Neon Poisoning

Monday, April 11, 2016

Here a Horn, There a Horn: A Salvaged Longhorn Migrates from the Shipping Canal to Museum District

I know that was a tortured title, but bear with me.

General Supply & Equipment - Houston, TX

General Supply and Equipment, 3201 Engelke St, Houston, TX 77003

I made a field trip to this mundane yet amazing salvage company in December of 2010. Mundane, because most everything was slightly broken, heat-damaged and/or not retrotastic. However, it was great because what it lacked in cool collectables, it made up in large piles of what it did have. Check out this review from Google...

"This has to be the largest collection of random crap in the city of Houston. If you are looking for anything industrial and/or vintage from HISD, HPD or god knows where else, this is the place for you. Oh you need some casters? They have like 500 million of them. Elementary school cafeteria tables? Check, Old servers? got'em. Ancient off brand laptops? Yes! I love looking around for parts and pieces for at home DIY projects, great fun. Staff is friendly and will load things for you if you need them to."

So, it's full of crazy, confusing piles of random crap. Including one huge, fiberglass long horn (pictured above, outdoors looking like a big, white thing on top of some red, rusted things and shrubs.)

Rice University Art Gallery, 6100 Main St, Houston, TX 77005

6 years later and 6 miles away, the horn has moved inside as part of Thorsten Brinkmann's "The Great Cape Rinderhorn" exhibition. Like General Supply, this exhibition is cluttered and confusing, and a bit fun. Unlike the salvage place, there are no elevator shafts to fall into, and my fear of needing a tetanus shot was almost nonexistent at the art gallery.

Here's my review.... fun and junky, yet not dangerous. And don't forget to crawl through the tunnel in back of the movie theater in the crate under the longhorn.

Sunday, February 07, 2016

Hong Kong Hustle: A Growing Google Map for An Upcoming Trip

A spontaneous purchase of cheapish airline tickets means a family trip to Hong Kong. As with all future trips, Google maps is amassing links and locations for places of interest.

There are loads of Hong Kong travel guides online, but they mainly touch just the mainstream destinations and strategies. So, I am surfing hardcore to find the instructive and unique websites to maximize our time while there. The following link barf is all the sites that I have gleaned at least one salient bit of info from. And most of the locations of the maps cite some info, to provide a reminder to myself as to why they were mapped in the first place.

http://wikitravel.org/en/HongKong

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?ll=22.294814%2C114.12117&spn=0.310033%2C0.580902&msa=0&mid=zIhyJj8a6ArM.kn0WniVtgAKM

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/china/hong-kong/travel-tips-and-articles/58854

http://www.hongkonghustle.com

http://travel.cnn.com/hong-kong/play/50-secret-tips-hong-kong-sightseeing-371481/

http://blog.omy.sg/hongkong/

http://kampungboycitygal.com/2009/05/street-snacks-dundas-street-mongkok-hong-kong/

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-alternative-and-off-the-guide-places-and-events-in-Hong-Kong

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-restaurants-in-Hong-Kong

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-dim-sum-establishments-in-Hong-Kong

http://www.timeout.com.hk/shopping/features/58849/hong-kongs-best-secret-shops.html

http://www.budgettravel.com/feature/a-family-trip-to-hong-kong,1260/

http://www.afar.com/magazine/a-beginners-guide-to-hong-kongs-street-snacks

http://www.neonsigns.hk/making-of-neon-signs/neon-sketches/?lang=en#21

http://www.fathomaway.com/guides/asia/hong-kong/itineraries/best-street-markets-in-hong-kong/

http://www.sassyhongkong.com/top-5-waterfall-hikes-in-hong-kong/

http://www.designsponge.com/2013/02/hong-kong-city-guide.html

Saturday, November 07, 2015

The Best the MFAH Collection Has to Offer: Online Access to The Houston Museum's Collection and the Lost Studio of Jim Love

Just recently the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston initiated a new project to open its internal digital database to the public. All 62,363 of the museum's works have an entry in this system. And with that, a public window has been opened to museum's varied and interesting collection. As a fan of the Internet Archive, it's nice to see the museum join the ranks of other institutions in broadening it outreach to include the online community.

Jim Love in Front of his Studio at 906 Truxillo Street, Houston

Jim Culberson, American, 1928 - 1997

906 Truillo doesn't look like this any longer...

... as a condo complex has claimed another block of the city.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Museum for the Urban Ephemeral: The GASAM

There can't be enough small, niche museums in the world for me. Which makes me very happy another one has appeared, this time in Space City. Houston has a pretty rich and interesting graffiti and street art scene, so I hope the Graffiti and Street Art Museum of Texas (official site & Facebook) takes deep roots.

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Previously on Neon Poisoning:

Miina Äkkijyrkkä & Daniel Anguilu Should Exhibit Together

Graffiti is Italian: Graffiti in Italy

Paint Fades, Love Endures: Best Graffiti Ever

Wednesday Night Photo Post: Art Out and About

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Dallas Missed Masons and Interesting Oddfellows

While doing my occasional search for things masonic, I found that Domy Books had a show called
"As Above So Below: The Art of The Secret Society" at the Webb Gallery. The exhibition and Domy are now long gone.

An upcoming Dallas trip to might have me stopping by old Masonic Temple on Hardwood. I'll see what the current owners did to it after they bought it from the Masons.

