unknown by Colin Blakely

B-b-b-brisk Wednesday greetings collector friends. NYC turned into an icebox yesterday, but I've been warming myself with summertime memories and planning for the one to come—dreaming of long days at the beach, meandering bike rides and backyard barbeques. Colin Blakely inspires a different kind of warm and fuzzy nostalgia, one for a place far from the shores I'm daydreaming of, nestled deep in the heartland, Somewhere in Middle America. We're ever so pleased to debut his fourth (!) edition from that series here today, An Inability to Shake the Feeling of Running the Wrong Way into the Unknown.

I'm a city girl born and bred and don't imagine that I'll ever end up living anywhere that isn't close to the ocean. My identity is much more strongly tied to being a New Yorker than it is to being an American, but my life is very much rooted in an ethos of opportunity and idealism that I consider to be distinctly American. Alas, it's a version of this country that feels very far afield of the one we live in right now, and Colin's neighborhood evokes what I imagine it was and might still be in some small corners. This brings me back to the Carson McCullers quote I referenced when introducing Colin's last edition:

It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the roller-coaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known. - Carson McCullers

Before I go, a couple things you shouldn't miss:

- Colin's previous (nearly sold-out) 20x200 editions: The Seeming Impenetrability of the Space Between, Recollection of the Battles Fought Maintaining the Home Front and The Emptiness Left by a Denial of the Use for which it was Intended.

- Colin was a Winter 2007 Hot Shot, winning us over with his work way back then.

- Hot on the heels of those accolades, Colin was a 2008 Aperture Portfolio Prize Runner-Up.

- Also with Aperture, he's put together a gorgeous, very limited edition of 25 prints of Effigy of the Unmarked but Persistent Passing of Time, 2007, from the series Somewhere in Middle America.

- If you're in Texas, catch Colin's work in person at FotoFest Headquarters in the three-person exhibition A Matter of Wit. The show is on view in Houston now through February 25th.

The New Math of Relationships, 11"x14" by Craig Damrauer

The New Math of Relationships, detail, by Craig Damrauer

The New Math of Relationships, detail, by Craig Damrauer

The New Math of Relationships, 8"x10" detail, by Craig Damrauer

The New Math of Relationships
Laughter, Compassion, Argument or Hindsight | 8"x10" | $20 | 100
The New Math of Relationships | 11"x14" | $50 | 200
The New Math of Relationships | 16"x20" | $200 | 20
by
Craig Damrauer

I'm so excited about today's new editions that I find myself at a loss for words. There's so much about them that I'm totally in love with that it's hard to figure out where to start. This is our second time working with the prodigiously talented Craig Damrauer, whose Modern Art edition neatly deflects the most common of art criticisms.

Today's editions—also from his New Math series—tackle the complexities of relationships. Many and varied as those complexities are, it seemed fitting to present a suite of prints. (And a sweet suite at that!) Since we're talking about feelings and all, why not something tactile? Which is to say: these editions are letterpress, their inky black type so deeply impressed upon a paper woven of Craig's signature blue hue that you can feel them on the print's surface. Minimal and elegant, The New Math of Relationships makes the world of relationships seem utterly manageable (*cough*).

In his statement, Craig writes, "The problem with relationships is that their complexity belies quantification. Or, at least the kind of quantification that I'm capable of... I think of this piece a little bit like Ray and Charles Eames' The Powers of Ten in that as we get further away—and more equations enter the piece—we see the complexities of relationships a little more. The truth is that this tapestry of equations could stretch forever, or at least as far as human interaction stretches. And that's, I suppose, what makes relationships so difficult, so rewarding, so brilliant and impossible."

As someone who has always found comfort in words and is fond of molding them into formulas, his description resonates deeply with me. Words and formulas are much more tidy and manageable than people and all their stuff and what happens when your stuff gets mixed up with theirs. It's hard enough to reconcile everything that makes me me, with myself. It often seems impossible to mix all that junk up with someone else and emerge from such a collision intact. As I write this now and look at Craig's equations, I can't help but notice that the equal sign falls just short of bridging the distance on either side of any equation. Perhaps what's required is a leap of faith (don't look down!) and a belief that it will all add up somehow. Simple, right?

Praia Piquinia 06/08/09 14h01 by Christian Chaize

Jen first introduced you all to Christian Chaize's Praia Piquinia series almost exactly two years ago. Traditionally this seems to be the dreariest week of winter on the East Coast—the ice/sleet/rain combination we're steeping in today is no exception. But we're keeping our eyes set on sunnier horizons, specifically, the ones that Christian has documented obsessively—and we're not alone.

Since that fateful day in 2009, Christian's fixation has spread to hundreds of collectors, writers, critics and taste-makers. Even before we officially set Praia Piquinia out into the world, avid readers of Domino magazine (RIP) were scouring our site for the prints. We've released two more photographs from the series and more images—larger prints in smaller, spendier editions—are available through Jen Bekman Gallery. (Email collector@20x200.com for more information.) One of those massive (88"x68") prints was featured in the December/January issue of Elle Decor, occupying a place of pride in a collector's home. Our smaller 20x200 editions are not strangers to the limelight either—they've recently been featured in print, online—on pages 44–45 in Rue Magazine—and on air, when Lonny Mag editor Michelle Adams presented a print on the The Nate Berkus Show.

As the accolades and adoration for Christian's work keep coming, supplies, correspondingly, continue to quickly dwindle. Praia Piquinia 02/08/07 15h16 and Praia Piquinia 04/08/07 16h04 are both sold out. There are just twelve 14"x11" of Praia Piquinia 27/08/09 15h17 and only 1 24"x20" (at the time of this writing) and we sent 47 of those prints out to collectors last week alone. So, consider this respite from the winter doldrums both a trip down memory lane and a little forewarning, as Jen noted at the end of this newsletter: "you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.*"

From February 5, 2009:

A my-breath-turns-to-icicles-as-I-speak hello to you on this seasonally frigid Thursday...

Praia Piquinia 02/08/07 15h16 and Praia Piquinia 04/08/07 16h04 provide the perfect backdrop for your sun and sand fantasies. It's easy to see why Christian Chaize is, as he calls it himself, "slightly obsessed" with this idyllic beach in Portugal...

The visual appeal of these images should be inarguable to all but the crankiest of sun-and-surf haters (we all know a few). The landscape is inherently photogenic, and the umbrellas and sunbathers are most fetchingly arrayed across it...

[But] what makes today's introduction extra special is its pairing with Praia Piquinia 02/08/07 15h16. As you can surmise from their titles, these photographs were taken two days apart in August, from the same vantage point. The changes — subtle or obvious, natural or man made — revealed by the passage of time, are central to the work. Seen at different days and hours, the simple charm of the vista evolves into something richer — all the details unique to each moment are evidence of the transience of time and tide, creating a framework for human narrative, real or imagined. As each element is examined and identified, the daydream becomes clearer and the feeling of being there is that much closer...

[Read the entire newsletter here.]

* For anyone out there who might be wondering (and I know you're out there!): all of our editions are limited. Once they are sold out, that's it, that's all, they're gone for good. No exceptions.

YES (You Complete the Picture) by Trey Speegle

When people tell me "no," it makes me more yes. This has always been so, just ask my parents, who will say absolutely yes, that's true, perhaps while shaking their heads at the memory of how uniquely strong-headed I was. I might've been a handful then (still am!) but, the incredible gratification that I feel because this whole thing is working has me more certain than ever that sticking with yes, even if everyone else might be saying no, is the way to go.

All this YESness has me particularly excited about today's edition, our third from talented, NY-based Texan Trey Speegle. His YES (You Complete the Picture) is a storied one, carved out against Paris, its Arc de Triomphe and shops brightly rendered in a splendid incarnation of his paint-by-numbers obsession. Offering resolute reassurance, YES (You Complete the Picture) would make a fine companion to the reliable comfort that Trey's early-days (and entirely sold out!) OK edition has provided to hundreds of our collectors.

I said YES—and also no and a few other things—just this past Saturday at the incredible and inspiring Women Entrepreneurs Festival, where there were rooms full of yes and the electric energy that goes along with it. Brimming over with entrepreneurs of all stripes as it was, its attendees were all too familiar with hearing no all the time, so my comment was met with fervent nods of agreement and sighing shoulders of relief.

Trey's no slouch when it comes to sharing the word of YES either. He does so in word and deed, philanthropically and artistically. He's deeply involved with The Trevor Project, an organization whose mission is to reassure gay youth that YES, It Gets Better, which is that much more impressive when you consider how busy his career keeps him. You can see the fruits of his artistic labors live and in person here in NYC, when his solo show—It's Not About You—opens at Benrimon Contemporary this very NEXT Thursday.

YES. I say it often, to myself and aloud. Mantras and memories do their part, but a visual cue surely can't hurt. So if you were to ask whether I'll be framing up a YES of my very own, the answer would be: yes yes a thousand times YES.

Sweethearts by Jonathan Lewis

Hello, collectors! It's Sara, enjoying a nearly-perfect winter day here in NYC. Yesterday's bitter cold has departed, leaving a flurry of fluffy white snowflakes falling in its wake. It's the kind of day that, were we not all tucked into the office, might be nicely started with a cross-country ski Upstate, followed by a leisurely afternoon in front of a fireplace, warm and cozy, with a book and hot toddy in hand. Sounds romantic, no? (Sigh.)

It is instead my pleasure to share Sweethearts, our third edition from Jonathan Lewis, with you. Jen first introduced his work last summer. Back then, she was instantly relieved of waiting-room worries upon seeing the proof prints for Dots and Jelly Belly. The cheer in Sweethearts is, also, indeed, irrepressible, even when (again) confined to very square corners.

These lines, neatly, but secretly (how does he do it?) assembled into solid and stoic, but chaotically bright forms, are taken from an unlikely source—crassly-colored candy wrappers. Jonathan himself does a swell job of explaining the whys, if not the hows, so I'll let his statement do the talking:

Sweethearts, and the series to which it belongs, See Candy, take their inspiration from the visual cacophony emanating from the average candy section of the average supermarket. My own reaction is to vacillate between an almost childlike wonder at the sheer vibrancy of all the brightly coloured packaging, drinking in the sensory overload, and a more grown-up mode of cynical detachment, a learned defense against our media-saturated environment.

And so we all are when shopping, oscillating like the stripes in Sweethearts: alternately infatuated—operating on impulse—and rational, methodical and sticking to the list, not swayed by our senses. Because this particular print honors the candy most celebrated for the fast-approaching holiday of hearts (yes, that's right, February 14th is right around the corner), it seems appropriate to note that these impulses, whether we like them or not, apply too, to love.

In love, it's easy to sway, as Jonathan has described, between the warmth of childlike wonder and adoration and learned, aloof detachment. For young hearts and relationship veterans alike, the instinct to question connections and others' intentions in efforts to find a one-and-only or a Mr. Right (Now), is natural. It did, after all, take him a week to call back, and why does he think it's okay to text something like that? And really, how did he, on our second date, map out our next twenty years together? Who does that? And why didn't I find it terribly romantic?

And then, when it seems that your worst, pessimistic fears will take over—the end is near and you're doomed to be single FOREVER—someone or something (like this print, perhaps!) surprises you, and the flutters are back. In a good way.

Day 1: Vintage Erasers by Lisa Congdon

Day 260: Baby Doll Hands by Lisa Congdon

Hi collectors! It's Sara today, with two new prints from Lisa Congdon's A Collection A Day. An abundance of neatly arranged, slightly nostalgic pink things—what's not to love about Day 1: Vintage Erasers and Day 260: Baby Doll Hands? (Given, the doll hands are a wee bit creepy but in a good, goose-bumpy kinda way.) Jen first introduced you to Lisa's project over the holidays, and while the seasonal festivities are long over, there's still lots to celebrate with this pair of new prints—Lisa's forth-coming book, the turning of attention to a new full-time focus on illustration and art-making, birthdays and haircuts. And, then, of course, there are the collections themselves—and collecting itself.

Whether the art collecting thing is new to you or not, I'd wager that you were a collector of some sort at an earlier time in your life. As a way understand the things around us, to personalize and to make them ours, collecting is an instinct that's embedded in us, even before we're aware of what we're doing.

In one of my favorite photographs of my sister, at about age six or so, she is huddled over a pile of petals scattered between her bare feet, circling yellow and red tulips with pastel snapdragon heads and smudgy poppies. Between the two of us, we traded her arrangements—along with piles of sticks, rocks and mica, strawberries, raspberries and the occasional small toad—to win made-up "survival" games. All of these things that individually could be dropped and lost in the grass, blown away and forgotten, collectively took on new (and, usually, dramatically increased) value when gathered, piled and sorted.

Like leaves and twigs, erasers and plastic parts (whether on their own and/or buried in drawers) might not amount to much. But culled and categorized, they take on new meaning, aesthetically, or otherwise. Lisa's collections, smart and sophisticated, are the grown-up version of things we used to do unknowingly (and if we're lucky, continue to do)—the whole project amounts to 365 days of celebrations.

Arrow by Bryan Schutmaat

Short-but-sweet Wednesday greetings from warm and sunny San Francisco. (Yes, I said "warm and sunny" because it IS, and man, does it feel good compared to NYC right now.) Today we have Arrow, our third photography edition from team JBP favorite, Bryan Schutmaat.

A quick browse through the Hey, Hot Shot! and/or Jen Bekman Gallery archives will illustrate how neatly Mr. Schutmaat fits in among the photographers of which I adore. Arrow, has the added bonus of bringing back some fond, fond memories, evoking a reminiscence about one my favorite exhibitions ever at JBG. Best Midwestern, a group show of Midwestern photographers, opened way back in the summer of 2004. It was the very first time (of many!) that I showed the work of Alex Alec Sloth Soth, who is now a dear friend. Back then, he wasn't the international-career-retrospective-museum-show-having, multi-book-publishing hotness that he is today, but man, I sure loved the photo that we included, Cemetery, Fountain City, Wisconsin 2002.

