art and thinking

the till is dry...

2012-01-12T16:23:00.000-06:00

Last Fall I again experienced the semi-vagabond life, having been granted two significant artist residencies. Thank you to both Oxbow and Ragdale for seven weeks and more fodder than I can possibly paint in the next several years. I am particularly focused on the work addressing truth and fiction in memory and nostalgia.

Because my mind is preoccupied with the visual work at hand, I am finding it hard to put pen to paper for blog content. (Yes, I often write long-hand.) Frankly, it's been a struggle to write since my return to Chicago in 2010. I don't want Art & Thinking to drift away, but have had to seriously consider its future. What to do, what to do....

Eureka!

Among new and old friends, peers, and acquaintances there are some seriously talented writers. Thus, I am inviting submissions to Art & Thinking. I cannot pay you, but will fully credit you and provide a brief bio. The work can be fact or fiction, poetry, prose, criticism, and/or opinion. My only caveat being that it concern contemporary culture and the arts - preferably those visual. Submissions should not exceed 1000 words. Please DO NOT submit writing that could substitute as a press release for your upcoming event - we can include that information in you bio.

In addition, I want to profile visual artists and their work. Here, I must admit, preference will be given to Chicago-area artists. But anyone may submit. Artists should submit a link to their website, an artists statement and a CV.

Please submit materials, questions. and/or comments to artandthinking@gmail.com. I will then contact you to discuss the post.

Hope to see you here!

rest ye merry gentlemen

2011-12-20T11:14:00.000-06:00

Child with Christmas Card
Alden Finney Brooks ( 1840 - 1932)
Watecolor, graphite and gold paint on wove cardboard
Maria DeWitt Jesup Fund, 1989 Accession Number: 1989.299, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Christmas did seem pretty swell when I was a kid. Sure there was Santa and the presents, but there were many other aspects of the season that made it different than the rest of the year. Christmas served to soften the blow of the cold and bleak months that would follow. It was a sensory event filled with good cheer.

One day you would arrive home and Christmas cookies would be baking. Decorating them required concentration and teamwork. Another afternoon, you would find the stair's bannister transformed with swags of pine, fruit, silver beads and pale green satin ribbon. There was the advent calendar, the cut paper snowflakes, the ornament guessing game, the army of plastic carolers (my father piped music outside the house) and barrage christmas lights adorning our home. At school we would practice our carols for the pageant and each Sunday at Mass we would light the advent wreath. There was often snow on the ground and we would skate at the park after school. And the Christmas cards! It seemed as though my parents received hundreds. I would pour over them trying to order them best to worst. Every activity coerced that heightened sense of anticipation for the great day.

As time went on things fell off. Would my father get called in for a delivery? Would my mother drink too much? Would I get their tree be done by Christmas? Would I do my parent's Christmas shopping for them? Would I have to wrap my own Christmas present, which in the end would be two pairs of pants from Marshall's, four sizes too small and one of which was torn. (Yes, my father handed me the plastic Marshall's bag and told me to wrap it for myself.)

When I began my own adult life. I wanted to recapture all of the good things. After all, Christmas was the one time of year when everything looked special and everyone was kind to each other. You could still decorate the house, have a beautiful tree, make great food to enjoy with friends and family, and send out the type of card that you would surely have ranked in your own top five. You could recapture, I thought, the good parts of your memories, perhaps even invent new ones. But nostalgia is a tricky thing and anticipation guarantees disappointment. The two married together are positively dangerous. You wish for something that never really was and hope for something that won't materialize and in the end, you have another day with a lot of stuff that just needs to be wrapped up and put away in just a couple of weeks.

Oh, I had that heightened sense of Christmas spirit for a day and a half this year and it was nice, but I just don't have the energy anymore. I guess, in the end, the satisfaction will come from just trying to live in the here and now and demonstrating kindness and compassion towards my fellow man, no matter their race, creed or means. You know, the Golden Rule. After all, wouldn't that be the best way to honor the individual Whose birthday started this whole spectacle?

Fire Sale!

2011-12-05T20:20:00.013-06:00

It's been an exceptionally productive year and am running out of room! I am offering a number of paintings at deep discounts. You may view the work for sale at http://siobanlombardi.blogspot.com. I am offering liberal payment plans as well. Prices do not include shipping, but I will a UPS quote prior to any transaction. If you are interested, please email me and we can discuss price and availability.

If you are interested in a work from my regular website, again, email me and we can discuss price and availability.

Hope you have wonderful, art-filled holidays!

lead pipe

2011-11-21T09:54:00.002-06:00

Yesterday I read an article that only reinforced my cultural and societal pessimism around contemporary culture. The article in the New York Times, A Career Provocateur described performance artist Marina Abramovic’s program for the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MOCA) fundraising gala. Before I delve into my concerns regarding the event, I want to address some just plain stupid things stated in the article.

Obviously, the article's author is not well versed in the canon of contemporary art, hence the article’s placement in the style section, I suppose. Statements describing Abramovic as “a woman whose provocative works have made her, somewhat unexpectedly at 64, a darling of the increasingly incestuous worlds of fashion, society and art” articulate the author’s ignorance of Abramovic’s prominence in cultural circles. Unexpectedly at 64 - really? Flip back to 1974 and the artist’s work Rhythm 0. It changed the perceived boundary between artist and viewer, it changed feminist art and, if you really paid attention, it revealed the way people are willing to treat each other when given the opportunity.

The article also states that Ms. Abramovic is the first performance artist to wear couture. The author should check in with Yoko Ono. Yes, she’s a performance artist and yes, she’s worn couture. I’m certain that there are many more. Fashion and the arts have long had a relationship. Consider Coco Chanel and Jean Cocteau, Paul Poiret and the Ballet Russes, Andy Warhol and everyone, and Julian Schnabel and pajamas. It was sculptor Jana Sterbak that first created a meat dress more than 20 years ago, Vanitas: Flesh Dress for an Albino Anorectic. I so wish we were willing to extend our scope beyond the dubious talents of Lady Gaga and those parasitic Kardashian sisters. Conversations would be so much more interesting.

Finally, there is the shock expressed that Ms. Abramovic attended rehearsals carrying a $1500. Givenchy handbag. What is she supposed to carry, a burlap sack? I love fashion, and were I as successful as Ms. Abramovic, I too would carry a beautiful handbag. I would prefer an Hermes Birkin or perhaps some bespoke Italian job. The myth of the starving artist is ridiculous and threadbare. As I’ve said before the cultural economy is one of the few remaining areas of independent production in the United States. Artists deserve to be paid for their work. Unfortunately, the so-called artists we reward have pink hair, lip sync and rely on Auto-Tune. Pity, when there is so much thoughtful work actually being made.

Well, that is enough ranting about clothes and ignorance. Let’s discuss Caligula.

If you recall, the article is staged around the fundraising Gala for MOCA. The entire evening appears to have been spectacle. Live performers whose heads protruded from holes in table tops, naked performers draped in fake skeletons as table centerpieces, cakes crafted in the shape of the artist’s naked body, a performance by Debra Harry. Ms. Abramovic is quoted stating. “But this evening is not about fancy dress and who [sic] have enough money.” Frankly, that is all it was about. The star-studded gala raised $2.5 million for the California museum.

Meanwhile, near that state’s capital (and across the country) the proles were coping with the abuse that peaceful students suffered at the hands of campus police.

I would like to pass this off as an LA thing, but it’s not. Frankly some of the best painting in the country is coming out of Los Angeles. But as a society, we are no longer capable of experiencing a work of art on its own merit. It has to be seen or heard with the assistance of an audio tour, television reality show, hired performers and a full day of scheduled programming. Just look at how many museum-goers choose to experience a work of art through the viewfinder of their smart phone. Museums have to keep up with this dumbing down and it’s expensive. Please don’t forget to stop in the gift shop.

Some theorize that the excess, failure and eventual collapse of the Roman Empire was due to pipes and cookware lined with lead. I doubt there is a lead problem in the Los Angeles drinking water. But I wonder when cultural institutions such as MOCA decided that their need for money, status and power was so great that the overindulgence displayed at this gala could fly in the face of attacks on personal liberty and the economic catastrophe playing out across the United States and abroad.

Shame on these institutions and shame on the artists involved. Sorry David.

Next post: the no complicit museum.

look homeward angel

2011-11-05T10:01:00.000-05:00

I have a recurring dream in which I visit the house I grew up in. In my dream I am aware that the house has been abandoned. I am also aware of the weather. It is one of those bright, yet completely overcast days. There is no discernible temperature, neither hot nor cold. All of the doors and windows are wide open and the strong breeze causes the curtains to billow inside. Each time, I enter through the garage and progress through the laundry-room, kitchen and breakfast-room. In the den, my dog is sitting waiting for me. It is as though she has been waiting alone since I left this house, twenty-seven years ago. There the dream always ends.

In reality, I recently returned to my hometown for the first time in several years. I will be living here as an artist-in-residence for two weeks. The town is a wealthy suburb north of Chicago. My husband calls it Magic Town. The wealth has grown exponentially since I lived here. The town manages to be both manicured and wild. It smells good, the streets are lit with gas lamps, and the BP station still has full-service. This is the land of milk and honey, the land of the one percent.

I took advantage of a few free hours and drove down memory lane. Because I lived here from age twelve through twenty-two, I experienced many “firsts” here: my first boyfriend, my first cigarette, my first show and my first awareness that there was a big, nasty, gorgeous and painful world beyond these rarefied lanes.

I drove to my old college, whose demolition and residential re-development had been halted by the financial crisis. I didn’t realize that the old main building was still standing. At one time it appeared learned and grand. Now it’s a structural Miss Havisham, the haunted spinster waiting for the wedding that will never take place. This school is one of the lynchpins in my foundation as an artist. It broke my heart to see it sitting so forlorn, so I quickly moved on to the house my father built. While en route, I paused at the corner of Ridge and Old Mill, where I recalled barfing all over the dashboard only a few blocks from home (an ominous warning I failed to heed). But seeing the house lifted my spirits. It is obviously well cared for. I could not believe how giant the Maples had grown, showing off the season in full color.

It’s not strange that Thomas Wolfe named two of his most important works conversely: Look Homeward Angel and You Can’t Go Home Again. I agree that you can’t go home again. If you think you can, you probably never left. But you can look homeward. Yes, I am an artist who has very different sensibilities today. But once-upon-a-time, before I knew any better, I was a debutante and a sorority girl who hung out at the country club and drank too much. All of that is as much a part of me today as critical theory and oil paint are. I’m proud that I know which fork to use and that I will never wear white shoes after Labor Day.

If I had the means to live here, it's unlikely that I would. Frankly, the locals would proably be relieved! It took me so long and was such hard work to get to where I am. Yes, the wealth, beauty and comfort would be lovely, but that kind of paper could certainly afford a pretty nifty little place in France. Besides, I’m still trying to embrace a future that is uncertain and waiting for me. Just like Cleo always is in my dream.

manifesto

2011-08-10T21:50:00.000-05:00

I had a substantive conversation last night with a friend who is also an artist. Like myself, this artist had the advantage of being raised in comfortable circumstances in a family of successful professionals. Many of his friends, like mine, were reared and continue to live in those situations. I asked him if he ever felt that friends and family treated him like a “novelty” and was delighted by his laughing confirmation.

I paint the things I think because then I can make them real. There’s a lot of stuff going on in my noggin’ and my work allows me to sort that stuff out, and sometimes make sense of it. Occasionally, I’m asking the viewer to make sense of it for me. The ideas are rarely pretty, cute, or sweet. Look at the world we live in. On my good days I try create something visually compelling, and formally competent. It may even be beautiful. There is very little that is truly new in visual art, and that is not my goal. As I’ve stated before, as a painter, my work is bound to a long lineage of painters before me. It is also informed by my own experience and environment.

