Winter Den 2016

Winter Den, 2016. Getting ready for the Breakfast Den

Another shareholder receives a dozen eggs laid by Den hens, in exchange for one cubic foot of her property in Clinton Hill.

The Egg/ Real Estate Transaction is in full swing

In exchange for 12 dozen eggs, laid by den hens in the months to come, I now own 5 separate cubic feet of prime real estate in 3 neighborhoods in Brooklyn.

September 6th: Robyn Shore

Robyn Shore and I switched homes for a night.  She stayed in the den while I slept on her houseboat in The Rockaways.  

Robyn's houseboat is anchored in The Rockaways year round, and is equipped with a wood burning stove for the cold winters, and a full kitchen.  It can sleep 3 people comfortably.  

She bought it 3 years ago and is working on fixing it up.  You can take the A train all the way to the marina.

August 10th - 18th: Irvin Climaco Morazan

Irvin Climaco Morazan came to The Den after spending the summer in Mexico and before heading to Virginia to teach.  In exchange for his stay, he knocked down a wall in the kitchen to expose an ancient brick facade.

July 23rd - August 1st: Mathieu Bonardet

Mathieu Bonardet came back to The Den this summer before heading to Colorado, Utah and San Fransisco.  In Colorado, before he visited the actual Spiral Jetty outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, he used a roll of paper to make Paper Spiral (fold/unfold).

June 21st- 24th: Bill Shemie

Bill arrived on Saturday.  He got to try one of Rue's specialties: a drink made with fresh mint, yogurt, lemon juice, water, and olive juice.  Despite the charming appearance of the drink, he wasn't able to finish it.

May 8th- June 8th: Michael K Taylor

Artist and poet Michael K Taylor spent a month at the Den.

 

He devised a way of getting the chickens back into their coop by tapping the rake on the ground 3 times.  In exchange for his stay, he re-framed a huge piece that was falling apart, and painted the hallway.

 

April 13th- May 7th: Corvas Brinkerhoff

The day that Corvas Brinkerhoff arrived at The Den from Santa Fe, New Mexico, 6 baby chicks also arrived in the mail.

As if from an alien ship, the chicks descended unto Earth and unto The Den.

Corvas also descended upon New York to make these ephemeral sculptures with his Santa Fe based collective, Meow Wolf.

But as swiftly as life was given, life was taken away.  

During Corvas' Den stay, while Corvas reinforced the chicken coop, Jane Carver and I made room in the coop for the incoming chicks. 

The hen, who resided at the Den for almost 2 years, was made into soup and served to Simon Critchley, author of, among many other works, "The Book of Dead Philosophers", which proposes that to philosophize is to learn how to die. 

April 24th: Christhian Diaz & Amy Reid

CONGRATULATIONS Christian Diaz and Amy Reid! Through Weekend Getaways, they won The Den Special: one night at the Den including an Iron Maiden Artist Tour with Naomi Miller.

April 9th- 11th: Patty Murdoch

The best way to eat foie gras that has been smuggled over the Canadian border: alone, standing in the kitchen, when you are very hungry.

March 14- 22: Kylie Anderson

I met Kylie in Colorado one year ago.  She came to New York to complete one half of a drawing project.

The other half of the drawing project will take place in several small towns in Wyoming, like Big Piney, where this image of a legal wolf hunt was taken.  Most of the towns Kylie will visit in Wyoming have populations of less than 200 people.

While I was researching the Wyoming towns that Kylie will visit, I became fascinated with these images of abandonded villages.  This photo of a sand-swept house is in Namibia.  When I came across this image online I did a double take.  

This is one of the images I've had in my flat files for almost 10 years.  The image has survived 7 studio moves, never being thrown out, although close at times. I've never known anything about it's origins, digital or hard copy. It's so similar to the one I found online, I'm sure it has to be the same town and the same house. 

March 6-9: Jenal Dolson

Jenal Dolson's visit proved that we animals are creatures of habit.  

We go after what we want over and over again.

