Pamela Niskanen

2011-08-16T19:23:00.001-04:00

2011-01-20T10:32:00.001-05:00

Newest

2011-01-19T08:32:00.002-05:00

who is this guy and what's with the milk bottles?

2010-01-02T15:49:00.003-05:00

the space between the cars

2009-12-14T22:10:00.003-05:00

Something that people who aren't from New York probably don't know: between the cars on a subway train there is a sort of flexible space where the platforms underneath each doorway never actually touch, the cars are simultaneously held apart and held together by a system of cables and chains and bumpers.

If you've had quite a few drinks and you have a long commute home to the depths of Brooklyn you may spend a lot of time with your forehead resting on the cool window at the end of the car, watching the covered chains swinging on their hooks, watching the space expand and contract like a beating heart. In the 80's people used to use this space for smoking, or very late at night, for shooting up or for screwing, all precarious activities.

There is always the chance that you might go out of a car into the space, hear the door click closed behind you, and be locked out of getting into the next car, or even back into the car you were in, so that you have to wait upon the kindness of a stranger who will open the door for you, or you have to climb quickly out of the many barriers and hop onto the platform during the five seconds you're stopped at a station.

Looking out of the window of your car, into the space, you see the people in the next car. You can stare at the person directly opposite you for a long time, they are almost never looking at you. And due to a trick of looking through multiple panes of glass, sometimes the people you think you see in the next car are not really there. They're only reflections of people that are actually in your car. In your ear, from your car, you can hear the avid and pointless conversation of a teenager, and out the window, beyond the space, in the other car, you see a phantom version of the youth, moving their lips in precise concert with the monologue which sounds beside you.

Through a lifetime of living in New York, you may spend thousands of hours contemplating the space between the cars - thinking about your life, trying to unclench your jaw, hoping tomorrow will be better. You allow yourself to become lost in the space, but you never miss your stop. You can feel the stops counting down in your subconscious. No matter what else fleetfoots across your brain, you still hear "Bergen...Carroll...Smith & 9th Sts...4th Avenue...7th Avenue...15th St Prospect Park...Ft Hamilton Parkway..."and you gather your bags, feel for the prick of keys in the bottom of your purse, and steel yourself for the winter winds outsied.

When you leave the train, the space between the cars stays just where it is , all the way out to Coney Island, where it drinks in the sea air and the 24 hour hot dog smell until the train starts up again, and, pulsing, the space begins its long journey back to the other end of the line - breathing, stretching, crushing, swinging, just being space.

trying again

2009-12-09T21:56:00.000-05:00

Just coming back online after a few months hiatus - I had a sculpture blog before, and a fancy website, and after some serious soul-searching I decided that artmaking will have to be a private process for me for the time being. For objective reasons (haven't sold more than a couple of sculptures, can't afford to keep making & marketing for professional exhibition & sale) and for subjective reasons (I don't think that I have sufficiently developed my identity as an artist, or my relationship with my work - so it's not ready to share). I was also on facebook, and flickr, and blah blah blah never felt like I was doing enough - so I closed everything and just went dark for a wee bit.

So this is just a little dip of my toes back into the social networking waters. Just a placeholder so that I can drop in a photos, videos, links of things I want to share, thoughts, etc. Just to be present.

I've done a great deal of backpedalling and reinforcing in 2009 - just treading water and treading water and conserving energy and doing boring work for a real income and finally, after months and months of being in a holding pattern I seem to have crawled back to close to where I was at the end of 2007. No regrets, I tried some stuff, it didn't work, I learned a lot, and here I am. Grayer, chubbier and wiser, and pretty much ready for whatever the next phase is going to be.

I'll try to keep you posted.