The Final Countdown

Here, a poem written by Claes Oldenberg put to pictures.

I am for an art that is political

erotical

mystical

that does something more than sit on its ass in a museum

I am for an art that grows up not knowing it is art at all

an art given the chance of having a starting point at zero

I am for an art that embroils itself with everyday crap & still comes out on top

I am for an art that imitates the human

that is comical, if necessary

or violent, or whatever is necessary

I am for an art that takes its form from the lines

of life itself

that twists

and extends

and accumulates

and spits and drips

and is heavy and coarse

and blunt

and sweet

and stupid as life itself

I am for an artist who vanishes, turning up with a white cap painting signs and hallways

I am for an art that comes out of a chimney like black hair and scatters in the sky.

I am for an art that spills out of an old man's purse when he is bounced off a passing fender.

I am for an art out of a doggy's mouth, falling five stories from the roof.

I am for an art that a kid licks, after pulling away the wrapper.

I am for an art that joggles like everyone's knees, when the bus traverses and excavation.

I am for an art that is smoked like a cigarette

smells like a pair of shoes

I am for an art that flaps like a flag, or helps blow noses

like a handkerchief

I am for an art that is put on

and taken off, like pants,

which develops holes, like socks

which is eaten, like a piece of pie,

or abandoned with great contempt, like a piece of shit

I am for an art covered with bandages, I am for an art that limps

and rolls

and runs

and jumps

I am for an art that coils and grunts like a wrestler. I am for an art that sheds hair.

I am for an art you can sit on. I am for an art you can pick your nose with, or stub your toe on.

I am for an art from a pocket

from deep channels of the ear

from the edge of a knife

from the corners of the mouth

stuck in the eye

or worn on the wrist

I am for art under the skirts, and the art of pinching cockroaches

I am for art that grows in a pot

that comes down out of the skies at night, like lightning,

that hides in the clouds and growls

I am for art that is flipped on and off with a switch.

I am for art that unfolds like a map, that you can squeeze, like your sweetys arm, or kiss, like a pet dog. Which expands and squeaks, like an accordion, which you can spill your dinner on, like an old tablecloth.

I am for an art that you can hammer with,

stitch with, sew with,

paste with, file with.

I am for an art that tells you the time of day,

or where such and such a place is.

I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street.

I am for the art of the washing machine

I am for the art that comes up in fog from sewer holes in winter. I am for the art that spits when you step on a frozen puddle. I am for the worm's art inside the apple. I am for the art of sweat that develops between crossed legs

I am for the art of neck hair and caked tea-cups, for the art between the tines of restaurant forks, for odor of boiling dish water.

I am for the art of sailing on sundays

and the art of red and white gasoline pumps.

I am for an art of bright blue factory columns and blinking biscuit signs.

I am for the art of cheap plaster and enamel

I am for the art of worn marble and smashed slate. I am for the art of rolling cobblestones and sliding sand. I am for the art of slag and black coal. I am for the art of dead birds.

I am for the art of scratchings in the asphalt, daubing at the walls. I am for the art of bending and kicking metal and breaking glass, and pulling at things to make them fall down.

I am for the art of punching and skinned knees and sat-on bananas. I am for the art of kids' smells. I am for the art of mama-babble.

I am for the art of bar-babble, tooth-picking, beerdrinking, egg-salting, in-sulting. I am for the art of falling off a bartstool.

I am for the art of underwear

and the art of taxi cabs.

I am for the art of ice cream cones dropped on concrete.

I am for the majestic art of dog turds, rising like cathedrals.

I am for blinking arts, lighting up the night

I am for art falling

splashing

wiggling

jumping

going on and off.

I am for the art of fat truck-tires and black eyes.

I am for Kool-art

7-UP art

Pepsi Art

Sunshine Art

15 cents art

Vatronol Art

Dro-Bomb Art

Vam Art

Menthol Art

L&M Art

Ex Lax Art

Venida Art

Heaven Hill Art

Pamryl Art

San-o-Med Art

Rx Art

9.99 art

Now Art

New Art

Fire Sale Art

Last Chance Art

Tomorrow Art

Franks Art

Ducks Art

Meat O Rama Art

I am for the art of bread wet by rain. I am for the rat's dance between floors. I am for the art of flies walking on a slick pear in the electric light. I am for the art of soggy onions and firm green shoots. I am for the art of clicking among the nuts when the roaches come and go. I am for the brown sad art of rotting apples.

I am for the art of meowls and clatter of cats and for the art of their dumb electric eyes.

I am for the white art of refigerators and their muscular openings and closing.

I am for the art of rust and mold. I am for the art of hearts, funeral hearts or sweetheart hearts, full of nougat. I am for the art of worn meathooks and singing barrels of red, white, blue and yellow meat.

I am for the art of things lost or thrown away, coming home from school. I am for the art of cock-and-ball trees and flying cows and the noise of rectangles and squares. I am for for the art of crayons and weak grey pencil-lead, and grainy wash and sticky oil paint, and the art of windshield wipers and the art of the finger on a cold window, on dusty steel or in the bubbles on the sides of a bathtub.

I am for the art of teddy-bears and guns and decapitated rabbits, explodes umbrellas, raped beds, chairs with their brown bones broken, burning trees, firecracker ends, chicken bones, pigeon bones, and boxes with men sleeping in them.

am for the art of slightly rotten funeral flowers, hung bloody rabbits and wrinkly yellow chickens, bass drums & tambourines, and plastic phonographs.

I am for the art of abandoned boxes, tied like pharohs. I am for an art of watertanks and speeding clouds and flapping shades.

