Chelsea Gallerista

An albino Burmese Python - "a non-venomous constrictor." As if being creative on demand isn't already stressful enough, any party thrown by the advertising or design industries had better be an art-directed jaw dropper or you'll be sneered out of the room - from the slick promo poster down to the burlesque aerialist gyrating with an Albino Burmese Python. So all that and more was served up at the   Art Directors Club  Creative Carnival, a promo night for illustrators and their reps co-run by a portfolio company called Workbook . The loft-like Chelsea offices of the AD club was transformed into a circus space where 30 or so artists and illustrators sat ringside, engaged in a "life drawing" exercise of the slightly contorted kind ... Inside the ring, ladies in burlesque costumes (and skirts made from bananas) cracked whips, performed aerial acro-yoga and and fondled some pretty impressive creatures, like a yellow-hued  Albino Burmese Python . How do

Damien Hirst: Cathedral Print, Duomo 2007 - spotted at Phillips de Pury, Park Ave Evening Collections Article: 9,000 butterflies killed in Hirst's latest artwork VIDEO: Damien Hirst Retrospective at the Tate Modern, April 2012 In the space of hours my inbox has been deluged with news stories about mega-artist Damien Hirst. The first is about his  new website  complete with Hirst-cam. Two cameras (when they're switched on) are trained on his worktable, platoons of assistants and hopefully, fleeting glimpses of the man himself: www.damienhirst.com The second is about a new series of Hirst multiples selling at the 2012 Affordable Art Fair , a place where, the career-conscious have told me, an artist might start, spend one, maybe two seasons ("tops"), and hopefully never "need" to return. In this exhibit, his dealer Manifold Editions is offering his spot series as woodcuts , a word my brain unfortunately flummoxes with "woodblocks" and imme

Shroomie by Scott Scheidly Twenty years ago, when I was a youngish yuppie of sorts, I bought a couple of paintings by Aussie artist Basil Hadley  for about $2500 each. That was the last time I bought a piece of "original" art and they are now gracing the walls of my ex's home in Sydney.  Admittedly they were, shall we say, "decorative" - unchallenging modern landscapes setting off my black leather sofa and seaweed green carpet beautifully. Since then, pursuing a largely traveling life, I've not been able to collect anything so unportable as art, apart from a very unportable print entitled  Sticks and Stones by (Sisters, Oregon) artist Paul Alan Bennett -  currently parked on the wall of a previous beau in Eugene, Oregon! What is this I have with ex's and art I wonder? But just recently, thanks to the affordable "free look" night at   The Affordable Art Fair in NYC , I bought my first piece of original art, a tiny painting called