Talent or curse, painting came to be an avocation I could no longer ignore in pursuit of more common material benefits. Believe me, I like material benefits. Any romantic notion of an artist struggling in a garret is a load of crap. The creative process is hard. Artists practice the same base skills that are required in any successful venture; patience, ingenuity, decision-making, discernment, commitment and the ability to actually finish something that they commenced. My first inclination has never been the sale of my work; it’s been to get the ideas out there. But I am enough of a realist to know that sales provide more freedom, greater opportunity, and a roomier platform for an artist.

What I have a real problem with are those that don’t value the intellectual component of the work. There are those who try to helpful with “creative” ideas to “market” my work, but I have decided to pursue the difficult path of the painter that doesn’t paint what others want her to paint. Andre Malraux said, “The crucial discovery was made that, in order to become painting, the universe seen by the artist had to become a private one created by himself.”[i] I have chosen to live with this path.

What is the point of all of this babbling? I take this very seriously. It’s not a hobby or a craft. I just want lay people to understand why my temperature goes up when they make certain suggestions, and why I probably won’t follow their suggestions. For this reason, there are things I will and will not do. Some of these things include:

· I probably won’t paint what you tell me you think I should paint, and if I do I will charge you a lot more for it

· I will not exhibit work at a venue that also sells earrings, Christmas ornaments (and I love Christmas ornaments), or decorative pottery. Sculptural ceramics yes, but not pottery. (this does not include museums and their attendant gift shops, but I don’t think I have to worry about that)

· I will continue to make my Christmas cards only for the people I send them to

· I will never call an inkjet print a Giclée

· I will continue to believe that good art made today has to be about something - otherwise it is just decoration. And yes, I believe still-life, landscape, text and abstraction can all convey meaning. The about something has nothing to do with what or how something is represented. Goya and Rockwell shared the same sense of timing.

· I won’t faux anything. Faux implies that the work is either very old or made under duress, neither of which is true

· I will not buy any mass-produced wall decorations from a chain store unless they are plastic, illuminated and Santa

So, in a few years, I guess I’ll see you at the bonfire!

[i] Malraux, Andre, Voices of Silence, Doubleday. 1953

porridge

2011-07-29T12:21:00.002-05:00

about bowls

People need widgets. I make the widgets that you to sell to people. I make them so that you and I can have bowls. Because you let me make widgets for you, you may have many more bowls than me. Others make widgets for you so that they may have bowls too. Once upon a time, when we kept making more and better widgets, we got to have more bowls. The sheriff made sure you were kind to us while we were making more and better widgets every day. Then you learned that desperate people in faraway places would make widgets for a cup, rather than a bowl. These people are often very young and treated very badly, but they put up with it because a cup can change their life.

now about those widgets

Everyone needs a widget. It took a long time and hard work to make a perfect widget. People had to keep trading in old widgets to get new and improved widgets. Finally widgets were perfect and people didn’t need new ones very often. But you still wanted more bowls. So you hired some magicians. The magicians understood that people with more bowls thought they were better than people with fewer bowls. Their magic made people believe that having your new and improved widget would make them seem as though and think that they had more bowls than they actually did. Now, there are millions of old widgets lying everywhere. You don’t think the sheriff should make you clean them up even though they hurt the birds and fish.

some things I don’t understand about bowls and widgets

A few years ago you broke almost all of the bowls. The sheriff came and fixed your bowls. He hoped you would fix mine, or at least let me start making widgets again. You did neither. You just kept buying and hoarding all the bowls for yourself. It takes a lot of work to keep the bowls useful. It’s funny; it takes much more work keep my few bowls useful than it does your thousands of bowls. The sheriff helps you with your bowls, but you don’t want him to help me. I need my bowls and if they break again, I may never again be able to make widgets or use bowls.

some things you don’t understand about bowls and widgets

If I can’t make widgets and use bowls, your widgets become obsolete and your bowls seem useless. And those people with cups? They now want bowls and they have started making doodads that are better than widgets. They also make bowls. Why? Their sheriff taught them how to do so. Using his own bowls.

next time: the hocus pocus of obtaining more bowls.

review

2011-07-21T11:47:00.000-05:00

ballroom, 52 x 42, oil on canvas, (c) sioban lombardi 2011

I am delighted about the write-up that The Exceptional Ordinary received on ARTLOG. I am exhibiting with Gwendolyn Zabicki, a gifted visual and skillful painter. Our works have an interesting conversation.

The show will remain at Robert Bills Contemporary until August 5, 2011. I hope you can stop and see it. I'm anxious to hear your thoughts.

visual disturbance

2011-07-14T11:43:00.004-05:00

My husband is a musician and composer. He is sonically circuited. We travelled recently and audio problems developed with the in-flight film. It almost sent him over the edge. Static and poor reception on the car radio elicit a similar response. I sympathize with his reaction, although my sensitivity lies in the visual realm. It has from an early age. I hated when friends would decorate their doors with stickers. It ruined the visual plane of the door. I also hate adhesive price tags placed on package labels.

This sensitivity doesn’t have anything to do with style, ornament, sparseness or excess. It has nothing to do with age or newness, beauty, ugliness, mess or cleanliness. Rather, it is activated when a particular element, combination of elements, or placements of elements are so discordant, one’s visual experience of a thing or place is subverted. I can’t get around it.

Disparate elements are often successfully employed when humor, satire, irony and parody are intended. I’m not referencing those occasions. I’m concerned with the visual disregard for place, time, context and participant. It’s carelessness that occurs in everyday life and in art making. Consider white-flocked Christmas trees in Florida, a photorealist painting executed in Day-Glo colors, a nude wearing spectacles. I could go on and on.

Of course this is strictly a personal problem, but a problem that has served me well when determining the “doneness” of my own work. Often, my first idea for a painting was not my best and this is the place where fault in the overall conception shows up. If my eyes consistently travel to one place in a painting, there is something wrong. In fact, right now I’m thinking of cutting a particular painting into two pieces.

While it can be personally heartbreaking, it raises the bar on work that still needs to be done. If I want to grow, I have to maintain a certain level of dissatisfaction. Right now I am good, but I want to be better.

opening tonight

2011-07-08T08:52:00.002-05:00

ain't it a kick in the pants

2011-06-01T10:06:00.000-05:00

I'm the kind of person that never likes to ask for help, but after viewing so many great projects on Kickstarter, I decided to try. Kickstarter is a venue where creatives can seek funding from a broad, at-large, internet community. In return, artists offer really creative premiums to funders. My project, Frame Utopia Nope!, will allow me to frame large works on paper for an upcoming show.

Please take a moment to look. If you aren't interested in my project, there are dozens of others that need help funding their work.

Remember? It's part of that creative economy we talked about before...and it's an economy no one talks about when discussing the recession. Thank you!

fetch

2011-03-11T09:57:00.000-06:00

"snap"
13 x 20
oil on shellacked paper
© sioban lombardi 2010

Winston Churchill suffered from depression. He called it his “black dog” referencing its familiarity and constancy. I know this black dog, however unlike Churchill’s pet, my friend’s presence occurs in direct proportion to the extent I allow external forces to effect me. Given the state of the economy, the absence of a creative peer group, my failure (despite more than 200 applications) to secure employment, and the general feeling of helplessness those conditions produce, sometimes I win, and sometimes I lose.

I had not seen Fido for more than 10 years, and when he reappeared last summer I was surprised by two aspects of his return: The first being my failure to recognize his presence. Certainly, I had experienced intense grief after the death of my parents, but there the relationship between cause and effect was clear. While my move from Brooklyn to Chicago was wrought with emotion, it was a happy event marked by accomplishment and a return home. Yet after two years away, where every conversation was interesting and every waking moment was productive, silent days spent largely alone furnish a void easily populated by doubt, apprehension and melancholy. My ability to concentrate, let alone create is challenged on a regular basis.

The second surprise is the persistence with which the dog has reentered my life. Sometimes he sits quietly at my side, encouraging me to play Free Cell solitaire for hours, wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday, and maybe the day before that. Then, with the blink of an eye, I can plummet into a pool of despair so cavernous that I doubt my ability to surface. Everything is an absolute. This will never end. Any change would be welcome.

The operative phrase here is “blink of an eye.” In fact, eleven years after first recognizing the dog, I know his presence is a deception. In fact, moments of sadness are countered by moments of joy and both are buoyed by much-of-the-mundane in between. I know that the dog will eventually go away. I believe he will visit again. But amidst all of his comings and goings lives the certainty that I am loved and cared for and that I love and care for - all in a life much larger than my immediate situation.

winter of our discontent

2011-02-19T15:53:00.001-06:00

Winter, 17 x 11, watersoluble graphite and gouache on paper. (c) 2011 sioban lombardi

I have spent the last few hours reviewing The Spending Reduction Act of 2011, the budget plan for spending cuts proposed by the Republican Party. Because I wanted to avoid the initial knee-jerk response I have to all-things-Republican, I went directly to the source. As on any occasion when one attempts a measured investigation, I find myself in agreement with some of the proposed cuts and horrified at others.

It is quite telling that despite their “Pro-Main Street” public position, the GOP refuses to sustain budget support for enhanced activity of the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is also highly amusing that given their condemnation of the President’s response to recent political activities in Egypt, the GOP wishes to cut-off aid to that country. I wonder what Dick “Mubarak is a good friend” Cheney thinks about that.

Certainly, I would love to comment, item by item, on each proposed cut, but this is a blog focused on arts and culture, so here I limit my concern to the proposed elimination of federal funding to three specific organizations: the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (PBS), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and specifically the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

It is obvious the conservatives in this nation place little value on intellectual and cultural endeavors. In fact, they demonize them. Knowledge is power, and while networks and cable stations deluge the public with such anesthetizing dreck as Jersey Shore, The Real Housewives of Wherever, and even several shows about shopping for wedding dresses, PBS has provided programs that inform, celebrate, and question. Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood demonstrated a kind and patient adult, genuinely interested in the world from a three-foot-tall point of view. Sesame Street revolutionized the way our children learn and informed them of the rich, multicultural fabric of our citizens. Who would believe that a cooking show, featuring an awkward, yet patrician Boston housewife could transform the way a country thinks about food? Julia Child’s French Chef did just that.

In addition, PBS has set the standard for documentaries. Ken Burn’s Civil War and The War immediately come to mind. Had PBS not televised them, I doubt they would have been broadcast on the public airwaves. PBS also televises the great dramas of Masterpiece Theater and just plain fun on - MY PLATTER IS WORTH WHAT?!!! - The Antiques Road Show. Obviously, the problem children are programs such as Frontline, which clinically present the less attractive issues experienced by our nation and its interaction with the world.

The NEH is responsible for the funding of an incredibly broad scope of projects that encourage scholarship and inform our nation’s cultural heritage. NEH funding has assisted the authorship of eighteen Pulitzer Prizes, as well as numerous other honors. As part of its mission the NEH states, “Because democracy demands wisdom, the National Endowment for the Humanities serves and strengthens our Republic by promoting excellence in the humanities and conveying the lessons of history to all Americans.” The NEH does this as a grant making and funding organization. Indeed, the NEH funds activities in history, film, journalism, and literature. The wealth of any nation can, in large part, be determined by the strength of its cultural organizations and the ways in which that nation values them. The operative lesson here would be “conveying the lessons of history to all Americans”.

Finally, there is the National Endowment for the Arts. For years under the Bush administration funding had been stripped from this organization whose purpose is to “support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities.” At first blush, most individuals believe that the NEA only supports large, well-funded institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These same individuals get their tights in a knot every time an exhibition occurs that threatens their own narrow social or religious views (i.e. Robert Mapplethorpe, David Wojnarowicz, etc.). Frankly this is not the case. Hundreds of small arts organizations scattered across the country benefit from NEA grants and the value of these organizations transcends any painting produced, dance performed, or concerto played. One such organization is the South Chicago Art Center (SCAC).