I was struck today by that image's kinship with Bryan's Arrow: their brushy, snow-dusted hills and the way that natural light mixes with man-made illumination to give their respective deserted roads a similarly eerie beauty. It's not surprising then, to hear that Bryan counts Alec among his few photographic heroes. And even more fitting: Bryan is now studying under Alec at the Hartford Art School along other venerables Robert Lyons and Doug Dubois. It's when worlds collide like this and everything falls neatly into place that I know we're doing something right.

The Denny's Parking Lot by Esther Pearl Watson

This is where I talk about the weather. I am in SF right now, where it's warm enough that I walked slowly back to my hotel last evening wearing a sweater and a cotton scarf that hung loosely because I didn't need to wrap it against the cool-but-not-cold air. In NY, it is bitterly cold and really, really dirty, with week-old snowbanks scattered about, encrusted with soot, layered with left-behind-on-purpose and forgotten things that no one wants to look at, but there they are. You can't really not look, especially if you're out walking the dog and you want your mind on anything but how your shoulders are so tightly clenched against the freezing-ness it's as if they're trying to wrap themselves around your ears.

I don't know what it's like anywhere in Texas right now, but thinking about today's edition by just-outside-of-Fort-Worth native Esther Pearl Watson has me imagining a day so hot that the air ripples, with enough of a breeze to stir up the sand so it gets stuck on the damp hair of your neck, maybe even in your teeth. Esther paints pictures of stories that I want to hear. A few handwritten sentences give away just enough of the plot—suddenly it's not a story, it's a movie and we're building the set, soundtrack and a script. There are spaceships.

In The Denny's Parking Lot, there are child stars who hopefully grow up to be just like Drew Barrymore populating the sound stage, wardrobed in impeccably curated late 70s fashions. I am pretty sure that Esther's dad, builder of the aforementioned spaceships, is played by Jeff Bridges. Heroes and spaceships aside, Esther's at Denny's with her dad, and maybe a sibling who she fought with in the back seat of the station wagon along the way. In the stories most familiar to me, going out to Denny's with dad had something to do with him not living under the same roof with you and mom, who'd cook her own damn ham and eggs, thankyouverymuch. Or maybe she's just sitting this one out at home because she knows that this month's rent is being sacrificed for the used car engine that will most certainly be the exact thing that makes this latest flying saucer fly.

This is where we get to the part where it's possibly easier for this to be a story instead of a memory, with perfectly puffed cotton balls serving as clouds and toothpicks that have bright green Easter grass glued to them standing in for trees. Back then, Denny's was cool and all, but it was hot in the car, and even though Esther was only five or so, it seemed like maybe her mom had a good point about the flying saucers. As a grown-up, Esther can tell the story in a deceptively simple way, referencing the outsider art that she discovered in high school (the same art that made her understand the artistry in her dad's quixotic endeavors) and the comics that make the most painful, awkward episodes of childhood and adolescence fodder for humor, even if some of it is a bit black. She tells these stories over and over, the simplicity and the whimsy expressing something real and universal, about what it is to be a child, and how you remember it, and how what happened then shapes what you become. How she tells it is in no small part due to her dad, so aside from everything else about how growing up with a dad who wanted to build spaceships meant and means, she's got that to thank him for.

First Snow by Paul Octavious

Good morning collectors! It's Sara, with a snow day surprise—not the kind where you get to stay home, build tunnels, forts and snowmen, then drink hot chocolate and watch movies, but just as good. First Snow is the wintry fellow to Paul Octavious's summery Kite Hill which we set a sail last September.

Seasonal siblings, both works are from Paul's series, Same Hill, Different Day. And I know what you're thinking: First Snow looks a little like Joe Holmes's Sledding Hill at Dusk, too. The works are similar, yes, but different, and not just because Joe is photographing in NYC and Paul is in Chicago. This is actually where their works depart: Joe seems to find those specific things that make New York New York—the day-to-day (but still, somehow, cinematic) instances that become icons. Paul, on the other hand, photographs this one hill that could be just about anywhere—a small nondescript mound with a soaring sky standing in for wherever we might want to be. Which brings us back to where these works converge again.

Joe's Sledding Hill at Dusk, comes from his series of photographs, The Urban Wilderness, in which Brooklyn's Prospect Park, wrapped in snow, is stripped of all evidence of its urban environs. The park becomes pastoral—the fantasy territory of childhoods lived elsewhere. Paul's hill too, is usually bare of hints that might belie its true location. Instead, First Snow is made personal by Paul's documentation of the people that visit this same place, over months and years, and the things they bring: sleds, kites, fireworks, bikes.

In his visiting and revisiting, Paul's stumbled upon many a marvels, including, on one foggy, dreamy day, Ghana's World Cup team kicking a ball around. His hill, it seems, offers these things up—just as New York gives Joe yellow cabs, and a yellow dress, red lights, and the tools of passing trades—as thanks for paying attention. They are I think, like the leaves, the apples, the wood, shared between boy and tree in Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.* What Paul and Joe and Shel seem to know (and share with the rest of us) is that these gifts are better than what shelters, feeds and sustains us, these are the things that nourish us.

* The Giving Tree! Gifts! Of life! Goodness. As I wrapped this up and sent Jen a link for editing, I was a bit worried it all sounds so cheesy. But I do mean it, even if, in thinking of Chicago, I'm afraid a bit of Oprah wore off on me.

Confections (adorned) #14 by Amy Stevens

Losing our faith in art is, in a secular culture, what losing our faith in God was to a religious one; God only knows what losing our faith in desserts must be.
— Adam Gopnik, in last week's New Yorker

I nodded in recognition as I read that line in Gopnik's article about feats of molecular gastronomy that have come to define the modern dessert. You're likely familiar with the culprit, something that might be "three upright cylinders—small towers of something wrapped in something—with the tops sliced at an angle," basically the antithesis of everything that's wonderful about Cake Week here at 20x200. Foam of this and essence of that, sheesh! No wonder poor Adam's facing a crisis of belief. With good old-fashioned cupcakes, ice cream and other tried-and-true treats in abundant supply here on the isle of Manhattan, my faith in dessert remains unshaken. I can't help but look askance at how nostalgia-laden these offerings are though, so delicious, and yet so ripe for parody!

As Confections (adorned #14) so ably illustrates, Amy Stevens dishes up exactly that with her madcap creations. One of our most recent crop of 2010 Hot Shots, Amy's submission created quite a stir among our panelists. Her self-described "exuberantly imperfect" results lit up our screens, their irregular, lumpen profiles showcased against equally garish and disorienting backdrops.

While Martha's paintings seem barely contained, their imperfections chipping away at the ideal objects she's depicting, Amy's just thrown in the towel completely, surrendering to chaos—embracing it, in fact—her charmingly grotesque results serving as a sharp and inspiring commentary on perfection as achievement's measure.*

Not content to constrain her parody to the limited range of her viewfinder, Amy extends the excess to the in-person experience, presenting her photographs in overwrought rococo frames, lacquered bright and white. You'll have the chance to indulge in them yourself in just a few short weeks when we open the 2010 Hey, Hot Shot! Showcase at the JBG. The details:

Hey, Hot Shot! 2010 Edition
Opening: Friday, February 4th, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
On View: February 5–March 6, 2011
Where: Jen Bekman Gallery
6 Spring Street, New York, NY

See you there?!

* They're also a lavish counterpoint to the snickering schadenfreude evoked by Cake Wrecks.

Stay Icy by Martha Rich

Chocolate Electric by Martha Rich

Let-them-eat-cake Tuesday greetings, collectors! I trust that you're all warm and dry, cool and collected—whatever temperament and temperature you want to be. As for me, well... I'm planning a party in honor of the dearest of friends, preparing for a week-long business trip that comes uncomfortably hot on that soiree's heels, and marginally anxious about NYC's impending blizzard. In other words, I could really stand to steady my nerves a bit! For lots of people a stiff drink (or two) would do the trick. For me? I find nothing more calming and comforting than a sweet treat, which means that this week's trio of delectable editions hold a special appeal.

On today's menu we've got Stay Icy and Chocolate Electric, two little slices of heaven from the wry, witty and prolific Martha Rich. Like me, Martha derives comfort from confections, but wisely chooses to channel her desires into creation rather than consumption, with dazzling results. Oozing with nostalgia and humor, Martha's drawings also have a kind-of barely contained mania about them, the force of their creation testing the limits of any rose-colored revisionism one might feel for a simpler time when a lady's grandest feats were achieved at home and hearth.

As I watched this video interview with Martha, I had a distinct urge to ring her on the phone so we could chat. An odd impulse for me, considering that a) I've never met her and b) I long ago eschewed telephones for the asynchronous-as-you-wanna-be pleasures of IM. Still and all, I'm sure that Martha and I could chat for hours—commiserating about life/work balance and the challenges of modern life—so often pitting feminism against femininity. I would point out to her that she is a badass and a role-model to artists everywhere—I'm almost sure she doesn't realize this, since even the most accomplished artists rarely ever do—and she'd mmmhmm in empathy as I describe my urge to look at baby animals on the interwebs, recognizing how their soothing powers make them kindred spirits to her pastel-hued panettones.

Better still, maybe I could have a little party for her, inviting all the 20x200 artists that she reminds me of to join us. She could compare notes with Austin Kleon on their obliterative* editing skills, and she might have a few choice words for Mike Monteiro about their shared hometown of Philly. Lisa Congdon and Kate Bingaman-Burt could trade war stories with her about the trials and tribulations of signing themselves up to make a new piece of artwork for all 365 days of a given year. She could trade cakes with Clare Grill. What fun we'd have!

And then, just as we were about to wind down, a brand new artist bearing the bizarrest of baked goods would arrive. Who is this mystery guest and what's that she's got in her hands? Tune in tomorrow and all will be revealed!

* Yes, I know that's not a word, but you know what I mean, right?

First-edition-of-the-New-Year greetings, collector friends! As with last year's bridge-burning final edition from Mike Monteiro, today's edition by Wendy MacNaughton would be excellent fuel for any new year's resolve that involves fortifying oneself against future-tripping and/or past-dwelling. The instinct to, as Ram Das famously said, Be Here Now is a noble one. While it's not very zen of me to say so, experience has proven that instinct is infinitely easier to pursue if you happen to love the one you're with, in the now. Our second edition by Wendy, The Universe and Forever, confirms a sneaking suspicion that I'm not alone in feeling this way.

The affinity I've developed for Wendy's work over the last few months has a lot in common with what I find so satisfying and comforting about Joe Holmes' depictions of NYC. I realize this might seem like kind-of a head-scratcher, but bear with me. I often speak about how Joe is capturing our adored city in a loving embrace that's equal to my own—knowing that he is always looking reminds me to keep looking. And, I derive a certain comfort in knowing he's likely to discover and preserve some quintessentially New York tableau that I might of overlooked and definitely wouldn't have been able to photograph as he had.

In Wendy, I've found someone who seems to navigate the terrain of emotions and experience in a way that's reassuring in its familiarity. And, much like I'm not so hot at picture-taking—a fact woefully evident to me this morning as I reviewed my unfortunate attempts at preserving my Hawaii vacation for posterity—I'm also not so hot at talking about my feelings. And when pressed upon to do so, I'm utterly incapable of brevity. (You're shocked, I know.) Conveniently enough, my consuming obsession with making this whole art-for-everyone thing a reality has managed to crowd out my personal life, leaving little time for having feelings, much less for discussing them.

A rather sudden change—Things Happen, doncha know—has me feeling feelings, kind of schmoopy ones even, and (gulp) talking about them too. It turns out it's not so bad; in fact, I'm kinda into it. So far, so good—I give myself an A for effort, but a "needs improvement" for precision and brevity. Fortunately for me, today's edition from Wendy can fill in while I try to catch myself up.

Final-greetings-of-the-year friends! It's Sara sending this last dispatch from the sunny foothills of Colorado. As Jen wrote yesterday from watery Oahu, team JBP has dispersed for the week to enjoy time with family and friends, wherever they may be, as we savor the holidays and welcome the new year. But we won't ring in 2011 without waving farewell to 2010—what a year it's been!

We brought you 138 editions, by 82 amazing artists!—partied it up at the Brooklyn Museum and Chronicle Books—geeked out and freaked out when we saw Jorge Colombo's drawing on the iPad—infiltrated the art fairs armed with totes and treats—spotted internet stars turned TV stars—talked life and politics with a legend—supported our fine friends at the Brooklyn Museum, Creative Time and Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum—teared up when our friend Matt shared his Roger Ballen print with his postman—hit the road with Todd Hido—were amazed as the Starns took over the roof of The Metropolitan—opened eight shows at the JBG—applauded Nina Berman and Curtis Mann as they were honored by inclusion in the 2010 Whitney Biennial—searched high and low to find the next five most exciting photographers working today—crushed on Alec Baldwin when he dropped $10K for a Joseph O. Holmes photo—created personal 20x200 accounts—smiled as Ms. Jen Bee was compared to Leo Castelli—celebrated the season in black and white—and finally! offered (some) framed prints.

Phew! That wasn't all, there was much more, it's true, this recap's not complete. There are too many good things to mention, both small and grand—emails, talks and meals with artists and collectors—that have made this year remarkable. But, I think, there's too much to be said and not enough done in looking back—sometimes it's best to keep your eyes straight ahead (especially when the future's full of art!). So, with that I'll toast to you—the loyal collectors we couldn't have done it all without. Salut!

Untitled (May the bridges I burn light the way.) by Mike Monteiro

Final-edition-of-2010 greetings to my far-flung collector friends. I write to you from the island of Oahu, and am grateful for the last-minute instinct to fly myself far, far away from the now snow-socked Eastern seaboard. Alas, with stormy skies forecast throughout our stay, I expect that umbrellas will be coming in handy for reasons other than the garnishment of tropical cocktails. (Although I expect liberal partaking of those as well!) Today's SF-based edition-maker, Mike Monteiro, is also far from home, in the midst of a sojourn to jolly old England. Fortunately for us (and for you!) we agreed long ago that this most recent addition to his enduringly popular array of editions was a fine way to close out the year.

