Grace Zabriskie

The Newest Box! With Bullets.
5" x 5" x 10"

First comes the image. Many of the images Grace uses are photographs of complete paintings, or details of paintings. (All the paintings reproduced on the boxes are early paintings done by Marion Lane, who is Grace's daughter.) Some of her images are her own graphic work, or photographs she's made, or collages Grace made from her photographs, or, occasionally, the photographs made by another photographer, for the purpose of creating a box.

The size the box should be is then determined. The wood is cut, sanded, glued and clamped. Then sanded again. Paint (usually black) is applied inside and out, and the photographic images are imbedded in a two-part epoxy resin, using a process originally invented by Marion. Once the shiny resin coats have cured for two weeks, they are sanded with fine to extremely fine grits, and then waxed and buffed. The black surfaces are re-coated with more black acrylic paint and finished with coats of water-based polyurethane. At some point the holes are drilled to accept the birch Shaker pegs for the box and the knob or peg for the lid. Or the legs and knob are sculpted by Grace of walnut or mahogany or some exotic wood. She has also used antique glass doorknobs and brass legs, etc.

A finished box is signed, on the outside bottom, by Grace and also by Marion if the image involves one of her paintings.

Sometimes the image takes months to create, but once Grace has the image, the box takes about six weeks, unless it is a complicated comission piece, which can take up to six months. Even the smaller boxes are extremely labor intensive.

hi yah G R A C E. THIS NEW BOX IS LORD !!!

Judy Garland

Minnelli valiantly continued to deny the reports of suicide, and suggested that "some progress has been made" toward Garland returning to continue filming "Royal Wedding". A spokesman for the studio told reporters: "Miss Garland is now resting under her doctor's care. She is asleep. I saw her and she has a slight bandage on her neck. No stitches were required."

The press continued to stake out the house, and while Garland, tried to adjust to the situation, Minnelli ordered a bar and buffet set up in the drive for the besieging newsmen. She received literally hundreds of bouquets, and , while she was overwhelmed by the flowers and orthodox expressions of sympathy, the cable she liked best came from Fred Finklehoffe and his wife, the Broadway star Ella Logan.

It read: DEAR JUDY, SO GLAD YOU CUT YOUR THROAT. ALL THE OTHER GIRL SINGERS NEEDED THIS KIND OF BREAK.

"God, Pa," she said to Carleton Alsop, "isn't that sweet?"

Easterness

He has risen.

Eye Spy

2009 Mercedes-Benz SL spy shots.

David Lowery on Mr. Lonely

Last night I walked out of a movie after its first thirty minutes and wondered what the hell I was doing wasting my time with movies like this, with movies in general, with this very art form.

Tonight I saw Harmony Korine's Mr. Lonely. It made my heart swell up. Every image set off bursts of ideas and emotions and wordless hyperboles blooming across my brain; grandstanding thoughts and deep feelings and one very clear resolution: I was right all along. This is what I need to be doing.

What else to say about it now? The film is a masterpiece of iconographic narrative. It is a sublimely simple story wrapped around a mantra that slipped from the screen with the grace of some artisinal knife, delivering Korine's point so sharply and with such profound precision that when it was withdrawn I almost instantly forgot the words used to convey it. They were delivered by a faux-Queen, speaking from the heart, and perhaps I'll recall them in the morning. It's been a long day.