Chan, why you so mad?

(UPDATE- I just bought tickets for the show. I am a sucker for beautiful music and officially fucking excited.)

Speaking of Cat Power, two nights ago Chan Marshall was in my dream. She was a friend of a friends and I was trying to be really respectable. I didn't even think to ask for free tickets to her show (that was happening later on) but she offered me a secret password I could say at the show to get me and +1 in for free. But I kept forgetting what the word was so I had to ask her again and again. By the 5th time I apologetically told her I didn't quite get the word she said to my friend "what's wrong with your fuckin friend" and stopped talking to me.

She is playing in LA before I leave at the Wiltern, but I haven't checked to see if tickets are still available and secretly hoping it's sold out because I can't, well shouldn't afford it. Which is really sad. I should just buy tickets and not eat for a few days because I know it would be well worth it. Also her new CD Juke Box was release on the 22nd. I need to get my hands on that ASAP as well.

She is, of the "celebrity" type, probably the epitome of beauty to me in every single way... crazy (minus the substances now,) beautiful, talented. Best of all the worlds. A Chanel couture song bird, is a dream, the most beautiful dream.


FEBRUARY

6 New York, NY Terminal 5
7 Boston, MA Orpheum Theatre
8 Philadelphia, PA Starlight Ballroom
9 Toronto, ON Kool Haus
10 Chicago, IL Vic
11 Minneapolis, MN First Avenue
29 Los Angeles, CA Wiltern Theater

MARCH

7 Cairns, AU Tanks Arts Centre
8 Brisbane, AU The Tivoli
9 Sydney, AU Enmore theatre
10 Adelaide, AU The Gov
12 Castlemaine, AU Theatre Royal
13 Melbourne, AU The Forum

Where does the money go?

I was just reviewing 2007 statements for one of my credit cards and noticed 45 percent of my spending last year with it went to Save the Children. Which took me by a surprise, but in a good way. I have a specific amount taken out per month and I guess you don't really realize how much you are giving until they spell it out for you.

I know there are a lot of people out there who believe all the money collecting charity stuff is a scam but I have to say I'm not one of those. I definitely wouldn't trust every organization nor would I give to every cause. For me Save the Children is the one I do and believe in. I'm not stupid to think or expect 100% of what I give to go straight to the cause (it costs money to run even non-profit organizations obviously), but I know almost 90% of it actually does and that is pretty damn good.

I'm not one to preach but I definitely say if you can spare it (and if I can, you can) donate to something, someone. When it comes to putting good in the world, every little bit helps. There are a lot of respectable causes out there, people, places, animals that could use a lot of love, compassion, and money of course.

Also other than that being 45 percent of my bills, another 40 percent of it was spent on concert tickets for- Regina Spektor, Rufus Wainwright, Damien Rice, Cat Power, and the Swell Season (ONCE for those that are not familiar.) Wow, I guess I can not be mad at my credit card statement for year 2007. And, damn, last year was the best concert year ever for me (and friends I bought tickets for!)





Save the Children website

Painter in my pocket

It's a fact- I paint myself a lot, but they're not necessarily "self-portraits." The simple fact is that I am an always available model, and I prefer painting from real life when I can, so I use myself plenty. But every once in awhile, you just gotta do a good old self-portrait. It may not be profound, or pushing anything conceptually or artistically even, but sometimes there is nothing wrong with using art oh so simply to get something off our chests.

It's been an unusual week. What better way to make amends with it then just to paint. Just paint whatever, anything, no thoughts, no worries. So this afternoon I started to paint this.





Self-Portrait with Corn Dog in Los Angeles in Winter

oil on canvas

30 x 30

I love fishes cause they're soooo delicious...

One of the perks of being in LA's got to be K-Town. Los Angeles by far has the best one of all US cities. I have to admit, I've never even been to the one in Chicago, but I know I'm not missing out on much. I haven't explored or gone to as many restaurants as I'd like to have (I need Korean food loving buddies!) still what I've had so far has been excellent. My favorite finds though have got to be freshly made Korean street food that I have not had, or found, since leaving Korea.




The first one is called "boong-uh bbang" which translate to "carp bread/cake." They pour batter into fish molds and fill them with sweet red bean paste. SO, SO, SO good. It used to be my absolute favorite when I was a lil one in Korea and I still remember waiting for my "boong-uh-bbang" on the side walk on my way to school. These were especially good in the winter for some reason.

For LA folks, these can be found INSIDE Han Kook Supermarket at 124 N Western Avenue, all the way in the back. They're only 75 cents each, or 5 for $3. I recommend getting 5 (especially if you don't find yourself here often) then keep the rest in the fridge and when you're ready to eat them pop it in the microwave for 20 seconds then toast it in the toaster to get a hot center as well as crispy outside. It's definitely best fresh, but day or two after is still pretty damn good.





The second one is a sweet "ho-dduk" which is basically a sweet rice pancake. From Metromix LA-"Dduk, in the Korean food lexicon, refers to any pastry made with sweet rice flour—kind of like mochi but not Japanese. Here, it’s formed into a ball, filled with brown sugar, cinnamon and crushed peanuts, then pressed down onto a hot griddle until the dough flattens and turns translucent. The exterior takes on a crunchy fried patina while everything inside caramelizes and oozes together into earth-toned, sugary magma."

