Looking ahead, behind and inside

Mail art.

The cool thing about a mail art piece -- in my case (with all due deference to Ms. Clarity, goddess of mail art in my circle)*-- is that, the nature of the audience is generally better known than the audience for a piece of work that "nobody asked for." I created this piece as a letter to my son.** It embodies a great deal of 'code' that, had I been designing for the public, would have been simply enigmatic.

As an example: For my specific audience, we have shared the fun of things I read to him as a child. Comics were a special treat brought on camping trips, and often read by flashlight. He understands why I chose the comic format, and immediately has a deeper connection to my choice of medium than if I'd chosen something else. But today I have an adult audience (0f one), so the format no longer speaks as to children. Here, themes concern the notions of dreams as opposed to work; love as something that happens in the midst of life... and the human capacity to render even the most outré and specialized activity banal.

But, let's just say he couldn't "get" all of it. But if you are of a certain age, you'll understand if I say that Darren McGavin and James Clavell made an impression. And Ben Stein has been a disappointment.

But as a letter, father to son, it embodies my qualms about the future (his future, I guess), a few nods of the head to his childhood, and still manages to be a personally soul-searching endeavor, if comic-book action-opera and humor qualify as soul-searching. I did get some decent psychological benefit from the exercise, but it may have cured me of my notion to make a body of work consisting of single pages from mythical comics... those guys (and they're almost all guys) work hard for the money.

*Ray Johnson, the likely originator of mail art as a massively interactive work of collaboration and unlimited reproduction, had a different notion. Call me parochial.
** Reproduced here with permission of the original audience.

A last look

Catalina State Park, 2010.Watercolor on paper, approx 5"x7"

This view is of the north side of the Santa Catalina Mountains, which Tucsonans refer to as the "backside of the Catalinas." Catalina Park is about 40 minutes North of Tucson. With the [risible] budget shortage in the statehouse, the park is on the short list to close until revenues "recover". So, look now, while you can.

Our legislators have lowered taxes nearly every year for more than a decade -- despite having the lowest budget of many states, and an education expenditure which vies with Arkansas for the bottom of 50 states. When you're on the I-10 crossing from Arizona to New Mexico, you can hear the clunking, roaring, chattering pavement ruts go nearly silent as you cross the border into New Mexico, a state that knows how to take care of infrastructure.

It irks me that they would put something as fundamental to the common welfare (and to my inspiration as an artist) at risk, as a nature park. Let's make a resolution for the New Year that we take care of what's been given to us.

Art and democracy

Turtle Mountain, New Mexico

Cocktails, anyone?

I'm mixing my two headiest liquors tonight, art and politics. Above, you'll see an uncharacteristic painting for this blog: an oil painting when Ms. Moments of Clarity swapped paint boxes with me in New Mexico. She painted a watercolor, I took up a palette knife and oils. We exchanged points of view, or at least media.

While reading my birthday copy of Art in America, I came across a review of Nader Vossoughian's Otto Neurath: The Language of the Global Polis. It's my first exposure to economist and philosopher Otto Neurath, and I was immediately drawn to his belief that the great masses of non-technical people could still make informed decisions about complex and technical subjects if they were informed in a clear and readily understood format of illustrated data. He experimented with graphic designer Gerd Arnz in creating iconic representations of economic, demographic and geographic data. These works are worthy of a museum show all by themselves.

In this experimentation, I've found a kindred spirit: my marks and sigil series is all about the complex communications embedded in our human landscapes, often in the form of icons and semiotics.

Political theory

Here's the bit of political theory, a la Arty Fice. You see, when I was but a sprat, my family was temporarily in England, and I witnessed the parliamentary elections. I saw the commercials of both parties, and their debates and speeches. It was my first consciousness of political events, and I was quite taken up in the excitement of it. And, although I certainly was too young to grasp the difference between their stands, (and consequently to understand the difference between policy and "promises"), I was quite persuaded that Labor had all the answers, and that another round of Conservative policies was sure to bring the country crashing down around their ears.

Imagine my shock when the Conservatives were re-elected.

I pondered where I had gone wrong -- or rather, where the Brits had gone wrong. Mind you, I had no idea how bemused grown-ups would have been at my 12-year old effrontery. I wondered how it was that the majority of voters could have made the wrong choice. And I arrived at a simple conclusion: that voters in England had already made up their minds about the election beforehand, and weren't persuaded by the speeches and ads to change their minds. They weren't a "blank slate" as I had been.

From this, I realized my most important political truth: elections are not very important, in the overall scheme of things. I know, I can hear the shocked intakes of breath from my fellow Americans — at least those of you not so jaded as to be merely tsking and shaking your heads sadly (you guys are wrong, it's not that I think that voting isn't important, or that elections don't change things); only, hear me out, because I haven't gotten to the nugget yet.

