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Archive for July, 2010

Emerge the Light

Posted in Biographical, Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 8, 2010| 5 Comments »

Very early morning. 

 Gray light just breaking through the trees, birds tweeting and twirping awake in the branches and a haze in the air as the slightly dewy ground gives up the precious moisture to the warm air.

I’m tired, having woke much too early but I’m in the studio now and I’m readying to go to work finishing up a handful of work for my show.  I’m at the end of a creative cycle and I’m usually a bit fatigued and, as a result, more susceptible to worries and concerns about what direction I will next take my work.  The work I’m finishing now is basically done, all creative decisions completed,  so the die is basically cast for this work.  My mind has moved to what comes next and how I will get there. 

I feel now the need to push myself in some way, break from the safety zone of what I know so far as technique and style are concerned and trust my instincts in maneuvering in a new territory.  Maybe it’s a new material or a material used in a different way.  Maybe it’s a new look on the surface– I have a deep seated  desire to let strokes break free from restraint and show their ragged edges and energy.  Slashes. 

Maybe it’s a new subject, a new icon on which to focus my attention, or simply dropping representation and letting the abstract elements take over.

I don’t know.  At the end of one of these cycles, it’s not a matter of how it changes. It only matters that it changes.

I feel fortunate to have my work to express the end and beginning of these cycles of energy that culminate with the need to change, to emerge somehow differently.  Dealing with them in real life, without the use of painted icons to serve as the avatar for the expression my own life’s twists and turns, has not always been smooth sailing.  But transferring the need to transform, in some way, from one’s actual life to a substituted surface of paint has been a blessing for me, if not always an easy one.

With paint, I usually find my way through the shadows and tangle of thought and emerge in light. 

Changed. New.

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The painting at the top is titled Emerge the Light  and is part of my upcoming show, New Days, at the West End Gallery in Corning.  It is a work on paper, a 4″ by 30″ image that is matted and framed out to 10″ by 36″.

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Summertime

Posted in Video, tagged , , on July 7, 2010| 4 Comments »

It’s summertime and the living is easy…

As I wrote earlier, I’d be more comfortable in a cold tundra wind than in the steamy temperatures that are moving through the east now,  a heat that brings to mind the hazy days of summertime on the islands near Charlestown, South Carolina that George Gershwin brought to life in his great opera, Porgy and Bess.  But while I’m not a fan, I f ind things in it that I can enjoy.  A cool drink.  The feel of coolness from a hardwood floor on a bare foot.  The quietness it brings as the animals in the forest around me hunker down, almost like they do in the coldest weather.

I’m in the final days of prepping for another show, this my tenth annual at the West End Gallery, and the heat mixed with the pressure to get my work done conspire to make me a bit listless as far as criticaland creative thinking is concerned.  So, I focus on the cool air of morning, trying to absorb as much as possible before the real heat descends and I put on some Gershwin to fit the mood.

Here’s a great folky version of Summertime from the great Doc Watson, the legendary blind folk guitarist.  He’s accompanied here by his late son, Merle.  It is one of the most evocative songs ever written and this version adds Doc’s own touch.  Enjoy and stay cool…

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New Days

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 6, 2010| 2 Comments »

This is a new painting, New Days, that is the featured title  piece on the invitation for my upcoming show at the West End Gallery in Corning.  The show starts with an opening  reception on Thursday, July 22 and runs through the end of August.

This painting, a 30″ by 30′ canvas, and it and its title  represent what I think is the basis for this whole show.  I’m choosing an upbeat tone for this show this piece evokes a feeling of  an optimistic look  forward.   There is a strength and vitality in the red tree and the light in the sky, formed by thousands of brushstrokes, brings a sense of brightness coming.  Without going into hyper-symbolism here, it just portends better things for the new days ahead.

I know I’ve mentioned this before.  I tend to view most new days as being filled with new opportunities.  New chances to seek and discover, to find something new even if it is the most insignificant of finds.  A chance to recognize that opportunity that might change one’s life, even in a small way.  Even now, when this optimism might be tempered by the news of the day, every morning is usually filled with a positivism for what the day might bring.

Maybe that Pollyanna-ish.  I don’t care.  We get to choose how we view the world and that is my choice.  Some days, most days, don’t live up to what I desire for them but I know that the next day, the new day, is waiting with the next dawn, filled with possibility. 

I only have to recognize the possibility…

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The Test

Posted in Quote, tagged on July 5, 2010| 2 Comments »

The Test --- GC Myers

In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.

