![Getting high with my NFT edible](https://lakevillejournal.com/media-library/photo-by-alexander-wilburn.jpg?id=48190519&width=980&quality=90)
Photo by Alexander Wilburn
The mellow tingling that pulsates with an unprovoked, weightless euphoria has arrived. The wooden leg of my desk brushes against my leg — or did my leg brush against the desk’s leg — and I am in a brief fit of laughter. I am high on a piece of art I purchased at Standard Space, a contemporary gallery in Sharon, Conn.
“Zubenelgenubi” by Kristin Worrall is both a THC-laced dessert and an NFT — which might make me the first person in Litchfield County to not only purchase marijuana artwork, but also the first customer to walk away from a local gallery with a piece of digitally encrypted art.
Combining the culinary arts with performance art, Kristin Worall hosted a live auction at Standard Space on Saturday night, Dec. 3. All titled after science fiction influences —from actual stars to names of alien species pulled from 1980s paperbacks — the gelatin sculptures fused the perfectly molded aspics of the 1950s domestic goddesses with intergalactic oddity and vague sexuality. The visuals of popular science fiction have always dabbled in abstract phallic and vaginal imagery, turning space into a Freudian landscape of the absurd. Consider the birth-anxiety of 1979’s “Alien,” or the teeth-baring vortex pit in 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” or the vacuum-mouthed sandworms of Frank Herbert’s “Dune.” Of course, within the history of dessert are plenty of cheeky references, from the Neapolitan naughtiness of the Capezzoli di Venere — the Nipples of Venus — to the myth that the Champagne flute was modeled off the curves of Marie Antoinette.
“Zubenelgenubi” was the only THC-laden creation sold at Worrall’s performance, but it singularly marks a new direction possible for the conflation of art and marijuana in Connecticut after recreational use was legalized in the state in 2021. Possibilities that may be curbed by small-town government. In Falls Village, Conn., the hometown of The Lakeville Journal Company’s office, a special Nov. 10 meeting of the town’s Planning and Zoning Committee concluded by barring both the issue of growers licenses in Falls Village and licenses for recreational marijuana retail. Resident Daly Reville said at the meeting that “bringing people into town as an adult cannabis retail destination didn’t seem practical or advantageous to the town.” Meanwhile, Hartford Business reported this week that “Connecticut’s cannabis industry could account for more than 10,000 jobs just a few years after the recreational market launches.”
It does not escape me that in purchasing this giant gummy edible — which may leave me crashing into a deep slumber — I also purchased my first NFT in a crashing market. It’s been less than a month since FTX filed for bankruptcy, leaving Sam Bankman-Fried, the former chief executive of one of the leading digital currency exchanges, as a figure of Internet and old print mockery. This is the Sisyphean tumble after years of cryptocurrency’s dogged climb towards legitimacy.
For context on the inflated market of NFTs, think of the Internet as a large island nation, except instead of stumbling upon it after voyaging on the sea, we built it. Now that land needs to be claimed, bought, and sold — we must colonize our own creation, and “we” (meaning “they”) must find a way to make even a leaf on a tree a transactional opportunity. NFTs — non-fungible tokens — are a way of turning images into profit. This may sound like the very definition of the art market, except the baseline concept isn’t creativity, but a creative solution to a problem. Images, even copyrighted images, are duplicated and dispersed with little control across the Internet, which makes them free — a problem. So NFTs are commonly bought with cryptocurrency like ether used on Ethereum, an open-source blockchain platform. One ether as of writing this is worth $1,282.9, a significant drop from this time last year. A purchase of an NFT is also the purchase of an individual identifier recorded in a blockchain ledger. It does not necessarily give the buyer supreme copyright, but the system does bring in the idea of an online image as a particular object.
Think of an NFT as the newspaper you’re reading. It is an exact copy of one of the thousands of newspapers this publication printed and distributed this week, but only this newspaper is the one you’re holding. It contains the oil on your fingertips, your coffee stains, a stray tear in the paper. Turn to the front and you will see a serial number, clearly identifying this as a particular newspaper — one of a copy, but one of a kind.