The South Chicago Art Center’s mission states, “The South Chicago Art Center was founded in 2001 with these goals in mind: to provide a safe place for children after school; to bring arts education to local impoverished schools; to stimulate the imaginations of participants of all ages; to cultivate a sense of aesthetics; to boost self-esteem and intellectual curiosity; to decrease incidence of crime and substance abuse; and to promote friendship, solidarity and empowerment in the community.” Located in embattled urban area that suffers the effects of gangs, crime, poverty and unemployment, SCAC provides safe-haven, education, and encouragement for the area’s young denizens. Almost every day, the center is open from 3-5 pm, and offers after-school instruction in traditional art forms as well as the digital platforms so valuable in today’s workplace. In addition, programs have migrated to education partnerships with Chicago’s public schools, where little or no arts education exists. The organization operates with a permanent staff of just three individuals.

In 2010, SCAC received a $25,000 grant from the NEA. In their current cost-cutting proposal, the Republicans state, “The arts receive tens of billions of dollars each year—the NEA subsidy represents less than 1% of this money. Support for the arts can easily be supported by state and local governments and private donations.” I doubt that this particular grant made up only 1% of SCAC’s operating budget. It and tiny, fellow organizations across the country will suffer tremendously and perhaps simply disappear without funding from the NEA.

Rather than entirely dismiss the NEA and its aforementioned siblings, perhaps the Republicans might take a closer look at the programs these organizations support. Literature, music, the visual arts and dance have transformed people’s lives - for the better - for centuries. If you don’t believe that, you’re one of two things: inexperienced or ignorant. While the GOP continues its attempts to frighten us, the Arts and Humanities are some of the few sites where investigation, intelligence, and excellence meet. And it is that meeting place that truly scares the Republicans.

A Happy Christmas!

2010-12-24T23:27:00.000-06:00

that niggling feeling

2010-12-17T10:11:00.002-06:00

In recent weeks, a lot of artists have been thinking about and discussing the late David Wojnarowicz and the Smithsonian Institution’s decision to remove his video “Fire in My Belly” from "Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture." Hide/Seek is the current exhibition of gay portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.

As an artist and an American, I am mortified by the removal of the work that came in response to the protests of a small conservative Catholic organization and certain members of Congress. The decision is, in effect, censorship that violates any notion of the separation of church and state; that denies the value of individual vision and opinion; and that refuses to acknowledge that those offended by the work may not at all understand it.

Frankly, I don’t think the removal of the work has anything to do with God. I have a niggling feeling that it comes from money and fear. The fear that someone could be questioning another’s faith and that that question will cause the fearful to stop giving money. What a lack of faith indeed.

As a Catholic, I am deeply saddened by the move. If you have read any of Wojnarowicz’s biography, it is obvious that he was disenfranchised his entire life. Given the cultural response to and paralyzing fear around AIDS in the late 1980’s, his diagnosis could only have exacerbated his anger and disillusionment. As a Catholic, I also believe that God is love and loves the angry, doubtful and disillusioned most. In the garden, even Christ questioned his Father.

Thus, I also must believe that God loves those that demanded the removal of the work. By imposing their desire that the work be removed, they are certainly demonstrating their own doubt. Emerson said, “The faith that stands on authority is not faith.” [1] My hope is that these individuals could open themselves up to that which they are so afraid of.

My own experience has taught me that my deepest hours of doubt are often followed by profound experiences of faith and in those moments of faith I am most open to the emotions, thoughts and ideas of others. Museums and galleries across the country are now showing the video and it is widely available on the Internet. The funny thing is that, thanks to the censorship, “Fire in My Belly” has now been seen by hundreds of thousands of people that never would have travelled to the exhibit in the first place.

God is good.

[1] Emerson, Essays -First Series

dear sir

2010-12-01T10:14:00.002-06:00

untitled, gouache and dress pattern paper or panel, (c) 2008 sioban lombardi

There is currently much speculation on what Congress can accomplish before the end of the year and even more debate on what government expenses should be cut and which tax cuts extended. While the tea-baggers say they are taking back the government, the fact is, it’s not theirs to take back. It has always been ours. Much of the privatization they and the conservatives support only replaces the Government with Corporations. Corporations exist for one reason - to produce a profit for their stockholders. That’s it. If we could look at recent history for a moment, let’s point out some of what privatization has produced:

Mortgage Backed Securities

The BP Oil Spill(s)

The Blackwater Security Corporation (now Xe)

Is it a feeling of hopelessness, or just plain laziness that makes us so forgetful? Perhaps it’s a bit of both. Obviously, the individual does not have the financial sway of the private sector and the Supreme Court has cemented this. But, as citizens we certainly are more willing to devote hours of our time to reality TV, Facebook and Tweeting mundane personal activities than we are willing to engage in the political process. I am completely guilty of this - except Twitter - which I think is just stupid.

Each month I am going to write a letter to my representatives. Senators Durbin and Kirk, and Congressman Davis. In addition to mailing them, I will publish them here. Should I receive a response, I will publish that as well. While this action may not produce anything, I will at least be communicating my thoughts, asking questions, and (in a small way) participating.

Here is what I plan to include in my first letter:

Dear Senator,

I am a 49-year-old white female, resident in Illinois’ 7th Congressional Distinct. I have an advanced degree, and substantial and varied employment experience. I am currently unemployed, trying to make a living as an artist. While I am seeking employment in an art or art education field, I have not had any success securing work. I have also applied for positions in office administration, the not-for-profit sector and retail. I am living off money I had put in my retirement account. I pay for my own health insurance out of my retirement account.

While you are considering what to cut and where to spend in the coming year, I have some thoughts.

I think you should revoke the Bush Tax Credits for households earning more than $500,000 per year. I understand that for a family of four, $250,000 does not really go that far.

I think the Insurance Companies that spend so much to get you elected, should directly pay for your and your dependent’s health insurance. You are unwilling to pay for mine, so I don’t want to pay for yours.

I think that Corporations and PACs should be required to match their campaign donations with restricted financial donations to Colleges and Universities, the restriction being that the money will fund scholarships for undergraduate students demonstrating financial need. And no, they don’t get to pick the school, field of study, nor the gender or race of the student.

I am in complete support of the GI bill, providing full college tuition to those who have volunteered to defend our country.

Please increase support for funding in the Arts. The creative economy is one of the few areas of manufacturing left in the United States. I think you forget this.

I will be watching your voting record in the coming months and will write to you with continuing thoughts. I wish you good health and freedom from bias in the coming year. Please enjoy a happy and productive holiday season.

Respectfully your constituent,

Sioban Lombardi

for men only

2010-11-16T01:34:00.002-06:00

boys playing

13 x 20, oil on shellacked paper

You are free. You no longer have a mortgage nor any loans to pay. There’s no grass that needs cutting, nor a walk to be shoveled. You no longer have a spouse, partner, and/or family to support. You don’t have aging parents to worry about. There’s no more tuition to pay. You have adequate money. You don’t have to answer to a boss, or a client, or a customer. You don’t have any competitors. Your health is excellent. You can eat what you want, sleep when you want, read what you want, go where you want, see who you want, and do what you want. Whenever you want. What do you want? Please tell me, I’m interested.

Please provide as many answers as you want to the following questions in the comments section. You may answer anonymously.

What would you do?

Where would you go?

How would you get there?

What would you own?

11.9 likes and dislikes

2010-11-09T15:21:00.004-06:00

Reading:

Seven Days in the Art World, Sarah Thornton

One-Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse

Listening to:

Old mystery dramas on itunes radio

Likes

Luc Tuymans

homemade soup

cozy

credentials

coffee

the smell of burning leaves

my bed

Easter Seals Society

autumn

cloudy days

intellectuals

baseball

silk

meditation

M-W-F morning check in calls

Dislikes

video (except William Kentridge, Kate Gilmore and Bill Viola)

a lot of romantic fiction

identity

inflated qualifications

cling wrap

hair-pieces

Christmas before Thanksgiving

injected lips

the tea party

the views of Sen. Jim DeMint

spare change

2010-11-03T09:11:00.000-05:00

For the past several years I have passed beggars on the street and dismissed them. Inexplicably, I had a change of heart last Friday, giving a handful of change to a man sitting at the corner of Randolph and State. I’ve seen him at his station many times. The “should I or shouldn’t I” didn’t happen. I simply decided that whatever this man’s circumstances, I was not going to be one to deny him a meal, a drink or whatever else he needed to get by.

Some would say that this man should get a job or some help from an agency, but as I crossed Randolph I asked myself, who would actually hire him? As for social services and charitable organizations, the scope of their impact and availability is negligible. Our current economic and political climate has put even those organizations at risk.

Then I made the quantum leap. I realized that this man is self-employed. He is, in fact, an entrepreneur. Every day he sits on the cold pavement for hours on end and asks strangers for money. It’s a hard and thankless job. At times, it’s probably extremely humiliating. Still he goes to work every day. He is exactly the type of small business that yesterday, as a nation, we pledged to support.

Yesterday, our nation demonstrated our inability to learn from the past. We demonstrated that we would rather have big business, insurance companies and banks running our lives. We demonstrated that we are more concerned with ourselves than the education, the care or the rights and comfort of others.

I’ll keep praying that the assembly line returns to your town and that the government doesn’t unplug grandma. I’ll watch China develop faster supercomputers while you focus on American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. I’ll watch you drive your Escalade on collapsing bridges and roads while oil leaks into our waterways.

I guess this is who we are and that’s just how it is and I’m sad.

please be inconvenienced…

2010-11-02T07:21:00.000-05:00

You're probably very busy today. But before you convince yourself that you have no time to VOTE, please remember the countless numbers of men and women who gave their lives so that we could have the privilege of being inconvenienced today.

I Remember

2010-11-01T21:27:00.000-05:00

the thingliness of things

2010-10-31T15:07:00.002-05:00

During the past month I volunteered at the previously discussed Art Loop Open. On Friday a couple of fresh, young journalism students interviewed me based on my role as a participating artist. The interview was not planned and I had to think fast on my feet to respond to their questions.

Of course, there was the usual question, ”How has the experience of participating in this event been valuable?” I responded that I had not encountered any of the benefits that can be analyzed with metrics valued in the marketing community. There had been no increased traffic to my website, nor any inquiries about my work. What had occurred was the opportunity to meet and interact with some remarkably talented, smart people. Having moved home from New York in June, I have been missing “my tribe”. Now, I am starting to assemble one, and for that I am extremely grateful.

Next, one of the students asked about the value of art in public spaces and the justification of installing that art with taxpayer dollars. To the first part of the question, I believe that publicly installed art allows people to view it in a familiar environment. Many people outside the cultural sphere like art, but are intimidated by the rarified air of commercial galleries and/or the expense of museum attendance. Encountering art “out in the world” demystifies it and enhances our rather mundane, day-to-day experiences.

As for the taxpayer dollars, every day I hear individuals bemoaning the fact that all manufacturing jobs have gone overseas. Certainly, not in the arts. Consider the Creative Economy. It includes advertising, architecture, art, crafts, design, fashion, film, music, performing arts, publishing, R&D, software, toys and games, TV and radio, and video games. Adjacent to the Creative Economy exists the Cultural Economy. It’s composed of cultural tourism and heritage, museums and libraries, sports and outdoor activities.

