Art done by me in July 2015

Last notebook drawing of July 2015

Notebook drawing July 2015

notebook drawing July 2015

postcard collage July 2015

More Oddball

I just checked and I see that since the Fall of 2013 Oddball Magazine has published my art and photographs a whopping 40 times. You can view them all at this link.

http://oddballmagazine.com/tag/ira-joel-haber/

Oddball Magazine

Another appearance on Oddball Magazine. How grateful I am for their constant support of my work. You can view the poem by Luke Stromberg along with my collage at this link.

http://oddballmagazine.com/2015/07/29/poem-by-luke-stromberg/

Literary Hub and Broadsided

Literary Hub has published a small piece on Broadsided Press with one of my broadsides that I did with the poet Dan Rosenberg in 2010. Its called "Dear Body." I've done quite a few broadsides for them and my newest one will be published next week. You can view the broadside at this link, just scroll down.
http://lithub.com/can-poetry-survive-in-the-wild/

Collage July 2015

Postcard collage July 2015

E.L. Doctorow 1931-2015

Collage July 2015

Postcard Sold

Just sold this postcard that I did in 2003

Deborah Remington-Wallspace Gallery.

               

This is one exhibition that should be seen before the closing date of Aug. 7^th. I had no idea this was up until I happened upon Howard Halle’s short review of the show in Time Out. It consists of only 3 paintings done in oil and several early Paintings? Done with soot on muslin from the 60’s.
                The rest of the works are small complex exquisite drawings done with graphite and colored pencil. The images are machine like and odd, like visitors who have arrived from outer space and allow us to have free associations with them. They’re abstractions with a cause. Remington who I knew in the early 70’s,  a dinner here, a studio visit there was a compelling person, tall and  lanky and some might say with a severe look giving off  the appearance of a suburban housewife out for a day in the city.
                Of course her art contradicts this impression. Her palette was limited to only a few colors but she did more with black and red than most artists can ever do and the size of her canvas though modest always seemed large to me. I don’t know what these works mean but the pleasure of viewing them comes from that very notion along with her splendid use of her medium.
                    For a time she had great attention from galleries and critics along with a loyal following of artists who were in awe of her accomplishments. I was one of the artists of my generation who thought very highly of her work and I was thrilled to have known her. We lost touch and I was very sad when I learned of her passing in 2010 at the good age of 80, but what bothers me is the lack of recent attention her beautiful work has not gotten. While the minor in a big way men and women get the shows in museums quiet mavericks like Remington go unnoticed. Her accomplishment is noteworthy and I hope this fine small show will jolt the attention of the wheeler dealers. I’m not counting on that though.      

James 'Son Ford' Thomas: The Devil and His Blues 80WSE Gallery

This profoundly moving, beautiful and heartbreaking  exhibition consists of about 100 unfired and mostly delicately colored small clay sculptures by James ‘Son Ford’ Thomas who passed in 1993 and who was also a noted Delta Blues Musician. The show is a little creepy and unsettling what with all those small clay busts and heads (including some of Washington and Lincoln)  that look strange to say the least. Filling one of the three galleries and installed on a large platform at eye level, they glare and stare at us. A smaller gallery has on display many of his hand carved clay coffins with tiny little bodies at eternal rest that might give you a chuckle or a shudder, or maybe both.  One of the  jobs that he had was a gravedigger and these little decapitated heads and skulls recall that activity along with associations of African American folk spirituality known as ‘hoodoo’. They also brought to mind for me Day of the Dead festivities and horrible horror movies. In reality I also think that these macabre bodiless forms bring up the terrible hard life that Thomas and most African Americans lived through in the deep  south in the 20^th Century and right up to current times. Maybe this was a way that he got through and absorbed the many awful trials and tribulations of his time. Art and music.  Thomas was inventive, highly imaginative and resourceful in the materials that he found and used including dentures, real and fake hair, eyeglasses and other bits and pieces, and he sometimes sold some of these heads some of which were hollowed out in the back as ashtrays and holders for paper clips. There are also many sweet and gentle small sculptures of birds, snakes, squirrels and fish along with some wonderful clay scenes of everyday life. As I said Thomas was also a musician and his music fills the galleries along with two documentaries on his life and work. This exhibition snuck up on me, having been on Display since June 9^th, but I had no idea about it until I read Roberta Smith’s review in the July 10^th arts and leisure issue of The New York Times a full month after it opened.  It will remain on view only until August 7^th which does not give you much time to see one of my favorite shows of the year.

"Botanical" July 2015

Finished my new sculpture "Botanical" it measures 8 1/2" x 10 1/2" x 3" Mixed