Breaking through the Boundaries
They say: “Trust in [insert your god’s name here] but [lock, tie, secure] your [car, camel, canoe]”.
What’s this mean anyway? It means trust in the rhythms of the divine but take precautions because precautions are necessary. Are you precipitating disaster? By thinking you might get robbed are you manifesting theft? Just because I have car insurance am I inevitably going to attract a car accident? What foolish superstitious nonsense! This is not the dark ages. Our superstitions may trade disguises; they may shift their verbage and tones of voice but they are still the same voices of self-defeat trying to eat us away and hold us back from taking chances, from truly stepping into and experiencing the rhythm of life.
Spontanaeity
I have been exploring other modes of painting creativity. I get very detail and precision oriented- and, right now, am working on a very tight mandala kind of painting which is growing into something very beautiful and softly gorgeous. But then my arm wants more because it can only hover in a kind of holding pattern for so long. My mind wants more. It wants the flying part where the paint is streaming out of me and I am painting on the edge of things. So i have taken to, while I am painting some crazily detailed painting, to work on something else or two as well. And it feels so wonderful.
I am awake now, at eleven am, after painting for many hours last night and then doing yoga in the wee hours before going to bed. I painted one new small painting (10" x 20") and then revisited an old painting which was left unfinished. There are a few paintings I have which were left unfinished. This one that I worked on last night, I saw it suddenly; I felt it and saw what I was afraid to do in it when I'd started it a year ago. Saw how to bring it together. So i pulled it out and it opened up and now is such an electrifying kind of swath of color and unfolding.
And All This Time I Thought It Was The Monkeys
"Officials from 113 countries agreed Thursday that a much-awaited international report will say that global warming [is] "very likely" caused by human activity, delegates to a climate change conference said.... Four participants told The Associated Press that the group approved the term "very likely" in Thursday's sessions. That means they agree that there is a 90 percent chance that global warming is caused by humans."
CNN.com
Wow. Who knew? Well, it's not definite yet, so there is no need to go trade in your SUV and start investing in weird quack energies like "solar" power or "wind" power… (I will spare you the discussion on teh actual inefficiency of biodiesel…. the white elephant in the room) The report, however, remains in "very likely" status only. Perhaps, when our skin is being fried off by the UV rays, a new report will be issued changing the status from "very likely" to "strong probability"…. sigh…
How to be a Painter
You have to have complete understanding of when your hand is heavy handed, and when it is light. What that feels like, and how to hold it. How to be heavy handed when need be and how to be light handed. How to be able to hold the brush so lightly that, any lighter, and you would drop it. How to hold the brush so firmly and yet, still allow it to have give, allow the canvas to push and pull the brush as much as the hand seeks to drive it.
You must know how to dip your brush in the water so only a millimeter of it’s tip is submerged and pull it out quick and it only gets one drop of water on it. And if it has two, you will know and so flick it behind you with just the quickest and limberest flicks of the wrist, and the extra drop of water will fly away and not defile your painting and create a headache or drip down below you onto the clear and finished sky. And you must be able to do that in a split second because, thought you need a touch more water, you have no time to look away form the painting because it is all happening there. The flower pot is becoming, the sky is opening, the waters are parting… the god is arriving and you can’t miss it for a second.
Magritte, LACMA and Pan
Yesterday we went to Los Angeles to stop by the fabric district, see the Magritte show at LACMA, Pan’s Labyrinth at the Arclight and then to visit our friend Robin over in Venice around the corner from where we lived last year.