The creative process is one of intellectual and material problem solving: How can I make something that successfully conveys an idea or enhances day-to-day life. It is also one of the few generators of manufactured goods made in the United States. As a painter, I make things. The materials I buy to make these things are purchased at local hardware and art supply stores. Most of the materials I purchase are made in the United States. When I advertise or publish information about my work, the materials are printed in the United States. When the objects I manufacture are sold, they are sold by an organization that employs people in the United States. And I am just one painter.

All of this is food for thought as government is repeatedly asked to stop spending in the arts and schools drop arts education. It has been demonstrated that students exposed to music early on, develop acuity for math and science. We spend millions of dollars creating young business people, only to send them to so-called creative workshops once they are employed. That stupid, overused catchphrase, Think Outside the Box keeps reverberating. The only box that exists is one that we have, as a society, built.

Artists are not a curiosity. Perhaps we can adjust our thinking and see the value in our creative community. Perhaps we can understand the investment in it. Perhaps the MFA is the new MBA. After all, look at where those MBAs …forget it.

As to that new political faction causing so many problems, remember, somebody designed that tea bag.

Interesting sources:

Huffington Post

Unesco: Singapore

Otis College of Art & Design

cash and prizes

2010-10-24T15:26:00.004-05:00

a flashcard for a secret language: meat and candy.12 x 9, oil on shellacked paper. (c) sioban lombardi 2009

Friday, organizers of the Art Loop Open (ALO) revoked the eligibility of one of its 10 announced finalists, due to alleged cheating. The integrity of what started as an exciting event, promoting the unique and gifted artists of Chicago has now been called into question, and again at stake is local support for artists in the community.

The ALO is a first-time competition, similar to the ArtPrize in Grand Rapids. The organizing committee is a combination of the Chicago Loop Alliance and the Chicago Artist’s Coalition. The competition offers substantial cash prizes totaling more than $50,000 to winners selected from ten finalists. The finalists were selected by public vote. In hope of encouraging public interest in and attendance at the event, votes could only be cast by text message or smart phone tag scanning. Artists were prohibited from emailing, texting or publishing their identifying number on any social media network.

In the spirit of full transparency, I was one of the artists selected for the first round of the competition. It was a tremendous honor to be selected form more than 700 submissions by a credentialed, astute and noteworthy jury. There was a lot of very good art in the competition that was scattered throughout a number of venues in Chicago. I returned home to Chicago in June after two years away. The ALO has been a great way to meet other artists and see their work. The scope of the project was enormous. What the organizing committee was able to accomplish in a relatively short amount of time was remarkable. Kudos too, to the countless volunteers who have worked so hard to get and keep this event running.

I was not one of the ten finalists, nor did I expect to be. The majority of my friends and family, whom I invited, either did not understand the nature of the competition, didn’t bring their phones, are not tech savvy or live in the suburbs and could not venture down to the city. If anyone did promote my number via text message or social network, I am unaware of it.

And I’m not going to lie, had I been chosen, I would have been ecstatic.

All of that being said, the ALO is now being called into question. The events, as they have unfolded since Friday, appear as follows:

The ten finalists were announced on the afternoon of Friday, October 22, 2010. I received the emailed announcement at 12:55 pm. I was pleased that I had predicted two of the finalists.

Sometime around 7:30 pm on Friday, one of the finalists was contacted and informed that his submission and status as a finalist had been revoked. (This finalist was one I had predicted). Another finalist was announced in their place. Apparently, someone had produced a flier, allegedly circulated in student mailboxes at a local college.

The artist has denied knowledge of this and has not seen the flier in question.

The ALO, through their page on a popular social networking site explained, “It was brought to our attention early in the first round of public voting that some artists were unfairly benefiting from third party promotion. Seeking to guarantee an even playing field for all artists, we took the position that publication of specific artist ALO numbers is grounds for disqualification. Accordingly, artists were disqualified from the public voting process in Round 1.”

This last statement by the ALO demonstrates one of the inconsistencies that have become apparent. If they disqualified such artists early on, why did they publish that artist’s name as a finalist on Friday, only to change their list of finalists later in the day? This lack of professionalism reflects poorly on everyone connected with the event.

ALO organizers also explained, “We created Art Loop Open with the intention of showcasing Chicago’s artistic community. We are proud of this competition, which in its first week, engaged an audience of thousands and provided invaluable exposure for artists. As with any first time event, we encountered unanticipated issues.”

The event did successfully engage the public and of course, errors happen with any event, but the stakes were very high with this one, perhaps too high. Artists, already undervalued in American society have particularly felt the effects of this long, drawn out recession. When large sums of money are involved, irrationality can prevail and loopholes attractive. Look at our nation’s financial crisis if you need proof. Grand Rapids’ Art Prize requires voters to register, in person, with ID. This may be the only way to prevent overzealous friends, family and students from promoting their favorite artist.

Indeed, there should also be a process in place, through which an artist can respond to accusations before being summarily dismissed. The fact that this flyer appears to have been produced after the finalists were announced seems a bit wonky and smells of sour grapes.

A more astute and experienced committee may have been better equipped to identify potential problems in advance. With so much at stake, management of this competition must be beyond reproach, and of the highest professional level. Good intentions fare poorly, and reputations can be ruined.

Eventually I imagine, the legal profession will settle this issue. How unfortunate. The cost of this may prohibit future competitions, damage the reputation and perhaps even end the existence of at least one of those organizations that seeks to promote the talents of local artists.

As I’ve stated before, it’s time for those larger institutions with deeper pockets to promote local talent. Art Institute? MCA? Where are you? Have a spine and bring back the Chicago and Vicinity Show, or a meritorious, equally credentialed version of it. Let the prize be inclusion and start supporting local artists as they have supported you.

the mind's eye

2010-10-10T11:47:00.001-05:00

image (c) Jane Huntington

Perhaps it’s a symptom of the insistent Recession, perhaps it’s a broader admission of cultural defeat, but much of the photography I’ve recently observed is heavy with abandoned spaces, peeling paint, cracked concrete and rusted infrastructure. Indeed, these works comment on a broken identity, a failed system, or even the existence of lead paint as a larger metaphor for the conspiracy of capitalism. Occasionally a photographer transcends these usual admonishments. Such is the work of photographer Jane Huntington. Within her work, Huntington manages to locate that same sense of desertion in those sites still in use. Sometimes she conjures an entirely different set of responses within places customarily limited to social commentary.

My path intersected with Huntington’s at Pratt Institute, where we were fellow graduate students. I am quite familiar with many of the locales she selected. The worlds she implies are very different from the actual places that I passed through or inhabited for two years. Her photographs revise them, navigating meaning between fact and fiction, accessible and forbidden, coded and arbitrary. Huntington has stated, “I walk around taking in the world around me, trying to apply lessons learned, fixating and assessing potential for either hazard or joy. Places where I’m not allowed and are unfamiliar are of particular temptation. Chance encounters lead me from one thing to the next.”

Though she has an extensive editorial CV, Huntington brings these same qualities to her portrait photography. It is only her subject’s contemporary attire that reveals their present day existence. They lack and are laden with history. They are still, quiet, timeless and essential.

It is this transformation of site and individual that activates an unlearning of the places, individuals and assumed histories that I formulate every day. Huntington’s work provokes my imagination. I am anxious to see more of it as she unveils the hidden or imagined histories of an under-noticed and richly packed world some have only dismissed as failure.

mirror

2010-10-03T11:20:00.000-05:00

Dear Molly and Dharun,

We have never actually met, but I want to apologize to you. I’m sorry that I taught you to believe that the actions you took were okay. I regret that I didn’t teach you to value, respect, and care for your fellows. I never demonstrated that it is indeed our differences that make the human family rich. It is kindness and tolerance that strengthen us. Instead, I taught you to take actions that violate the rights, comfort and happiness of others. I could have been an example; instead I neglected the development of your character.

When I treated you badly, called you names, and made fun of you, I made you feel different from your fellows. This was wrong. Not only did I hurt you, but also I taught you believe that this was acceptable behavior. In doing so, I aided and abetted actions that ended the life of one individual and damaged future happiness for you and those closest to you.

I realize that I am responsible for the tragedy that took place last week, and every other such loss occurring to date. Because of this, my wish is to change my behavior. If, each day, I can grow in respect and tolerance for others, I can act as a small pebble tossed into the larger pond. Maybe then, we all will get to experience the gifts that individuals like Tyler, Phoebe, Asher and indeed the two of you, might have shared with the world.

I am so sorry.

Fiction

2010-09-14T10:25:00.001-05:00

Murder in the Birches No. 2, oil on linen, 46 x 54, © Sioban Lombardi, 2010

No artist can deny the influence of his or her personal life when conceiving work. It seeps in despite the most universal of issues that you may be expressing. This does not mean art making is always autobiography. It can be, but the presence of the artist is already intrinsic in the authorship. In fact, autobiography veiled as fiction can be the most tedious, self-important and unsuccessful work. In my own experience the illusion painting creates is itself a fiction. Best to leave fiction and autobiography separate.

Back to the seeping in, over the past few months I have been listening to old radio mysteries while painting. They mediate my focus without visually distracting me from the task at hand. The sparse language in the radio dramas provides just enough information to afford one’s own visual interpretation. Most of the dramas are mid-twentieth century and could be categorized as Noir. Customarily, my paintings have been non-narrative, but this genre was too rich to pass up. Thus I began Murder in the Birches, a noir narrative in paint, and I am soliciting your contributions to the narrative. It will be interesting to see if certain tropes that have already been suggested are generally prevalent.

As I said, you will find certain facts about the narrative below. Please submit your suggestions to mailto:murderinthebirches@gmail.com in the form of non-descriptive facts. For example, “even as a child, Marion had been unattractive” is correct. “Marion had always been ugly; possessing a flat face, a broad nose, weak chin and plain brown eyes” is too descriptive - you have to let me do my work.. Your sentences will determine one or multiple story lines. Submit as often as the Muse permits. Feel free to contribute characters as well.

Here are the established facts:

Isabel and Marion are the murderers.

They have been friends since childhood.

Isabel is beautiful with red hair and green eyes.

Marion is ugly.

They murder Dirk, in a birch grove.

Dirk is Isabel’s husband.

Tommy is the only witness.

As the paintings progress, I will post images and the developing story here. Thanks, and now its time to get to work.

lullaby

2010-09-01T12:29:00.001-05:00

Several years ago while talking with some friends, I commented that almost all of the buildings in Chicago’s Cabrini Green housing project had been torn down. The near-north property had become too valuable for the often-dangerous housing project to continue. One friend sympathetically asked aloud, “Where will those poor people go?” My thought was that perhaps they could move to the comfortable, 86% white suburb in which she resides. To be fair, my friend’s statement was completely well intentioned. But it is this type of sympathy that has lulled us into believing that we are doing the right thing. It is the same type of thinking that convinces us shopping at Whole Foods fulfills our responsibility to the environment. It is the same thinking that, as if somnambulating, we condoned a war in Iraq based on the fictitious construction of weapons of mass destruction.

I will be honest, I am glad Cabrini Green is gone. High-rise housing projects were another utopian failure. Residents were geographically at risk of falling prey to the many ne’er-do-wells that took advantage of the architecture and segregation. But I don’t want the diversity of my neighborhood to change and I welcome mixed-income, subsidized housing developments that appear more successful, for both residents and the community.

Once upon a time, identity politics gave voice to the underserved and disenfranchised of this country. But over the last twenty years, perhaps even longer, identity has been rendered a marketing implement that sedates every constituency into the belief that they either are or are not getting what they need. So, while the economy remains in the pisser, feminist artists contest the kitchen as a site of male repression, the Courts are tied-up with same sex marriage, and PETA is protesting the use of a chimp in a car advertisement; a malicious, bigoted, loosely organized and increasingly powerful group is capitalizing on the fears of individuals in this country. Should they achieve their goal in November’s mid-tem elections, we will see any hope for equal rights for EVERY American go up in smoke. We will be left with a white, so-called christian government where legalized handguns do the dirty work, corporations rape the land and the middle class, and the Texas Book Board mandates what is taught in public schools. When do we progressives begin to look at the good of the whole, rather than the good of the identity?