I am for U.S. Government Inspected Art,

Grade A art,

Regular Price art,

Yellow Ripe art,

Extra Fancy art,

Ready-to-eat art,

Best-for-less art,

Ready-to-cook art,

Fully cleaned art,

Spend Less art,

Eat Better art,

Ham art,

Pork art,

chicken art,

tomato art,

bana art,

apple art,

turkey art,

cake art,

cookie art.

And there you have it.

The Beautiful, Bountiful, Burrow.

We often seek to define "The Artist." Because art is a personal craft, filled with humanity, the definition changes from day to day and person to person. Here is mine.

I sat in a car a week or so ago. It sped down the road, trees flying by. The sun had just fallen behind the tree line, wrapping a pink and orange glow about their leaves. I could only think of how beautiful they were. How much unimaginable, inexplicable, undeniable beauty sits waiting to be found all throughout the world. An artist finds that beauty and strikes it to canvas or stone or wood or plastic or film. An artist captures the beauty that fills the world. He (or she) may re-imagine it or refine it into a new and wonderful form. But he (or she) still captures the essence of that beauty.

By beauty, I don't necessarily mean the conventionally beautiful. Beauty can be perfect, or imperfect; disturbing or comforting; warm or harsh; crisp or blurred. It is nearly the most undefinable word, second only to art. The two, however, seem to go hand in hand. So, then to know what art is, one must also understand beauty. But beauty is everything. The most grotesque, monstrous, twisted and mangled thing can be simply beautiful. A new born child or a dying old woman are beautiful. Beauty rages within the warmest summer day, and the most terrible hurricane. All the world sits full to the brim with beauty.

But, you may say,

"Those things hold beauty, but they are not beauty"

to which I would reply,

"but what are you?"

and perhaps you would play along and say,

"a human"

"what is a human?"

"I am"

And then we find ourselves back where we started.

But if an artist creates art, which is inherently a reflection of beauty, and beauty is everything, then art is everything. Perhaps, the fault does not lie with beauty or art for being defined so openly, but instead it rests upon the very concept of understanding.

In quantum physics, an observer can never know the velocity and position of a particle to an extreme certainty. As the observer detects the velocity of the particle with increasing accuracy, he (or she) detects the position of it with decreasing accuracy. Rather than the particle's instantaneous velocity and position being fixed numbers as we are used to, they become complex equations whose parts are defined by more equations. Perhaps the same can be said for art and beauty. Rather than exhibiting unique, predictable attributes, they are equations whose definitions only bread more equations, more ideas of what they could be. And so, the definition presents more questions than the word. One could go on infinitely, defining word after word, searching for a way to describe beauty, but they would never find an end. But, perhaps the purpose of a word is just that; the expression of inexpressible things. That is beautiful.

This definition is very obviously skewed by a world in which a toilet or a silkscreen of Campbell's Soup or a piece of wood found in some dumpster can be labeled as art. Such a word both terrifies and intrigues me. These works, or perhaps I should say things, inspire people to question and imagine and rethink the whole world. But at the same time, they equalize the world. They take a specific craft and shape it into a wider venue. At some point, perhaps even now, anything is art, so long as someone calls it so. And as that vagueness to the word "art" grows, the vagueness of other words will also. Perhaps someday everything will become so construed, and so undefined that everything will be the same, because it will be everything. Though I may work hard or make work of worth -

but then you could say

"but what is worth?"

and I would say

"worth is whatever someone wants"

to which you could reply,

"But then, if everything has someone to want it, doesn't everything have worth"

And then we are back again to where we started; unsure of what is and what isn't; what can and what can't. I suppose we can only conclude that the whole world can be whatever it wants, just as it can be whatever I want because there is no absolute frame of reference. All are equal, important and unique. But then, it would seem that none of them are. That is the problem. But that is also, the point.

Popular Art

Pop Art.

Mr. Chuck Close and his fingers

Last week I went to the Reynolda House Museum in good ole Winson-Salem, North Carolina. Their featured gallery was American Impressions: Selections from the National Academy Museum, but the work that inspired and interested me most sat off in some dead end little room somewhere away from the regular path of the house. It seemed somehow forgotten. There wasn't even someone there to make sure we didn't rub our grubby little hands all over the art.

In this little semi-forgotten gallery hung the work of Mr. Chuck Close from his collection Keith: six drawings. Each of the used different techniques to paint the same face (which I imagine was some fellow named Keith). All were composed of pixelesque objects. One employed squares of paint, another used circles. Another used squares of graphite and another, squares of ink. Each of these four captured the basic outline of our friend Mr. Keith. Each could, I suppose, represent a different face of this fellow. But these four seemed incomplete, just an image of the man, not the full embodiment of him.

There was however one more version. This one used fingerprints. It held the detail of his eyes, the soul of the man. As if only a piece of the man could completely capture him. Only something human could find the humanity within the image. I personally find this terribly interesting. I like to think this speaks for all things. That at our most basic, if we look far enough in, we're made only of what we are, nothing we could make outside of that.

Mr Midterm Monster.

It begins softly. Little wisps of cloud stretch across the blue of the sky. They seem to step from right to left, trapped in time. Then a little tower grows from the parking garage below. It leads us down to the pavement, the cracked concrete of a worn lot. Crumbled pieces sit flung violently from their former resting place.

We follow the spurts of grass that jump from the newly freed ground. Sand and dust replace earth. The soft leaves of tiny shrubs reach up to a wooden plank, climbing its side and finding slim palms from a dark cavern. Shrouded in leaves and vines, these palms stare hopelessly toward the sky. Three vagabonds shouting past a dumpster and the eroding ruin of a wall, urge the sky to free them, to turn them loose to the sun.