Untitled (May the bridges I burn light the way.) epitomizes the sort of blaze-ahead, consequences-be-damned attitude that's familiar fuel for Mike and me. I can't say that it's always the best way to forge ahead, but it serves my own instincts for future-tripping well. (An instinct I've tried—with some success!—to curb as I endeavor to be more adult-like.) I'm also a bit of a Pollyanna however, so it doesn't take much for me to see a certain optimism and honesty in a statement like this one, once you've gotten beyond its bravado.

We're all prone to indulge in inventory-taking and retrospective-making, especially at this time of year. I just did a bit of it myself this morning, comparing notes on the year that was with my traveling companion. It's a fine endeavor, but not one to dawdle on—we're all only moving ahead, after all, and that's true regardless of whether the bridges behind us are burned or intact.

Game Board by William Wegman

Blizzard by William Wegman

PLEASE SEE PURCHASING LIMITS BELOW.

Warm and fuzzy, nearly-Friday greetings, my friends. With tomorrow's standard shipping deadline upon us, the procrastinators among us might be getting a wee bit anxious about what to get for whom and how and when. Fortunately, we've got plenty of options for indecisive perfectionists who end up waiting till the last possible minute to settle on something for someone. (Not that I know what that's like. No, not me!) Sara and I will visit your inboxes with options and ideas a few more times before Christmas Day, but today's editions from JBP family favorite William Wegman are the last new prints we've planned with gift giving in mind.

I've been wandering around my apartment for the past few hours trying to figure out what to write about Blizzard and Game Board, and everything that's sprung to mind has felt implausibly perky and sentimental. A few hours into trying to navigate around it, I decided to give in. Want to skip ahead and get your art on without reading? Probably a good idea, considering how fast-moving Bill's editions have been in the past. But first, please read through a few limitations and restrictions related to these very special editions:

- There is a limit of two 10"x8" and two 14"x11" prints, and of one 20"x16" and/or 24"x20" print, per edition, per collector.
- This edition is not eligible for any discount or promotion.
- We reserve the right to refund purchases if we determine that a single collector has acquired multiple prints and/or used a discount code.

It's certainly a special thrill to have the opportunity to offer the work of such a legendary artist to our collectors not once, not twice but three (!!!) times and my pleasure of doing so is only enhanced by how much Sara and I have enjoyed planning these editions at Bill's studio.

As I described when introducing About Four Thirty and The Architects, our initial interactions with Bill led me from awareness—he IS the dog guy after all, right?—to admiration—he also happens to be an artist with a serious, enduring and varied practice. Nearly a year later, after several afternoons spent at his studio checking out paintings in progress, poring through the archives with Jason Burch and sipping tea with sharp-eyed curator and art dealer Christine Burgin (who is a delightful human being and also happens to be Bill's wife)—all of this conducted with a passel of loving Weimeraners swarming around our knees, naturally—my admiration of Bill's practice is fortified with deep affection for him and his whole pack.

I'm grateful every day for this life I have, getting to know artists, working with a group of amazing people to share their work with all of you, and receiving the most heartfelt of thanks nearly every single day for doing so. What makes it all so truly incredible are the essential truths uncovered at every corner of those interactions. Artists, whether renowned or undiscovered, thrive with acknowledgment and careful attention. People who work hard for something they believe in are deeply satisfied (even when frayed by just how hard they're working). Collectors—thousands of them—discover just how fulfilling it can be to live with art, and to play a role in supporting artists in their practice.

Our relationship with Bill affords me the best incarnation of all of these things. I can't tell you how much it means to me that he invites me into his studio and wants to hear what I think about his paintings in progress. (And I can scarcely believe that he does!) I get to go there with Sara, who is an amazing person to work with; back at the office, we keep company with an incredible array of remarkable people on our team. And then there are all of YOU. It makes me really happy that all this goodness that I get to enjoy gets art into your hands.

Ideal Bookshelf 102: Cooking by Jane Mount

Hi collectors! It's Sara on our second-to-last-new edition day of the holiday season. That means Christmas is *right* around the corner. Can you believe it?! It's so soon! There's much too much going on here in the meantime, so I'm going to make a list for you (and check it twice):

1. Friday, December 17th (this Friday!) is the LAST DAY to order your prints and have them shipped by USPS in time to get them under your tree.

2. Tomorrow (Thursday!) we'll wrap up our weeks-long run of new editions with a pair of photographs from William Wegman. I promise: witty, charming and smart the works will be. Keep a close eye on this Colbert Report clip for a sneak peek at one of the photos we'll be offering.

3. As I mentioned yesterday, we kicked off a contest on Twitter this morning with our friends @SeriousEats. If you're not already, follow @20x200 and @SeriousEats and chirp these words to win one of Jane's 11"x14" prints and a cookbook: "My fave book on this shelf @20x200 is... [name of book]"! We'll randomly select one of you and announce the winner tomorrow (Thursday!) on Twitter.

4. All this brings us to today's edition, If you're savvy, you spotted Ideal Bookshelf 102: Cooking by Jane Mount this morning. But don't wait to win one, snap up your print as I think they're sure to go. Jane's painted this shelf chock-full of culinary classics: Barefoot Contessa At Home, The Silver Spoon, Ad Hoc at Home, La Patisserie est un jeu d'enfants, The Joy of Cooking, The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, How to Cook Everything, A New Way to Cook, Beard on Bread, The Art of Simple Food, Jamie at Home, Off the Shelf, The Moosewood Cookbook, Tartine, El Libro De Doña Petrona, Cooking By Hand, Cooking in Switzerland and Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

5. And finally, I'll send you off with a little bit about Ms. Mount. As you might know, she's especially near and dear to us at JBP so it's with much inspired pride that I tell you this: This year, she took a leap. As an artist, she took the leap, forgoing regular paychecks to make art full-time. It's a really big deal—super exciting and yes, again, inspiring. But it's also a lot of hard work. While she's painting day and night to make it happen, you too can do your part to help more artists make a living making art. With every print you give and get, you're helping artists do what they do best.

Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica by Stuart Klipper

Freezing-cold greetings, collectors! It's Sara and as you spy above, today's edition is a sliver of Eden to defrost this frigid day. But before I get into the details of this work and its maker, I have some fun, games and a forewarning: to get first news about tomorrow's edition and to find out how to win a $50 print, plus a book to boot, follow Serious Eats on Twitter. We're giving our friends there the scoop because we know foodies-in-the-know will especially dig it. All you art lovers will want to play—particularly fans of Jane Mount's ever-popular Ideal Bookshelves series—and you heard it here, first, today. Follow Serious Eats and you'll also get lots of great culinarily-inclined updates—on everything from designer ice creams to canned tomatoes and cookie sheets. While you're at it, make sure you're following 20x200, too.

While fun and games are, well, fun, today's edition from Stuart Klipper packs a serious sense of adventure, not to mention sheer green gorgeousness. What better way to fend off the cool grays of winter's bay? Let's rest our eyes on Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica and pretend a trip to the tropics is just a hop, skip and a jump away. After all, Stuart's done all the trekking and sweating for us—traveling deep into this teeming rainforest with his camera in tow, struggling against downpours and mudslides, swimming in, as he said, "a thick soup of DNA"—and returning with his document of these prehistoric palms. Waving long and broad amid a dense tangle of innumerable varieties they bid the weary wanderer hello.

Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica recalls my own months-long stints through Central America—back-packing and surfing, butterfly-spotting, island-hopping and mountain climbing, guided by fireflies and sleeping in huts that armies of ants invaded, where rustles in the grass one day gave way to a six-foot boa constrictor, and grasshoppers the size of hot dogs sprang from the fauna. All these things, I'm sure Stuart faced too, as his sense of adventure is equaled only by his photographic fervor: he's super prolific, leaving panoramic peeks of the farthest reaches of the world in his wake. For this, he's one of 20x200's kin. Many of us round HQ, too, are heartened by a deep-seated sense of wanderlust, mostly satiated vicariously these days, by works like Stuart's and the tales he tells. And I think there's a fair share of collectors out there who will appreciate these things too.

Stuart's first editions, Swell, Southern Ocean near 50 S, Antarctica and Icebreaker, Emperor penguin, Southern O., Antarctica feature photographs from his travels to the coldest climates, in the most desolate of places, for a project encompassed in the book, The Antarctic. His travels and photographic accomplishments have been noted in print and by institutions as well. His works are collected far and wide, notably by the Museum of Contemporary Photography. So, I suggest you jump on this chance to acquire one of his prints too, for you or your nearest and dearest wanderer.

As promised, we'll back back with new work from Jane Mount tomorrow but don't forget, to get first dibs, follow our friends at Serious Eats. Till then!

Timid Whale by Don Carney

Dapper Owl by Don Carney

Merry Monday greetings, art lovers! We've got more amazing art queued up for you this week—new works every day through Thursday—starting with today's debut of an artist I've long-admired, Don Carney. Don created Dapper Owl and Timid Whale exclusively and especially for 20x200, but their subjects are ones oft-revisited in his ink drawings. Aside from being among the most fascinating of creatures great and small, it's easy to see how they can be associated in both subject and style with Don's New England roots.

I first saw his work at a small gallery out in East Hampton, where a few of his gorgeous ink drawings were hung in a rather fetching salon-style cluster. As evidenced in various images of my home—atop the page of our limited selection of framed prints and in our how-to-frame-your-art video—I'm a big fan of salon-style art hanging. That Don houses his drawings in vintage frames picked specifically for each work makes that kind of presentation particularly captivating. The care that goes into the creation of each of Don's original gems is reflected in their très cher pricing, but fortunately for us, their inspired evocation of woodblock printing techniques makes them extremely well-suited for the prints that I present to you today.

With our daily dispatches continuing apace throughout this week, I find myself wanting for verbosity. (Can you believe it?!) Normally this is when I'd employ the words of others by inserting a fitting poem, but Sara has wisely warned that the Edward Lear poem I found most fitting would likely set spam filters into high gear, in spite of its status as one of my most-beloved children's poems. What a world we live in, eh?

Lacking in my own words and unable to employ those of others, I'll instead point you toward the plethora of pictures that await you elsewhere in 20x200's world. You've still got a good amount of time to peruse at leisure, but do be sure to get your orders in by this Friday, December 17th, if you're aiming to get art under your tree in time for Christmas using our standard shipping. Indecisive? Our Gift Guides can help! Also, whether you're gussying up your own place for visitors or wanting to give the most fail-safe of gifts, our framed prints are just the ticket. They're going fast, however, so don't tarry if you see one that you like!

The World by Paula Scher

PLEASE NOTE RESTRICTIONS BELOW.

Sitting-on-top-of-the-world Friday greetings, dear collectors. As you might have noticed by the 20x200 party in your inbox, we're having an awfully exciting holiday season 'round these parts. Today's special (in so many ways!) edition is no exception. With the season of giving on the brink of its fever pitch, the timing is just right for one of our benefit editions. One third of the proceeds from this spectacular edition will be donated to the equally spectacular institution, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, an outpost of that most venerable cultural hub, The Smithsonian.

Paula Scher, the creator of The World, is pretty spectacular herself. Her creative and professional accomplishments placed her high on my very short list of heroes well before I had the chance to collaborate with her. Meeting a long-admired hero can be a dicey proposition—expectations are often high (as mine were) and people are always people, no matter how accomplished they may be. Knowing all that has made getting to know Paula that much more gratifying—I have to tell you: she's an inspiration—as a designer, an artist, a woman and as a genuinely excellent human being. (That might sound over the top, but ask Sara! She can vouch for how true this all is.)

The silkscreen that The World is based on is absolutely massive and incredibly, obsessively, gorgeously detailed. Figuring out how to translate all that's special about it into prints for you required a considerable amount of collaboration with Paula. She is a principal at the renowned design firm Pentagram, their gorgeous office just a short jaunt south on Fifth Avenue from 20x200's HQ. It's a walk Sara and I made on several occasions, heading over there eager and excited, emerging inspired and amazed.

The result? An array of incarnations that allow all admirers of Paula's work to acquire their own corner of her world, or the whole darn thing. For two of our editions, the original work is divided into sixteen equal 11"x14" parts, all printed full-bleed (edge-to-edge, no borders)—rich and abundant in detail, for the affordable price of just $50 each, or $1,000 for all sixteen. Stack all the pieces into a grid and fill a wall! You can also have the whole world in your hands—the entire image within the dimensions of a single print—for as little as $500, or you can go big with the 30"x40" version for $2,000.

Whether you're interested in a quiet corner or anxious to conquer the whole thing, I strongly suggest you don't delay. You wouldn't want The World slipping through your fingers, now would you? As I depart, I'll leave you with The Map of the World Confused with Its Territory, by Susan Stewart, previously paired with this work on Personism, as it couldn't be more perfect for today's edition.

Notes:
- This edition is not eligible for any discount or promotion.
- There is a limit of five, $50, 11"x14" prints per order.
- Individual 11"x14" panels will be shipped to collectors at random; duplicate panels will not be sent within the same print order.
- We reserve the right to refund purchases if we determine that a single collector has acquired more than five individual 11"x14" prints and/or used a discount code.

50 (+1 for good luck) Giraffes by Jason Polan

Please note: The 11"x14" prints are hand-pulled silkscreens, black ink on white paper. There are some slight, natural variations from print to print. The 20"x15" pieces are unique, original, works in color. Each was drawn and watercolored by hand and vary.

Good morning collectors! It's Sara, so, so SO pleased to bring you a sweet, hand-made, can't-really-call-it-an-edition edition by our beloved Jason Polan. As he's known to do, Jason's gone and broken all the rules. 50 (+1 for good luck) Giraffes comprises silkscreens—an edition of 250 hand-pulled prints, 11"x14", for $50—and a series of original works—10, 20"x15", watercolor and ink drawings. There's also a super-special, very-limited edition of one that includes both a silkscreen and a painting, plus all the tools used to create them—the screen, the squeegee and the brush. The good stuff doesn't end there: in addition to the signed and numbered certificate that accompanies every 20x200 print, Jason's signed each work in this edition, on the back, in pencil. There aren't many 50+1s available and I suspect the demand will exceed the supply, so get your hands on these quick.