In this twilight of the American era, I wish the legacy we pass on to history reflected the angels of our better nature. Sadly, I see us returning to the 17^th century and the puritanical thinking that sought to destroy anything unfamiliar, progressive and open-minded.

proustian inclinations

2010-08-25T10:23:00.005-05:00

For years I have been reading the simulated Proust questionnaire in Vanity Fair Magazine and thought - I would love to do this. Being a little slow on the uptake, I finally decided to answer the original questions as posed to Proust. Proust completed the survey twice, and the questions differed slightly. This survey is a hybrid of the two versions. If you’re so inclined, complete your own interview in the comments section.

Your favorite virtue.	Love
Your favorite qualities in a man.	wisdom, passion, certainty, integrity
Your favorite qualities in a woman.	The same that I despise: her ability to do absolutely anything, to get what she wants
Your chief characteristic.	I’m a mixed bag, but I think resilience
What you appreciate the most in your friends?	their forgiveness
Your main fault.	there are many, but currently: vanity, avarice, sloth, judgment, arrogance, gluttony and envy
Your favorite occupation.	artist
Your idea of happiness.	living with Mat, in France: painting, cooking and gardening
Your idea of misery.	losing my sight - no potter’s wheel for me
If not yourself, who would you be?	me is fine
Where would you like to live?	France
Your favorite color and flower.	all colors and peonies
Your favorite bird.	Sparrow
Your favorite prose authors.	right now? Gabriel García Márquez, C.S. Lewis, Joan Didion
Your favorite poets.	Wallace Stevens, T.S. Elliott, W.H. Auden
Your favorite heroes in fiction.	Atticus Finch
My favorite heroines in fiction.	Eloise
My favorite composers.	Bach, Lennon & McCartney, Mat Lombardi
My favorite painters.	too many to elaborate
Your heroes in real life.	St. Thomas More, Dr. Edward Mahama, Alexander Flemming, Robert Holbrook Smith
Your favorite heroines in real life.	The ones you never hear about
What characters in history do you most dislike?	of course - the usual suspects: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. Others that I think have done tremendous damage…Phyllis Schlafly, founders of the KKK, the previous Administration
Your heroines in World history	the Virgin Mary and Elizabeth I
Your favorite food and drink.	pastry and coffee
Your favorite names.	Phoebe and Algernon
What I hate the most.	Ignorance
The military event I admire the most.	The Battle of Agincourt
The reform I admire the most.	the one that hasn’t happened yet: when every single human is granted exactly the same rights, honor and dignity
The natural talent I'd like to be gifted with	coordination
How I wish to die.	intact
What is your present state of mind.	uncertain
Faults for which I have the most indulgence.	vanity
My motto.	“There is No New”

a little garden

2010-08-19T16:53:00.003-05:00

I’ve finally returned to my marriage, my home and my life in Chicago. My studio is set and I look ahead to a productive fall. I have never perceived autumn as a harbinger of death, cold and decay. It is a new season of anticipation and hope, just as the start of every school year was.

Gardens and their many metaphors are a present topic on some of the blogs I follow. With all of the Midwest’s horticultural bounty so readily available, how could they not? I bought these zinnias at the farmer’s market yesterday and while walking home I reflected on my childhood garden.

Apparently I showed some interest in my mother’s roses, and when I was 10, she designated a small area that I could cultivate. The first year I planted rows of seed according to the flower's established height. (My varietal preference would develop in time.) Entirely responsible for the care, watering and weeding, I was delighted in July and August when my labors yielded beautiful flowers. I had learned patience, responsibility and planning. Things I forgot for a long time.

One can draw analogies between the garden and so many areas of life: love, friendship, care and responsibility. Plants that are forced and controlled can become unnatural, dependant and stunted. They lack the characteristics that gave them their initial beauty and hardiness. Similarly, the garden left untended falls prey to recalcitrant weeds and invasive pests. It may wither or go to seed. As in life, the balance between neglect and cultivation is delicate.

Though an avowed Francophile, I am uncomfortable in their highly manicured gardens. I much prefer the English garden where plants are selected for their peculiar attributes and then tended so they grow according to their own design, not the gardener’s. But of course, these are lessons learned, forgotten and learned again.

dog dazed

2010-06-28T14:09:00.011-05:00

Art & Thinking is on hiatus for a bit while it gets acclimated to the new/old digs.

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

2010-06-08T23:38:00.007-05:00

Tonight is the BIG NIGHT when the previously discussed Work of Art premiers on television’s BRAVO network. If you are going to view the program, I highly recommend reading Art Fag City’s supplemental program guide and all show-related posts Jesse P. Martin has written at PURPLE LINKS. My own contribution is the proposed week-to-week episode breakdown as follows:

Establishing Myth: describe the narrative and metaphor of an ancient myth through installation. Only materials to be used are plastic Pokémon characters.

Identity Paintbrush Challenge: draw a paintbrush from the bucket, and make an artwork informed by or addressing the labeled constituency. Identities include: second wave hunter-gatherers, neoevangelists, the Tang party, puppies and bunnies, pantomime environmentalists, niche marketers, microglobalists, pipsters, proprietary vegetarians, and urban jamokes

It is What never Was: visually reconstruct the simulacra - cannot use self portraiture

Cut! #1: make a video

Cut! #2: remake the same video

Cut! #3: remake the remade same video

None for You: make a work of art so ephemeral, it cannot be sold

Name the Null Set: Minimalism with a capital M

The Object Found: Utilize a slaughtered chicken

Koonsian: have another contestant make your art for you

The Body as Medium: demonstrate Lars von Triers’ personification of women in a performance piece

THE FINAL CHALLENGE: written exam, closed notes.
Question: Compare and contrast in theoretical, historic and critical context, the notion of beauty in at least three periods of art prior to 1800 and after Modernism. Codify those notions as they apply to Clement Greenberg’s article Avant-Garde and Kitch, Juvenile and Preteen Beauty Pageants, Lady Gaga and your experience on this program. You have 45 minutes.

subversion

2010-06-08T09:58:00.009-05:00

While I love all spring flowers, I think my favorite is the Peony. It used to be lilacs, but that was youthful romance, and they now elicit a tiny tinge of morbid nostalgia. But the peony - even when white, or the palest pastel pink, is a little bit naughty. Certainly flirtatious, peonies possess a joie de vivre that not even exquisitely controlled Chinese painting can keep in check. When you invite them into your home, like the Trojan horse, they release their hidden delegation of ants. Peonies are a bit subversive.

Some friends and I had dinner at a former professor’s home recently. The bucolic landscape, some wonderful food and her giant intellect generated great conversation. She has always stressed the importance of social action, participation and activism, but on a personal scale. The professor asked us if an artist had to make political art to be subversive. My answer was no. I believe that the choice to make art - if it even is a choice - goes against the grain of the general population. It’s a choice that often commits one to a life contrary to everything the rest of the world is seeking: wealth, security, comfort.

It’s a difficult choice, especially in a world where the individual is marketed to 24/7. The payoff is a stunning level of intellectual freedom. And, in the end, artists will not have dumped countless gallons of oil into the Gulf, created a subprime mortgage bubble, hedged on the bets of others’ failure, or created a worldwide financial collapse. And that’s fine.

draw winky

2010-06-03T08:30:00.004-05:00

I remember this advertisement from magazines and matchbooks when I was a child. The idea intrigued me, although I never actually drew “Winky” or “the pirate”. Why? I didn’t think I could, that I was good enough. Next week, the equivalent of this contest will premiere on TV’s Bravo Network as Work of Art - The Next Great Artist. So continues the latest installment of the Top Chef cum Project Runway slash Real House Wives of American Idol culture to which we have been reduced. Jumping on the bandwagon, every art blogger seems to have become an apologist and gone Gaga for it. I will not.

I read the bios of a number of the contestants and many of them have already achieved a meritorious level of accomplishment. However, I would rather see a portfolio than a carefully edited bio. One artist works in “carbon based media”, hmmnnn…. ground breaking… pencil? Charcoal? Everyone should watch the hilarious clips on Bravo’s website. Trembling and tearful, an artist pleads that she wants her art to show in a Museum. Eureka! She's discovered fudge covered cookies! In fact, the winner of this glorified game show will receive a substantial cash award and a one-person show at a major Museum. I personally believe that that type of accolade comes from a lifetime of achievement or singular genius. Here that honor will be bestowed after 14 weeks of assessment by a group of merchants.

I wonder if there will be any discussions of art in critical, historical or theoretical context? I wonder if the program will show the time working alone in the studio, filled with indecision and doubt, dirty, messy, tired without sleep, fashion, jewelry and make-up. I wonder if they will capture the genetic predisposition that forces the artist to constantly doubt, question and navigate the world in visual terms. I wonder if there will be anything real here at all or just have a depiction of what people think the life of an artist is like. Will they really be giving these artists assignments every week? I can see it now, “Your assignment Scatological Assemblage!” After all, isn’t this whole thing a scatological assemblage?

Call me an elitist; call me a snob, I’m happy to assume either of those mantles. But I would like to make a suggestion. Don't watch this crap. Learn about art through you own experience. Go to galleries and museums in your community, support local not-for-profit art venues, encourage arts programs in your school districts, go to the library and check out books and videos of artists and their work. My father was a physician who always hated doctor dramas on television. I can understand why.

Me? I think I’ll watch Jeopardy instead. Maybe I’ll learn something.

warm swell

2010-05-22T19:25:00.006-05:00

"We had intended if it were a pleasant day to go to the country it was a very beautiful day and we carried out our intention # 47”

Pencil, watercolor, gouache, cut-and-pasted paper on handmade paper 

22" x 30"

© Cyrilla Mozenter

I have been trying to get current with art on exhibit in New York. Last Thursday I visited three very different venues. My first stop was at the Drawing Center to see Live & Die Like a Lion?, the late drawings of Leon Golub. I have always admired Golub’s work. As a political provocateur, Golub somehow managed to articulate the brutalities of war and power with masterful and luxurious paint. His paintings can lure you in and bludgeon you in one fell stroke. Seeing the politically charged artist so overtly concerned with his late-in-life virility left me bereft.

My next stop was the 2010 Whitney Biennial. Though I have ardently studied previous catalogues this was my first opportunity to see the Biennial live and in person. With the exception The Bruce High Quality Foundation, Charles Ray, Nina Berman, Theaster Gates, and Kate Gilmore, I was again disappointed. However, the show is dense and I am still processing it. I plan to return and reassess.

I had one final stop and that was at Adam Baumgold Gallery to see Warm Snow by artist Cyrilla Mozenter. It was unseasonably warm and humid that day and I felt tired, crabby and grimy. However, when I entered the diminutive yet elegant gallery, the temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees. In the spirit of full disclosure, I know Mozenter personally. She was my MFA Thesis advisor. I admire both the artist and her work. Because I prefer to write about work that I like, I feel no loss of objectivity here. In fact, it’s harder to write about the work of someone you know.

Mozenter has been working for some time with industrial felt, hand-stitched and molded together to create two and three-dimensional works. The material recalls Joseph Beuys’ use of felt and his invoked mythology. Certainly mythology is present here. Yet there is a less Teutonic side to Mozenter’s mythology that I can only describe as enchantment. At the same time, a series of felt vessels suggest both the Holy Grail and a fancy ice cream dish. This show includes her recent series Polar Bear Pass VI. Throughout many cultures the bear inhabits a fabled station, particular and varied. Here there is the sense of great strength, warmth, and protection.

