Edition Announcement #136 - Jeff Lewis

Tonight's-the-night greetings, my collector friends! As reported last week, we're hosting our very first NYC 20x200 Collectors Confab this evening. We've gotten loads of RSVPs from collectors and artists alike, and I'm really looking forward to seeing everyone at White Rabbit in a few short hours. No one's going home empty-handed either! We'll have lots of those groovy 20x200 stickers on hand, plus we're going to be raffling off some prints too. More details about who's who and what's what after today's edition is introduced.

Inloveness Revisited comes to us from Jeff Lewis, a painter whose outsized, exuberant paintings have been exhibited worldwide. As someone who has to come up with thousands of words about pictures on a daily basis, I am most appreciative of the simplicity of Jeff's statement. It's almost like he's humoring us — why use words to describe a process that's as natural to him as breathing?

Words are my refuge and my reason — in my world view, everything should be describable. Rather, I should be able to describe everything — with words; without them I have no other way to express myself. Of course, this is untrue and unfair — to myself, and to the indescribable. Sometimes something just is.

Starting with creative writing crits in college and traveling along a professional continuum that's cast me as client, vendor, writer and editor, I've had ample opportunity to give and receive feedback. I try my best to be thoughtful regardless of which side of the equation I'm on, but it's easy to fall into broad language. Try excising the words "interesting", "nice" and "good" from your vocabulary and you'll know exactly what I mean. I ran up against this yesterday when reviewing some design work with Ken Hejduk, one of the fine fellows from Little Jacket.

We were looking at a first round of logo design sketches, which is the stage where nothing is supposed to be just right, but pinpointing why it's not right, or the ways in which it works a little bit really helps move the process forward. I was looking at a logo and, well, I just liked it. I don't have it in front of me, and can't remember it exactly, but it had a roundness to it and that was pleasing to me. I was utterly exasperated by my inability to articulate why I found it pleasing. Ken — who's good with words AND pictures, the bastard — stepped in and reassured me that it was ok to not be able to explain everything all the time.

Little did Ken know, he was also preparing me to write today's newsletter! I feel the same way about Jeff's prints as I did about that logo design — they have a roundness that is pleasing to me. Also: a color palette that I associate with elation. And with those two good things described, I'll leave it at that and I'll be back tomorrow.

Hopefully, I'll be seeing some of you between now and then though! I know for a fact that I'll be seeing lots of artists: Jonathan Allen, Ky Anderson, Ian Baguskas, Nina Berman, William Crump, Kevin Cyr, Scott Eiden, Steve Eiden, Shuli Hallak, Andrew Hetherington, Joseph Holmes, Gregory Krum, Emily Noelle Lambert, Rebecca Loyche, Jane Mount, Youngna Park, Kent Rogowski, Jennifer Sanchez, Trey Speegle, Superdeluxe, Amy Talluto, Matthew Tischler, Carlo Van de Roer, Yijun Liao and Cara Phillips have all expressed their intention to attend. So dust off those party duds and come on down:

20x200 Collectors Confab @ White Rabbit
Tuesday, February 10th | 6pm - 9pm
145 East Houston Street
(between Forsyth + Eldridge Streets)

Previous Newsletter : Edition Announcement #135 - Christian Chaize