Then slowly the walls build up, boarded and locked. No one. They stand so weakly, their arms held up by only the air beneath them. Any movement, any threat, and they will surely crumble. Paint reaches backward to the ground, searching for help, a release from its dying host. Its skin sits burned and blackened atop the failing walls. The heat warped glass, metal and wood, bending the place, curving its hard edges, softening it. It blurs itself with the world, losing the sharp definition of a building. A ruin stands now, affixed to the universe, locked to its heaven and its earth. Little eyes creep over its edge, searching for the place that once was. But it lies no longer. It lives with the world, now.

click on it, it gets bigger

This place holds a very strange place in my life. It was a haven. Kids would go there to get high or trip on this or that, or just go wild. An abandoned shack we made our own. In its past life, it was a factory or warehouse of sorts. Conveyor belts and miniature cranes dotted the inside. Some men spent years there, moving this and that, here and there. Their sweat lived in the concrete, plaster and drywall. As did ours. We were kings there. We could crash through a thin, weak wall with a battle cry, kicking and jumping, then laugh like madmen, howling out into the abandoned; like happy monsters finding home.

I saw this place on fire. Smoke from it filled the area and covered my school in a soft haze. That day was a dream, as if the whole world had fallen into some uncertain freedom, detached from rules; floating on.

this isn't it, but it's what it felt like

It is a photograph of a building. An old decrepit place, but still a building. Though it bends and shapes itself, it is what it is. The studium. The "what is there."

Alone, this photograph means much more to me than it likely does to anyone else. It requires the context. Without that, it sits just a building, just some place that is somewhere doing something. But its power derives itself from the memory, the place in time it holds. The image bends the building, the way it bent our world. It lives in different rules, curved and uneven. This is the punctum, the little jab of meaning that jumps forth from the image. Alone, without context, this place is just a building, torn apart by the harshness of time. But as we gaze into the photograph’s soft grain with the knowledge of its history, it holds a little piece of humanity, a little breath of air, softly exhaled.

being somebody else

Look here. Replace someone from the news with somebody from a painting. Then replace take a photograph with write a little something. Then read.

I used to love her. The distant sadness behind her eyes. Every night she comes here. Every night a different man. Every night in that same seat by the door. Every night those same deep eyes catch me. I've come here to hide from this particularly still, silent night outside. But She brought that uneasy silence with her. I retreat to the comfort of the pool table to occupy my solitude. Someday I'll sit with her.

This is wholly unrelated, but I made a promise.

Found then Lost, then Found again.

At home over the break, I had the opportunity to relax a bit more than in the months prior. This little bit of time to regroup and refresh gave me a chance to just sit in my room and be again. I love my home. In my room I have a painting done by one of my friends, Errol, who also makes movies with me. He couldn't be home for the break because he goes to school in California (I live in Florida). You can see the painting here, along with some of his other work. That bit of time I spent looking at that painting, which had fallen out of my memory during school, gave me a chance to find what I loved most about life. The most beautiful parts of home and the greatest feelings and experiences I had there. I hope to never have to lose my closest friends from there.

But anyway. His work is very expressive. His sketches and paintings really encompass the defining moments and emotions in his life. I think he shares the subjective nature of modern art in that he shows the viewer a severely personal representation of existence. Because of those artists, the way they changed the world of art, Errol can make these weird interpretive paintings. He can capture the way the world feels without having to capture its exact physical dimensions. The ideas that those artists pioneered have led to a paradigm shift in our view of every type of art. We now ask why a piece looks or sounds or feels a certain way, what it could be saying about the world. We see a voice now.

That got me to thinking, which got me to writing. I've started a short script inspired by one of the characters in the painting. Below is what I have thus far. I think I'll pass it along to the fellow members of BaldMan Pictures (our little production company) so that they might find a little something in it also.

OVER BLACK

EMMA (V.O.)

Good morning, starshine.

A tired moan.

EMMA (V.O.) (CONT'D)

I thought we'd go for an adventure

today.

Another tired moan. A bed creaks as if someone has just

sat down upon it.

EMMA (V.O.) (CONT'D)

You haven't been with me out there

in a while. It'll be like when we

were little.

Silence.

EMMA (V.O.) (CONT'D)

Hello? Are you there?

Someone roles over in bed.

EMMA (V.O.) (CONT'D)

Come on.

INT. SAM'S BEDROOM - EARLY MORNING

A messy teenager's abode. Light pours in through the

window from the just risen sun.

EMMA, a childish young woman, sits on the bed beside SAM,

a very tired young man.

EMMA

It's time to get up.

She smiles at him.

EXT. CAR - LATER

Emma drives the beat up little thing down a bumpy road.

Sam leans his head against the open window, his hair

blowing slightly in the passing wind.

EXT. FIELD - LATER

The sun sits a little higher in the sky now. Tall grass

reaches up to it, searching for warmth.

Sam and Emma cross the big place. She carries a picnic

basket and skips about.

EMMA

I hope he likes it.

They continue into a

FOREST

of tall trees with tiny leaves.

After a moment they stop. Emma puts down the basket and

walks forward just a little forward. She puts her hands

in the air reaching with all her might as if she were

trying to tear herself apart.

She shouts at the emptiness.

EMMA (CONT'D)

Hello! Harold! It's Emma and Sam.

You can come out.

Silence.

Sam looks about. He shouts, too.

SAM

Harold!

Rustling leaves break the silence. Emma turns to see

HAROLD, a man-sized monster in a very dirty brown suit,

standing partially hidden by a thin tree.

EMMA

We've brought a picnic.

Harold stares at her.

HAROLD

Did you bring cucumber sandwiches?

Emma smiles and giggles.

EMMA

Of course.

Harold walks toward them. Sam takes out a checkered

blanket from the basket, unfolds it and sets it to the

ground. Harold and Sam sit upon it.