As Above So Below: The Art of The Secret Society, originally uploaded by Domy Books.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Machine Intelligence: My New Partner in Blogging

Thanks to a new upgraded in OS X, I can just yammer at my computer and magical things happen. Like this blog post. The promise of new posts and blogging maybe at hand. How very exciting.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Soo Sunny "Park Unwoven Light" @ Rice Art Gallery

Another great sculptural installation at the Rice University Art Gallery.

Saturday, March 16, 2013

The Barney Smith Toilet Seat Art Museum

Spring Break = lines (for everything you would want to see.)

Lines suck.

There were no lines at the Barney Smith Toilet Seat Art Museum.

, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.

Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum - San Antonio, TX, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.

Monday, January 07, 2013

Talking About Making Art: Success & Fail

Months ago, I concluded other people have better tools to make some art I've been thinking about. So, I started to hunt for a local laser cutting company. Laser cutting = geeky high tech awesomeness. Googling came up with Texas Laser Creations based in Houston.

From their website:

"Texas Laser is a Houston area based laser cutting /laser marking job shop, specializing in plastics, wood and textiles."

What the website should have said was...

"Thank you for visiting our out-of-date website. Texas Laser was a laser cutting company that moved out of our first former crappy shop which still bears our name (and now looks like a set for a serial-killer movie), and after moving a second location, went out of business. If you had called our number (or checked out our two bad online reviews) you could have saved yourself a trip."

The first place, seriously weird vibe. After driving rural industrial roads, I pull into a busted up commercial space: parking lot with scrapped cars, locked office, and three garage doors. Last one open. Out of it rides a little kid on a bike. I knock at the open garage door, asking a question that's pretty obvious, "Is this still the laser place?" The sketchy guy watching loud TV says, "No sir."

However, it was a nice drive. Houston always surprises me with it continual business/residential mix. And in that part of town, lots of modest horse properties with old trees.

So, not as much art making as desired, but always nice getting introduced to strange new parts of town.

Saturday, January 05, 2013

Online & Free: "Houston Reflections: Art in the City, 1950s, 60s and 70s"

From Rice University's open education resource initiative... "A collection of interviews, conducted by Sarah C. Reynolds, with Houston artists and other arts figures, all of whom proved influential in the growth of the contemporary Houston Arts scene."

Includes interviews with:

Saturday, December 01, 2012

Sig's Tale of $48,000: Treasure in TX Town's Cemetery?

Earlier in the week, I was going nutty about unearned wealth. The kind that just drops into your lap and you get to spend without reservation. I wasn't thinking about the then-unwon Powerball lottery, I was thinking about $48,000 in buried treasure. In 1951, Houston Press columnist Sig Byrd wrote of a second-hand account of 1935 bank robbery that resulted in the loot getting buried in the Jefferson, TX cemetery. The great thing is the amount of detail that accompanied the story (the town, landmarks & the nearest gravestone.)

"It was said to be buried in a dutch over at the foot of a cedar tree, near a tombstone inscribed with the name A.D. Kenny," "besides the T & P tracks" (Texas & Pacific.)

A quick google map search shows in Jefferson, TX, a rail line on the south east border of the Oakwood cemetery. Could this be the place? Not if my resource on the cemetery is correct (and thanks to the internet, I did find an expert on that small town's cemetery.) But that is for another post. Until then, here is the story in Sig's own words.

1951-06-21 - Byrd, Sig "The Dutch Oven Treasure, or Biting the Little Shamrock." Houston Press, [Houston] 21 June, 1951, Page 1, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.

"The Dutch Oven Treasure & The Sage of Short McKinney" - The Stroller - Houston Press, Pg. 15 - Thursday, July 26, 1951, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.

"Salzman Takes Over Dutch Oven Mystery" - The Stroller - Houston Press, Pg. 11 - Wednesday, September 26, 1951, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.

Sunday, November 25, 2012

In Where the Blogger Looks to Write a Blog Post, And Actually Does

As in most creative endeavors, the tangible result (a painting, a drawing, a blog entry, etc...) is the goal. But when motivation is blocked by indecision, frustration is my most frequent companion.

“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision... ...Full half the time of such a man goes to the deciding, or regretting, of matters which ought to be so ingrained in him as practically not to exist for his consciousness at all. If there be such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one of my readers, let him begin this very hour to set the matter right."

- William James, Principles of Psychology (1890)

So, this post, the first in over a month, is to string a small collection of words together (this very hour!). And if I continue to do this, the habit of blogging will take root again. It doesn't seem like much, but asking very little of myself is a kindness.

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In another victory of motivation over sloth, my love of roadside attractions (specifically Rock City, TN) resulted in me repainting my shed in countryside barn advertising. Still needs some work, but this a pleasing start.

"See Beautiful Rock City Today"... On my Shed, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Texas Contemporary Art Fair 2012:

It was a quick hit and run at the Texas Contemporary Arts Fair on Saturday. Only a few hours, which was not enough for me to digest the full range of galleries and artists. But I did run into a few unexpected friends, which was bonus.

Also, had my smiling face added to the Asia Society's "What Are You" wall. As a result of being overstimulated with all the art, I paraphrased my favorite Blazing Saddles quote and said, "My mind is flooded with rivulets of thought." Which it was.