The traditional-medium artist to make the biggest splash from the NFT craze was Damien Hirst when he launched the conceptual project “The Currency” through the international art services business Heni. Hirst first made his splash in the 1990s with his formaldehyde-pickled tiger shark, and the bad boy of British art has continued to invent new attention-grabbing methods that make sure even those with little contemporary art knowledge are passingly familiar with his fame. In a 1994 issue of Parkett the late author Gordon Burn wrote, “It is one of Damien’s great strengths, both in the cool medium of his work and the hot medium of his person, that he is always pushing towards full disclosure.” Critic Julian Spalding has called Hirst’s work ”the sub-prime of the art world” more in line with creatively-marketed, hot-button luxury goods than lasting and meaningful art.
For his first delve into the crypto market, Hirst returned to a familiar subject, his instantly identifiable — and by no small coincidence, easily duplicable — prismatic dot paintings. This dot series was presented by Hirst and Heni as “a collection of 10,000 NFTs which correspond to 10,000 unique physical artworks which are stored in a secure vault in the UK.” Once the purchase had been made, the game began. Unlike my gelatin edible and its corresponding NFT, Hirst’s buyers did not have the option to keep both — they had to choose. Either delete the NFT or burn the physical piece of art. Which one held more currency? This October Hirst even welcomed fans to watch him burn the canvases which had been viewed as less desirable, less collectible, than their NFT counterparts.
Worrall described “Zubenelgenubi” as a melding of orange blossom and blackberry flavors, but devouring the gelatin by the forkful, all I could taste was the THC. It wasn’t unpleasant actually, a sexy sense memory that reminded me of having a joint on my tongue, the sound of the lighter flick, the burn and crackle of paper, my proximity to someone close by, breathing on my face as we passed the spark between drags. But as the high left me sinking into the sofa, the blaring the sound of Hans Zimmer’s “Dune” score with its otherworldly ancient chanting eclipsing all other senses like a great, black sun enveloping the earth, I realized I had inadvertently recreated Damien Hirst’s experiment. It hadn’t been intentional, the gummy was food that would eventually expire, but by ingesting it I had destroyed the artwork, leaving only the blockchain behind."
"Take Comfort" by Kristin Worrall is on view through Dec. 18 at Standard Space in Sharon, Conn.
Photo by Alexander Wilburn
Photo by Alexander Wilburn
Photo by Alexander Wilburn
Abstract art display in Wassaic for Upstate Art Weekend, July 18-21.
WASSAIC — Art enthusiasts from all over the country flocked to the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley to participate in Upstate Art Weekend, which ran from July 18 to July 21.
The event, which “celebrates the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York”, included 145 different locations where visitors could enjoy and interact with art.
On Saturday, July 20, The Wassaic Project hosted numerous community events. Will Hutnick, the director of artistic programming, said “We’ve been a part of it since the beginning, this is the fifth year of UPAW.”
Most of the action was based at Maxon Mills, the seven-floor grain mill located in the heart of Wassaic. On exhibit was work from 30 artists, 18 of whom were past residents of The Wassaic Project. “Artists can come and do a residency here, meaning they live and work with one another for a couple months at a time,” Hutnick stated.
The first floor held work by Petra Szilagyi, who uses dirt and linseed oil to construct images of paranormal concepts, most of which include bats. They reflected that a recent trip to a fifth sense competition in Vietnam was the influence behind the exhibit.
Across the floor was Tiffany Smith’s interactive installation which incorporated plants and wicker chairs, all of which were objects associated with her Carribean upbringing. “The room being filled with plants is symbolic of hurricane prep which often included bringing the plants from outside into the house,” Smith said.
As visitors made their way up the narrow wooden stairs, music could be heard from behind the walls. The echoing music was Daniel Shieh’s installation, entitled Mother’s Anthem, which played a recording of the American Anthem in 30 languages. The languages ranged from Spanish and Italian to Navajo and Bengali.
Each floor was filled with artwork of all mediums, including painting, fibers, collage and photography. Rachel Bussières, who switched her concentration after watching the 2017 solar eclipse, uses varying light sources to produce lumen prints. During the wildfires, she recounted that she “made a new exposure each day to capture the changing air quality”.
Luciana Abait also incorporates the natural world into her pieces, instead using maps. An environmental activist originally from Argentina, Abait’s work highlights “environmental fragility, specifically the impacts it has on immigrants.” Her installation that is currently on display at Maxon Mills, takes the form of a mountain range built solely from maps of the US and Argentina.
