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Jeffrey Gibson, an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and convener celebrated for his work in painting, installation, video, and performance, drew upon Indigenous kinship philosophies to create nashoba holba / wayaha / coyote.

A testament to the importance and intelligence of the animal kingdom, the sculpture invites viewers to consider what animals have endured, and the lessons they may be able to teach us.

nashoba holba / wayaha / coyote is one of four sculptures commissioned from Gibson by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its 2025-2026 Genesis Façade Commission, each of which depicts an anthropomorphized animal, in this case a coyote. Within North American Indigenous mythology, the coyote’s specific meaning varies, but it is generally depicted as a cunning trickster and agile shapeshifter.

Known to reference various forms of Indigenous regalia throughout his multidisciplinary practice, Gibson’s coyote is embellished with the pelt of another coyote, which it wears draped around its shoulders like a cape, and necklaces of berries and beads. The sculpture is the result of a labor-intensive process that began with mixed-media maquettes and concluded with cast bronze sculptures that were produced with U.A.P. (Urban Art Projects), a foundry in Newburgh, New York.

If you ever find yourself in Des Moines, you owe it to yourself to enjoy a burrito at El Rey. The best in town and this is not a controversial claim.

Very few things are cooler than Infinity Rooms. This one’s by Yayoi Kusama (I was messing with some duotone filters.) We only got a minute and wish we had more. You enter and you feel like the ground’s going to vanish from under you!

My advisor took us on a lovely walk in Chelsea. We started at one of his favorite pizza places.

A big attraction. We weren’t allowed to take photos of the jaw-dropping interiors.

Met this little angel on my way back from New Jersey. Would wave at people through the window and say “Hi!” or “I love you!”

Conductor went around saying “Thank you. God bless you.” with a big smile as he was scanning tickets.

For the next 45-or-so mins, I found myself in some alternate, hopeful dimension where the World didn’t suck.

The very picture of contentment (and entitlement.)

I’d heard about bodega cats but meeting one in person is something else. No one knew the first kitty’s name. The second goes by Maxi 🥰 She was very curious and affectionate.

Didn’t know the 175th St station was built between 1928 and 1931. Didn’t know NYC subway stations had their own Wikipedia pages either.

I took these twenty years ago on Christmas Day 2005 en route to Minneapolis. I had just purchased my first digital camera (a Sony DSC-f717) two weeks ago and would play with it all day (manual focus in this case).

A most overwhelmingly beautiful mural.

Old New Yorkers have told me that these are the tallest they’ve seen in a while. There’s piles in the Midwest too but they’re spread out, don’t impede foot traffic, and don’t lead to the visual comedy of watching people (or noting oneself) summiting them. When not covered with punctured garbage bags, they can be very pretty to look at.

I went back to the American Museum of Natural History after about 8 years. I plan on going back as frequently as I can (it’s free with my student ID!) This might have been the best thing I saw and learned on my last trip.

Even ichthyologists cannot always identify a fish species just by looking at it from the outside. So they use a technique that makes flesh transparent, which lets them see the fish’s internal anatomy without cutting it open.

Clearing and staining can help scientists distinguish similar species, determine evolutionary relationships-and even see whether a male seahorse is carrying eggs! Before CT scans were available, clearing and staining was the best way to see inside an intact specimen, and the process is still widely used today.

Matthew Barney suspended himself in this space to draw those squiggles that feature his Cremaster Cycle logo (he calls them “Field Emblems”). Not a good shot since you can’t tell the sizes of things but this is a pretty large and cavernous space.

The Cremaster films are some of the weirdest things I’ve seen (in a mostly good way).

by Sol DeWitt. ‘Only’ wood and paint but you can stare at this thing forever.

By Martin Puryear. Red cedar, pine, black locust, ash, and rattan.

I am very partial to the benisons of technology and civilization and hence hate camping.

But I did love glamping with the fine folk at Under Canvas in Valle, AZ.

I channeled a lot of Tom Haverford.

Statue of a Seated Woman from 101 CE–200 CE. “Here the figure’s head and arms, now missing, were made separately and attached by means of dowels, the holes for which are visible.”

This was a kind of template (one of a few) for noblewomen, goddesses, and other exalted female figures.

A most nonsensical thing I heard about mobiles from one of the most annoying and odious characters in television:

And so that the meaning of the mobile stems not only from its form, but the relationship between the pieces, which gives it its meaning. And I suppose the relationship between the pieces is really where it’s at, isn’t it?

From the Sui (581-618 CE) and Tang (618-907 CE) Dynasties.

Reminded me of the fluid and flowy stuctures built by the Engineers in the Prometheus movies. Was headed home from after putting away many pounds of food at my aunt’s.

I’ve never used an LUT, which stands for “Look Up Table”, and thought I’d give this one a try. The work is Fall by Allison Saar (2011). I cannot wait to take a picture of it when it snows.

At the Leica store in the Meatpacking District. Love me a good cutaway.

I’m one of those people who inadvertently dedicate a good chunk of their phone’s storage to pictures of their doggy. This might be the best of the lot.

For now.

Snapped this whilst walking the dog around the East Village. It’s a reflection of our State Capitol building. Downtown gets very calm and beautiful in the evenings.

This was my first car, a 1992 Buick LeSabre I christened Brunhilde. I bought it off my friend John for $1,000¹. She was a lovely vehicle and came with bench seats, a CD changer, and boombastic speakers. She braved over 250,000 miles. Every car-person and occasional mechanic would extol the 3800 Series II V6 under the hood with the word “bulletproof” after asserting that it was the “last good engine outta GM”. Just a very solid car. I wonder where she is.

I saw this at the hospital my little niece was born in. It was offered as gift to the maternity unit by a “grateful former patient” and is a Farsi poem by Saadi Shirazi called “Bani Adam”. Here are the first few lines:

Human Beings are members of a whole
In creation of one essence and soul
If one member is inflicted with pain
Other members uneasy will remain
If you have no sympathy for human pain
The name of human you can not pertain

Saadi! I found out much later in life that a powerful French bureaucrat named Lazare Carnot was so enamored by Saadi Shirazi’s poetry that he named his eldest son Sadi (Carnot) of Carnot Cycle fame. We had to memorize this thing (the Carnot Cycle) in high school and I only understood what he was on about about 15 years later.

My favorite watering hole is The Locust Tap. I met this old regular named Phil a while ago. Loves his Jack Daniels. He sets up his homemade telescope outside the place about once or so every week for passersby to peer through in amazement. He’s been doing this for the past twenty years. He let me take this picture through it with my phone. Built his first telescope in 1987.

Lunabear attends to her Mamabear.