—Henry Miller

This quote reminds me of all the times where I have spent innumerable hours trying to make a task easier when if I had just accepted the difficulty of the task and just went at it, the job would have been done by the time I finally got around to starting it in my supposed easier way. 

It’s a curse and one I try to avoid but one I always seem to always slide back to.  I guess because I’m a human and we always want the easy way.  We might admire the person who grinds it out but we don’t want to be that person.  We want to believe we are more clever than that, that we have all the answers and are above the need to sweat and toil.  And this is so wrong, because the answers are in the sweat and toil.

We need to struggle.  We need to test our will.    We need the experience of the hard won victory. 

We would be better for it and, in the aftermath, feel less the pressures and fears that come from avoiding the difficult in the first place.

Enough said.  It’s still a long  holiday weekend for many so why am I pushing so this morning?  Leave it for another day…

The piece at the top is new, The Test,  a small piece measuring 4″ by 6″ that is part of my upcoming show at the West End Gallery.

 

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4th of July Asbury Park

Posted in Favorite Things, Video, tagged , on July 4, 2010| 2 Comments »

I was going to either write today, on our Fourth of July, about a film I saw back in 1982 called The Great American Fourth of July and Other Disasters.  It was from humorist writer Jean Shepherd, of  A Christmas Story fame, and was a very funny depiction of a celebration of the Fourth in a 1940’ssmall  midwestern city featuring all of Shepherd’s usual wonderfully caricatured characters. 

Or I was simply going to show a video of the Bruce Springsteen song  4th of July Asbury Park.  Like Shepherd’s story, it is the depiction of the Fourth in a small American town, except this is the 1960’s and 70’s New Jersey shore.  It always brings back that feeling of the viewpoint of youth for me, the carefree attitude mixed with the feeling of  every emotion like a nerve laid bare.

I opted for the Bruce.  This is a great version of the song from back in 1975, at Hammersmith Odeon in London.  The quality of the filming is exceptional and it’s great to see Bruce in his early form.  Take a moment from your own Fourth, if you can, and take yourself to a different time and place.   I can almost smell the fried dough…

Enjoy your 4th.

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The Tour Starts

Posted in Favorite Things, tagged , , on July 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Well, it’s that time of year when the skinny guys with big legs start pedaling across France, through the fields of lavender and up and down the sheer precipices of the Alps and Pyrenees.  Yes, it’s the annual Tour de France which is a  big deal in our house.  Don’t call when the tour is on in the morning because, chances are, you will only get the answering machine.  My wife is an avid sports fan for only baseball and cycling, scouring the papers for any mention of races throughout the year, so that when the Tour begins it has her undivided attention.  It’s her Super Bowl, or World Cup for you soccer fans out there.

This year looks to be a great race filled with drama and several storylines.  The most obvious is the Lance Armstrong versus defending champion Alberto Contador story.  Lance is the seven time Tour champ  who is making this his last effort in the fabled race and Contador is the two-time champion from Spain who has had a running feud wiith Lance since they teammates (in the most strained sense of the word) in last year’s race.   There is a constant snipe stream running between the two.  Lance is ancient by cycling standards, 38 years old and Contador is in his prime at 27 so youth is definitely on the side of the Spaniard.  He is also the finest hill climber in the world which he made truly evident last year with incredible  dashes up inclines that were just outside being called cliffs. 

 However, the deciding factor in their showdown may come down to their teams because even though this is an event for the individual rider, it is also a team effort based on cooperation and strategy.  Lance’s RadioShack team is deep and experienced with many of the same riders that set up Contador for his victory ( and Lance’s third place finish) last year.  Contador is still with last years Team Astana but with a host of new and less experienced riders.  There are a number of stages where this may cost him valuable time.

Lost in this showdown is the presence of the Schleck brothers, Andy and Frank.  Both are very talented riders and climbers and may benefit from the spotlight shining so brightly on Lance and Contador.  Andy Schleck has been on the verge of breaking through as a champion for a couple of years now and this may be his chance to climb to the top. 

Who am I rooting for?  It’s the Fourth of July weekend.  How could any red-blooded American not root for someone with a name like Lance Armstrong?  That is an American hero name, even if you didn’t know his accomplishments.   He would be the same character if he were a cartoon with that name.  But can he finish his last tour with the yellow jersey?  Stay tuned.