This you can find at the small aluminum cart outside of California Market at 5th and Western. They're only a $1 each. These, you gotta eat right away. Only thing is while you're enjoying its deliciousness watch out for the melted gooey goodness filling that may drip onto your shirt. It's so good you won't even notice or really care once you find a stain.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Fireman, teacher, mom, a mushroom, spider man?

I was thinking about people, then about jobs, career choices, and I wondered what everyone wanted to be when they were little. When you dream about being big, when you know in your little heart you could be anything you want to be. Even a cloud, or a superhero.

I want to do a portrait series. Not want, I'm going to do a portrait series. With this I'll need help. I would greatly appreciate for any, and everyone to send me photographs and tell me what they wanted to be when they grew up. And I will paint a portrait of you as that. This will be an on-going project that I may do for a year, 2, 5, 10. It would be so exciting to one day put together a show with all of these portraits. For now, again I need help.

Please send me 2, 3 good quality photos of you as you are now, put as the title of the e-mail "when I grow up I want to be (whatever you want to be.)" Also include what your favorite toy was growing up. This may, or may not be in the painting but it would be good to have it in case. You can e-mail all of this here- artfondalee@gmail.com

When I was little from what I recall I wanted to be a detective, an artist, a comedian, and of course, Robocop. I'm pretty good at figuring things out. I'm decent at art stuff. I'm pretty damn funny if I don't say so myself. And, well there is still chance for techology before I die to turn myself into a lean-mean crime fighting machine with machine gun arms and stuff. So, my little kid is pretty happy. I hope your little kid is happy too.


doh!

We've got mad intuition...

I just went to Emily White's website and was pleasantly surprised to see it with a new look that is just fantastic and well designed. Her music over the years has definitely grown and it's good to see she is putting forth the effort in all realms including a much more sophisticated site.

Emily's a singer songwriter from Memphis, residing and working mostly in Chicago. She is, my bestfriend, but I met her for the first time after she performed a set and I was completely mezmerized by her voice, her songs. I may, or may not have stalked her soon after. I was first a fan, her being one of the greatest souls and becoming a bestfriend was just an added bonus (well a BIG bonus.)

Be sure to check out track number two while you're on her site called "Mad Intuition." How's this for a little shameless pride- it's about me, well about us, conversations we've had. My favorite line's got to be "she's always right." It's always good to see a taurus knowing their place with a virgo : ) (That's not really my favorite line. I swear!)

She tours every year and plays regularly in Chicago. I highly highly recommend checking to see if she is playing in your city. She puts on a great live show. I personally love all the jokes, stories she tells between songs.


Emily White offical website

Giant Robot

Stumbled onto Eric Nakamura's blog and thought I would share it. He's the publisher and editor of "Giant Robot" so definitely gotta give him some love.

Eric Nakamura blog

I was introduced to the magazine when I was a first year at the Art Insitute (SAIC represent) by a little bouncy girl named Sarah with red dreads. She showed me a copy and said "look! a magazine that actually has Asian people and cool stuff! You're Asian, you'd like it." And, I did! Since then I always made sure I pick up a copy and browse through it whenever I see it on the news stand.

Anyway, his blog's got a lot of art, a lot of fashion, a lot of things that are right on. There's a Giant Robot store in LA (GR2) that I've yet to check out. Which is pretty lame of me but I find it hard to go to random places in a city I am still not too familiar with. I'm really bummed too because I really wanted to go to an opening held there just this weekend that included stuff from Kozyndan but I completely forgot about it the day of.

Here's an old cover of Giant Robot with Kozyndan's work. Kozyndan by the way is a dynamic duo/couple that create some beautiful, intricate and absolutely delightful work.



Check out the magazine if you haven't yet. Check out more of Kozyndan's work as well for sure. And if you live in LA, let's go to Giant Robot together ASAP.

Kozyndan website

Places You'll Go

Fecal Face is a website I've been going to for awhile and I check often. Unfortunately the updates on the New Feature (my favorite) section are not as frequent as I check up but thankfully there's always something to explore on the site. They have really good artist interviews that ask in depth to light hearted questions which I think often let you really understand the artist better than anything else. The content is mostly artists, art in the Bay Area, but it also includes other parts of California.

On a side note, I've few times typed in fecalmatter.com instead of fecalface.com. Thankfully I always caught my mistake before hitting enter. Repeat, thankfully. I've yet to have the guts to see what the other site is, which I'm sure exists. Let me know if anyone finds out.

Right now the New Feature is a dialogue with front man of Devo, Mark Mothersbaugh, on art, music, and of course, Devo!



"So much of the world is petty and nondescript and repulsive; people are angry and garish, frightened and obsessed with triviality. But then sometimes, rarely, things happen and events push us to be better than we were before. Some of us can look at the world and see what's wrong and what's right. Or even just see the essential absurdity and arbitrariness of all of it. And what do you do when you can no longer ignore the absurdity? You point it out. You make fun of it. And maybe things will be slightly less absurd and ugly than they were before."