Emma takes out a bag of sandwiches, a plate, a big jug of

juice and some cups. Balancing them masterfully, she sets

the items on the blanket with the plate at the center and

arranges the little sandwiches on it.

Emma joins Sam and Harold on the blanket.

Harold takes a sandwich and starts to eat.

EXT. FOREST - LATER

Light falls through the leaves.

Emma hides behind a tree. She peaks around it at the

empty forest. She rushes over to another tree.

She spots Sam in the distance. She takes a deep breath

and sprints toward him and taps him on the shoulder.

EMMA

You're it!

She runs away and hides behind another tree.

A little whimper breaks the near silence. Emma follows

the sound over to

A BIG TREE

where Harold sits crying.

EMMA (CONT'D)

Harold?

Harold quickly looks away.

EMMA (CONT'D)

What's the matter?

She sits down next to him.

EMMA (CONT'D)

(to the forest)

Sam!

(to Harold)

What's wrong?

Harold continues to sob.

HAROLD

I'm lonely.

EMMA

But, Sam and I are here for you.

HAROLD

I...

He hesitates then turns to Emma.

HAROLD (CONT'D)

Hate this place.

Emma doesn't know what to say. Sam hurries over.

SAM

What's going on?

EMMA

Shh!

HAROLD

I've never been anyplace else.

EMMA

Then go.

HAROLD

I can't.

EMMA

Why not?

HAROLD

I wouldn't know what to do.

EMMA

Come with us. We'll take you

around.

SAM

We'll go on a quest.

HAROLD

No.

He stands and walks away.

INT. CAR - THAT AFTERNOON

Sam drives now. Emma rests her head upon the open window.

Her hair flickers through the wind.

EXT. FOREST - THAT NIGHT

The moon shines on the leaves.

Harold meanders through the trees. His head hangs low. He

reaches the edge of the forest and stares out at the open

field.

Little children and big monsters

I think this term, I'll try to relate everything I do to monsters of some sort.

The world is so vast. Every minute people are born and people die. Billions of lives comprise humanity. Each person separate and important, the main character in their own story. How could one idea, one conversation pass judgement on what all those lives mean. What defines them, their homes, their nations. Who are we to do that? What capacity do we have that we can even understand this vastness? I can't comprehend such an immense place.

All we can do is see the world through our own eyes. Subjectively. Biased. It is our job as storytellers to give our unique perspective on life, on the little sliver of existence we inhabit. We should be the eyes through which others see the world.

In terms of how I see this little planet's place in the vastness of time and space, I don't know. But I do think, at least within my little microcosm of existence, there is a uniqueness about this time. Now is a time in which the mass production of digital content has begun to grow more than exponentially. In 2006, 161 exabytes of data were created. That's three million times as much information as contained in all books ever written. It's expected to reach 988 exabytes (nearly a zettabyte) in 2010. In all this information, it's very easy to get lost. I find that our particular generation looks toward nostalgia for comfort. Our art is the recycling of generations past, supplemented with the results of the digital revolution.

We borrow from the modern art of the 20th century, but blend it with digital images and push it into video and song. The new media seems to be multimedia because it's so easy to create and so appropriate for the multifaceted world we inhabit. Artists today have become a jack of all trades in a way. They must be able to not only paint or photography or draw or sculpt. They also must know how to capture that work for the digital world and present it within video and images. Find music that will tell its story well.

I find that young artists represent my view of the world at least a little better than older ones. A friend of mine, in particular, captures a world that I want to live in. A world of fairy tales and forest creatures. We works in two dimensional painting, drawing and video, as well as three dimensional installations and I guess I would call it crafts. You can find some of his work here.

My favorite of his installations is this. The photograph doesn't really present it the way it was. The entire floor was covered in dirt. A band played music in front of the projector so that the light cast strange shapes upon them. As the band played, he and I danced around in masks he had made. We played like children.

What most strikes me about his work is the nostalgia in it. Every piece seems to reckon back to childhood. It's like Beudelaire said, " The child sees everything as a novelty; the child is always 'drunk'. Nothing is more like what we call inspiration than the joy the child feels in drinking in shape and colour." But the childhood, in Errol's is a much more literal thing. He captures the child rather than using that view as a tool. But this childhood comes with the maturity of age. Monsters that once might have filled our dreams with fear, now seem to be understood as everyday people. Those monsters likely had lives before they came to scaring little kids. I find that different perspective refreshing.

But who knows, the world is so vast with everyone so different, how could I know.

A Tiny Sun Rises

Recently, I took a trip downtown and visited the Artists on Liberty Building. There were two open galleries, one of which was by a former student of the School of the Arts. Her work was alright, though not terribly original or well-done. The other gallery, however was captivating.

Upon first entering the building, a woman walked out of what appeared to be a heavily decorated office, or perhaps a gift shop (I guess it kind of ended up being both). She was a rather rotund African American woman who smiled widely and laughed joyously at almost everything. She explained that the gallery across the street (which, I imagine she had seen me trying to enter), kept strange hours, but that we were more than welcome to look around here.

Her warmth filled the whole place with a sort of joy.

There didn't seem to be anyone in any of the offices or galleries further back into the building, so I figured I'd try hers. Why not? She was a nice lady.

Bright Caribbean colors covered the walls and some light reggae danced in the background. She told us about the featured artists, Gary Campbell, Howard Chen and Albert Harjo. Each of Gary Campbell's work was made to represent a different country of the Caribbean. There was Cuba, Haiti, The Dominican Republic and many many more. She also had postcards of his work. She said there was some confusion about whether one of his paintings was the United States or Cuba because it was of a man playing a saxophone. She figured we all should just enjoy the music. Campbell also had some abstract work that almost seemed to move it was so full of energy. That was interesting. But, as I listened to her, it was exactly the type of artwork I imagined she would collect. She sounded like any old gallery owner talking about their collection.

