I attended Ilana Simons opening at GirlsClub last night (actually, Thursday night 9/27/07) briefly and enjoyed looking at her work; here’s the video.

By the way, I didn’t know Ilana Simons teaches Philosophy, and Plato in particular..thought I had to mention that.

I noticed the large variety of paintings Ilana had showing (you can see them in the video) and it occurred to me (and I mentioned it to her) to exploit the shape of the plates, particularly the smooth plates, with the protruding depth, much as Monet used the oval shape of the room in Paris where his Waterlily paintings are housed near the Louvre.

As a visual artist (that is, when I get around to painting) I’m very aware of the language of form and color; what makes painting interesting, as opposed to literature or other art forms, is the exploitation (if that’s the right word for it) of two dimensional design, texture, subtle properties of color, contour, drawing, etc.  

Succeeding as a visual artist, to me, is finding a way to take your motif and translate into the language of form and color.  Often, working sincerely, as Ilana does, I can feel the love that goes into the portraits – and sometimes, the color hues work for me more in some than others.  But I would say that when you teach philosophy, write and paint, you have a trinity (at least that) and it’s intersting to see someone that does all three in a consistent way.   All the paintings have consistency, the writing has consistency and I bet, the philosophy classes are pretty good too.

Yesterday I really didn’t see anything much happening, Art wise, in NYC, but somehow, I felt there was something more going on – call it a “gut feeling“,  and I found out about an opening at Think Tank 3 which I did take some video of (see below):

Anyway, before I got to Think Tank 3 in Tribeca, I ended up having dinner in a Mexican Restaurant nearby, and the usual thing happened…. a total stranger came up to me, end speaking with me, and ending up knowing 4 of the same people I do…her name was Rachel.   My point being… had I just gone home, as I was planning to do… that meeting would have never happened.

And that brings me to wonder how many meetings that I could have had…that I missed, or how many I have because I’m willing to follow my gut more often.   I don’t think anyone really knows those answers for sure, I certainly don’t; but I trust my intuition and gut feelings will lead me to the right path and to be where I need to be, when I need to be there.

So, with that in mind, I went over to Think Tank 3 and found myself listening to Ilana Simons read from her new book called “A Life of One’s Own”  – A Guide to Better Living Through the Work and Wisdom of Virginia Woolf which I bought and got signed by Ilana.   I also had a glass of some free beer from a co-sponsor of the event that was very enjoyable.

And I read a couple of chapters of “A Life of One’s Own” on the way home.  I can almost swear I knew some of the people being written about….maybe it’s a memory from the past, or maybe it’s just good writing, I guess I’ll never know for sure. 

Video to come later.