The Art Guys “LOOP”

A slow weekend for media art exhibitions in Houston. Most are. We aren’t New York City, after all!

The tail end of a film festival wasn’t quite what I had in mind. Especially, when afterward, I had to listen to people tell me what I had just seen.

Email conversing with an assistant to the curator @ the Museum of Fine Art-Houston, I was directed to Nam June Paik’s Rose Art, as “the only” piece I was going to find. Monumental, but now historical.

So I decided to follow two hometown favorites, Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing, “The Art Guys”. http://www.theartguys.com/

In commemoration of 30 years of collaboration, the Art Guys executed their 11th of 12 monthly events in Houston, Texas, in 2013.

They drove the 38 mile Inner 610 Loop, circling the city 30 times in 24 successive hours. 5:00 PM Saturday 11/10 – 5:00 PM Sunday 11/11.

LOOP was designed to engage the widest possible audience by utilizing a variety of media. “The Art Guys engage the media, because the media engages the public.”

On-line and print newspapers, posters and a detailed Van in the mall, announced the upcoming live event. Michael and Jack engaged their audience for 24 hours via Facebook, Twitter and cell phone. One could follow the 12 hour clockwise, then 12 hour counter-clockwise route and their speed on Glympse, a real-time tracking app that utilizes Google Maps.

I sent my resident photographer out to video the Art Guys passing by on their final Loop. Miss-judging when and where he could get a good shot from the side of the road, they had already passed by. From home, using Glympse and the Find My iPhone app, I was able to navigate him to their location where he was able to follow and film them on the final LOOP.

I called the Art Guys by phone, en route, to inquire about their 12th event. They plan to re-create their 1st piece “The Art Guys Agree on Painting”, where they plunged their hands into buckets of paint and then shook hands over a piece of paper. Only this time from atop two cranes, 30 feet up.

I asked if the paper would be 30 feet up or on the ground. The answer will be revealed December 7th, time and place to be announced.

Summing up the Art Guys’ performances, for the rare disgruntled curmudgeons, who “just don’t get it”, in three words: “They’re Just Fun!”

An Experience in Social Media

This past August, not at all elated over turning 60, I agreed to go out to dinner with my husband, Ken, and our immediate family.  I was to act surprised to find our children and their families waiting for us.

“Surprise!!!” Who were these people? Panic enveloped me. My family had managed to fill the room with “OLD Friends”. Even though 2 are edging up to the Century Mark, “Old” meant the friends I keep in touch with by Email, send a birthday card to, promise to get together with, but never find the time to.

We live in a home with 5 of 8 computers continuously running.  Ken has a laptop attached to him, akin to a conjoined twin.  I could not help but think, “Really – you can’t go out for 1 hour without that thing?”

Guests were having hors ‘d oeurvers placed in front of them, but I got “the laptop!”  To my great astonishment were 5 windows of friends skypeing in at the same time.

In the wee hours of many mornings, Ken had stripped my Email address book and had even gotten a message to the administrator of a Face Book group, the Post Millennium New York School – The Cedar Bar.  A site where alumni of MoMA’s Ab-Ex course meet to discuss art.  Everything was arranged on-line.

The experience was hard to take in.  People in the flesh, loud and boisterous.  Friends and relatives from around the globe skypeing in.  I was presented with a folder of Emailed birthday wishes and images. Video messages awaiting me.  Friends and family virtually meeting each other. Some dressed for the occasion, some in P.Js’.  Friends holding up drawings, paintings and grandbabies, one reading a poem and one took me for a tour of her garden in Newfoundland.

A basketful of plants, obviously a funeral arrangement, arrived from Russia, with greetings for a 60th Wedding Anniversary.  Blame it on Google Translate – Blame it on the computer. It couldn’t have been Human Error!

So Dear “Old Friends”, one I knew as red haired, now snow white, one with brown hair, now hairless, I promise to do better.  BUT…… knowing myself only too well, I urge you, PLEASE, join me on FB.  Post photos, so that when we meet again at my 70th birthday party, I’ll recognize you!