Dear TalkingGriders,
Thank you! Thank you for frequenting the Talkinggrid. Your letters, notes, LIKEs, and LOVE mean the world to me, Frau Kolb. The many friends that give us regular feedback are my favorite people! Thank you to ALL that have made time for an interview, inviting Talkinggrid into your exhibitions, events, galleries, studios, and–––best of all––– welcoming into your warm hearts.
This year has seen TalkingGrid grow from a one-woman (albeit often supported by ONE man) acrobatic operation, a gigantic handstand, which only a handful of progressive souls, hungry for alternate art experience and (YES!) art adventure were following to a group hub, a virtual yet thriving hangout where friends frequently add content, insight, and vision. The warmth of the fire of inspiration, intelligence, and excellence which is the focus of this happening hotel of on-line art connection and mapping of NEW art worlds which continuously POP up in the field of forever. The talkingGrid is a flexible creative circle. Frau Kolb invites art writers, personalities, mega-minds making creative strides, exploring their limits, and trying NEW approaches to being artists NOW, to share of themselves via digital video interviews, art chats, select writings, photographs, and more. YOU, choice and select humans, have encouraged the TalkingGrid to EXPAND. Yes, we are growing.
Yet, for example growth is NOT always a good thing. The expansion of a cancer is not good news. Neither is what happened to me, last year. I ate like a fiend. I cooked for three days straight. I served a smoked salmon appetizer, followed by my famous butternut squash soup, served in bowls carved out of the gourds. The gargantuan organic turkey, a bird I brined and stuffed with a shitake mushroom, cranberry, and chestnut stuffing before blasting and drizzling with honey was served surrounded by an army of fingerling potatoes baked in truffle oil, shallot and cream reduction of whiskey gravy, roasted sweat potatoes in a buttery glaze of Hawaiian red sea salt , skinny and elegant French style haricots vert with almonds, cranberry sauce with Amazonian berries ground up and added for their anti-oxidant power, various pumpkin pies, (yes… it was) NUTS. It was labor intensive to cook ALL this food, butt it was NOT ass labor intensive as the double duty eating I dove into mountainous piles of food like a starving beast, hungry for pleasure.
This year, the only massive expansion on the schedule is that of the TalkingGrid. I see the TalkingGrid adding up to a maximum of eleven art inspired and focused writers/personalities/social-butterfly/introvert book hounds/ full time experts on various facets of the ART universe. Together WE will feast on art world offerings, always from a fresh, un-central, yet informed, perspective. Embarking on unexpected art adventures, which will take us all overt the world, literally. We have, Ron Schira. His three original stories revolving on, Frau Kolb’s request, around issues of NUDE experiences in ART viewing are an invitation into the mood of this playful, sexy, far from mainstream, timeless, ART adventure which is The Talkinggrid. Furthermore, it is our intention to shed some light onto issues of censorship, exploring boundaries, and finding the essential truth, sometimes cloaked yet always present, that THE BODY of Western ART, is sparked by the changing yet perpetual presence of the Body in ART. The most abstract of artists, uses his or her hands, heart, and BRAIN to paint and if the painting is erotic, or of a hot body, or IF the artist pierces the barrier of creative control and submits themselves ass nude model for others to paint… HEY! The experiences, the life, the thinking of a true artist IS always INTERESTING… again and again, the BODY fascinates us in art ass concept, the BODY is always central to the discourse of art, found only at The Talkinggrid.
We also have a brilliant article from Ola Manana and her deeply personal perspective on Obama-Care, of real charity, and her sister’s choice to donate a to a neighbor during hurricane Sandy’s rage. We are eagerly awaiting her coverage of our Sunday visit to the Barnes Foundation with La Suzy, Los Angeles native, currently based out of Brooklyn New York, artist that Frau Kolb had the pleasure of meeting at Perform Chinatown, earlier this year. Amazing, Ola!
This year TalkingGrid published a solid series of artist interviews, art chats, informal dips into the cosmic expanse of individualistic vision and drive to manifest public renditions of artistic excellence and personal aesthetic understanding, a prowess demonstrated through exposed and original philosophies of ART, made solid, open, and available for collecting! Hah! Looking UP close at artists working TODAY and everyday makes me a richer person and for that I’m extremely thankful.
There is so much to be grateful for. Including that I’ve decided to forgo cooking at home this year. Instead, we have other plans. We will celebrate the holiday within a framework of our history. WE will celebrate the holiday as we do each year buy eating and feasting and gorging ourselves on LOVE, so let’s leave the credit card at home (impossible) and lets LOVE the ones that are with us and the ones that are not! Let’s send love to our brothers and sisters around the world that decide that WAR is a path toward peace, each day. Let’s work toward full tables laden with fresh organic food for every human that wants it. Let’s embrace the idea for even a second everyday that there is hope evidenced in our collective HORROR over human rights violations, poverty, natural disaster(s), crime, and any human that finds themselves alone, neglected, or needing a manicure before the holiday and feeling that a single hang-nail is cause for tears. Pain is relative. Universal. And… always a reminder that we are alive, for which we can be eternally grateful.
Thank you,
Frau Kolb