But then I noticed a different section of art. A group of tiny paintings (not more than a foot in either dimension) hung with each other along the wall. I stepped toward them and the woman's tone changed just slightly. She said it was artwork by Albert Harjo, a Native American man from Oklahoma who started painting in his sixties. There's some more information about him here and here(these are the only websites with any information about him). He paints using tempera and water color. I wasn't allowed to take a photograph of it myself (and as noted prior, my drawing skills are horrific), but I found some more of his work scattered throughout obscure auction websites.

His work that I find to be most beautiful is Unknown Journey.

Anonymously they walk along the cold white ground. They remind me of being a child. When I thought I could reach up into the sky and pick off a little piece of cloud to hold. Back many years ago when I read of Native Americans in children's stories. I loved them. They played with words in such imagination. Dancing through forests of wheat. Loving one another. The stories' illustrations created characters made of maybe only two or three shades of color, with little gradient between. So solid and stern. Yet they grew soft and smooth through the beauty of the writing.

I could never forget those stories.

This painting immediately sent me back there. Despite the sun's rigidity, I still imagine the softest light from all of time falling from it. Despite the intense empty space and loneliness of the composition, I couldn't help but smile at the warmth of the souls that I imagined inhabited it.

The wind seems to tug at them as if asking to play. But they can't. They must find where they're going. They're heads seem to sink down into their bodies, perhaps retreating from the cold or in shame for something bad they had done. But the sun seems to sit above them, looking down, as if in forgiveness, asking them to hold their heads high, happiness all around.

I imagine that they are returning home from a long journey, ready to fall softly into the comfort of their beds. Or maybe they're going to a village somewhere in desperate waiting for their arrival. Or maybe they've lost their home and anyone to expect them, and they're simply journeying to find a new place where they can be.

I suppose this gives quite a bit to the painting from my own personal history, but I think good art should do evoke enough of a response to entirely recreate meaning through one's past experience.

It reminds me of Chardin's, House of Cards in that they are both so simply and symmetrically composed, without very much detail in the atmosphere of this very odd little place. This, however is where the similarity of their craft ends. Harjo uses such stark, bright, wonderful blues and oranges and reds and browns in a scene that, without my personal injection of joy, is rather melancholy. But Chardin uses a color scheme rooted in soft, drab browns and greens in a scene that is sourly academic with the slightest undertone of excitement.

Though they differ quite a bit in style, they hold the same odd underlying emotion. Both make me happy. Despite the boy's manlike, stoic demeanor, his eyes have just a glimmer of excitement in them. He wants to see the house of cards stand, but he would also love to see it come crashing down in a mish-mash of suits and numbers. He has that same little spark of interest that the sun has in those journeying people. That same intimate connection with what he looks down at, what he loves.

I love Native American Art because it reminds me so of those little storybooks I used to read. That childhood exuberance that they held. I'll always associate the two, for as long as I live. I find myself too nostalgic to let them go.

A Presidential Redux

WARNING: This post is extremely biased. If you can't take the heat... um... don't go near hot places or things.

The world is very different now. It's flatter and closer than ever. The extreme nationalism of the Twentieth Century faded with the end of the Cold War. Anyone can connect to anyone else whenever they want. I can trade stocks on exchanges in Europe and Asia for almost nothing. As a result of this diffusion of borders, world leaders have had to evolve. They must be worldly in a way that was not always the case.

In the United States, the role of the President has also changed.

Once the President was a statesman only. Their portraits reflect this intensely. They stand or sit in ornate rooms full of incredible images of strength and power. They are stoic, sturdy, the pillar of the Nation. Washington even considered his role in government to be undemocratic. It was the Congress, he thought, that was the voice of the President. The people elect him because of his proven character and abilities in working with diplomats and other statesmen, not with garnering public support for bills or kissing babies. That was uncivilized. Presidents often didn't even campaign.

That's Andrew Jackson on the stagecoach.

It wasn't until Andrew Jackson ran for President that support for anything resembling the grassroots campaigns and public appearance that we see today began to grow. The President was, in a way, secluded from common people. He represented his country to the other heads of state, not their citizens.

But now, the President represents this country to the world. What he does reflects entirely upon the view of America in the rest of the world. Holding this position of incredible influence comes also with an incredible responsibility. He is a more public figure now than ever before. Every moment of his life is poked and prodded. We must be sure his character and personality is acceptable to be placed as the essence of what an American is.

When George W. Bush was President (legally elected only once, I might add), we were cowboys.

We shot first and asked questions later. We tortured. We were stupid. We couldn't even speak our perverted "american" english correctly. We lost the world's respect.

But then Hope happened. Barack Obama won the Presidency and suddenly there was a near religious fervor. People danced in the streets. It was time for change, for progress to finally take the reigns after eight years of BS. He was featured on the covers of some of the most prestigious magazines in the world. He was interviewed on the news, on talk shows, on the street. Story upon story upon story poured out of the media about him. His face is recognizable all over the world. He only gave his first national speech in 2004. He only became a national senator in 2004 and didn't even have time to finish a full term. Yet we know his face, his eyes, his smile, his laugh and every tone his voice can make. He is a father, a husband, a statesman, a scholar, an intellectual, a reader, a writer, a speaker, a preacher, a lover, a fighter, a friend, an idea. He became a star to rival Kennedy.

Seductive Swingers Swing Swiftly

I think dance is one of the most beautiful art forms. It comprises the composition of paintings, the dimensionality of sculpture, the intense humanity of theater, the beautiful math of music and the motion of film. It requires rigor in physicality, emotion and intellect. My love for dance likely stems from my roots in it. Both of my parents were professional ballet dancers and now are ballet teachers. It has been infused in my blood. The unfettered beauty of Swan Lake or Harbinger or any number of classical or modern ballets, speaks volumes beyond what any other art could say. They reach into your soul and fill you with what it means to be human. At least good dance does.