Printmaking fan I am, it's not the tactile nature of 50 (+1 for good luck) Giraffes that has me so excited. It's the gaggle of ganglers that Jason's wrangled up in every one of these works—giraffes! Most likely best-known for his endearingly ambitious project, Every Person In New York—which we featured way back when—Jason's turned his pen away from humankind to capture instead these favored beasts. We all know about Jen's affection for the fuzzy, feathered and/or four-legged; she's also noted my stoic resistance to all the fluff. But there's something so charming and disarming about Mr. Polan's depiction of these African even-toed ungulates, that even I can't deny.*

The truth is, these half-elegant, half-gawky, ancient creatures remind me of my nearest and dearest little sister, Katie. Though she's twenty-eight years of age, I still call her Kiddo. It's a term of such endearment, I can't say or write it without it bringing a smile to my face. She's tall and lovely, freckled and blue-eyed, with a crown of strawberry curls. Competitive as siblings often are, for years I've attributed that mass of hair to her appearing slightly taller than I, and maintain we're both an even 5 feet 10. Height aside, I think the real reason these sweet animals make me think of my only sister is this: despite their unassuming innocence, giraffes have roamed this earth for eons—they're considerably older and wiser than most creatures and surely know something that I don't. And, as much as I hate to admit it, all grown-up as she is now, my little sister probably does too.

I'll leave you with one secret bit of knowledge for you to savor: tomorrow Jen will introduce an *amazing* edition by the inimitable artist and designer, Paula Scher.

* And I'm not alone—Jen's ploys are working—she's turning us all to mush! In this morning's team meeting, one of our most reserved, fearless leaders sheepishly confessed his love for yesterday's Lovebirds.

Lovebird #5 by Luke Stephenson

Lovebird #6 by Luke Stephenson

Good day, collector friends! Holiday mayhem has given me nary a moment to catch my breath, so the length of today's introduction (brief) will be inversely proportional to my enthusiasm (enormous) for the work that is its subject.

I'm most delighted to be adding two finely-feathered friends—Lovebird #5 and Lovebird #6—to the eclectic array that inhabits 20x200's aviary. Their portraitist, Luke Stephenson, is no stranger to these parts. In fact, he's something of an elder statesman of 20x200, having debuted two editions—Yellow Canary #1 and White and Grey Canary #1—before 20x200 was even a year old. That fetching pair was also exhibited in the Ornithology exhibition at Jen Bekman Gallery, which is high on my list of favorite (not to mention funnest*!) shows we've ever done.

Luke's been about as busy as we have in the intervening years, continuing to work on The Incomplete Dictionary of Show Birds all the while. Unsurprisingly, I've been an ardent admirer of the series from the get-go, and I'm certainly not alone in that. Several of Luke's photographs were recently featured in Foam Magazine's New Talent issue, with one from the series serving as the cover image.

In getting today's prints ready for their debut, I looked through the newsletters I wrote introducing the first two. I was about to fly the coop for a trip to Madrid when Yellow Canary #1 landed in your inboxes, and was excitedly anticipating our very first in-person collector event in San Francisco when we hatched an edition of White and Grey Canary #1. In that newsletter I recounted a conversation I'd had with my friend Steve about what being a collector means to me:

Living with art is great, it's a comfort and it keeps your walls from being boring. Aside from that, making choices about what you like and don't like helps you know yourself better. (I've found that not liking something can be especially formative.) Considering yourself a collector, even if you've just bought a $20 print, gives some well-deserved gravitas to both your choosing and the work itself.

I believe in all the work that I present here and in the artists making it. I believe it's important and it's good and that living with it will make your life better in one way or another. And you're supporting those artists, which is a big deal. So, yea, my pal Steve is a collector and you are too.

* Ok, fine, "most fun!"

Crystallized by Michelle Hinebrook

Good morning collectors! It's Sara on this second day of the week, with our second stunning edition from Michelle Hinebrook. I had the pleasure of first introducing Michelle's work in August when we released the buoyant, seductive and saturated Sugarcoat. Today I'm here to tell you about its cool counterpart, Crystallized.

Like a pair of sisters, these prints play off eachother's strengths. Both are elegant, layered and complex, but where Sugarcoat is warm, bubbly and summery, Crystallized evokes colder climes with its crisp, faceted planes and blue-hued sparkling palette. It's just the thing to ward off any early-onset winter doldrums—ruby red jewels offer up their own warmth as they dissolve into tiny, triangular rainbows.

All that shimmers, glitters, appears and disappears in light was Michelle's source for Crystallized; she writes: "This work was inspired by examining patterns of spectral light that either reflect or refract into the geometric facets of a form. The forms in this painting reference diamonds, crystals, gemstones, and celestial bodies, star clusters."

Created from these sublime inspirations, Michelle's heavenly works are well-traveled on this planet, too. Hopefully all of you who headed south last week saw her work at Scope Miami. If you missed it there, see where else you can take it all in, in person, on Michelle's blog. Jen'll be back tomorrow with two new, finely-feathered editions by a photographer from across the pond. And if you're ordering from or gifting to across that pond, to guarantee Christmas delivery, international orders must be completed tomorrow.

Day 114: Dice by Lisa Congdon

Day 256: Vintage Airline Tags by Lisa Congdon

Bracing Monday greetings, art lovers! NYC is frigid and gusty today, which makes me ever so grateful for the warmth of 20x200 HQ, not to mention the taxi that got me here very early this morning. Early though I was (by my standards, at least!) I walked into an office full of energetic elves busily preparing scads of our framed prints for shipping, many of which were festively wrapped and adorned with our cute-as-a-button letterpress gift cards. With new editions set to debut every day this week, we've got plenty to keep us busy aside from wrapping and writing cards. I anticipate a week of early mornings and late nights, but I can't say that I mind it; with every waking hour filled with art and artists as I work alongside people who I think the world of—well, it's an embarrassment of riches.

Speaking of people I think the world of, today's edition-maker Lisa Congdon is one of them. The dinner I shared with her and the also-adored Kate Bingaman-Burt a bit more than month ago had me walking on air for weeks. Our conversation ranged far and wide, but so much of it came back to this: 20x200 has created all kinds of opportunities for both of them, and exposure aside, the fact that they can rely on substantive, predictable income from their editions' earnings provides the kind of stability that's too-often unheard of for artists. Words cannot explain how thrilling it was to hear this from them, and to hear it was, and remains, incredibly energizing.

It also must be said that neither of these badass women have much trouble creating opportunities on their own. In fact today's photographs—Day 114: Dice and Day 256: Vintage Airline Tags—come from Lisa's incredible A Collection A Day, 2010 project, an undertaking which has created myriad opportunities for Ms. Congdon. An instant internet sensation, her daily depictions of her astoundingly eclectic array of collections have garnered enormous attention and interest, landing her on the radar of a certain icon of craft, inspiring an entire Tumblr blog devoted to Things Organized Neatly, and also resulting in a forthcoming book project from Uppercase.

What a great privilege it is for us to be the purveyor of these prints! Sara and I have been plotting and planning for these editions since the project made its debut almost one year ago, our biggest obstacle being how to choose. Fortunately, we got to choose lots—these are the first pair of prints from the series, but will certainly not be the last. All the picking and choosing and editing has also given us ample opportunity to contemplate and discuss what exactly it is that makes the series so captivating, and let me tell you: we've got lots of theories. Youngna Park has done some awfully articulate theorizing of her own, so I suggest that to tide you over. With the day getting short and my to-do list being long, expounding upon those theories will have to wait for our next release from Lisa, which shouldn't be too far from now. As for us, we'll be back much sooner than that. Look for Sara tomorrow, when she'll be introducing a divine new edition by framed favorite Michelle Hinebrook.

alleverythingthatisyou sno7_057 by Mike + Doug Starn

alleverythingthatisyou sno7_077 by Mike + Doug Starn

PLEASE NOTE RESTRICTIONS BELOW.

What-a-week-it-was greetings, art lovers! Not content to stop with the array of excellent editions unleashed upon the interwebs over the past few days, we're ending the week on a high note with the release of alleverythingthatisyou sno7_057 and alleverythingthatisyou sno7_077, two gorgeous new editions from a series by Mike + Doug Starn that made its seasonally-appropriate 20x200 debut almost exactly one year ago.

Lots has changed since the release of the first two editions from the series, alleverythingthatisyou sno7.1_003 and alleverythingthatisyou sno6_005. Back then, I wrote about our visit to Mike and Doug's studio in Beacon and the magical experience of clambering up the dizzying, clattering heights of Big Bambú. Sworn to secrecy, I didn't divulge that the wonder of that organic architecture was slated to be built anew, climbing above the already rarefied heights of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And build it they did! Sara and I were among the lucky first few to pay a visit to the work-in-progress on a raw, blustery early spring day. We marveled at the unlikely, utterly brilliant layers of controlled chaos being assembled upon the roof of one of our city's most esteemed cultural institutions. Lucky first we were, but certainly not the last—by Halloween, the museum had hosted more than 600,000 visitors, many of whom got to enjoy a bird's eye view of the city from a structure that rose 40 feet above its roofline.

The Starns being the Starns, the whole project was extensively and exhaustively documented, resulting in lots of stunning imagery, some of which we hope to create 20x200 editions with in the not-too-distant future. This being the snowy, festive season that it is, it seemed the perfect opportunity to make an annual tradition of sharing a few of Mike and Doug's perfect-in-their-imperfection frozen moments. For the lucky few who snagged the first two, today's new editions will look stunning in their company. Fresh-faced newcomers who are feeling flush can still snap up all four at the 36"x36" size. Naturally, each individual snowflake is a thing of beauty in its own right, so don't hesitate to buy one to get and one to give. In light of last year's frenzied flurry, we expect these flakes to evaporate into thin air awfully quickly, so don't delay, but do take a moment or two to read through some important details and restrictions before you go:

- There is a limit of two 8"x8" prints, per edition, per collector.
- This edition is not eligible for any discount or promotion.
- We reserve the right to refund purchases if we determine that a single collector has acquired multiple prints and/or used a discount code.
- The quoted image dimensions include a generous white border which is part of the artwork and not a printing/printer mechanical artifact.
- When framing your print, floating it on museum board with its full dimensions intact is recommended. (No trimming!)

Atari by Hollis Brown Thornton

Happy Thursday dear collectors! It's Sara with my last dispatch for you this week. Jen will be gracing your inboxes tomorrow, early-ish, at 11:00 a.m. *sharp*, with new prints from a pair of your favorite artists: Mike + Doug Starn. They'll make the top of wish lists for certain, but made of the softly-falling stuff, their availability will be brief and fleeting. To get your hands on these lovely, lasting additions to any art collection (yours or your nearest and dearest's), make sure you're on the ready.

Today's new print from Hollis Brown Thornton likewise makes permanent the passing. Brown's collected and compiled dozens of cartridges to compose Atari. His marker-mellowed rendering of the the games that defined our not-too-distant past documents ever-changing technology and culture, nourishing our collective nostalgia for simpler times. In the details they reveal their past lives and loves--once owned by Tom Regan, affectionately worn at the edges--evidence of good use. Like the tapes in Brown's VHS and the space invaders in Closing Credits at the End of the Movie, the cartridges in Atari are seemingly stacked against technological singularity.

The colorful facades are a comfort to last night's (totally random, unassociated with today's edition) conversation that strayed from small farming practices to super-intelligence and that kept me tossing and turning, fretting about the fast-approaching future. There's no sense in losing sleep over it, our increasing inability to know what's next is the nature of this life we're living. Atari serves as a humble, 2-D reminder that there's no reason to lug around 3-D baggage as we hurtle through time and space. Left in Brown's hands, the games are reconciled as a portable part of our modern myths. While in the near-term, and in the far, there's really no telling what's around the corner, in the meantime, it's easy to get lost in smaller details, like just what to gift the guys, geeks and children of the 80s in your life. Perhaps that's one more stress Atari can address?

Ideal Bookshelf 101: Robert Verdi by Jane Mount

Tuesday greetings, collector friends! Introducing today's fashionable edition--Ideal Bookshelf 101: Robert Verdi, by 20x200 friend and favorite Jane Mount--puts me in the unenviable position of writing about two of my favorite people. This being Jane's eighth edition with us, I've already spilled plenty of virtual ink attesting to her fine qualities (not to mention her oh-so-fine, fine art) but I've only mentioned my dear Mr. Verdi on a few occasions, and then mostly because he happens to be 20x200's #1 fan. (A lot of you might consider yourselves well-equipped to fight him for that title, but trust me, he's got a bigger mouth than you do, bless his heart.) I'm also gonna let you in on a little secret: beneath that oft-catty exterior lies an utter pussycat.

Robert and I first met about a year ago. I was extremely puzzled when Jeffrey relayed a message from Robert left at the gallery. "That Robert Verdi?", I wondered, gazing at an Flash-animated page that had him dancing across it. (Wearing an all-white tuxedo. And a fedora. Of course.) I couldn't imagine what someone like RV would want with someone like me. Also, I was busy, so I confess: I didn't call back right away. This enraged him, naturally, but also, he kinda loved it. When we finally did get on the phone together, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was totally in love with 20x200, and incredibly articulate about explaining exactly why. We met shortly after that for a meal that was like a great first date: I fussed for hours beforehand about what to wear, and once we sat down together, we talked for hours. Fast-forward to now, hundreds of phone calls (and texts, and emails and Skype conference calls) later: the last meal we shared was Thanksgiving dinner, in the company of his sister, his brother-in-law and his four utterly charming and adorable nieces.

As BFFs go, I have to admit that having a celebrity stylist as mine has been pretty sweet! Left to my own devices, I'm likely to opt for jeans and clogs most of the time. (Cowboy boots if I'm feeling fancy.) RV will have none of that, and let me tell you--the man's got an eye! Most people know him for his flamboyant style. He's got a penchant for bright colors and bold patterns, so it might be easy to assume that he'd advise others to dress in his image. Not so! Part of what makes him such a pussycat is his intuition and his empathy: He has a knack for understanding who a person really is (for better or for worse) and figuring out how to communicate their essence with sartorial flair. Sure, he tries to get me into ridiculously high heels pretty much all the time, but let's face it, most ensembles look better with the added oomph of a pair of YSL sandals.