The important thing, I learned, wasn't the election, it was the conversation beforehand. You see, before an election, there's a period of flux, where people can learn from each other, and hopefully gain support for their good ideas. In debate, conversation and education about the issues, minds get made up. Sides are chosen. Then comes the voting, and its just a matter of "taking a snapshot" of how many people are on which side at that time. In an ideal world — where everyone thinks alike — then there would be a consensus, and elections would be unanimous. Voting is just about ending the debate, and getting to a decision, rather than never getting a decision.

Back to the art

So, here's the thing: it's a cliche to say that the electorate needs to be educated—the truth is, the electorate needs information. If we are going to have decent decisions, then we need to have the required information to weigh the choices. And this is where Neurath is a hero. His belief was that required information—complexities—could be conveyed in ways that nearly anyone can understand.

Back off, Formalists

Yeah, it's true, I think that art is more than its formal qualities. I think that art has content. It bears content whether it's intended, explicit, or a deliberate attempt is made to make it non-referential or not: because art is a made thing (one definition I think we can all agree on). And made things have purpose, because we're beings with motivations. No one expends the calories or uses the resources or commits the time to making any kind of art without the expectation that the art fulfills some purpose. And no one can look at a made thing and not, on some level, try to work out what its meaning or purpose is—in communications, we call this "reading the text." We can't help trying to read the text of an object in front of us. [I'll have a more complete answer for you Clement Greenberg devotees, at another time...]

Crass illustration?

So Neurath uses rows of silhouettes of iconic people to represent thousands in populations, or the outline of an industrial building to represent factory jobs available in a country—and disposes of technical terms like "demographics" and "capital utilization" with a picture rendering the terms unnecessary. His vision and the work that comes of it are relentlessly modernist, but not for the causes that Greenberg sought, not for self reference, but for public reference. He believed in the innate intelligence and rationality of people—which is, at the very least, endearingly pollyannaish, Joe the Plumber to the contrary notwithstanding. It is a noble thing, to believe that art can grease the gears of democracy, strengthen bonds, and enable the betterment of lives.

My experiment

Neurath employed vision and empathy in his experimentation and philosophy. He tried to put himself in the shoes of an ordinary person, without the tools of his economic education. In the spirit of walking a mile in another's shoes, my palette-knife painting at the beginning of this post is a tribute to the same mechanism: I tried to see things as Melinda does, however briefly, picking up her tools, using her color tubes.

When we stand before art, we get a glimpse into someone else's mind, someone's vision is shared, and it expands our own horizons. It is an ineffable human undertaking, at both ends of the transaction. Respect yourself, your art, and your audience and share a little 'life' with someone.

Bee-en-NAH-lay

I'm not a big football fan, but when I was young there was a venerable star of football, name of Walter Payton. He was asked by some breathless sportscaster, on the occasion of his umpteenth SuperBowl game, what he thought about it. His response was unforgettable, being so out of character in a competitive profession, "If the SuperBowl is so super, why is there one every year?"

On my recent birthday, Lady Moments of Clarity gifted me a new copy of Art in America (June/July 09), which I began reading this morning. It's the Venice Biennale preview issue, and it's all Biennale this and Biennale that: The Very Epitome of Contemporary Art in the World will Soon Be on Display in Northern Italy. If you're anybody, you won't be missing it. Book your gondolas now.

What first caught my eye (because it was near the front, and I'm devouring this thing page by ad-laden page) was Dave Hickey's essay, "Revision 9: Idiot". Hickey has the grace to be what he is, an art critic, without assuming the pretension of social commentator, or some kind of mystic arbiter of what is true. The essay is firmly, fixedly and relentlessly tongue in paint-smeared cheek [and left me goggling at the thought that art critics are often asked to curate shows(!) Like, isn't that —to use Hickey's favorite word—"creepy?" Or, to use my preferred phrase — a "conflict of interest?"].

Because Hickey kept calling himself an idiot, he nearly persuades on candidness points alone, but he wanted to make very clear that contemporary art isn't really all that big a deal —"lacking historical authority" as it does— and yet poseurs and powerbrokers try to make the Venice Biennale into the Big Deal of big deals. I mean, really, if you're going to go all pretentious about it, why insist on the Italian for 'biennial' (Bee-en-NAH-lay), but not for 'Venice' (Venezia)?

What do you do when your dream comes true? I read — I'm not sure where— of an artist that always wanted to have a show in a certain museum, struggled for years, and finally achieved it. And then lost all interest in art. That's one of the saddest stories I've read—which, admittedly, had little character development, a thin plot and an endless denouement. But if that person was you: I'm so sorry.

For the rest of you, consider your goals, and your motivations... set milestones for progress rather than wishes for validation, check yourself internally, and make sure you have a next step.

Ms. Moments-of-Clarity has recently walked up to a milestone, patted it in a friendly sort of way on its stubby point, smiled with gratitude, and is resuming her journey. She's in the Tucson Museum of Art's Biennial 2009, and in a town chock full of artists, that's pretty super.