A number of works on paper are also included in Warm Snow. I have always been drawn to artists that appear to possess a secret language. Two works suggest that this might be the case with Mozenter. We had Intended..., pictured above, is faintly inscribed with the words: bear, boat, mitten, cave, boot and castle. I don’t need to know why these words are here, but they are satisfying. Another work, Slow Wide Turn, suggests cautionary instructions that cross one’s mind when approaching a turn on either a snowy road, or indeed, in life.

Warm Snow will remain on view at Adam Baumgold, 40 E. 75^th Street, through June 26, 2010.

exiting MoMA

2010-05-18T13:15:00.006-05:00

Last Friday I made a trip to the Museum of Modern Art to see the William Kentridge exhibit Five Themes. I would almost say that it is a pity that the exhibit coincided with Marina Abramović, the Artist is Present, but that is like saying that melted butter on warm, home-made bread is almost too delicious. Both shows work as documents of prolific and powerful art making careers. The bonus round was the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit, and I didn’t even attempt the Picasso. Kentridge has closed, but with Abramović, Cartier-Bresson, and Picasso, there is an abundance of riches at MoMA right now.

I only spent a short time with Abramović. I want to return and devote my full attention to this incredibly dense exhibit. While I would like to sit with the artist, I don’t share the burning need for catharsis or enlightenment that some museum goers appear to seek.

What is a pity is much of the commentary floating around the interweb right now regarding the Abramović show. Most of it deals with issues irrelevant to the work. Some are going gaga over the means by which Ms. Abramović is urinating under that supposedly designed-by-Prada gown. Then there are warnings about the naked performers. There are the Who’s Who rosters of celebrities showing up to sit with Ms. Abramović. Finally there is the proposal that Lady Gaga’s attendance at the retrospective supports the elevation of her status to that of performance artist.

The depth and consequence of Abramović’ opus far exceeds any of these trite and pointless discussions. However, in the spirit of my lower self, I offer the following thoughts:

It doesn’t mater how she is peeing, but why don’t you just ask her? No one said you couldn’t.

Some noteworthy bloggers would be well served to follow her lead and wear Prada. (you know who you are)

Celebrities get to go to museums too.

Lady Gaga is a pop star. I like good shoes, but it doesn’t make me a cobbler.

If you are so strapped for a glimpse of naked people, you can still view them in National Geographic. Don’t embarrass yourself in a museum. Better yet, follow the moving billboard parked outside the Museum. It’s pictured above.

find your tribe

2010-05-16T09:23:00.002-05:00

A visiting critic recently addressed the difficult position the visual artist is in. The artist pours the internal and intensely personal into a work then puts that work on public view. The artist knows full well, that their inner life is now not only exposed, but open to criticism. Muddling through the decisions that eventually get a work up on a wall can be daunting. Ultimately, the decisions made in the studio are made alone, but any artist will benefit from the counsel of a close circle of confidants that really know you, and that are engaged in the same endeavor. My advice? Find your Tribe.

It’s beneficial if the members of your tribe work in a like medium. Every material possesses a unique set of qualities and problems. Understanding these cuts down on demands that cannot be achieved within that particular medium. In addition, the members of your tribe should be as good or better than you. This raises your personal bar sand engenders better work.

It’s helpful if your tribe is made of friends and confidants. You establish a mutual trust. Critics too, put themselves in a vulnerable place. A trusted confidant is more likely to offer substantive criticism when there is no fear of reprisal. They know you, your concerns, and what you are attempting to accomplish.

Your Tribe should take you somewhat seriously. I amplify somewhat. You need some one to let the hot air out of your high and mighty balloon when it becomes too inflated.

Inevitably your tribe cracks the whip, breaks the rules, and rubs your temples. They are your thicker skin. I am grateful to have met the handful of painters that I think of as my Tribe. Thanks for the push and the pull. Now, let’s go out in the world and paint.

birthday

2010-05-05T07:30:00.008-05:00

green-eyed creature lingering somewhere in every thought

the prescient muse

intellectual: guitar quartets

empathetic: angel valley

but permanent rock

towel-clad tirade, bathed in the light of television’s morning news -

armed with waving tooth brush

mediating wire gray curmudgeon and nine year old boy

love and sex for a long time, again and still

oh that nice neck

and the secret language

51 = birthday = today = love = always

brownian motion

2010-05-03T23:38:00.004-05:00

Hallway, 2010

Mamma Andersson

When painting is effective, it can stimulate or suppress the senses and simplify or complicate observation; sometimes it does both at the same time. Such is the case with Who is Sleeping on my Pillow, currently on view at David Zwirner in Chelsea. The conjoined exhibition of Mamma Andersson and Jockum Nordström offers works steeped in the real and imagined traditions and experiences of their native Sweden.

Andersson’s work frequently combines domestic interiors with warped perspectives that alter the viewer’s perception of the inhabitants present. The addition of murky black shapes, perhaps an interpretation of fog on old photographs, adds to the strangeness of these scenes. Here, in paintings such as Unitlted, 2009, the interiors are clearly inhabited, though the occupants are absent. The space implies the stllness left on Monday morning after everyone has left for work. This sensation is amplified by the lack of sound these paintings produce. They are utterly vacuum-like. Dead End, 2010, also signals recent departure.

In contrast, Norström’s two-dimensional works are fully populated with a variety of characters. The painted paper scenes run rampant with cutouts of historic and contemporary characters at once violent and comical, primitive and gentrified. Works such as Groaning, 2010, suggest a world where Swedish Folk Art and the naïve work of American painter Henry Darger coexist.

It is Nordström’s sculptures that suggest absence. Lasarett, 2009, is masterfully conceived in what appears to be repurposed cardboard. The structure conjures the abandoned housing project, ready for demolition.

Currently, there are a lot of painting shows in Chelsea and this is one of the best. For those not suffering from aesthetic A.D.D., Who is Sleeping on my Pillow, effectively silences the all to frequent requirement of spectacle, circuit, identity and signage. The show remains open through June 12.

Looking for Angel Valley

2010-04-20T15:08:00.007-05:00

Last fall, I published a piece (see “As Seen on Oprah”, October 2009) on the events that led to the conception of my Thesis work. Angel Valley is the name of a retreat center in Sedona, Arizona. There, in October 2009, three people died in a makeshift sweat lodge constructed for a self-help empowerment workshop. In addition to the deaths, a number of participants were critically injured. The cost to participate in the workshop was $10,000 per individual. A one-time telecommunications-marketing manager was the workshop’s creator and facilitator. He has been indicted on three counts of manslaughter and is preparing for trial in Arizona.

This body of work references my own examination of manufactured, misplaced and inadequate constructs. The constructs are often the byproduct of the search for utopia that in fact, cannot be assembled in the physical or material world. Within my work, time, recollection and longing are collapsed, illuminating the irrationality of invented utopias and locating the site of physical presence in time and space.

necessary content

2010-04-06T07:31:00.004-05:00

During the Easter season one is inundated with eggs; candy, colored and purely decorative. Regardless of their nutritional, symbolic, seasonal or commercial importance, eggs are in fact, remarkable.

Perfectly designed for their function, their shape allows them to roll easily in the nest without falling out. The calcium carbonate shell is strong enough to protect the cargo, yet so fragile that a young chick can break through, emerging exhausted, but alive. Duck eggs have oily shells, rendering them waterproof. There is nothing unnecessary about the components and structure of an egg.

Last week I met a well-known art critic. Someone in our group inquired as to what she believed made certain works of art successful. She responded, and I paraphrase, that effective art contained only that which was necessary to it. It is unhindered by extraneous components. This does not mean minimalistic, for she went on to clarify that it could have a whole lot of stuff, but all of the stuff had to be necessary to the work, for it to truly succeed.

I recently completed five large oils, some of which I am going to include in my Thesis Show. I began a sixth painting, and when I completed the monochromatic under-painting, it appeared that the work might not require the conscientious, pigmented layers of glaze in which I usually indulge. It might not need color at all. The idea of an achromatic painting interested me. Granted, I mix my own black, so it is never truly black, but color is one of the natural instincts on which I have come to rely. What I had been doing was getting comfortable and it was time to break things.

My challenge is to make the paintings strong enough so that black, white, and perhaps the addition of one other color remain sufficient visual components. I have completed this first black and white painting and am pleased.

Today and for the next three weeks, known critics and curators will see this work and publicly comment on it. Like the egg, I hope the painting and I attend these sessions, outfitted only with that which is necessary and sufficient.

After my exhibit opens on April 19^th I will post the works.

Emily Lindskoog, Left Hand - Right Hand

2010-03-31T22:24:00.002-05:00

Spread, (c) Emily Lindskoog, 2010

In her recent article, It’s Not Dry Yet, the ever-erudite New York Times Art Critic Roberta Smith presents yet another successful defense against those persistent voices proclaiming the death of painting. Within the article however, there is an even more interesting discussion concerning those that still pit abstract against representational art. Ms. Smith articulates why this is so clearly a ridiculous argument, and why any such argument that grounds itself in privileging one medium or method over another is a rather self-destructive and archaic, if not juvenile, point of view.

Within all of the visual arts, abstraction and representation co-exist. Any three-dimensional entity, reduced to a two-dimensional picture plane is abstracted. In Minimalism both are stripped to their most essential form; even those ultimate thinkers Art and Language, have relied on description to convey the most abstract theories about the practice, status and nature of being and artist and making art. Indeed, the infinite means in which text, sign and context can be manipulated, perceived and understood indicates almost ultimate abstraction and pure representation.

Artist Emily Lindskoog, who’s MFA Thesis exhibition titled Left Hand Right Hand, is currently on view at Pratt Institute’s Steuben West Gallery, is firmly grounded within both the abstract and representational realms. The works, monumental drawings on paper, are pure and perfect figurative gestures, demonstrating through drawing media and saliva, the extent to which her body can reach, coordinate, spew and project. One may perceive an abstract drawing, but actually receives the representation of Lindskoog’s physical limits. In addition, the lineage is also there, her media culled from early history cave paintings. Despite what may be perceived as a brutish method of mark-making, Lindskoog’s spitting, spraying and synchronizing of right hand with left, produces elegant and powerful works. The exhibition will remain open through Friday, April 2, 2010.

In a week that marks solemn observations by two of the world’s prominent faiths, Left Hand Right Hand confirms my belief - blessed be painting in all its permutations.

seeing red. and white and blue.

2010-03-22T13:49:00.001-05:00

This morning, the debate over healthcare reform vomited all over the social networking site I participate on. I do love these exchanges, but today I was stunned at the number of time I heard “Why should I have to pay for it?” One person even said “and is the next step going to be to build every homeless person a house doesn't a person deserve a place to live are u willing to pay for that as well. At some point it's got to stop.”

Yes, everyone should have a home. A number of individuals will focus on the failure of 1950’s and 60’s Housing Projects in the United States, but this was a failure of architecture and planning, not of intent. There is also the misconception out there that the homeless are composed strictly of derelicts, drug addicts and bums. But many of these people are mentally ill and are deserving of care that simply doesn’t exist. In the larger picture, these individuals make up only a small portion of the homeless in the United States.

Four years ago I had the privilege of serving on a volunteer committee with a gentleman who was actively involved with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. At that time, the average age of a homeless person in Chicago was 9. The fact is we don’t notice most of the homeless because they look just like us. Often, they are composed of the working poor. Transient and temporary jobs allow them to sometimes stay the night in an SRO, sometimes a shelter and sometimes their car, if they still have one. With the recession, I can only imagine that this number has grown.

While I would like to think that charities could exist as the sole support for the needs of this country, they suffer most in financial times such as these. What could your total charitable giving last year provide for? Would you have given with out the tax deduction? I myself could not give last year to a number of charities I support.