My day-to-day garb might verge towards the humdrum, but the fashion world isn't totally alien to me. I've been known to rock an Hermes scarf with my jeans and t-shirt and I've looked forward to the September issues for as long as I can remember. In fact, a lot of the books on Robert's shelf--The Cultivated Life, Yves Saint Laurent and The Hermès Scarf among them--are on my own shelves as well. Many of the others are tomes to covet--rare birds like Robert that they are, they're nearly impossible to find and très cher to acquire. Lucky for you, Jane's depiction of RV's ideal bookshelf is the perfectly-priced gift for the finicky fashionista on your list.

The Sledding Hill (Dusk) by Joseph O. Holmes

Happy holiday weekend collectors! On this Black Friday, it's Sara, tucked into the woods of Virginia, warm and cozy with family, still full from yesterday's feast. There is not one part of me that wishes to leave this nest and there are probably a few of you who share this sentiment and also won't be venturing out to brave the deal-seeking masses. For all of you, I have one more thing to add to your list of things to be thankful for: The Sledding Hill (Dusk) by Joseph O. Holmes. Considering that Alec Baldwin dropped a cool $10K for one of Joe's photographs, his 20x200 editions are a better steal than most anything you'll find out of doors today anyway. So, you can stay in and still get your gift-shopping started.

Joe's ever-popular photographs of Brooklyn's Prospect Park are also the subject of his upcoming solo show, The Urban Wilderness, opening at Jen Bekman Gallery on Friday, December 10th. We're so excited to bring this work to all of you, in person and online. Like so many of Joe's photographs, these capture the cinematic version of New York that lives in our hearts, scenes that come and go too quickly for most of us who are wrapped up in our busy, always-on-the-go, working day in and out lives.

Of making the images, he writes: When I walk deep into Brooklyn's Prospect Park on the first snowfall each year, I find myself transported to the winter meadows and hills of my childhood and to the hikes and backpacking trips around the tiny Pennsylvania factory town where I grew up. My town was surrounded by Christmas tree farms, apple orchards, corn fields and forested hills...

At first glance, many of the snowy spaces in The Urban Wilderness might be mistaken for those rural scenes: stark white meadows rimmed by low hills and bare trees. But upon closer inspection, street lamps come into focus, hints of park benches appear and backpackers are revealed to be dog walkers. The wilderness and the urban details are an incongruous mix: the juxtaposition of pristine emptiness with hints of the immense human presence lurking just outside the frame. But a hike through Prospect Park in the winter is the closest thing I can manage these days to those walks through the snowy hills of my childhood.

While Jen's about as city girl as you can get, I was raised in a small town like Joe, nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains with wide-open spaces to let your eyes roam, rolling hills for walking, creeks for dipping toes, trees for climbing and lots and lots of snow for skiing and sledding. The Sledding Hill (Dusk) might be taken from when I was small and snowstorms swallowed up backyards and made the whole world soft. It is when it snows and the city is smoothed in a silent white that I feel most at home in New York. Wherever you are, home or far from, hope you're warm and cozy, full and happy. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and we'll see you on Monday!

Ford Heavy Wreck by Don Hamerman

Dump Truck 1989 by Don Hamerman

Tuesday-before-turkey greetings, collector friends. If your inbox is anything like mine, it's filled-to-the-brim with all manner of holiday sale-related announcements. We are not immune to such things here at 20x200, hoping as we do that you'll give the gift of art to your lucky friends and family. Fan that I am of living with art, I'm confident a photograph or print by one of our artists is among the very best things to give or receive. As a collector once said on Twitter, "art lasts a lot longer than chocolate & flowers."

Everything else aside, there are few things you can buy for as little as $20 or $50 that directly benefit the person who created them. We have lots more than a line-up of amazing editions; you can expect lots of surprises along the lines of yesterday's offer for $10 off an order of $50 or more (see details to win a $50 Gift Certificate today, below!). Sure, we want to make our editions that much more enticing, but we also want to say thanks to all of you for supporting our awesome artists and for believing in what we do.

One of the things that I love about today's prints—aside from the fact that they are made by the ever-endearing and always-so-nice-to-see-him—Don Hamerman—is that images like these are a great way to get 'em started young. I can imagine Ford Heavy Wreck and Dump Truck 1989 adorning the walls of the littlest of collectors, like say A Cup of Jo's little Toby, and delight at the thought of a wee little one cooing and gurgling at the bright bold colors from the comfort of his* crib. It's also easy to imagine the photos situated on the walls of a won't-ever-grow-up captain of industry sort and/or adding a punch of color to an appealing array of prints hung salon style.

Ford Heavy Wreck and Dump Truck 1989 are in some excellent company here on 20x200. Long-time collectors are likely familiar with Don's Found Baseballs series, another set of editions suitable for fellas* that are young or young-at-heart. We've also got lots of kid-friendly prints, making it easy for the doting aunties (and uncles!) out there who are on board with this whole you're-never-too-young-to-start-appreciating art idea.

For all of you playfully-inclined grown-ups, today's 20x200 fun and games don't stop with the art. We've got a Facebook scavenger hunt for all the fans starting this afternoon. Haven't proclaimed your like for us? It's not too late! Give us the ole thumbs up, then play along for the chance to win a $50 20x200 Gift Certificate. Starting at 3:00 p.m. ET today, we'll be posting a series of five clues. Dive into the archives to find the artist and the edition we're talking about—the first person to post the correct artist and name of the edition will win the big prize.

Enjoy the hunt and have a wonderful Thanksgiving—I'll see you all back here with a snowstorm on Black Friday!

* Having been a tomboy with a crewcut myself, I also realize that there are likely more than a few little girls inclined to be enamored with trucks, baseballs and the like. Still, with gift giving in mind, it's a safe bet that toy trucks are likely to go over better with boys, just as little girls (even those that are the progeny of the most forward-thinking feminists I know!) are oft attracted to pretty princesses and playing dress-up.

Modern Art by Craig Damrauer

Good morning collectors! It's Sara. As I write, it's almost mid-day in Paris but feels like the wee hours of the morning in New York--I'm fending off serious (nearly delirious) jet lag so while there are lots of good things to say about today's edition and its maker, I will keep this note to you short and sweet.

No stranger to economy of words, Craig Damrauer swiftly puts a sock in the oft-exclaimed-when-looking-at-modern-art: "I could do that!" or even, "My kid could do that!" His Modern Art speaks for itself. Next time you hear someone knock a Jackson Pollock (perhaps whilst soaking in the super-fab Ab-Ex show up at MoMA), take Craig's cue: brevity is the soul of wit. (Though if not in the exclusive company of good friends, it may be best to keep your thoughts to yourself.)

Round 20x200 HQ, we're big fans of equations that add up to more than the sum of their parts--(limited editions x low prices) + the internet = art for everyone--not to mention words themselves, so rest assured this won't be the last (nor is it the first!) you've heard from Mr. New Math here.

With that, I'll take leave till next week when we'll be back with our regular mix of fine art and photography arriving just before you all take off for the long holiday weekend. À bientôt!

Louis the Third by Jessica Snow

Bonjour collectors! It's Sara this morning; Jen and I arrived in Paris on Sunday, soundly but sleeplessly, and have been wandering around the city in a sort of dream state ever since. Today looks like it may be the first day of sun--until now, gray skies have offset gardens full of topiary, turning leaves and late-blooming flowers, grand stucco and stone facades--sweetly subduing meandering streets.

But fall feels in full swing, and as in New York, there's too much to do and see. November is photography month here--Lens Culture's FotoFest has kicked off the beginning of the week and Paris Photo will round out the latter. All this photo goodness amidst the city of light--it just couldn't be lovelier.

From afar, we have good things to share with you, wherever you may be. If you're in NYC, add this to your never-ending list of things to do: see Jessica Snow's Multiple Plot Points at Jen Bekman Gallery. It's a stunner, full of playful paintings that invite an extended look. The longer you gaze at Jessica's compositions, the greater rewards you'll reap, and this is all the more reason to live with one of her works. Today's edition, Louis the Third, is a case in point. It's a wry and witty take on Morris Louis's Point of Tranquility. Just how Louis created his canvases is a mystery; he destroyed many of his works and kept his process a secret, leaving us to wonder in his wake. Jessica's got a few tricks up her sleeve as well--but she's traded the seeming spontaneity of Morris's overlapping color fields for her own sophisticated and specific color combinations. Look closely and you'll see they're not what you'd expect.

Read on about her work in the show's press release, take a sneak peek at all the paintings on view and see this smart write-up in The L Magazine. Jen'll be back tomorrow with a new edition from another clever artist who adds words together, in lieu of colors. Au revoir for now, friends!

144 Empty Parking Lots by Jenny Odell

125 Swimming Pools by Jenny Odell

Wednesday greetings, collectors! It's Youngna here with the second and third editions from San Francisco-based artist Jenny Odell, whose beautifully rendered obsessiveness Jen introduced to you a few weeks back. Jenny is a collector of larger than life objects, and in these newest editions, she has combed Google Satellite View to bring you 125 Swimming Pools and 144 Empty Parking Lots, each a rumination on these odd-yet-commonplace forms we live with and around.

As with yesterday's edition, prettymaps (paris) from Aaron Straup Cope, each of these works is produced from an immense amount of data, channeled into tools—Google Satellite View and OSM—respectively, that allow us to see the world as we never have before. For most of us, the information is fun to look at but overwhelming to take in. It is in the hands of these artists that infinite landscapes and data-points are deconstructed into beautiful forms.

That Jenny chose swimming pools and parking lots, two of the most commonplace memes in photography, as facets of her collections, evokes both a chuckle and complete awe out of me. As the lead on JBP's photography competition, Hey, Hot Shot!, I watch submissions come in throughout the year, keeping a constant eye out for photography memes. In 2009, we saw numerous entries capturing the economy and the recession; 2010 was a big year for cellphone photo submissions. The memes are often driven by the times, but there is also a handful of topics that percolate every season. Among these are taxidermy, nudes, gas stations at night and Jenny's subjects-of-choice: swimming pools and parking lots.

I point this out because these oft-tackled subjects are exactly the matter that's hardest to capture well. Among the successes are Alec MacLean's Houndstooth Pattern in Parking Lot, Carlo Van de Roer's baths and the here and there images that have come to be iconic versions of these subjects. Jenny, too, presents us with a new way of seeing familiar objects, creating intricate, puzzle-like collages that challenge us to look closely at both the pieces and the whole. When we zoom in on the pools' blue waters, we see the reflections of palm trees, fences, apartment complexes and telephone wires. When pulled back, we see a patchwork quilt made of pieces whose edges don't quite match, seemingly floating in space, waiting to be rearranged.

As Jen described in her previous newsletter: as the dimensions of the print grow, the fact that the objects in it are sourced from all over the internet moves to the forefront. As some objects soften and pixelate, the shift in appearance puts the focus on her process and the origins of the elements that make the whole. The process—that of scouring, collecting, shaping, compiling and carefully organizing each of the individual pools and parking lots into a single image—is what makes the output and the crafting of collections so very human and so very satisfying.

With that, I leave you to look forward to future arrangements from another artful gatherer—Lisa Congdon—whose ultimate collection of collections will soon be right here on 20x200 as prints for you to collect yourself!

prettymaps (paris) by Aaron Straup Cope

Good day collectors! It's Sara with our fourth edition from Aaron Straup Cope and Stamen Design: prettymaps (paris). PARIS! And I couldn't be more excited--not only because this print is gorgeous but also because in a few short days, Jen and I will be flying across the Atlantic and wandering the very streets drawn here for Paris Photo, visiting with friends from near and far, and of course, looking at lots and lots of photography.

Traveling that far to see and celebrate art and friends, easily, is not entirely unlike prettymaps--they're both remarkable vestiges of the way we live now. The gravity of the former is usually downplayed; we're generally casual about the ability to cross thousands of miles of open sea in a matter of hours. That is--unless you're Simon Winchester. Winchester, it seems, knows the Atlantic like Aaron Straup Cope and Stamen know maps. (This sounds like a stretch, I know, but please bear with me!)

Last week I heard him waxing about the Atlantic on NPR, distinguishing it from all the other seas in a gravelly voice: It is a gray and heaving sea, not infrequently storm-bound, ponderous with swells, a sea that in the mind's eye is thick with trawlers lurching... its waters moving with an air of settled purpose, simultaneously displaying incalculable power and inspiring by this display perpetual admiration, respect, caution, and fear.

For certain, (I hope!) our voyage from New York to Paris will not be the intimate experience with the sea that Winchester shares; it will simply be "the hop across the pond" that describes Transatlantic travel today. Most of us will never have the sort of visceral knowledge that Winchester has. The Atlantic's actual power, its depth and breadth, are reduced to metaphor, and remain unknowable.

Likewise, the beauty of prettymaps (paris) and its sister prints, (sfba), (la) and (nyc), coyly shadows the importance and immensity of the information they're highlighting. I have admittedly struggled to describe exactly what they are and how they are made. But, in a way, they too, like the Atlantic, are unfathomable to a lot of us. While we may be familiar with the sources of the information they're generated from--Flickr and OSM--are responsible for creating much of it, and can see how it's all done, the sheer volume of this information is something mind-bending.

If you go to the prettymaps site and type in your address, it may take a while for the image to load. Knowing that the web usually works that fast, you can begin to think about just how much information prettymaps is compiling. SO MUCH. While it'll work for you in Safari and Firefox, it's really designed to function in browsers that aren't even out there for us to use yet. We're living in the future but Aaron and Stamen are way ahead of us.

Don't let the poppy fields of color and neon streets in prettymaps (paris) fool you. They belie a vast source of information and knowledge that we're just beginning to see the depths of, let alone realize the power of and uses for. But, we can thank Aaron and Stamen for putting it out there for us--it's the beginning of a whole new way of knowing the world around us (and its many seas).

