"Busy Tuesday greetings, my collector friends. Lazy days of Summer are nothing but a fond wish so far this year at JBHQ. We're in a frenzy of preparation for next week's big events and this week's deadlines, 20x200 and otherwise. More on all that after a few words on today's fine art edition.

Cul de Sac is an archival pigment print, created from an original gouache on paper painting by artist Michelle Weinberg. Using her Miami Beach environs as her inspiration and subject, Michelle contrasts its unique Deco-Pop color and charm with the city grit you find in any large metropolis.

In her statement she describes how she employs the pulse of pattern and the poetry of pasted words to create invented worlds. While much of her palette and geometry are distinctively deco, the painted plywood and the structures rising behind them also remind me of New York's constantly evolving skyline.

Last night, bedeviled by insomnia, I was composing today's newsletter in my head as I dug through the archives of Poetry. Using the The New York School as my point of departure, I came across An Urban Convalescence, a distinctively New York poem of a certain time (1962) by James Merrill. Locale and era aside, his musings on the impermanence of urban architecture struck me as a fitting accompaniment to this painting, and I set it aside for today's use:

It is not even as though the new
Buildings did very much for architecture.
Suppose they did. The sickness of our time requires
That these as well be blasted in their prime.
You would think the simple fact of having lasted
Threatened our cities like mysterious fires.

As the saying goes, the more things change they stay the same — in art, in poetry and in life.

Now I'm off to attend to today's other to-dos. Tonight's Hey, Hot Shot! deadline is mere hours away, which means we're fielding lots of queries from anxious photographers. Once the clock strikes 8, we'll turn our attentions to preparing for next Tuesday's panelist review of entries, which will be followed on Wednesday by an opening reception at the gallery for Ornithology. (You can count on seeing the fruits of these labors here on 20x200 in the coming weeks as well.)

I'll be back tomorrow with this week's photography edition - see you then!