Fecal Face website

Chicago Style pt 1

Hung out with some Chicago boys today. Good to be in company of people that actually walk the normal pace (move, get out the way!)

They were none other than Nigel a.k.a. Hollywood Holt, Mano a.k.a. Million $ Mano, Mike a.k.a. Mic Terror. They're in town for a week for a handful of shows, to show Cali how it's done. I've known Nigel for a while and I've been seeing all of them perform for a couple years and they're hot and they're about to pop. So, listen up if you don't know.

We hit Venice beach then got in a bit of the traffic on the way back. But, it was one of the best drives ever because they were freestyling all the way through, spitting out rhymes and making beats out of thin air. It was fucking incredible. Again, listen up world.

red is where it's at

Mano, Nigel, Mic



Nigel getting treated by Mano!

Del Taco come to Chicago please

Hollywood Holt MySpace

Million $ Mano MySpace

Mic Terror MySpace

Playground Wars

While I'm out in Cali I thought I'd paint something radom, different, but still pertaining the essence of what my art is about (refer to the artist statement in my last blog.)

It's the election year (if, you haven't noticed.) So, why not have a little fun with it? So I asked myself, what if politicians were kids that had to play it out in the playground? During recess? Doing things the kid way.

Here we have Barack and Hilary playing dress up. They be knights and shit trying to protect that castle of their's. Barack looks a bit sour though. I still gotta put in quite a bit of detail and paint over some parts I no longer enjoy. It's close to done. But also far from it if that makes sense. In the shield I'm gonna put a stylized donkey. If you know, you know why.

And the giraff.... well besides the obvious that I love this thing, if you noticed it's in my painting called "The Council." The giraff has come to represent for me, the councilor, the advisor, the wiseman, the sage, etc, etc. In this case, could it be representhng the American people? Think about it.

Shout out to Grant Wood and "American Gothic." (you see it a little bit, no?) Hard not to find a place for social, political situations of your country in your art. One way, or another.





oil on canvas

30 x 30

Intro- a day late better than never

The Council
oil on canvas
36 x 36

Hello.

My name is Michelle Jane Fonda-Lee (Yes, Michele Lee like the actress, but with two 'L's AND Jane Fonda like the actress, activist, the BARBARELLA... ella... ella... eh... eh...) I like giraff toys among many other things. I like a lot of things. Especially fun things. And tasty things. Most of all, beautiful things.

Now for "proof" of my usefulness. I made it for my last show. It sums something up I suppose. I don't have the pieces documented yet but when they are returned to me I will document and share. And why will I get them back? Because no one bought them. DAMN IT. In time. Remember kids, there's no shame in making money doing what you love. But there is shame in making money doing what you hate. Or just as bad if not worse, doing what you're indifferent about. Go make yourself useful- be passionate (the rest will follow)


EDUCATION

2005 Yale University, Yale/Norfolk Art Residency (Summer)
2006 School of the Art Institute, Chicago, IL

EXHIBITIONS

2005 Yale Norfolk Gallery, Norfolk, CT
2006 Tulip Gallery, Chicago, IL
2007 Queerfest Midwest, Chicago, IL
2007 Lasso Gallery, Chicago, IL

ARTIST STATEMENT

Painting, creating for me is a way to remember, to relearn, to retrace steps. Not to digress but to progress. Contradictory this may seem but I have discovered a world to tap into and to explore in a place expected to have been left behind. When it comes to emotion, expressing feeling there is much to be relearned after years of being programmed to be otherwise, desensitized and censored of what is deemed for a respectable adult as raw immaturity. But it's my belief that it is necessary and none less desirable as we mature. It's a quality we all once had, and the simplest and most sensible way to regain is by rediscovering innocence. And in painting, both through the process and the painting itself I engage in this dialogue. Imagery and memories from childhood are used to express from very personal to broader issues affecting and encompassing today's world. Every piece is an attempt to approach an issue with an innocent heart from the past along with an experienced mind of today.

about time

Well I've decided I should start a blog.

What better time than now? (11:37 p.m.)

what better place than here? (Culver City, CA)


I can't find my camera. When I do, I'd like to post a photo of the painting I'm working on. I like it.

I also, like California. And I also, don't really miss Chicago. Liking California came as a shock to me, not missing Chicago? Even a bigger shock. I do love the city, she's a beauty, but I don't long for it like I always used to every time I've left her. I know the city will always be there for me and right now that's good enough. I do miss my parents. I miss of course a handful of other folks. I like people alright. But Love is what matters and I've learned loving everyone is not the way to go. And I really don't love everyone and I, love that. It's so real. So I miss the ones I Love. The rest is all the same every city I go to. That's a bit scary, but reassuring as well.

Los Angeles is still a stranger to me. Completely. And will remain one even by the time I leave after my three month stay. But...I think I want to come back to become friends with it. Like a friend I love a lot.

It's 11:42 now.

I'm still in Culver City, CA.


Cheers.