Culprit by Roger Ballen

PLEASE NOTE PURCHASING LIMITS BELOW.

Wednesday greetings, collector friends! It's our last hello of the week, online at least. If you're local, you can come by and see us at the Editions | Artists' Book Fair this weekend. We'll have tons of our prints on view, and many of us from team 20x200 will be there too--it's always fun to meet our collectors in person, after all. First things first, however! And what a thing it is--Culprit, our second edition by South Africa-based photographer Roger Ballen, is the stuff that dreams (sometimes bad dreams!) are made of.

For me, Ballen's work conjures up the places, characters and creepy-crawlies that populate the most anxious of dreams, the dread and regret that rise with the first ascent on a roller coaster, and the manufactured terror of a scary movie flickering in the darkness late at night. My stomach may be knotted at the recollection of all these things, but it's curious to observe how they stir my mind awake in a way that feels like it's good for me. As Sara wrote when introducing Place of the Upside Down, our first edition by Ballen, "these kinds of thoughts reside somewhere in all of us and recognizing that is probably one of the healthiest things we can do. It's, of course, a little clichè but we wouldn't appreciate lightness without some knowledge of darkness--we need both for the other to exist."

It's a short hop from dreamscapes to Freud (what would he think if a patient on his couch were to recount the tableaux depicted?) to an imagined sequence in some unshot Hitchcock film, its cast of characters culled from populations of the abandoned and misbegotten, with the occasional criminal in the mix. Whether it's Freud or Hitchcock driving the narrative I'm creating, there's a soundtrack that wells up in the background: a drumbeat that foretells certain and mounting danger, sharp screechy crescendos as creatures go from inanimate to skittering, and a carnival organ diving and climbing persistently in the background as some unseen protagonist struggles and fails at every attempt to wake from a dream (or perhaps to escape from some gritty reality?).

It's certainly exhilarating to get into and to emerge from Ballen's work, though there's not much that's easy about it. His images stand in stark contrast to the other creatures which have populated the prints we present to you, and being able to offer his work here, alongside some of the decidedly lighter fare found in our archives, is one of the clearest signs of success I can point to in our short history. In you, dear collectors, we have discovered voracious appetites for not just art, but for expanded horizons. Like Sara, many of you are artists who look forward to the opportunity to own work by legendary photographers like Ballen. Others might be skeptical about the grit and incongruity, but have been with us long enough (and read enough newsletters!) to be curious to hear more about how or why I see work like this fitting into our archives and/or on your walls. And some of you might be thinking "What ARE they thinking with this craziness?" But you know what? That's OK too. If you're sure you don't like something, I encourage you to embrace it and think about why it pushes your buttons in the ways it does. That's often the quickest path to figuring out why you love the things you love.

Love it or hate it--whether it's this particular edition or any of the hundreds in our archives--I believe that 20x200 is at its very best when it sparks conversations, challenges its collectors and broadens horizons. Our first Ballen edition precipitated an interaction that literally brought me to tears when I read about it on Tumblr this past summer. Upon having his Ballen print hand-delivered by his postman, Matt Niebuhr (a photographer himself!) discovered that the postman was a major 20x200 collector. And it didn't stop there! Turns out that the staff of a certain Portland P.O. makes a habit of exchanging 20x200 gift certificates and of talking about what they like, and why, to boot. How cool is that? Even cooler still was that this revelation prompted a conversation, then and there on Matt's porch, about Ballen's work.

I'll leave you collectors here to think and chat. If you are in NYC, I hope you'll take up the rare chance to talk with team 20x200 about the work in person--something that we're all looking forward to doing.

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING PURCHASING LIMITS:
- We're limiting collectors to two 10"x8" and 14"x11" prints each, and only one per collector for prints 20"x16" and larger.
- This edition is not eligible for any discount or promotion.
- We reserve the right to refund purchases if we determine that a single collector has acquired multiple prints or used a discount code.
- We are also offering an off-menu edition of five 40"x30" prints. Please email collector@20x200.com for more information.

Car Free by Tatsuro Kiuchi

Bundle-up-it's-cold-out-there Tuesday greetings, collectors! NYC is in high gear right now--everyone's calendars are brimming over with openings, art fairs, benefits and soirees, and it's just the beginning. We've got lots of events coming up, here and abroad, and we're in the checking-it-twice phase of our holiday planning at 20x200 HQ. One recent addition made with all this in mind? Our wish list feature, powered by Amazon. You won't be surprised to hear that I think art is the very best gift to give and get, but it's surely not the only one. The Amazon Wish List lets you add items from any site, and we've got links next to every print on 20x200 to make adding your favorites that much easier. My artwork wish list is endless, but I'm also hoping that Santa puts a shiny new bicycle under the tree for me this year.

I used to pedal around the city, but as of late, I've lacked a trusty steed, keeping me toe-to-heeling up and down the Avenues. In the meanwhile, NYC's streets have become increasingly safe for two-wheeled commuters. We've got a ways to go before we're living in the Car Free utopia that Tatsuro Kiuchi depicts in today's utterly charming edition, but there have been an impressive array of cycle-friendly additions to NYC streets as of late. In celebration of increasing masses cranking over concrete, it's due time to bring this print to you.

Tatsuro's prints have traditionally rung in reasons for us to cheer. In previous editions: Tatsuro's 20x200 debut last year, In the Ballpark, commemorated the New York Yankees winning the World Series. (Coincidence?!: Last night, the Giants, home team of my home-away-from-home, cinched the title themselves.) Tatsuro's second edition, Photographer's Dilemma, was paired with 28 Camera Drawings by Christine Berrie, making for a picture-perfect start to last year's Twelve Days of Festivus. And it's just about that time of year again to be ringing in the season--stay tuned for lots more goodness here--as I mentioned earlier, the festivities have already begun.

If you're in NYC this weekend, please join us at the Editions | Artists' Books Fair. We'll have lots of prints on view to buy from 20x200 faves, including our not-to-be-missed first edition from Roger Ballen. For those of you away, we'll have more from Ballen, here, too, tomorrow! The details for this weekend:

Editions | Artists' Books Fair
Friday-Sunday, November 5-7, 2010
11 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday & Saturday
11 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday
548 West 22nd Street
Between 10th + 11th Avenues
Booth 28

Hulk by Amy Stein

Powerpuff Girls by Amy Stein

Wednesday greetings, collectors. I am a little bleary after an evening spent at the Whitney Museum for their annual gala--an event full of glittering stars! And so many of them already knew about 20x200! Not just Anne Pasternak of Creative Time or Mike Starn or Robert Verdi (who is our #1 fan) but all kinds of people. It was amazing and fun and the best part is that I didn't wipe out in the ridiculously high heels I was wearing. Anyhow, more greatness ahead, including today's editions from Amy Stein, Friday's Hey, Hot Shot! proceedings at Blurb's NYC Pop-Up AND Jessica Snow's opening at JBG on Saturday, the eve before All Hallow's Eve. (Details on all, below!)

Speaking of Halloween, today's editions--Hulk and Powerpuff Girls by Amy Stein--are about as seasonally appropriate as you can get, plus utterly charming. Halloween in Harlem is one of my favorite projects of hers, because, let's face it: kids in costumes are cute. But aside from that, it's the one where I most see Amy's tender heart. Whether in person, online or via her work, I can see how most people who know her might think of her as being all-business and super-focused. And she is, in lots of ways.

Amy also happens to be a very lovely human being, and someone who's utterly devoted to her craft. I've had so many conversations with her about how hard it is to be an artist: to maintain a practice, to progress, to persist. She struggles in the same ways that every artist I know struggles, regardless of what level they're operating at. BUT I have always admired her so much--her commitment not just to her work, but to the photography community overall. She teaches, she blogs and tweets in a way that I think others can use as a standard to try to achieve. She's also involved in lots of photography-community projects, like Piece of Cake.

Her dedication to the community and her medium is universal; how she made this edition is a shining example of her commitment to her craft. I mean, we told her that it was a crazy idea, but she insisted until we found ourselves agreeing that yes, doing the entire edition as printed-in-the-darkroom-by-hand (like the olden days!) c-prints was the way to go. (And when she got into the darkroom and realized that we were right, and yes, it was crazy, she continued to persevere to bring you all these prints.) But she wanted them to be special--they would have been special regardless, I mean LOOK AT THEM--because she gets what 20x200 is about at its heart: creating the authentic experience of being a collector, no matter whether it's a $20 print or a $2000 print.

To purchase the larger digital c-prints from this edition--20"x20", edition of 10, $2,500 each and 30"x30", edition of 5, $3,500 each--along with other images from the series--contact her NYC dealer, Brian Clamp (who I adore! because he is awesome!).

Before I go for the week, here are the promised details about this weekend's big events:

Blurb Pop Up/NYC + Hey, Hot Shot! invite you to celebrate the 2010 Hot Shots!
Who: Hey, Hot Shot! Panelists, contenders, Team JBP + the NYC Photography Community
What: Meet the 2010 Hot Shots
When: Friday, October 29th, from 6 to 9 p.m.*
Where: 60 Mercer Street, New York, NY
Space is limited, so make sure you RSVP here by Thursday, October 28th. Complete event details are on the HHS! blog.
* At 7:00 p.m., I'll announce the five 2010 Hot Shots.

Jessica Snow's Multiple Plot Points Opens at Jen Bekman Gallery
Who: Jessica Snow + the JBP team, friends and family (that's you!)
What: Celebrate Jessica's new work
When: Saturday, October 30th, from 6 to 8 p.m.
Where: 6 Spring Street, between Elizabeth and the Bowery, NYC

Now by Marian Bantjes

[Note: The image above reflects the 40”x30” ($2,000) print. Each size, from 10”x8” up to 40”x30” reflects a different portion of this print.]

Good day collectors! It's Sara with the great honor of introducing you to the brilliant, brave and devoted artist and graphic designer, Marian Bantjes, and the edition she made just for us: Now.

As I started writing this newsletter, Jen wrote to me this morning about how she got to know Marian's work:

Being the founder of Unbeige gave me such an amazing way to connect with the design community--especially to the people linked to Design Observer: Michael Bierut, Steven Heller, Bill and Jessica of Winterhouse--I learned so much from them! Bierut, in particular, was especially amused by my fandom--I wasn't an industry insider, but rather an enthusiast, so interested in and excited about all the stuff I was discovering. And there was a LOT to discover--after a few months of writing Unbeige, I realized I had been a fan on the most cursory of levels, which only amplified my ongoing excitement. Bantjes was someone that I discovered during that time, and well: Wow! She's the sort of designer that puts the whole question of whether design is art to rest very snugly. She is so clearly an artist--a passionate one, and one who celebrates materials and form.

And while she's been on the list of dream collaborators for 20x200 that is ever-floating around the office, we're not alone; her fans are many.

I'm admittedly a latecomer to the cult of the beloved Bantjes but all the praise is well-deserved. Her projects are generous, personal and brazenly beautiful. Her now-annual Valentines--of which Jen was a recipient and IMed: "I basically felt anointed when she added me to the list of the lucky ducks who receive her valentines"-- bear the intricacy, reverence and intelligence that she's known for. It's clear that no task she undertakes gets less than her full attention--even though she's in high-demand--so it's no wonder that this edition has been in the works since January.

True to form, Bantjes took the project and 20x200's model and made it her own. As you can see in the column to the left here, Now unfolds and grows with every edition size. At 10"x8", N-O-W runs from top to bottom, partially, deliberately disguised as pattern. At 14"x11", the text is most legible but evidence of the game at hand leaks into the edges. As the image continues to grow with the print size, NOW is slowly swallowed again, deftly woven into an ornamental tapestry that glows--dizzyingly, seductively, rainbow-bright. While the details in the smaller prints are delicious, splurging on a larger print is duly rewarded.

I asked Marian why she chose "Now" and she replied, cryptically, of course, "[it] can be interpreted by people in different ways..." I'll take some liberties to guess what it may mean, to me, at least. There are hints, I think, in her hot-off-the presses book, I Wonder, (which is really, truly an object to behold and is available in bookstores and on Amazon) and inspiring TED talk (which you should watch asap). Amongst the table of contents, acknowledgments, dedications and intros, including one by the venerable Stefan Sagmeister, there lies these words from John Ruskin in The Seven Lamps of Architecture: "For we are not sent into this world to do any thing into which we cannot put our hearts."

To neatly link this quote with "now" is insufficient but still, the idea is this: whatever you're doing right now, every day, with all your time (or the majority of it at least) should be something that you feel strongly, passionately about, and to be doing anything less, is a waste. Yes, I'm aware of how idealistic, and maybe a little naive, this sounds, but it doesn't mean that it isn't true. As Marian confronts, it's something that's especially hard to swallow for those of us who do things that have results that are difficult to measure. Unlike, doctors who can count lives saved; teachers who can number students helped, bettered, changed; unlike politicians, scientists and national leaders who can literally see worlds altered by their work, the benefit of the work of artists and designers isn't always calculable, which makes it easy to dismiss--as individuals and as a society as a whole. Marian continues in her TED talk:

It's very common for designers and people in the visual arts to feel like we're not contributing enough. Or worse, that all we're doing is contributing to landfill. Here I am showing you some pretty visuals and talking about aesthetics but I've come to believe that truly imaginative visual work is extremely important in society. Just in the way that I'm inspired by books and magazines of all kinds, conversations I have, movies, so I also think, when I put visual work out there, into the mass media, work that is interesting, unusual, intriguing, work that maybe opens up that sense of inquiry in the mind, that I'm seeding the imagination of the populous, and you just never know who is going to take something from that and turn it into something else. Because inspiration is cross-pollinating... I want as many people as possible to see my work. I actually really feel that it's worthwhile to spend my valuable and limited time on this earth in this way.

So, dear collectors, I know that you all understand the value of art in your lives, whether you are the makers or not, but I ask, what are you up to right now?