Magritte…We think of bowler caps and green apples. We are not too far off and if we see the silhouette of a man in a bowler cap (as we did later passing some bar in Hollywood) we recognize immediately the icon as borrowed from Magritte. But to say he is all bowler caps and apples is to say Dali was all melting watches and ants. The difference between the two however is that Dali tried exhaustively to probe his own subconscious with his artwork, finding great meaning and relation between the subtlest of details within his work. On the other hand, Magritte on the other hand often took seemingly unrelated objects, created compositions around them and left the viewer to decipher their meanings, like gestalt ink blot tests. Now, while we immensely enjoyed seeing such a large collection of Magritte’s in one place- allowing us to see multiple nuances within his work and admire the fine subtleties of his uses of color and shadow, we found the “contemporary’ art besides which it was juxtaposed was, well, mostly crap. It seems the art world likes to over look the people like Vladimir Kush who, as far as we are concerned, is the artist most closely following Magritte in style, form and approach. Both of the artists have a soft and forgiving approach to their medium and a calm quietude about their pieces. Ah, but Kush is perhaps to fine an artist. There are the “inner circles” of the LA art world and they were strongly represented. They represent mostly pain, turmoil, a word under a photo, another that is a mirrored photo with a palindrome over it…feeble attempts to mimic a master. As I said, if they really sought to display the legacy of Magritte, the curators would have looked further than what the Los Angeles art scene had to show them…
John Kerry Endorsement?
Well, I can't say that he is exactly endorsing me here, and he is certainly not saying "yo what a kick-ass snowboard graphic". I think he is more saying "yeah, i know what I'm gonna do about the economy..."
Anyhow, a friend (thank you Mr. Databass) saved this for me a while back from the April 2004 issue of The Economist: a picture of John Kerry riding a Burton Supermodel with my graphic on it- the Prince of Swords. Which also means he riding a 6 year old snowboard. I'm honored. Here is a link to the original painting -
How to be the Infinite Blue Sky
Sitting in a cafe. The blue sky supports my sense of endless being. So does the americano. Then I read the news, my emails... and slowly... slowly the great and infinite sense of personal power is stripped away. Chiseled and chipped... war.. famine... my rights are usurped by fear mongers. The country I live in is being sold off left and right to religious zealots, the rights that many died for are being nixed in the name of freedom are all rolling over in their graves moaning and groaning and casting curses towards those who deem themselves the rulers of the free world. What irony!
Then I look at the bills piling up, debts, etc...
Fall in Los Angeles
Some say there is no Autumn in Los Angeles. This may or may not be true. Techinically there is a "fall" everywhere. There are those of us who come from the Northeastern U.S. and claim to have seen THE FALL. The big hurrah of fireworks trees in orange and red and yellow and purple and gold and green. The carpets of color across hills or mountainsides or neighborhood streets. Remembering the kicking along of the crackling maple leaves underneath my feet as I walked home in fourth grade, fifth grade, whenever it suited me to shuffle along- even the forty year old buiness man likes to kick along in the leaves. The crispness in the air and the freshness returning to the cheeks as the last dregs of summer slip away...
Then, years after the fourth grade, I find myself here in Los Angeles, willingly of course, living in a sweet little pad a few blocks from the beach where a heavy blanket of clouds covers the sky for the past few days and maybe, just maybe, somewhere a tinge of color tints a leaf.
First, The Dishes
Phew
That happens from time to time. I am going along
in my simple life
and all of a sudden
there is this driving urge to save the world.
it overcomes me and i'm like What can i do? Where do i start?
My heart is exploding and i'm just about overloading.
And a little voice is like, well, you could start by doing the dishes in the sink.
And a bigger voice in my head is like: WTF: how is that gonna help?
And the little voice is like, you'll see...
So i wash the dishes.
Then it's like, well, we might as well water all the plants outside.
And I can't argue with that, though the bigger voice is like WTF...
Next thing you know, i've finally unpacked those last couple of boxes and i am now painting
the very precious
jewel
which resides at
the center of all being.
And next thing you know,
I am at the grocery store, buying an apple.
and the person in front of me is taking forever and the cashier is getting nervous and knows her other customers get impatient and everything, to her, seems like it might fall apart at any moment and then she is finally done and it is my turn and she says
"I'm sorry about the wait."
And i say it is not problem at all
And she knows i mean it, that i really am being sincere in this lip service world.
And she relaxes a little.
And is a little more open to the next person.
And the little voice in my head says:
It starts with the dishes in the sink.