Little Books

My parents had a yard sale a couple of weeks ago and I came upon some tiny, coin-sized books that my grandmother made me when I was little for Barbie's bookshelf. I was struck by the detail of these books. Some had photocopied images of my aunts and brothers that Nana had shrunk to fit on the pages. Others were cookbooks, or encyclopedic books about nature with tiny pictures of mushrooms, etc. I really love the size. They are perfect humble objects- inventive use of materials, and definite objects existing in the world, providing information but occupying such a small space as to be portable and personal, and almost not existing at all.

The image is of books I have made in response. I am now using the size and scale of Nana's books to convey my own information--Quaker songs, poems I've written, journal entries, manifesto fragments. What I like best is, when people read the books, they sort of have to shed embarrassment and shame, and look at them like they would a Donald Judd or Ilya Kabakov work-investigative, naive, like a child.

Other Recent Works

"An Invitation to Share and View Creative Works"

, a July evening at the Chinati Foundation Intern Lounge, affectionately called "Intern Talent Night," was a night to remember.

KENNEDY USES MILITARY CODE TO NAME MARFA ARTIFACTS

$1 Drawings

These drawings will be at "Limbo," Fingerprint, Burlington, NC in June.









Six minutes of drawing for $1 on an index card. If you would like to purchase a drawing, e-mail me at georgiadkennedy@gmail.com

works in progress april

i leave for marfa on thursday, so I wanted to post some of the pieces I am leaving in my studio, as they are what I have been working on as of late. Due to space, I probably won't bring them with.


I have begun a program for myself of $1 drawings. I pay myself $10 per hour and time six minutes of drawing on an index card. Some of the drawings are ideas I am working out in paintings, others are observational drawings. This one was commissioned by Tommy of our bikes (team Masi). I try to keep the drawings with me in a little box as examples of my work and for sale. They are "the people's drawings," or "the democratic drawings."


"Heart, Hearth, Home"
acrylic, ink, paint pen and fibers on denim


Sad Bastard of Technology
("But what's a substitute for bread and beans? I ain't seen it/ Do engines get rewarded for their steam?" -John Henry folk song)


Vija Celmins-inspired wax/oil and acrylic images


begun a while ago and in remission but present nonetheless.

Erased William J. Bennett Book, Replaced Martin Torgoff Book

This piece is one of my most recent. I read an extremely insightful book in December by Martin Torgoff, Can't Find My Way Home: America In the Great Stoned Age, 1945-2000. Torgoff tells a sociological history of drugs in America. In it, I learned about William J. Bennett, George HW Bush's drug "czar" (Torgoff's label) from 1987-1991. Bennett tightened drug laws on crack and marijuana, resulting in a worsening of the racial discrimination present in the legal system. I highly recommend the book, as it opened my eyes to how American politicians have corruptly used the "drug war" to target age groups and racial groups. Bennett's name sounded familiar to me, as I am the director of children's books at a used book store. I realized that a title by Bennett, The Children's Book of Virtues, frequently surfaces in my section. I purchased the book, and selected pages with illustrations by Michael Hague that I found to be ironic in light of Bennett's historical contributions to corrupt systems. I ommitted some pages of the book in my reconstruction of it, but kept the chronological order of the pages. I then erased Bennett's moral stories for children and typed over the pages Torgoff's words about Bennett in Can't Find My Way Home. The result is the grid above. I hope to have details of each page on my website soon.

under construction

georgiakennedy.org !!!

studio mid-feb.

Here are some images from my studio right now.


"SWLABR (She walks like a bearded rainbow)"


the great inhaler, Michael Phelps: "I thought I saw an eagle, but it might have been a vulture, I never could decide" (this painting as taken on new significance in the past week +-. in the words of a co-worker's homemade protest shirt, "Leave Michael Phelps Alone!"


Canadian Goose, bird said to have caused the strike of the Laguardia plane headed for Charlotte that went down in the Hudson; part of diptych.


And the sad little plane, part ii, soggy in the river.


I am working on this painting of blinged-out late '80s Tour de Francers Greg Le Monde, et al. for Watts, owner of Friendly Bike.