For the New Yorkers among you, Ms. Bantjes will be speaking next Monday at F.I.T. She'll be introduced by none other than Paula Scher (who has also long been on our wishlist and just may be coming to 20x200, soonish, hint, hint). The details:

Marian Bantjes: I Wonder
Introduction by Paula Scher
Monday, November 1st, 6:30pm - 8:30pm
F.I.T.'s Haft Auditorium
227 West 27th Street (between 7 & 8th)

Purchase a ticket for this event here.
An RSVP does not hold you a seat.

Untitled from the series Owner of This World by Shawn Records

Life-is-weird Wednesday greetings collectors and how are you today? It's been a pretty incredible week here so far at 20x200 HQ, in no small part due to our outstanding editions by David Byrne and Amy Jean Porter. One of the most gratifying things about this gig is how we get to work with such a broad array of interesting artists; they often overlap, sometimes in the most unlikely ways.

This week's artists are an excellent example of our interconnectedness since all of them, today's Shawn Records included, have collaborated with David Eggers on books, exhibitions and/or films. (Six Degrees of David Eggers?) Today's edition, Untitled, from the series Owner of This World, comes from a body of work that Shawn created while on the set of Where the Wild Things Are, as his son, Max, played the role of Max in the film. Its screenplay is an adaptation of Maurice Sendak's classic children's book penned by Eggers.

Fond memories of my own dog-eared copy of this beloved book are nice and all (not to mention powerful!) but what's most compelling about Shawn's project, and this image in particular, is how it evokes the often heartbreaking dynamic between parent and child. What makes it sort of mind-bending is how meta it is: we're seeing a moment of Shawn's invention, captured as he observes his child who's working to recreate the make-believe version of the make-believe book, its mise-en-scène revealing all the unfinished edges that go into the creation of such fiction.

The first thing I thought of when seeing this photograph was: "Sure this might be pretend and all, but that water is most definitely real and is it cold?" (Note: all the camera men are wearing what look to be pretty thick wetsuits!) Then I gasped a little, thinking of how many exquisitely painful moments Shawn might have experienced while observing and recording his son's adventure, imagining whether he was cold, or scared or really maybe just awfully tired. The thing I've come to realize though, is that kids are simultaneously more fragile than they realize and tougher than we can imagine.

Shawn himself is a long-time member of the JBP family. He officially joined us as a Hot Shot in 2005 and was a contender this year. He also serves as President of the Board of Directors of Photolucida. So, we've crossed paths online and in person at many a photo-centric event. I'll hope to see him again soon at one such event, our upcoming shin-dig with our friends at Blurb. Won't you join us too? Next Friday, October 29th from 6 to 9 p.m., we'll be celebrating at the first-ever Blurb Pop Up/NYC at 60 Mercer Street (between Broome and Grand). Space is limited to please be sure to RSVP. I'll see you here, before then, with a brand-new edition next Tuesday.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak by Amy Jean Porter

Today's edition, Rose-breasted Grosbeak is by Amy Jean Porter, an artist I've been pursuing a collaboration with for a mighty long time. Our correspondence started when 20x200 was an about-to-be-born thing, a time when my sleepless hours were spent scouring the internet for artists to invite (rather than today's scouring of my brain for the words to write about all the amazing artists that we work with.) On August 19th, 2007, I wrote her this note:

Hi there, I came across your site via the Drawing Center and then I spent a long time IMing about how great your work is with one of the artists I represent, Amy Ross. I'm launching a new project very soon called 20x200 and wanted to pass along info about it to see whether you might be interested in doing an edition with us.

There was enthusiasm and interest, but it wasn't till the dog days of this past summer that we got any momentum. One sweltering day in late July, my friend-on-the-internet Choire Sicha pinged me, asking if I was familiar with Amy's work. I've known Choire since, well, a while ago. Like maybe 2004 or something? I had recently launched Unbeige for Mediabistro and Choire was the only other art dealer I knew who was similarly immersed in this whole wacky blogging thing, which was still pretty new. Having someone to commiserate with over IM about the art world and the internet was awesome--back then, sitting by myself in the gallery, I often felt like little more than a glorified shopgirl. Plus, Choire's got great taste (obvi!) and is sharp of tongue and wildly intelligent. Today, he's forsaken the chilly frontiers of Chelsea and is the proprietor of The Awl, where his good taste and wit are amply evident. Also evident: Ms. Amy Jean Porter, whose work he used to show at Debs & Co, the gallery he used to own. Over IM (again! still!), he awed over today's edition:

Amy Jean Porter is the best! This print is fantastic because it's cheery without being soppy, it's somehow a little bit funny without being ironic, it's gorgeous while being plain. Look at that bird! It's like the bird is about to say something really unexpected. It's about to tell you its opinions on the latest Jonathan Franzen or the hockey scores. Ha, birds! What can't they do?

Amy Jean's blue-beaked feathered friend, perched over pastel-y pink flowers and flocked by black leaves on red stems, is a little off kilter--all those colors aren't quite right. But somehow, subtly, they work and are tucked among friends--birds and animals are abundant in 20x200's ever-growing menagerie. But that's not the only thing that makes Amy Jean and Rose-breasted Grosbeak right at home amidst our offerings. She's been included in all kinds of books put together by our friends at Chronicle and their friends at McSweeney's. The McSweeney's link runs deep this week, from yesterday's benefit edition by David Byrne, which is apart of Arboretum, a book beautifully produced and published by them, to tomorrow's new edition. It too has a little bit to do with McSweeney's and books, with a screenplay written by their founder Mr. Eggers and the directorial virtuosity of Spike Jonze thrown in. With those clues, I'll take my leave til then.

Roots of War in Popular Song (forest of no return) by David Byrne

Important note: There is a limit of one print per collector for this edition. We reserve the right to cancel completed orders if we determine that someone has ordered more than one.
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As I've often opined here, elsewhere and aloud (nearly every day!) I really, really, really love New York. I love it for its 24-hour-deli-ness, its international-ity, its art, its bookstores, its pedestrian- (and increasingly cycle-!) friendliness, and its best-of-everything-ness. But ultimately why I really, really, really (really!) love New York comes down to one thing: its people.

Today's edition-maker--David Byrne--and the people behind the organization which its proceeds will benefit--Creative Time--embody and epitomize exactly what makes New Yorkers so lovable. They are not just living in this city, they are part of it--they don't just talk about its public space--they're embracing it, bettering it, and are visible parts of the city's fabric. For all of these reasons, both have been very high on my wishlist of collaborators for 20x200, so it's quite an honor to introduce today's incredible edition: The Roots of War in Popular Song (forest of no return), a print based on an original piece from Byrne's Tree Drawing series (courtesy of Pace/MacGill Gallery).

The Tree Drawings are particularly resonant--no artist myself, I find my creative comfort in words (as evidenced in the abundance of text-based works in our archives) and have been an inveterate connector of the unlikely and the disparate since childhood. With on-the-surface simplicity and humble source materials--"straight from the sketchbook," he writes in his statement--Byrne's sketches reveal an enviable breadth of knowledge, wit and humility, all in the pursuit of making sense of the often nonsensical.

It's no surprise that Byrne's drawings sometime border on the Byzantine. What makes him so interesting is how interested he is; what makes him remarkable is how generous he is about sharing his experiences and insights. If asked to recommend a single blog, his would be the one I'd point people to. He's curious about everything, and qualified to talk about it all because the only authority that he assumes is sincere engagement and an enthusiasm for sharing; this enviable mix makes for consistently compelling reading.

He's an omnivorous consumer of culture and ideas, and a prolific producer of them as well. Aside from his storied musical career and his formidable artistic accomplishments, he's an ardent urban cyclist who's created bike racks for our fair city and shared tales of his wanderings. (His newly released Bicycle Diaries: Audiobook is a multidisciplinary delight.) Playing the Building, perhaps the most monumental example of Byrne's cross-disciplinary derring-do (and one I had the very good fortune to experience in person!) was done as a collaboration with none other than Creative Time. Which brings us full circle back to today's edition--I've got a few more details to share before taking my leave!

Long-time collectors know that we take enormous pride in the quality of our prints, and this one is no exception. In fact, it's a reproduction so faithful, so verité, if you will, that I experienced a moment of panic when I saw the final proof sitting on Sara's desk. Why on earth was the original lying on her desk like that?! Picking it up didn't quell the instinct either, looking and feeling as it does like the real McCoy. It wasn't till I flipped it over and saw the printer's notations about paper type that I was able to exhale. (And, admittedly, gloat a bit about how awesome all of this was going to turn out to be!) Furthering the wondrousness, like all of our prints, each one of these comes with an artist-signed and numbered certificate of authenticity.

We decided to carry over that aforementioned verité to this particular print in another important way as well: the edition of 600 is only available in a single size--11" x 14", echoing the proportions of the original work. We're trying to accomplish a lot with this edition: first and foremost, to release a print of which we're proud (check!) while honoring our "art for everyone" commitment by offering prints at a price than almost anyone can afford, and we want to send a big, fat check to Creative Time as well. Faced with this triumvirate of challenges, we decided to price the edition on a schedule, with its cost rising (moderately!) as it sells out. Here's how it will work: The first 200 prints are $50 each, the second 200 are $100 each, and the final 200 are a still-very-reasonable (hello, it's David Byrne!) $150 each.

One final reminder: There is a limit of one print per collector, and we reserve the right to cancel completed orders if we determine that someone has ordered more than one. I expect that these will be gone in a flash, but fear not! We'll be back tomorrow--and the next day--with some excellent new editions.

195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships by Jenny Odell

Wednesday greetings to you all, collector friends!

Today's edition is a 180 on yesterday's, which had us looking up at the stars and creating constellations of our own. I'm ever-so-pleased to debut 195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships, our first edition from San Francisco-based artist, designer and fellow-obsessive Jenny Odell, who is looking down (albeit virtually) and creating impossible-in-the-real world collations of common structures culled from satellite imagery.

I've clocked a lot of hours up in the air over the past several years and the truth is that I've never been very good at it. Still, one thrill that never fails me is looking down from above and watching a sprawling city become small; its buildings, roads and cars shrinking down into little bits that I'd need to pick up gingerly between two fingers so as to not break them. It's easy to imagine then, an Alice in Wonderland-type inversion, with a giant Jenny reaching to Australia to pluck the perfect tanker for her palette.

Illusions of airborne omnipotence aside, I also find it easy to identify with the hours upon hours of scouring that must have gone in to collecting and arranging all these parts into the glorious whole you see here. (cf. me on Twitter at 1 a.m.). Jenny's speaking my language when she talks of "explor[ing] the (dis-)connection between virtual space and lived experience." I share Jenny's abiding obsession with Google Maps, but I've never put it to such beautiful use.

Sara and I deliberated whether the photos in this series should be released as 8x10s. We agreed with a hearty "Si!" as the photos in this series are almost different pictures entirely when viewed at various sizes -- so much so that I can see hanging graduated sizes of the same piece. As the dimensions of the print grow, the fact that the objects in it are sourced from all over the internet moves to the forefront. As some objects soften and pixelate, the shift in appearance puts the focus on her process and the origins of the elements that make the whole. The effect is not unlike Kent Rogowski's Love=Love series. As his images of repurposed puzzles increase in size, so do the gaps between each piece; fine lines, initially a by product of the process become black marks, increasing in their weight and importance.

Rearranging and re-using objects and the creation of unexpected order is something wholly satisfying -- and often aesthetically pleasing. Things Organized Neatly, the site via which I discovered Ms. Odell's series, amply illustrates my point. As does our very own Lisa Congdon's amazing, and yes maybe a wee bit obsessive, Collection a Day project, some of which will appear on this very site as editions in the not-too-distant future. Plus, as I said above, 195 Yachts, Barges, Cargo Lines, Tankers, and Other Ships is the first edition from Jenny's series -- you can look forward to seeing more of them here before year's end. (Did I just talk about the end of 2010? Already. Egad!) There's plenty of other great art queued and waiting between now and then. Speaking of which! Set your phone/computer/alarm clock and/or put the butler on notice for Monday, October 18th at 11a.m. (Eastern time, y'all) for our hotly anticipated David Byrne to benefit Creative Time debut.

Momento Vitae by Alexander Beeching

Temperate Tuesday greetings, collector friends. Today's clear skies are a welcome change after last night's freaky-deaky NYC weather: thunder! lightning! ba-zonkers hail! (No, seriously: hail.) Turns out it's not only the weather that's been unpredictable 'round these parts as of late; I've been dealing with some freaky-deaky back stuff that's kept me from sitting down and away from writing for a few weeks, so being back in front of the keyboard is also a welcome change.

Plus: there's so much goodness to share! Today, we cast our eyes towards the stars, and next week: superstars! Before I get into today's celestial doings, I want you to mark your calendars for next Monday, October 18th at 11 a.m. sharp. That's when we'll be introducing an edition by none other than David Byrne, to benefit our fabulous friends at Creative Time. Once you're done reading about today's edition, head on over to the 20x200 blog for the scoop on his Tree Drawings print.

Today's edition--Momento Vitae--our fourth from Brit Alexander Beeching, was proofed and queued months ago, with Halloween and one or two of my skull-obsessed friends in mind. It joins our two other editions from his Constellation series: The Constellation of the Elephant and The Bison Constellation, which was introduced by a star-struck Sara in the waning days of our recently past (sniff!) summer. I was off at the beach back then, where the night sky got dark enough to allow for some cosmos contemplation.

Trying to remember the constellations as taught to me as a child was relatively fruitless--I think I got as far as the Big and Little Dipper--but it did afford me the opportunity to recall that feeling of being young and curious and safe against the inky darkness with a grown-up beside me who knew practically everything. And even then, like our Mr. Beeching, I had the urge to connect those dots to create a mythology of my very own.

I haven't met Alex in person yet, so I've been connecting the dots to conjure up an image of him as well. With each new edition I get a clearer picture of who he might be--creative of course, and what with his star-gazing ways and all, a bit of dreamer--and based on his choice of phrase for this edition, momento vitae rather than the more familiar momento mori, I think of him as a glass-half-full sort of fellow. With momento vitae the exhortation is to remember you're alive, which is really a far more encouraging take on the "we're all going to die" message of momento mori, wouldn't you say?