Somehow I have found myself rambling. My apologies.

These swinging paintings that we have looked at, in particular Jean-Honore Fragonard's The Swing, captivate a dance-like motion through the air. In The Swing, the woman's foot points toward the man, forming the graceful movement of a ballet dancer's. His hand reaches out to her with inconceivable grace. She seems as if she will fly from the swing and land softly in his outstretched arms.

He will lift her gently into the air so that she may stretch her body into a bow, her arms reaching toward heaven, her feet toward earth.

Then they will fall to the ground and embrace.

Their love is theirs.

The Landscape Conundrum

I love landscapes almost as much as I love the close up. Though the two exist at such opposite ends of the compositional spectrum, they both hold the potential to express intense beauty and undeniable power. In filmmaking, we have the opportunity to experiment with their succession and juxtaposition. Paintings have a terribly difficult time portraying both without losing the power of either. My most favorite landscapes are landscapes just. Simply composed, looking out into the world, searching for what it holds. Albrecht Altdorfer's Danube Landscape performs this task beautifully. 

Never had I seen this painting before, but when I did, it struck me so, I could not tear my eyes from it. It whispered softly to stay. To dance in the river Danube. To reach up and pick a little bit of cloud from the sky, hold it close, and never let it go.

Its forest, a mishmash of greens, leap forth from the canvas, each tree sort of muddled and indistinct, a little part of the greater whole. Each one painstakingly reaching for the sky, trying to hold on. 

The sky stands high above looking down at the world. It reaches down to the trees for companionship. Outstretching its soft clouds to lightly graze the foliage's tip. The sun peaks through just to say farewell, to wish all the world a goodnight full of wonder and warmth. It slowly falls behind the far off mountains. Rays reach out to the castle at the mountains' base to caress it, to hold it and keep it well as it listens to the river rush past, down down down to the little lake below.

All this beauty. All these things. They sit simply, softly, smoothly between two great trees who've watched this valley grow from the very smallest shrub and the very tiniest stream. To now.

The Terrible Tale of The Terrible Three

Due to my terrible deficiency in drawing ability, I must say that any story board, sketch or other form of hand-painted or drawn art would most likely be difficult to understand, interpret, or even discern. Here's an example of the best drawing I think I've ever done.

It required a caption so that everybody would know what it was.

As a result of said deficiency, I've written a screenplay. The story of a boy downtrodden who stands up to the terrible forces of evil that roam the playground and threaten to destroy its sanctity. A sort of modern day David and Goliath, if you will.

Here it is.

                 EXT. PLAYGROUND - DAY

                 A jungle gym rises from a rubber desert. Children play

                 all about. Some swing high into the air. Others run and

                 chase each other about. All is well.

                                         MICHAEL (V.O.)

                           Today is the day I died.

                 OVER BY A LARGE TREE

                 a group of particularly tough looking seven year-olds,

                 JIMMY, SAMMY and LENNY, lean leisurely against the tree

                 nearby. A beehive hangs on one of its upper branches.  

                                         MICHAEL (V.O.) (CONT'D)

                           These three boys made it happen. 

                 The boys watch over their domain.

                 OVER BY THE SWING SET

                 MICHAEL, a little seven year old, swings contentedly,

                 laughing and joyous. 

                                         MICHAEL (V.O.) (CONT'D)

                           That's me. How naive I was. Not a

                           care in the world. Little did I

                           know, this would be a day that

                           would live in infamy.

                 BACK BY THE BIG TREE

                 the three boys (henceforth, THE TERRIBLE THREE), swagger

                 away. As they pass by a sandbox, Jimmy takes a littler

                 kid's bucket, fills it with sand and pours it all over

                 the little kid's head.

                 The rest of the children look at Jimmy. He grins

                 threateningly.

                 The children scatter. The little boy left lying in the

                 sand. Defeated.

                 The Terrible Three continue to 

                 THE SWING SET

                 where Michael continues to swing. The Terrible Three

                 walk on over to him. There are two vacant swings left

                 on the swing set. Jimmy sits in one, Lenny on another.

                 But Sammy walks to Michael.

                                         SAMMY

                           Hey. Give me that swing.

                 Michael continues to swing.

                                         MICHAEL

                           But I'm not finished yet.

                                         SAMMY

                           So? Get off.

                 Sammy pulls on one of the chains holding up Michael's

                 swing. Sending Michael twisting away.

                                         MICHAEL

                           Hey!

                 Jimmy and Lenny laugh. Sammy doesn't respond.

                                         SAMMY

                           Get off of that swing!

                 Michael stops swinging and steadies himself.

                                         MICHAEL

                           No!

                 He starts swinging again. Sammy walks up behind him and

                 pushes him off of the swing and into the sand below.

                                         SAMMY

                           What'd you say to me?

                 Jimmy and Lenny stop swinging and hurry over to Sammy.

                                         MICHAEL

                           It's my swing!

                                         SAMMY

                           Your swing?

                 He chuckles.

                                         SAMMY (CONT'D)

                           This is our playground, friend.

                           We're the ones that say what's

                           what. And I say that this ain't

                           your swing.

                 Michael spits in Sammy's face.

                                         MICHAEL

                           Poop on you!

                 Sammy pushes Michael into the sand. A Little Girl holding

                 a ball watches nearby. Lenny notices her.

                                         LENNY

                           What are you lookin' at?

                 She runs away.

                                         SAMMY

                           You think you're some kind of a

                           tough guy, huh?

                 Michael tries to get his face out of the sand but Sammy

                 holds him down.