Jenal learned how to make felted rocks during her stay at the den, while we exchanged stories about bats and snakes.

February 11- 25th: Will Hutchinson

Will Hutchinson came to the Den from Missoula, Montana, where he is a fire fighter and an artist.

Will didn't fight against the infamous Black Forest Fire of 2013, which originated near Colorado Springs, but he did fight in the High Park fire of 2012 in Colorado. He showed me some of the photos he takes when he is in the field fighting fires.  Strangely, since he takes them while he is working, he cannot legally circulate these images since they are technically property of the government.

 

 I was in Colorado Springs a month before the Black Forest fire started last year.  At the time, I was making collages using screenshots from the original Bambi animation, which has a famous forest fire scene:

Humans, although never seen in the film, are the sole source of evil in the Disney view of nature.  It is believed that the Black Forest Fire of 2013 did not start from natural causes.  Investigators said the possibility of arson was small because they found no gasoline, matches or other accelerant usually found in arson fires.  Though the cause of the fire remains unclear, it appears more likely to be started accidentally by a person.

 

Some of Will's drawings are inspired by the forms these fire clouds make.

Will fixed various things around the house, including a staircase and some molding.

January 1- 31st: Femke Van Heugten

Sweet 16, Femke Van Heugten

I love this video that Femke shot at Jane's Carousel of a Sweet 16 party.

January 1- 31st: Femke Van Heugten

 

Femke, a photographer from Holland, returned to the Den after a year, still searching for the long lost love of Joe (above), a woman named Bertha who lived on Coney Island.  

A few days ago, after peeling back layers of information in public records and doing fieldwork in the streets of Brooklyn, Femke found evidence that Bertha is not listed as dead. Femke scoured Coney Island for Bertha, never knowing what she looked like.  The search continues...

Femke taught Rue (my daughter) how to use a polariod camera.  Here she is arranging objects on the table for the photo.

November 1- 23rd: Agnes Fecher

Agnes Fecher, a photographer from Hungary, took these photos of a recent piece by Italian artist Mimmo Rubino, aka Rub Kandy.  The truck sits on privately owned land in Gowanus, Brooklyn.

Ten years, ago, Agnes Fecher was a Hugarian exchange student who got placed for a year with a family in Albequerque, New Mexico. 

 

There, she met Wes, her first love. 

 After ten years of emails but no meeting, they reunited at The Den. 

October 10th -13th: Bill Shemie

This original fringe leather jacket, purchased in South Dakota, was exchanged by a previous den guest.  Bill decided to wear it to the wedding he was in town for.

It's very similar to the one worn by Del Gue (left), a character in the 1972 western film Jeremiah Johnson.

We first meet Gue's character, a mountain man in severe disfavor with several local Indian tribes, in the desert, where he has been buried up to his head in sand.  Johnson helps him out, and from then on, Gue is seen wearing the coat.

Bear Claw, left, who resides in a log cabin that he built, teaches Johnson everything he knows about trapping animals and living in the mountains.  At the end of the movie, Jeremiah Johnson begins building a log cabin to live in.

In exchange for his stay at the Den, Bill helped me build a miniature log cabin made out of wood from the silver maple tree under which the Den stands.  

September 25- 30: Blue, Ryan and Mosey

In 1992, when Ryan was 13, he traveled through Pakistan with his brother.  Along the way, they acquired ethnic talismans including king cobra snake skins.  One of these skins was traded for 5 nights in The Den.

The King Cobra, the longest venemous snake in the world, preys chiefly on other snakes.The skin of the King Cobra is said to hold many magical powers, including the power to control the dreams of whoever possesses the skin.

I've known Blue & Ryan for 18 years.  They returned to Wolfcloud, this time with infant Mosey, exactly 3 years after this photo was taken. 

This is Blue on Lake Mead just before she married Ryan.  Since they brought the snake skin, my dreams have been more vivid.  It is said that if one dreams of snakes, one must never try to kill the dream snake.  If one dreams of "a lake that is clear and surrounded by barrenness", one must never swim in the lake.