Beeching isn't the first dreamer to give the heave-ho to others' ideas about the heavens. Walt Whitman cast a gimlet eye upon the learn'd astronomers of yore, way back in the 1800s. I'll leave you (till tomorrow!) with his witty words:

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

--Walt Whitman

Balloons (Midtown, Manhattan) by Youngna Park

Hello collector friends, it's Sara. Jen had the best intentions to be here today but some unfortunate aches and pains are keeping her away. But as promised, I have lots of exciting news to share.

First, today's edition! Balloons (Midtown, Manhattan) is our fourth from JBP superstar--producer/photographer/writer/editor/foodie/bride-to-be--Youngna Park. Its red and pink balloons infused with light and just barely contained by the windows of a Midtown office are apropos of hushed anticipation--we've got lots to celebrate. Not the least among our reasons for cheer: Youngna's getting married this weekend!

In work, play and wedding planning, no detail goes unnoticed; Youngna's careful contemplation is ever unfettered. Jen and I have oft talked about her particular way of paying attention to the everyday. It's something we agree not only makes her own life richer but ours as well. Her ability to share with us is burnished by her words and pictures; evidence lies in her previous editions, Salmon Hole (Chico, California), Winter Flags (East Village, New York) and the sold-out Brooklyn Morning. Her cleverly crafted wedding invites, which are winning accolades all over the web, are also due a mention.

With three cheers for love, balloons, light and little details, we're sending Youngna and her fiancee Jacob off with warmest wishes--may "The Best Time Of The Day" be your everyday together.

There's still more for us to rejoice: We're putting together a benefit edition with our friends at Creative Time! We've long been huge fans of the work they do: commissioning, producing and presenting incredible installations, events and art interventions, engaging millions of people all over the city and supporting artists' biggest and boldest ideas. We're über excited to have this opportunity to support them and think you'll be thrilled too when you find out just whose work we'll be presenting to you--he's a multi-talented superstar artist who's always been very (very!) high on Jen's list of dream collaborators. Creative Time will make the official announcement in their newsletter on Monday. Sign up for the scoop! Once you're hooked, I recommend you one-up yourself and become a member. You'll get insider access to their projects, fabulous events, artist meet and greets, a tax deduction, and so much more. Most importantly, your membership directly supports artists' dream projects. Join here.

While we'll be heading up to Connecticut for Youngna's wedding over the weekend, we'll keep one eye and ear on the web. We'll be up to our usual shenanigans on Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook and keeping an eye on Creative Time's Livestream broadcast of their *sold out* event, The Creative Time Summit.

Salut!

prettymaps (nyc) by Aaron Straup Cope

Good morning collector friends, it's Sara. prettymaps (nyc) is finally here! We toured around the West Coast before arriving home sweet home with today's third edition by Aaron Straup Cope from Stamen Design.

Succeeded by the dizzying brilliance of prettymaps (sfba) and prettymaps (la), the prettymap of the city nearest and dearest to us (though SF is a close second!) does not disappoint. Manhattan appears, as I think Aaron was aiming for, to shimmer between the Hudson and East Rivers, nestled next to Long Island, its bounds most visible from great heights. Flying above and wandering among the streets below provide two disparate views of the city and somehow this map, cleverly, manages to capture both.

There aren't many things that compare with circling the five boroughs in a plane at dusk. Golden light arrows across landmarks as skyscrapers illuminate and pierce the horizon. As you near the ground the stillness breaks--tiny trucks, cars and boats motor about like ants and tadpoles--evidence of the nine million plus people that populate the city.

All these inhabitants make NYC so great--friends and most-often friendly strangers--and the encounters with all sorts--secret societies, scoundrels and smiling subway riders. Our trodden paths, where we go everyday, and where we've traveled to take pictures--commemorating occasions and documenting our small space in a vast polis--are highlighted in prettymaps (nyc), glowing in memory as much as in archival inks on smooth paper. All this information was culled and organized with the help of the good people at OSM. So good are the efforts of these folks that Aaron and Stamen are offering up their share of proceeds from all three of the prettymaps editions to the humanitarian arm of OSM. The good deeds of good people abound!

The West Coast certainly has no lock on good, whether in people or in deed. We were happy to see many of you good people at the Affordable Art Fair last weekend. We can't wait to see the good things you do with the great art you acquired from us, so do send pics once you've decked your walls. We'd love to see your prints in-situ. We're also cooking up a good-deed edition with one of NYC's more prominent denizens. More on that next week, but I have a feeling that Jen might drop a hint or two when she's back tomorrow with a new print from a 20x200 photographer much beloved--till then!

Central Park South by Joseph O. Holmes

Autumn in New York greetings, collector friends! Travel and our prettymaps editions have had me focused on the Western frontier recently, but I'll always be an East Coast girl at heart. It's almost-but-not-quite sweater weather in today's New York, and its sunshine-y sky is a welcome respite from the soupy heat and rain that's been hanging around since my return from SF over the weekend. The change in atmosphere is a fine companion to the city's bustle, and is making this week's out-and-about-ness exponentially more pleasant.

And what a week it's shaping up to be! Sara and I have had a couple of downright spectacular studio visits with artists about upcoming editions, everyone's been pitching in on the feverish preparations for tonight's Affordable Art Fair preview and all the other fair-related events coming up this weekend, and it seems like everyone I know from somewhere else is visiting this week. To top it all off, I have the great pleasure of being able to introduce our thirteenth (!) edition from a favorite member of the JBP clan, Joseph O. Holmes.

I laughed as I read Joe's statement for Central Park South. Like him, I'm utterly smitten with New York City. In fact, I'm on record as saying "I really, really, really love New York." and wouldn't you know it, Joe was among the first to second that emotion. I'm prone to express my New York State of Mind in words, but to our great benefit, Mr. Holmes does so with pictures. He's always got an eye out for what's interesting and beautiful about New York, whether he's exploring its boroughs, roaming the corridors of its great institutions or looking down on it from above.

Today's not-quite-bird's-eye view takes us just far enough away to see how our fair city, even on the dreariest of days, can be an elegant backdrop for the glimpses of greenery that our great parks provide. There's something incongruous about how vibrant and lush the trees are, set against the seemingly inhospitable streets and buildings of NYC. But it's kind of like NYers in a way: brusque and businesslike, maybe even hard-edged at the surface, but infinitely and unexpectedly various once you pass through its gates.

prettymaps (la) by Aaron Straup Cope

California dreaming greetings, friends! It's Sara with our second edition from the prettymaps series, prettymaps (la) by Aaron Straup Cope from Stamen Design. Jen introduced the first in the series last week, prettymaps (sfba), and there's more to come for you East Coasters out there, next week... and this weekend: we'll be at the Affordable Art Fair in NYC! More details below.

For now, let's set our eyes West, on L.A. County. Like prettymaps (sfba), prettymaps (la) is derived from all sorts of information, from all over the internet. Its translucent layers illuminate information we're used to relying on maps for--the green lines are OSM roads and paths, and orange marks urban areas as defined by Natural Earth. They also highlight what's often not seen--the white areas show where people on Flickr have taken pictures. It's an inverse of a kind of memory-making--a record of where people were looking from instead of what they were looking at, as they sought to remember a specific place and time.

I've never been to L.A.--my ideas about the city have been shaped by songs and other people's pictures. That this map is made up of information that might otherwise be unseen is fitting. L.A. exists here as it does for me in my own head, a glowing mass of color that looks like refracted light--it's a comforting representation of something unknown. I'll admit that there's a lot out there that I haven't seen, don't know and don't understand, including a lot of things that prettymaps's creator, Aaron, knows lots about. A lunch shared with him, and JBPers Raul and David was peppered with talk about art, and the internet, of course, as well as programming and APIs, which I won't pretend to understand. But that there are people out there, like Aaron, Raul and David who do know about all of these things and are using these tools for the benefit of rest of us is reassuring. These maps are just one of those things.

Also affirming: looking at art in person. You'll find 20x200 at the Affordable Art Fair, tomorrow through Saturday, October 2nd and Sunday, October 3rd. We'll be manning the project space in Booth E-200. 20x200 friends and family (that's you) can pick up a discounted ($15, regularly $20) ticket here, then stop by and say hello. We'll have lots going on--talks, tips, a pop-up frame shop,* art (of course!) and more--full details can be found on the blog. Hope to see you there!

*Keep in mind that the Pop-Up Frame Shop is by appointment only. We're almost fully booked, so if you've got some 20x200 art to frame, reserve your spot right now.

Motukakho Island by Derek Henderson

Hamish Eli Adlam, Reid's Farm by Derek Henderson

We've been obsessing about Derek Henderson's photographs since he entered Hey, Hot Shot! in 2008, winning a spot in the group exhibition that year. After the show, Kevin Simmons, Leanne Hema and Troy Burton, Reid's Farm hung in our then teeny-tiny office, attracting everyone's attention and affection. Unable to get the work out of our heads and hearts, Jen, Jeffrey and I began plotting Derek's NYC solo debut, meeting with him over the winter, gushing over Mercy Mercer, the book, in its solemn, gray, linen-bound glory, and charting the dates. Two Fridays ago, Mercy Mercer, the exhibition featuring twelve color photographs, opened amid friends and fans at the JBG. And finally, today, I (it's Sara) have the pleasure of introducing all of you to Hamish Eli Adlam, Reid's Farm and Motukakaho Island. Our celebration is in full swing!

Both images are from the book (Motukakaho Island is also on view at the gallery). It opens with a series of landscapes and interiors; the first person we are introduced to is a blind girl. Without gloating, without being unkind or crass, the portrait suggests the good fortune we have to be gazing at these photos, and in a larger sense, at the world in general. It's closely sequenced with the sister image to Motukakaho Island, an almost overwhelming, crowded frame of fragrant hydrangeas, serving (I think) as a reminder that looking at these photographs engages all of the senses--sight does not operate alone.

On seeing it, I was terribly disappointed that I either couldn't remember or didn't know what hydrangeas smelled like--even after spending four years in the Pacific Northwest where they are abundant--but the image embedded itself, a rich replacement for my lack of memory. Other scents are rife throughout the book: woodsmoke, drifting from campfires--or in Hamish Eli Adlam, Reid's Farm, a stove--and the smell of damp, mossy air.

The water--as it dissolves above the river, cools wading feet, condenses on grass, mists over edges and sparkles through narrow passages, is omnipresent. In a way, it echoes Derek--or maybe it's the other way around--Derek follows the water's lead, as a sort of unobtrusive narrator. It imparts the feeling that the narrator is omniscient, presenting everything, all the details, for us to absorb through sight, sound, smell, touch and taste--as if taking these photos too, was a task for all of Derek's senses.

With that I'll leave you till next week. We'll be back with more news about the quickly approaching Affordable Art Fair in NYC. As Jen mentioned, we have lots of good stuff in store for all of you who are in dire need of getting your art up on your walls. Mark your calendars for the following Saturday and Sunday, October 2nd and 3rd--more details soon!

prettymaps (sfba) by Aaron Straup Cope

Greetings from the West, collector friends! I write to you from my second city of San Francisco, which is fitting, considering it's both the subject of today's edition and the happy home of its makers. As long-time subscribers know, I spend a lot of time in the Bay Area and like it that way. Living here in the 90s was formative and it's a place that continues to inspire the tech-centric entrepreneurial side of my Jekyl & Hyde / art & tech existence. Its community of creative technologists is dismantling the wall that exists between the two, as exemplified by today's edition, prettymaps (sfba) by Aaron Straup Cope, produced in association with Stamen, an innovative studio founded by my long-time friend (and high school classmate!) Eric Rodenbeck.

We live in a time of big (huge!) data; Stamen was among the first to recognize that all this data can be beautiful and has made a name for itself by creating stunning, often interactive, visualizations of complex datasets. Their vision was endorsed by MoMA, when Paola Antonelli included Cabspotting in their history-making Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition. As Stamen was making a name for itself in the art and tech worlds, Aaron was making some ground-breaking of his own in the engineering group at Flickr, doing amazing things with photographs and mapping data. prettymaps is the product of the convergence of not just data, but talent and what a beautiful result! With beauty comes understanding—by making data beautiful, a path is cleared into an overwhelming and often intimidating barrage of information.

This edition is particularly exciting to me because it's a MAP and maps are something that we're really nuts about.* What exactly are prettymaps made of? They're made of you! When you visit prettymaps.stamen.com, what you're seeing is an amalgamation of community-generated data. It draws from things like Flickr Shapefiles, which are Flickr's geo-tagged photos plotted out (there are lots and lots, like, tens of millions) and road, highway and path data collected by Open Street Map.

Today's SF map is the first in a series from Aaron. You can count on seeing prints documenting our favorite cities released in the coming weeks, and that's just the start of it! Our editions past also evidence our affections for making sense, and sometimes nonsense, of information: Stefanie Posavec's dismantling of Walter Benjamin, Chad Hagen's Nonsensical Infographics and even Wendy MacNaughton's attempt to turn emotions into parse-able pieces. We're information junkies when it comes down to it, and our aesthetic addiction is well-evidenced in the editions we're queuing up for the balance of the year.

Tomorrow, we'll turn our attention back to what's happening in my ancestral home of NYC, with a pair of editions by Derek Henderson, whose gorgeous exhibition Mercy Mercer is currently on view at JBG. We'll also have news of some upcoming excitement that'll help all of you living near art—the sort that's unframed and sitting in envelopes—to start living with it, framed and up on your walls!

*We've been drooling over The Map as Art at 20x200 HQ. The book features the work of more than a couple artists we're crazy about, including a not-to-be-named (yet!) legendary artist/designer we're working with to bring editions to you.

Grassy Girl by Tierney Gearon

Happy Tierney Gearon Thursday collectors! It's Sara today, presenting Grassy Girl. Grab your print now! I highly recommend you pick up at least an 11"x14"—there's a lot going on in this image and it's evermore present, tangible, as the picture gets bigger.