I'm writing this post on a plane!

I'm very happy to find out that there's free wi-fi on this plane for the holidays! (although typing on my iPhone i'm sure will produce god-awful typos due to autocorrect) I am coming back home from visiting Austin and San Antonio. Honestly SanAnty was my favorite because we got to walk to every single art institution alongside the river! There is still construction going on, but regardless how commercial the downtown area may seem, I think a lot of cities are going to be jealous of the ease tourists and locals have making their way around. One can walk or water taxi from their school of arts and crafts to the museum and then a longer but worthwhile trek to the repurposed warehouse art areas (awesome folk art gallery in that Blue Star area) and Artpace San Antonio (They brought out two large volumes of articles on Maurizio Cattelan just because I asked!).

Leigh Anne Lester's show at San Antonio School of Art and Crafts

Also the 'Natural Bridge Cavern' was AMAZING.

Yelp told us that this trailer has the best Asian food in Austin, you can't read it, but it says Me So Hungry.

Austin was very comfortable as well, less cowboy hats, more beards and a lot of delicious food from trailers, we ended our trip with kickass barbecue that was more than we could finish. My highlight of the trip however was a tarot card reader in the 'Weird Museum' that was more of a historical storyteller than a hack and I enjoyed hearing about the stories behind the illustrations, the story of the swords cards involves a lot of manipulation, someone could easily make a movie about the story that runs from the two of swords up to the king.

See? A Scott Hocking piece just sitting there.

As usual I had my eye out for any michiganders and found quite a few traces! I saw a photo by Scott Hocking on the ground and leaning against the wall at Champion gallery and found a postcar for D Berman gallery that had some of Beili Liu 's work. They were kind enough to show me a wonderful layered burned paper piece and give me some postcards as well!

Beili Liu's work on vellum

Shawn Smith's work also at D Berman Gallery, all of his work is pixelated, this one is a great rendition of human lungs.

He knew how to get sh*t done, even how to bring the country back together as his approval rating rose after pulling out of Vietnam and not seeking another term. Stupid Vietnam war, can you imagine what he could've got done if that hadn't overshadowed everything else?

We didn't have enough time to see as many art museums in Austin but the Lyndon B Johnson museum was possibly one of the most inspiring places I've ever been that was political in nature, it really capped off a conversations me and my dad were having about cooperation in politics (my stance is to unite far left liberals with tea partiers by having both sides realize that the common enemy is crony capitalism, which should be taken care of as a priority. Kuchinich vs. Ron paul 2012!) while he believes Obama just needs to grow a pair of moderate balls and ditch Pelosi and Reid... But some things just baffle me about what we complain about politically. Although liberals are all about climate change and eating organic foods it's an ultraconservative that created Whole Foods. While inside the flagship it seemed like a total vegan liberal heaven... I wanted to eat everything! Also the city was celebrating that building the nice trails next to the river was built on time and under budget... Go figure, reminds me of republicans angry about 'socialist policies' like regulations on clean air and Medicare and giving to the poor (welfare) when they actually donate a ton to charities (currently more than democrats) and are sometimes in dire need of or making good use of those very policies. It just makes me feel like sometimes the things we love might very well be run by or are a product of those we think we're supposed to hate. So I for one am more open to looking for the good in republicans, Christians, liberals and others as long as we don't just rely on 'good intentions'. Be critical of everything, but be open to any possibilities of hope because I'm sure they can come from ANYWHERE.



Kind people in Texas, or is it just simply southern hospitality?