Why do we have to pay? Because it’s our duty. We have the privilege of living amidst an embarrassment of riches that we take for granted. As I mentioned on the same networking site last week, every citizen should take a trip to Arlington National Cemetery. There you can see, laid to rest, the thousands that asked nothing in return but the privilege of living here.

49th parallel

2010-03-16T21:55:00.002-05:00

Since October of 2008 I have been documenting my body in a series of small paintings. The project started when I found myself here in Brooklyn engaged with a peer group that is, for the most part, 20-25 years younger than I. I have tried to be honest in the work and the project has become as much about refining my practice as it is about the state of the framework. To date there are 22 paintings, each 12”h x 6”w.

Last month I realized I had been avoiding the close examination of my face. It could be strictly vanity, the site where I protect the most illusions; or perhaps I’ve just become so accustomed to evaluating my body that I forgot about the face. So in honor of my 49^th birthday, I decided to look at the mug, and paint it, sans cosmetics and soft lighting, as honestly as my skill would allow, Frankly, the past year-and-a-half has not been particularly kind to the visage. The water here is tough and when combined with minor sleep deprivation, no budget for cosmetic luxuries and questionable nutrition, the wear and tear are showing.

Though I miss the youth and beauty of being twenty-five, I wouldn’t want to trade in or relive the experiences I’ve had. I’m one of the lucky ones; these experiences have all been accompanied by true love. I’ve also been given the opportunity to completely reinvent myself in the second half of my life. There is still so much to do. I am fond of a particular quote by Coco Chanel. She said, “Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.” I think I’m earning it.

amazing grace

2010-03-08T07:27:00.001-06:00

Ten years ago today, in spite of my best efforts, life changed dramatically. To quote a friend, “it was the worst day and the best day.” Every ordinary day, which really means every extraordinary day, is because of that very low-down day.

Hearing Hollywood dole out the thanks last night caused me to reflect on all the people that have helped me get to the here and now: Jennifer, Julie and Darlene loom large. Also, Loretta, another Jennifer, Sue, Karyn, two Lauras, Brien, Melissa, Stephanie, Troy, John, Anna, and Christa. Throw in some Brooklyn gals: Regna, Haley and Audrey - all of you have been touchstones along the way and still now. There are a few newer names that matter every day - Bob, Rachel and Pat. Who’d a thunk it?

Then there’s Mat. No one has demonstrated more tolerance, patience and love than my beautiful Mat. I love you.

Finally there’s a personal, portable, light-up, dashboard Baby Jesus, because that is who You are right now and it’s working. Merci.

chewed gum and serious masters

2010-02-24T21:19:00.006-06:00

You are walking down the street and you notice a discarded piece of bubblegum on the sidewalk. The shiny surface of the bluish-pink gob alludes to its freshness, yet the buildup of dust collecting at the edges belies its not-so-recent deposit. In addition, bits of urban detritus are beginning to adhere: candy wrappers, dried leaves, cigarette butts, perhaps a condom, bits of cellophane and dirt. It is organic and plastic, ugly and beautiful, fascinating and grotesque. It has its own story. If it could get up and go home it would, and that home exists in one of Russell Tyler’s paintings, on view now through March 20, 2010 at Freight + Volume in Chelsea.

The first time I saw one of the strange conical characters inhabiting Tyler’s canvases, I thought of the b-movie monster Frank Zappa referenced in his intro to “Cheepnis”. Certainly, these paintings crisscross the demilitarization zone between high and low art. In contemporary terms, Tyler’s loaded material application and expansive palette address our penchant for acquisition and accumulation. The scale and somewhat off-kilter space speak to this media culture, and suggest our inability to avoid or even shake off the bombardment of words and pictures assaulting us on a daily basis. But in new painting I also look for the lineage, and it too exists here. The unctuous paint in works such as Wolfman and Neapolitan Head can locate their provenance the work of 16^th century painter Giuseppe Archimboldo as well as postwar Britain’s Frank Auerbach. Other works including What am I Doing? overtly display their classical family tree.

For those less interested in historical roots the chewing gum gob characters marching through No Ice Cream and Decomposing in the Land of Paradise, there is still the aforementioned b-movie monster movie It Conquered the World.

In the end, the multiple layers of meaning that Tyler packs into his paintings substantiate serious works that one can have fun with. If I am decomposing and this is paradise, I want to go out wearing those same red boots that Tyler’s creatures wear.

save the date

2010-02-20T22:08:00.026-06:00

SIOBAN LOMBARDI
CANDIDATE FOR THE MASTER OF FINE ARTS DEGREE
DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS

LOOKING FOR ANGEL VALLEY
AN EXHIBTION OF PAINTINGS
APRIL 19 - 23, 2010
gallery hours: 11AM - 7PM

PRATT INSTITUTE
Steuben West Gallery
200 Willoughby Avenue, Brooklyn,NY
opening reception: april 19, 2010 5 - 9 PM
closing reception: april 23, 2010 5 - 9 PM

image "Angel Valley No. 3", 84" x 84", oil on canvas
(c) sioban lombardi 2010

cherchez le chat

2010-02-15T11:19:00.006-06:00

Olympia, Édouard Manet, 1863, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

I‘ve just returned from the College Art Association Conference in Chicago, where I got to cram even more about art into my already crowded brain. I love when something old becomes new again. In this case it is Edouard Manet.

I remember studying this painting in college. I remember that Olympia is an important document in the development of modern art. I know that Manet is arguably the first modern painter. What’s amusing is that all of the socio/historical/aesthetic reasons that convinced me then that this was an important work of modern art have recently been amended. In truth, what I previously barely noticed, appears to be the lynch pin of this work’s and Manet’s modernity.

Certainly, the 19^th century’s ascension of the middle class drove the desire for and the accumulation of objects. The devotional, narrative and didactic were no longer requirements. While those elements may still exist within a work, they didn’t have to. A painting or sculpture could exist just to be looked at. This objectness required an audience, and this was new.

In addition, Manet’s reductive form and use of color were revolutionary. Consider his marvelous blacks. A shadow reduced to a single black plane, a void, still perfectly describing form.

Then, there is the subject. As an undergrad at an all-women’s college, Olympia loomed large in the feminist psyche. First of all, she was a courtesan - an elevated class of prostitute - shocking subject matter! Then there was her nakedness rather than her nudity; her unapologetic gaze; her sexual freedom; the flip attitude of her dainty shoes.

But what Olympia truly declares is, “I am a painting, and I know that you are looking at me.” It is not the courtesan that does this. Her gaze is distracted and self-absorbed. She could just as easily be looking at a mirror. What confirms our presence is the cat - the cat! Unlike all of the other elements in the painting, it is the cat that engages the viewer.

Even in the scores of socio/psychological evaluations speculating the painting’s symbolism, each asserts that the cat reacts to and with the viewer. It is that assertion that demonstrates the self-awareness of this object, the painting, as an object, and that is the key.

Time to return to the 19^th century and more Manet, I think…

a tale of several cities

2010-02-07T19:23:00.009-06:00

It’s been a while so here’s a long one. In a few months I will most likely move back to my hometown Chicago. Though I love Chicago, and cannot wait to once again cohabitate with my husband, I am suspect of opportunities in the Visual Arts that exist there. It’s not the fault of museums and gallerists, they are there, certainly in quality, if not number. With the School of the Art Institute at their helm, Chicago’s academic Institutions too represent heavy hitters in the visual arts. UIC and Columbia College are increasingly identified on the east coast, joining their learned elders, the University of Chicago and Northwestern. There are the Cooperatives such as the well known A.R.C. and start-ups like Margin. Finally, there are the labors of love such as the Chicago Artists Coalition that provide opportunities for any artist that wants to participate.

Still, local support for architecture, drama and improv comedy far outdistance support for the visual arts. Once upon a time, I think the last was around 1985; there was the Chicago and Vicinity Show. Exhibited at the Art Institute, it was a juried show taking place every two years - a sort of Biennial. It was a big deal. Then came the Chicago Show, which was mired in controversy due to lack of ethnic diversity. Now there is Art Chicago, which is just another art fair.

Today, while perusing the Chicago Gallery Guide’s website I counted approximately one hundred venues listed under galleries. Thirty-six of these are either museums, retail operations for functional art and/or crafts, auction houses or galleries representing work made prior to the mid-twentieth century. Granted, I was drinking from a tainted source, but there are more than 500 galleries in New York and probably as many individuals writing about art (7 of us love you Ken Johnson).That is what’s wrong in Chicago.

What is missing is critical interest. Compare the “on-line” front pages of 5 American Newspapers: The New York Times, Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle all list “Arts” on the front page Index. With the Los Angeles Times, you must first click on Entertainment (natch), but then a sub-index title for the Arts appears as a choice. With the Chicago Tribune, one must first click on Entertainment, then on Events. At the bottom of the “events” page there exists a section called “On the Town” where you may or may not find an article or review covering the Visual Arts in Chicago. As a matter of fact, last year the Chicago Tribune laid-off its sole art critic Alan Artner. He had been a fixture for decades, albeit an increasingly lonely one.

True, I am an elitist when it comes to the criticism and production of art, but not to the dissemination of information about it. I believe the character of a city is rendered more valuable by the quality and variance of the culture represented. That only happens when people are exposed to that culture. Thank God for new media and the little guy! Fortunately blogs and podcasts such as Bad at Sports and Chicago Art Magazine and small publications like New City continue to grow and provide a vibrant voice. I will read and reference them with enthusiasm. As newspapers go the way of the milkman, access to our cultural vehicles doesn’t have to. It may not be dropped off on your doorstep each morning, but you can get it anywhere. I encourage everyone to do so.
If you have a favorite blog/website related to art in your city - please let me know.

the verdict

2010-02-03T15:06:00.009-06:00

David Salle

King Kong

123" by 96" by 26"

acrylic, light bulb, oil/canvas, wood

1983

courtesy Mary Boone Gallery

So he said… that I’m “a pretty good painter” … I’ll take that!

lit of crit

2010-01-28T17:38:00.015-06:00

murder of crows 16" x 12", oil on wood, 2009

On January 1st I expressed my hope that I remain grateful for the generosity of critique. Tuesday night I had a crit with a particularly close peer group and a new professor. It always takes me a few days to fully process what I have heard, but I am satisfied that some of the questions raised are those I am already asking myself about the work. On the whole, it was thought provoking and went quite well.

There is always one bit I immediately take away that is a sort of an a ha! moment. It was suggested to my colleagues and I that we develop a personal set of criteria that determines when a work is done to our own satisfaction. Brilliant! I love a set of self-determined criteria that I can meet and then surpass. Or, what does it mean when my gut tells me that I have finished a work, but I have not yet met all of my criteria? This notion presents a real opportunity for both restraint and expansion. I have begun work on my own set.