Anyway, it should be a great race for the next couple of weeks.  Enjoy the race and enjoy your Fourth…

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Flip It

Posted in Neat Stuff, tagged , , on July 2, 2010| 2 Comments »

I was looking for something else online this morning when my eye was caught by something completely off the track from what I was seeking.  Like an infant, I am drawn to shiny things waving in front of my face and leave my original goal behind and shift to the shiny new.  Maybe this is one of the symptoms that the author of the new book, The Shallows, describes concerning our ever shrinking attention spans due to the fast scan nature of the internet and the ever shallowing basin of our knowledge.

Ah, I’m bored with this- let me tell you about the shiny thing.

Flipbooks.

You know, basic animation using the edge of a page where each page is a small incremental movement of whatever you’re drawing on that page so that when you flip all the pages together gives the impression of a film.  Wow, that was a tortured sentence.

I never really did any animation, even though I often portray the movement of wind and branches and leaves in my work.  I tend to think of my work as a single moment captured.  But I do love animation and admire those who do it well.  At the top is a page from animation great Max Fleischer’s 1930’s book, Betty Boop’s Movie Cartoon Lessons, that allows you to cut out and assemble your own flipbook featuring his Koko the Clown character running.  I found this on a website, Uncle John’s Crazy Town, that features a lot of vintage animation.  On his site he has assembled the flipbook and you can see how it runs as a cartoon by clicking here.

Here’s another modern one.  It’s not as polished as Max Fleischer but it’s clever anda great concept.  And fun.

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Play That Funky Music, Theremin

Posted in Neat Stuff, tagged , on July 1, 2010| 13 Comments »

Playing the Theremin

You’ve heard the sound before.  The electronic soaring, sustained notes, like a singing saw ( I know that’s a reference that has almost no meaning to most of you), that gave many sci-fi films of the 50’s and 60’s their eerie, otherworldly feel.  Think of The Day the Earth Stood Still ( the old one) or the opening credits of the early Star Trek series.  That is the theremin, the only musical instrument played without touching it.  Using a vertical and a horizontal antenna that creates an energy field, the hand moving up and down along the vertical axis creates an interruption that creates the sound, a musical note, and the hand moving along the horizontal axis controls the volume of the note.  It is considered the easiest instrument to play but perhaps the hardest to play well.  I’m still not convinced anyone really plays it well.

It’s one of those things we often just shrug off as another geegaw that comes down the pike and has a short run in the eye of popular culture.  But the theremin and its inventor, Leon Theremin, are an interesting case.

Theremin (1896-1993) was born in Russia and, and as a state scientist for the early Communist Soviet Union worked on many groundbreaking projects there  including an early wireless television , developing the instrument that now bears his name around 1920.   He began giving concerts with the instrument throughout the Soviet Union and soon throughout Europe, creating a sensation wherever he played.  Finally, in 1927, he came to New York with Lenin’s blessing, as a sort of cultural ambassador for the Soviets.

In New York, the sensation of the theremin continued.  He played a landmark concert at Carnegie Hall that made the instrument the must-have item across the country.  RCA purchased the rights and began producing scores of the instruments for home use.  Theremin continued during this time to live comfortably in New York, including a marriage, controversial at the time, to an African-American ballet dancer.  Then, in 1938, he abruptly left the States to return to the Soviet Union.  Some say he was whisked away by the KGB.  Some say he was merely homesick.  Theremin himself claims he left to avoid creditors and tax problems here.  Whatever the case, he ended up serving in in Stalin’s workcamps for eight years and afterwards working under the watchful eye of the state as scientist into the 1960’s.

Perhaps his best known invention other than the theremin instrument is one that is at the center of one of history’s great espionage moments, the Great Seal episode.  In 1945, Soviet Boy Scouts presented our ambassador there, Averill Harriman, with a carved Great Seal of the United States to honor our partnership as allies during the just ended World war II.  It hung for seven years in the Moscow embassy offices until one day a British radio operator discovered he was able to hear conversations on an open radio channel.  A search discovered a cavity in the Great Seal.  In this cavity there was a small membrane attached to a short antenna.  No power source.  No wires. Nothing that emitted radio signals.  It took several months before they figured out that this was a passive listening device, one that only became active when it was exposed to radio waves beamed at it from a remote location.  This made it practically undetectable and brilliant in its simple sophistication.

Theremin finallywas allowed to leave the Soviet Union again in the late 1980’s.  He came to the USA in 1991 under the auspices of a filmmaker, Steven Martin, who later made a documentary, Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey.  He died in 1993, at the age of 97.

So when you hear that wooo-OOOO-aaaa-OOOO of the Theremin, rememerthat there is some history behind it…

Here’s a Trekkie showing off his theremin licks, just to give you a taste of the sound:

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