The 2013 NEPO 5K Don't Run happened last Saturday. It included this, which was made out of white bed sheets, by Adam Boehmer.

It spells yes vessel.
  • Photo by David Quigg
  • It spells "yes vessel."

The activities of the independent art engine NEPO House are always vessels for yeses. The down side: this is not rigorous curating. There's always stuff just as well overlooked at NEPO, usually marked by whimsy (shudder). There also are great big vessels you can't help but say yes to.

I didn't get to walk the whole route last weekend, but here are a few pictures of what I did get to see, and what I thought of it.

The Stiletto Relay Race by GENDER TENDER was neither stiletto nor race nor any fixed gender. Discuss.
  • The Stiletto Relay Race by GENDER TENDER was neither stiletto nor race nor any fixed gender. Discuss.

Wagging of fingers, an installation by Brandon Aleson and Jesse Montini-Vose. It really should be pointed out that quirky spectacles installed in homeless encampments under bridges do not feel right.
  • Wagging of fingers, an installation by Brandon Aleson and Jesse Montini-Vose. It really should be pointed out that quirky spectacles installed in homeless encampments under bridges do not feel right.

Sarah Galvin was soon swept away by a man in a banana suit. It was a poetry reading in the alley.
  • Sarah Galvin was soon swept away by a man in a banana suit. It was a poetry reading in the alley.

The Coyote Project is a series of videos Rodrigo Valenzuela and Anastasia Hill made and exhibited in the back of a moving van while driving down through California. Each video is based on and was created in a certain place, like Davis or Irvine or LA. I want to see more of these. Theyre worth a full exhibition.
  • The Coyote Project is a series of videos Rodrigo Valenzuela and Anastasia Hill made and exhibited in the back of a moving van while driving down through California. Each video is based on and was created in a certain place, like Davis or Irvine or LA. I want to see more of these. They're worth a full exhibition.

Keeara Rhoades was such a creepy/glam stage presence in this bizarre performance/stage-set of redneck-meets-Malibu-meets-rain-forest-meets-Ryan Trecartin. Eggs were thrown. She called it A Ballad for Cutie Beauty.
  • Keeara Rhoades was such a creepy/glam stage presence in this bizarre performance/stage-set of redneck-meets-Malibu-meets-rain-forest-meets-Ryan Trecartin. Eggs were thrown. She called it A Ballad for Cutie Beauty.

The three beautiful cards I selected in order to have the faux Germans Kathryn Rathke, Jake Nelson, Barry Wright, Betsey Brock, and more soothsay me. I was pelted with pretzels. I liked the cards.
  • The three beautiful cards I selected in order to have the faux Germans Kathryn Rathke, Jake Nelson, Barry Wright, Betsey Brock, and more soothsay me. I was pelted with pretzels. I liked the cards.

Alwyn OBrien sat in a swing pulled by Erin Elyse Burns in Idle, a study of idleness that was quite laborious for one of them, and maybe both, if it went on all day, like a perverse pastoral.
  • Alwyn O'Brien sat in a swing pulled by Erin Elyse Burns in Idle, a study of idleness that was quite laborious for one of them, and maybe both, if it went on all day, like a perverse pastoral.

Nathaniel Russells fliers, gems again this year.
  • Nathaniel Russell's fliers, gems again this year.

Jess Klein and DK Pan just planted a little tree next to the overpass. Called Summer Love. I hope it stays and grows.
  • Jess Klein and DK Pan just planted a little tree next to the overpass. Called Summer Love. I hope it stays and grows.

This piece was part of a series of pieces that all had these official-looking signs. None of the actual official art had signs that looked like this, so it is my belief that these signs were themselves the art, labels added to objects already out there to make it seem like this blue tarp in this woods under the overpass (you can see it there in the background of the picture) was installed by Seattle environmental artist Buster Simpson, when I do not believe it was. Another one of these was next to a piece of graffiti that said DROOLIO (attributed to Droolio), and another sign was next to a handful of wilted leaves and called Wilted. It was attributed to Klara Glosova and the material was listed as ceramics, but all that was there were some wilted leaves.
  • This piece was part of a series of pieces that all had these official-looking signs. None of the actual official art had signs that looked like this, so it is my belief that these signs were themselves the art, labels added to objects already out there to make it seem like this blue tarp in this woods under the overpass (you can see it there in the background of the picture) was installed by Seattle environmental artist Buster Simpson, when I do not believe it was. Another one of these was next to a piece of graffiti that said "DROOLIO" (attributed to Droolio), and another sign was next to a handful of wilted leaves and called "Wilted." It was attributed to Klara Glosova and the material was listed as ceramics, but all that was there were some wilted leaves.

This was the best part of NEPO for me, but impossible to photograph. It was an installation overlaid on the public sculpture in Sturgus Park, and it was called My Heart Is A City: Who Belongs in the House on the Hill? by Tara Atkinson and Justin Duffus. It was paintings and texts in pairs, each pair installed on top of one of the miniature concrete houses of the public sculpture. They were oblique and sad and intimate.
  • This was the best part of NEPO for me, but impossible to photograph. It was an installation overlaid on the public sculpture in Sturgus Park, and it was called My Heart Is A City: Who Belongs in the House on the Hill? by Tara Atkinson and Justin Duffus. It was paintings and texts in pairs, each pair installed on top of one of the miniature concrete houses of the public sculpture. They were oblique and sad and intimate.

Julia Freeman and Ben von Wilden haus created Ve-uws: A Peepshow. Disembodied hands frantically created things in the little windows.
  • Julia Freeman and Ben von Wilden haus created Ve-uws: A Peepshow. Disembodied hands frantically created things in the little windows.

And one more thing: Do you know where Lewis Park is? It's making a comeback.