Throughout the day, visitors could “Arm Wrestle 4 A Popsicle”. Winners had the choice of 3 playfully flavored trout-inspired popsicles - Nightcrawler, Power Bait, and Salmon Roe. Artist Katie Peck, who spent the day in costume as a rainbow trout, encouraged guests to step up and try their hand at an arm wrestle.
Shibori Indigo dyeing, group meditation, and dance workshops were open for community members of all ages as well.
While the daytime activities fostered appreciation of fixed art, a dance party until midnight at The Lantern Inn offered guests a space for performative art.
When describing the environment of The Wassaic Project, Smith emphasized, “It’s all community, it’s all love.”
A serene scene from the Amenia garden tour.
AMENIA — The much-anticipated annual Amenia Garden Tour drew a steady stream of visitors to admire five local gardens on Saturday, July 13, each one demonstrative of what a green thumb can do. An added advantage was the sense of community as neighbors and friends met along the way.
Each garden selected for the tour presented a different garden vibe. Phantom’s Rock, the garden of Wendy Goidel, offered a rocky terrain and a deep rock pool offering peaceful seclusion and anytime swims. Goidel graciously welcomed visitors and answered questions about the breathtaking setting.
Amenia Finance Director Charlie Miller welcomed visitors to his Bog Hollow Road garden in Wassaic, a manicured expansive yard with well-placed garden beds framing a far-reaching view. He said he plans carefully each winter for the next spring’s improvement.
The organic, environmentally responsible Maitri Farm was next, a lesson in coordinating agriculture with natural balance. The farm stand and a walk among the greenhouses brought visitors together.
Near the center of Amenia was the garden of Polly Pitts-Garvin, offering a chance to visit a robust vegetable garden with raised beds to be envious of and a remarkable absence of any insects or usual vegetable garden problems.
At Chez Cheese, the vast garden acreage surrounding the 1850s historic home of Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips in Millerton, visitors could begin at refreshment stations where walking tour maps of the 15-acre property were available. There were streams and ponds with docks, and a dozen bridges arranged around the landscape. In the 19th-century, the property had been the home of the Wilson Cheese Factory, inspiring the name of the estate.
The Amenia Garden Tour was supported this year by Paley’s Garden Center in Sharon.
Gary Dodson working a tricky pool on the Schoharie Creek, hoping to lure something other than a rock bass from the depths.
PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — The Schoharie Creek, a fabled Catskill trout stream, has suffered mightily in recent decades.
Between pressure from human development around the busy and popular Hunter Mountain ski area, serious flooding, and the fact that the stream’s east-west configuration means it gets the maximum amount of sunlight, the cool water required for trout habitat is simply not as available as in the old days.
This is not a new phenomenon. It does seem to be getting worse, though.
Gary Dodson and I convened where the creek makes its final run into the Schoharie reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system, on a semi-broiling Thursday afternoon, July 11.
The goal was simple. Catch smallmouth bass, which abound in the lower section of the river.
This was hot stuff — as in an 80-degree water temperature.
The air temperature was actually slightly less at 77.
After negotiating the intensely slippery rocks, festooned with treacherous algae, the first major pool presented several difficulties, with a back eddy competing with a main flow and several large trees draped about the whole thing.
I hit on the simplest strategy, which was to flip a weighted attractor fly called a Tequilley into the start of the eddy so it would proceed slowly but steadily into the maelstrom, sinking all the while.
This worked. A proper adult smallmouth, with bronze coloring and vertical stripes, took the thing.
The point-and-shoot camera finally died, however, and I was not going to try to fumble my phone out for a nice but routine fish photo.
Why not?
Because I guarantee the fish would have made a sudden, last-moment bolt for freedom, causing me to drop the device into the drink.
Gary moved downstream while I continued trying to annoy the residents of the pool, succeeding a couple of times with different colored Wooly Buggers.
Then we all got bored and I moved off, where Gary was catching rock bass and cussing them out for not being something else.
I have to admit, they are not the most compelling critters. Something about the red eyes.
This latest trip was dominated by extremely tedious and distasteful Harry Homeowner activities, but on both Wednesday and Thursday mornings I prowled Woodland Valley Creek. By “morning” I mean “dawn,” because that was when the water temps were down to a barely acceptable 64.
I made the acquaintance of several stocked browns and of a handful of their wild cousins. The wild fish are smaller and nimbler.
The successful ploy was an Adams wet fly, size 16, drifted behind something big, like a Parachute Adams or Stimulator.