                                         SAMMY (CONT'D)

                           Come on boys.

                 He motions to Lenny and Jimmy.

                 The Terrible Three drag Michael behind

                 THE BIG TREE

                 and start to beat him up. 

                                         SAMMY (CONT'D)

                           You two keep watch.

                 Sammy punches Michael in the stomach. Michael tries to

                 fight back, but Sammy is too much for him. Muffled,

                 Michael cries out:

                                         MICHAEL

                           Help!

                 But his words fall to the ground, too weak to find any

                 ear to climb into. Michael submits. He's lost.

                 When Sammy finishes the beating, he pushes Michael to the

                 ground. 

                                         SAMMY

                           See ya later alligator.

                 The Terrible Three laugh maniacally and begin to walk

                 away.

                 Michael rolls over onto his back. He sees the beehive

                 dangling above The Terrible Three. 

                 With all his might, Michael finds a small rock near his

                 hand, takes it and throws it up to the hive.

                 The rock his it slightly. The nest begins to rock back

                 and forth. Bees hurry from it to see what the commotion

                 could be.

                 They spot The Terrible Three and dive right for them. It

                 is a horrific sight. 

                 The Terrible Three run away, frightened and in pain,

                 crying. 

                 Michael still lies on the ground, unable to move.

                 The little girl with the ball from before walks up to

                 him. She kneels down beside him and touches his forehead. 

                 The rest of the children from around the playground

                 scurry up to them and form a circle around Michael. 

                 They all lift him up with extreme care. The mass walks

                 back around the tree with Michael on their shoulders, 

 weakened. 

                 His eyes open carefully.

                                         MICHAEL (V.O.)

                           So there you have it. The day that

                           I died. 

                 A pause.

                                         MICHAEL (V.O.) (CONT'D)

                           Well. Almost.

                 Michael smiles.

                                                                 FADE OUT.

Self Portraits Made Easy

Think about a face. Any face. Is it your mother? Your brother? A man you've never met? A woman too old to move? Too fat? A tiny insect? A happy dog? A chimp?

Now think about a woman. Any woman. One with hands made of silk. Or one who dances and sings with joy. One that loves without reason. One that reaches for something just out of reach, every muscle working toward that desirable thing. But leave her face blank. Empty.

Now take whichever face you made at the beginning and place it upon the body of the woman you imagined. Meld her, grow her, change her so that her face and her body are connected, as one.

Imagine her soul. Can you see it in her face? Does she let you in or shut you out? Is she dark and terrible? Do you want to know her, to see her every day? Is she a friend? An enemy?

My woman dances. She moves her body intensely. Her eyes grow from an old man's. They stare with the wonder of the past and the astonishment of falling in love. Her cheeks are smooth but know well they will someday fall to wrinkles. She's a lover. Her soul slips through her eyes, but her face holds it in. There's something lost in her. Something she'll always search to find.

In looking at Judith in Caravaggio's Judith Beheading Holofernes I learn to see. The intense indefinable expression upon her face beckons to search for understanding. To find what is beneath. Her head sits so detached from the rest of her body, as if suddenly thrust into the situation. Her body has had time to adjust, but her face just had time to react. This moment is the perfect reflection of her disjointedness. Her imagination jumps instantly to something else. Searching for just what it wants. It looks elsewhere for the answer, leaving the room, her body continuing on without her. She doesn't understand. How did she get here?

Common Midterm Place

Places of organized worship are very odd to me. What makes any place more important than any other to a society. Especially when it has no tangible survival value. Although a person or a group of people may regard a certain plot of land as holy, what authority is there that declares it to be such for all society. 

Perhaps it is some innate sense of being that drives us to immortalize a certain spot. An instinct of sorts. Could such a thing be just as vital to the survival of our species as the instincts of the hunt? Or could it be that this is a byproduct of our consciousness, our humanness.

Whatever the reason, it is a fact that as a society, certain places, namely places of worship, are immortalized, decorated and otherwise set apart from other architectural structures. They often prescribe to a different set of creative tools. 

I visited the Memorial Reformed Church on Banner and Hollyrood. 

The architecture of red brick and white trim is classically American in nature. It expresses the south, its home. Unlike the First Baptist Church downtown, this church is not overly ornate. It blends outright decadence, mediocre artwork and simplistic design. A little of something for everyone. 

Somehow, stained glass has become a staple of western religious sites. Even my little temple back home, when it was only a couple of portables put together, had several stained glass windows. How did this come to be? In fact, churches from even the 4th and 5th centuries have windows made of colored glass and stone. Thus, stained glass has an inherent religious connotation

The most interesting part of the church was a simple corner off to the side. However strange that may sound, it's true. The corner was delicately framed between two terrible similar, modestly sized stained glass windows. Unlike many of the other stained glass windows, these two were not of some biblical scene, nor did they, due to their position, provide an enormous amount of light. Also unlike many of the other stained glass windows, these were in an area that saw just slightly less foot traffic than the rest of the church. They stood there awkwardly, somewhat forgotten.

Their design expressed no ornate desire to please, just a simple augmentation of the surrounding place. A simple blue trim that meandered up into a crown of sorts. Picturing a window within a window. They lived so that the church as a whole could be beautifully balanced. 

 

These are the windows.

The vertical lines that hold the glass present a sense of bars. What could they be keeping out? Or holding in? Perhaps they serve to protect the holy congregates from the unholy evil outside the walls of the church. Or perhaps they remind parishioners that there are many prison-like vices of the world, and that they must be controlled. 

But then there is a symbol above the "bars." Each of which hold something of significance. The left holds a crown. Perhaps to signify that god ("the king") exists above these vices or gates. He is everything and everywhere. The right holds the tablets of the ten commandments. Perhaps signifying that these holy words are higher than the vices or gates. These symbols may be ways to escape earthly pettiness and find a true peace within a higher being. After all, we need our places of worship.

