this woman's work...

...hangs in one of my most beloved coffee shops in nyc (Hi Wendy!). Her mixed-media paintings have hung on the shop's brick walls for a little over a month (and I pray they stick around). Every morning, when I walk in to grab my coffee, a quiet inner voice says "You need one of her paintings in your apartment." But-I'm-afraid-to-spend-money-because-of-the-looming-possibility-of-layoffs-at-my-company, I say. "Oh fuck it," says the voice, a bit louder now.

I like this one here--the photo doesn't really show you how multi-layered her work is. If you could see this one up close, you'd see thin slices of paper with chinese writing...perhaps from menus, and other scraps of paper fitted neatly into a kaleidoscope of intentional blotches, drips, and lines. And this painting, i'm thinking, is of a man, not a woman. A lovely man raised by two lovely women. Take note, California.

Art by Loren Abbate