Turtle Rock, near Gila New Mexico,
journal entry, c. 2009. Approx 5"x5"

Don't do yourself an indignity

10 minute sketch of a co-worker's motorcycle, time siezed during a break at work

My earliest upbringing was in one of those religious traditions that teaches that there are not only sins we commit, but sins we have by failing to do something (fancifully deemed "sins of commission, and sins of omission.")

My best friend in my early high school years was Jewish, and he used to complain about how his mother would pour on the guilt for this or that occasion. I'd hear him through, then ask, "Is that it?! Is that the best she could do? Now I know what they say is true... the Jews may have invented guilt, but the Catholics perfected it." Poor David's guilt trips never held a candle to my mother's blazing fusion-stoked fires.

I've come to think that most of the guilt that was assumed about me was largely from someone else's projection, that is, they assumed I must be guilty of all the things they were guilty of (and then some.) I was not being seen with clarity. I was a child, an innocent child, who had little interest in doing wrong.

The result was a strait jacket, in which one's moral compass is surrounded by interfering magnets, placed there by misguided parents, teachers and priests, and every decision seemed freighted with unknown, and still less understood, moral hazards. My direction became muddy, and my own purpose was unclear. So, I continue to labor to free myself of these lodestones, by understanding best my true role in the world, my true purpose and most worthy efforts. It is still a minefield of uncertainty, because the map was so egregiously smeared. One thing helps: keeping an eye on where I'm supposed to be going.

So, I loved this passage I read last night in Julie Cameron's Vein of Gold:

One of the lies we tell ourselves is that if we do not let ourselves love completely, then we will be less hurt. Loving in a halfhearted manner, pursuing our dreams in a halfhearted manner, we are divided against ourselves. We do ourselves the indignity of not taking ourselves seriously, and we do our creative projects the serious injustice of refusing to visualize them with clarity. Because clarity of vision is a trigger to manifestation, our self-protective desire to hedge our bets can result in our projects not coming to fruition.

I realize I love a few things, still... my wife, my son, and art (Happy Mother's Day, ArtLady; and to my son: you've been a pleasure to raise). And I love that we have (only) a few years to work these things out to the best of our abilities.

Be passionate. You have nothing more to lose, and everything to gain.

When life's a haze, pray it's just soft focus

Been working my asterisk off at a new job—for which I am, I hope you understand, just pathetically grateful—plus night classes, and a couple freelance assignments. Haven't been able to so much as draw a line for myself in well over a month. Doing graphics and making art is a difficult conflict. The work leaches out your creativity, and the long hours sap your energy. This is my first night off in weeks, and may be my last for months. Makes one crazy. Or maybe it's just sleep deprivation.

Here's how sleep deprived looks:

• You get stupid. Knock 10 points off your normal IQ for every week you come up short. Yeah, I'm in trouble.
• You make mistakes. Add time to every project to go back and fix the obvious thing you left out.
• Bleary eyes, blurred vision. Not conducive to fine work.
• Heavy limbs. Walking across the room is a chore.
• Dizzy spells. Oh, joy.
• Irritability. 'Nuff said.
• Hunger—expect to pay for this at the waistline, because you aren't moving around much.

I'll be making art ... soon. I hope you haven't stopped [and I am checking on you]. Keep making marks, because if we were to blow this badly, it will be our finest legacy. But this is what happens when the world goes temporarily insane, and nobody seems to have more than a piece of the answer to our problems. There is hope ahead, I think, if we really learn our lessons, which some will and most won't—that's the way it always seems to go. Happy Earth Day. May we have many more.

Tell you what. I'll take a sketch book to work tomorrow, and I'll draw myself a line during a break. Assuming, of course, that I don't sleep through the break.

Altered Border States

Altered Border States, 2009. 16"x5.25" watercolor

You may recognize the hill on the right from Ms. Moments of Clarity's post. She's very prolific, so it was a long time ago that she put it up.

This continues my series on marks and signs found in my environment. In this case, an ominous [literal] sign—courtesy of the Parks Department— completely transformed my sense of the landscape in front of me that day. The innocent landscape was instantly a place of unease. And yet, the sign was also intrinsically ridiculous.

In preparing for the painting, I was stitching images in Photoshop, and realized that each layer I added obscured something below in the previous. So, my obscured images might include armies of "illegals," and you would never know. Just as I couldn't know, as I stood there painting plein air, if there was a band of drug smugglers camped on the back side of that hill in front of me. And I realized that the stitched image had become a metaphor for my experience of the altered landscape: it became disjointed, a landscape reframed as something else, something alien.

It is a part of this series that I reproduce something in the landscape that is already a man-made mark. These marks are art in its most basic form: artifice, for the purpose of expressing communication. So, the series is about making a mark about an encounter with another mark. But, the medium (pretty traditional watercolor) is used to signify the traditions of fine art and the art industry: my expressions of other's signs, images and scribbles found in passing through the world, becomes—not without irony—art "for the gallery."