This is not for the commonplace book

This is not for the Commonplace book. I just thought it was funny.

You're the top.

Listen while you read.

I've always considered Michelangelo to be one of the greatest artists. To me, great art is about humanity. It is about the expression of being human. Michelangelo does this not only through his technique, but also the emotion that comes as a result. His figures have weight. Their muscles contract and relax as a real person's would. Their faces contort into human expressions.  But it is not the exactness of craft that yields greatness. It is the soul that is created behind the craft. 

When I look at his Moses, there is not a stone man sitting with a stone blanket. There is a warm bodied person sitting there before me, draped in some kind of fabric. He stares. His eyes find interest somewhere off in the distance. He runs his finger through his beard nervously. He contemplates the future of his people; of himself. Perhaps he's worried. His mind wanders through the myriad "what ifs" of his situation. Can he be all that he must? Has he done all he can? Is it worth it? Why did God choose him?

Leonardo DaVinci: Prankster at heart

I thought I'd get truly ridiculous with this one.

Leonardo daVinci was walking in the park one day when he saw his friend, Jim, sitting on a bench down the path.

straight chillin

Leonardo happened to have brought along a recent creation of his (an artist's rendition is pictured below).

Rock Gator

Being the trickiest fellow on the block, Leonardo thought he might play a trick on poor old Jim.

Oh no!

So he walked on over to Jim and waved "Hello."

What up.

Jim replied with a friendly hello and then asked Leonardo what he was holding behind his back.

What's behind your back?

Leonardo removed the Rock Lizard from behind his back. A sight Jim did not expect. He asked what it was.

Dude, what the hell is that?

Leonardo, disregarding Jim's question, threw the lizard at him, which flew

I can fly, too.

and landed on Jim's head.

GET OFF OF MY HEAD!

And Jim died.

I cried for Jim. Did you?

Poor Jim.

Bosch and Me

I am a tree

lost in a lost land of lossness

stuck into a boat

floating

growing

living

from the world below me

people reap my benefits

they climb me

they sit on my brother

his branches wilt

they take us with them

I'm tied all to everything

a web of rope leaping out from me

people and things all attached along them

a man tears me apart

at my base

a lady, a monk and several seamen

sing gentle songs

to a hanging bob

sitting neatly on the end of

one of my ropes

they push a table against me

perhaps they'll lower the bob down to it

eat it

sing of its taste

feed it to the

peoplefish

that swim along the hull of the boat

row along

searching for something

perhaps a place to stow 

the seaman

that another lady

prepares to beat

the ocean becomes grass

in the distance

a mountain looks down at us

it doesn't mind our

plight

only observes

Bellini and Moms

1.

According to Kristeva, Bellini came from a family of painters.

Which would likely have a great impact upon himself as a painter. Having grown up with it as a part of his life, it likely grew to be a part of his identity.

His work benefitted and innovated the developing use of oil painting.

As Kristeva says, it gave Bellini's work a certain extra "luminous density of color" that "introduced volume into the body and into the painting."

He was the official painter for the Ducal Palace.

It gave him honor, I suppose.

I would imagine that the most shaping event in his life were the deaths of his wife and son.

It likely shifted his perspective on life quite drastically. To lose your closest loved ones, is an unimaginable experience. Perhaps his work before and after differs slightly because of this.

3.

Kristeva supposes quite a bit about DaVinci. Though she instills many facts about his life, it is still her interpretation of a man who lived hundreds of years earlier. I find her argument sound, but it still cannot be taken entirely as truth because it is based entirely upon the inference of what could have possibly maybe been the case. Nonetheless it is a very interesting perspective.

In her explanation of the Leonardo's Madonna and Child, she finds that the child seems to the purpose for the mother. She exists because he does. Chronologically (in terms of birth), this is flawed if to be taken literally. But it obviously is a more metaphorical thing than that. Her whole body turned toward the child, the real focus of the image. The baby is her goal, her superobjective. The mouth of the Madonna is also identical to that of the Mona Lisa, implying a sense of masculinity.

4.

Bellini never had a real mother or at least a female figure to fill in for that void. DaVinci had his wife, but Bellini never grew close enough to his step mother to think of her in a maternal way.

This explains the reason for the distance between the mother and child in his paintings of the Madonna.

DaVinci always has the mother completely attentive to the child, always looking and holding and pushing close to him.

But Bellini's Madonna's are less attentive to the child. They often look away to some other point of interest. They are distant to the child.

This image is strange. The Madonna looks at Jesus as if she's afraid of him, as if she is disgusted by him. She holds him as if she were a man and he were a purse. It's just incredibly awkward. It seems as though that is Bellini's idea of a mother. Distant, foreign and awkward.

6.

Kristeva asserts that the reason that the Nativity and the Crucifixion are shown so often together is their inherent connection through the mother. That the mother gave birth to Christ only so that he could die. But then is that not the case with all of us? Kristeva seems to connect that cycle of death and life as if it were a terrible thing, as if the nature of existence was wrong. Perhaps it is because Christ, as a man, is glorified in death, whereas Mary, a woman, is only glorified for her use as a vessel for the son of God. Perhaps.

8.

Between 1485 and 1499, Bellini's wife and son died. This led to a shift in his style. It becomes full of "controlled hostility or disappointment." It seems that his fatherhood is necessary "in order to relive the archaic impact of the maternal body on man." Paternity allowed Bellini to admit the threat of the maternal body as well as the separation from it. It was his fatherhood that allowed him to innovate his artwork, to grow as an artist, rather than fall victim to stagnation in his work.