As for critique, I value it, even on those occasions when I get ripped a new one. It forces me to break from my routine and think conversely. I will miss the unfettered honesty of academic critique when I leave here. I will also miss the language particular to it. Every profession has a specific language. For those of you who have not experienced a studio arts critique, I have prepared a little primer highlighting some of the terms heard in critique. It includes those that one would and would not want to hear. I have heard many.

dreamlike: doesn’t make sense in the physical world

dreamy: blurry or out-of-focus, except in painting, where blurry or out-of-focus is now always called Richter

not my aesthetic: may be well executed, but you just hate it

risky: jury’s out – could be good, could be bad, but kudos for trying something beyond of your comfort zone

push: when you’re encouraged to take the work beyond that comfort zone

tasteful: formally attractive but careful, boring, innocuous

Pop: if your professor was schooled in the 50’s or early 60’s, they hate it

crap: crap

outrageous: if painter Linda Francis is critiquing, it means really good (as in, “that pink in those shoes is outrageous!”)

crazy: my personal version of outrageous (as in, “Heather, that Godzilla painting is crazy!”)

ambiguous: swings both ways – good, it’s asking a lot of questions - bad, it’s indecisive

elegant: at risk of becoming tasteful - frugal, yet well done, well composed, well thought out, well executed and usually well received

muddy: you let your solvent/medium get too dirty, but because it was so late and you were so tired, you didn’t notice – but your critics did

editorial: when the artist is trying to shove their opinion down the viewer’s throat

conceptual: just plain used way to often and not in the proper context

quaint: nostalgic

nostalgic: fictional construct of a perceived, not necessarily factual, past - usually coexists with sentimental

sentimental: the bad kind of emotional

poignant: the good kind of emotional – may provoke an unexpected visceral response

necessary: an element or elements that reveal the context of the art work and/or elevate the formal quality of the work

sufficient: the correct amount of the necessary

Next week, I have a one-on-one crit with a particularly well-known artist. I am nervous. I’ll let you know if any of the above terms come up.

where there's smoke

2010-01-21T18:43:00.003-06:00

If you’re in Chicago and looking for LIVE MUSIC and a good time to be had by all this Saturday, January 23, 2010, head to Lilly’s on Lincoln Ave. where JAKE and THE WRANGLERS will be burning down the house. Check out that sexy bass player, and remember…you may look, but don’t touch! Show starts 8:00PM.

Lilly's

2513 North Lincoln Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614

(773) 529-1600‎

the same

2010-01-15T00:20:00.011-06:00

Two days ago I was mentally composing what I thought would be another pithy post about painting. It was going to be glib yet intelligent and of course, packed with insight. Then there was an earthquake.

I have already written about the abundant ethnic diversity that exists in Brooklyn. It has one of the largest populations of Haitians living outside of that country and my heart truly aches with them and for those still there. In a country so impoverished, the loss and devastation is only magnified.

Humanity often demonstrates impossible cruelty, but it also possesses a tremendous capacity for love and generosity. I am grateful for organizations such as Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross who have so quickly responded to this event. If you are able to donate to either of these organizations, please do.

Hidden within every tragedy is an opportunity. This disaster may illuminate our sameness. In fact, my prayer is for sameness, in which we finally recognize that we are all the same, no matter our gender, age, color, country, sexual preference or Belief. Then perhaps our acts of love and kindness will occur not only in response to calamity, but each and every day.

resolve

2010-01-01T01:13:00.006-06:00

Resolutions. I don’t think I ever kept one. In fact, I can’t recall even making one. Remarkable things have happened to me during the past decade. My sole contribution was a willingness to say yes. I have no plans of giving up sugar, caffeine, meat or television in 2010. I’m going to continue highlighting my hair, wearing makeup and probably being, in general, quite vain.

Many of my hopes for 2010 seem to fall under the realm of my responsibilities, not my resolutions. They include a heightened demonstration of love, respect, compassion and tolerance for my fellows; employment, so that I may once again financially contribute to our household; mindful gratitude for the generosity of criticism; continued support for fellow artists; a willingness to ask and answer questions; the belief that, very often, others do know more than I do; and the ability to say yes more than no.

Something happened several weeks ago. A well respected, public figure in the art world gave me a vote of confidence. After seeing my work this individual observed that I (to paraphrase) “was a serious artist, making serious work, about a serious subject.” This was pretty heady information and I had to decide what to do with it. It took several days of reflection to come to a decision and the result is indeed a resolution. It’s simple. In 2010, I have to work harder.

I wish you peace, happiness, health and hard work this New Year - and beyond.

top eleven

2009-12-28T19:21:00.005-06:00

The end of the year, and surely the end of the decade, brings about a plethora of obligatory “Top Ten” lists. Why not dive right in? Below is my Aesthetic Top Eleven list for 2009 – in alphabetical not preferential order.

Compass in Hand: Selections from The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. On exhibit are more than three hundred drawings from this vast collection. Included are gestural, figurative, conceptual and systems based works. One gets to view drawings of established masters such as Donald Judd and Joseph Beuys, while viewing contemporary European works by Kai Althoff, Neo Rausch and Francis Alÿs. There was almost too much to take in and the show required more than one visit. The collection demonstrates why drawings, both as tools and end products, remain relevant.

Fred Sandback at David Zwirner, deftly demonstrated the late artist’s acute sense of the phenomenology of space and volume. The illusion of these qualities was remarkably created with the lowliest of materials, and its most minimal employment: acrylic yarn.

Martin Kippenberger, The Problem Perspective at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Kippenberger lived fast and hard and died young from liver cancer at the age of 44. This did not however, diminish his prolific, varied and fearless output. I walked away with the sense that I shouldn’t think too much about what I am doing, but rather “do” and let the thinking follow.

Mat Lombardi, Guitar Quartets. My only non-visual entry and please forgive the nepotism. I felt that I was hearing something I shouldn’t hear; experiencing something beyond my realm; and knowing something a human shouldn’t know. Profound.

Michaël Borremans, Taking Turns at David Zwirner, New York. The Europeans aren’t afraid of employing representational and figurative art to describe an ambiguity. Borremans does just that. I respond to his paint and his iconography.

Pierre Bonnard, The Late Interiors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Every experienced painter that I’ve recently heard speak has referenced Bonnard. I can understand why. His ability to meld color, light, form, material, abstraction, figuration and symbolism was astounding. I wanted to lick the paint right off of the canvases.

Raoul De Keyser , Terminus: Drawings (1979-1982) and Recent Paintings at David Zwirner the small and modest abstract paintings made clear that the artist was definitely looking at or thinking of something when he painted them. The beautifully installed show was refreshing amidst the spectacle that is the first opening night of the autumn season in Chelsea.

Ree Morton: At the Still Point of the Turning World at The Drawing Center, New York. Avoiding the tropes so typically found in the works of many of her fellow feminist contemporaries, Morton’s work remains fresh today more than thirty years after her death. It demonstrates that she was part of this world, not just commenting on it.

Robert Frank, The Americans at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It articulated the way I think and changed the way I see.

Song Dong, Projects 90 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. If you have suffered the loss of one parent and observed the grief of the surviving one, this installation, based on the Chinese concept of wu jin qi yong, or "waste not” consists of the complete contents of Dong’s mother’s home, amassed over fifty years. The artist collaborated with her, assembling and organizing the contents after his father’s death. It poignantly demonstrated all of the sadness, humor, impatience, compassion and lunacy that punctuate such an experience.

The Lindy & Edwin Bergman Collection of Joseph Cornell’s boxes at the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. Finally, one can regularly view the important and comprehensive collection of 38 boxes, where, within each, dreams are made manifest.

more likes and dislikes

2009-12-20T10:09:00.005-06:00

The past several weeks have been chock full of just working on work. A hope for this holiday break is down time to write and reflect. So here is a list:

Reading:
the logic of sense, Deleuze
Significant Others, eds. Chadwick & de Courtivron

Listening to:
A lot of Christmas music
My ipod on shuffle – i’ve been busy

Likes
tissue paper with glitter embedded in it
snow in Central Park
the word: mellifluous
Ken Johnson, NYtimes
the smell of balsam fir
little ones in winter coats
Bonnard
my laundry backpack
the 10” of snow on my window sill

Dislikes
the movie: home for the holidays
insurance companies
sour grapes
lingering kitchen smells

display

2009-12-07T23:35:00.007-06:00

Window display at Peter Pan Donuts, Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

One of my favorite things about New York is the variety of window displays, particularly at Christmas time. From the tinseled paper towels at the lowliest Bodega to the opulent splendor at Bergdorf Goodman, merchants display their wares in the most festive holiday manner.

I have always loved Christmas, the rituals, the smells, the sounds, the flavors, a general good will and, of course, the giving and receiving of gifts. Last year, the economy, tuition, a new business and maturity prompted me to reassess the season. I was also deeply saddened by the tragic events that occurred at a Long Island Wal-Mart for the want of a flat screen TV. Mat and I decided to make each other’s gifts. It was much like the Christmas just before our wedding when we imposed a $25 price limit. I still wear and treasure the Speidel ID bracelets I received, and 21 years later, we are still going steady. We intend to make each other’s gifts every year.

Every Christmas I recall the creatures, the boy and the girl, hiding in the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Present from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol:

They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

My hope this Yuletide and beyond is to heed these words and remember that kindness and tolerance are among the greatest of gifts and are surely remembered long after the others gather dust in a closet. Next week I will have some free time and I plan to enjoy New York at Christmas with a stroll in the city. I will take my camera and notebook but will travel lightly - sans shopping list. I imagine I’ll experience a larger helping of Christmas Spirit.

germaine

2009-12-01T07:21:00.005-06:00

John Singer Sargent | 1856-1925 | Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes 1897 | Oil on canvas | 214 x 101cm | Bequest of Edith Minturn Phelps Stokes (Mrs. I. N.), 1938 (38.104) | Collection: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York | Photograph courtesy: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The women that John Singer Sargent painted have a definite presence. Obviously one immediately understands that they are beautiful, well bred and well heeled, but on closer inspection, one senses their self awareness, competence, independence and intellect. If I were to choose any artist in history to paint a portrait of my dear friend Germaine, it would be Sargent.
I have known Germaine for 36 years, and in that time I have come to treasure her powerful intellect, her surgical wit and her even and measured approach to life. Her friendship has been unwavering.

In an earlier time, Germaine might have been considered a Blue Stocking, admirable in itself, but she is also a devoted wife, a loving mother, a gifted tennis player and a wonderful cook and hostess. She seems to accomplish everything with ease. The most embarrassing thing I can think about her (and I won’t go into Nancy Drew) is that we were nerds together – she outgrew this condition much more quickly and gracefully than I.

I wish I could repay the friendship you’ve shown to me, but for now happy birthday dear friend. Thanks for your beauty, your humor, your brains and your example!

a sort of survey

2009-11-27T10:03:00.006-06:00

as yet untitled, 2009
oil on canvas, 84”w x 78”h

I recently posted about the needless tragedy that occurred in a makeshift sweat lodge at James Arthur Ray’s Spiritual Warrior retreat in Arizona. There are several facts we know, among them: the retreat cost each participant almost $10,000, the participants fasted for 36 hours then attended a breakfast buffet before entering the sweat lodge, three people died and their families are suing, and the aforementioned facilitator has put his Los Angeles home on the market to fund the costs of his legal defense. Many other questions will remain unanswered for some time.

What were these people looking for? This is the question that continues to sit with me. Indeed, what is it that any of us is looking for? It may be something idealistic, such as I am looking for equality among all people; it may be necessary, as in I am looking for a job; it may be immediate as in I am looking for my keys. (I look for my keys every morning.)

I recently began a body of work centered on this question and am asking for your help. Tell me what you are looking for. Your pursuit may fall within any and all of the categories - this doesn’t matter. Please tell me in the comment section following this post, and use the anonymous option when responding. If possible, please forward this post to friends and acquaintances so that they too may respond.

Whatever it is you seek, I hope you find it.

a happy thanksgivng

2009-11-26T11:52:00.001-06:00

a friend you can travel with

2009-11-23T00:02:00.003-06:00

Travelling together is one of the true tests of any friendship. Meghan and I met as co-workers and became friends almost immediately. She is pretty, stylish, intelligent and witty. Her tiny size belies her ability to stomp her foot (hands on hips), and cuss most effectively. Together we have travelled to Nashville, Boston, San Francisco, Palm Beach, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Tucson, Phoenix, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Beijing and Shanghai. Though we usually enjoyed the best accommodations and wonderful food, we worked long hours for an exacting constituency. When one of us panicked, the other stayed calm. The same was true for our up and down days. It always worked out.

Meghan was in New York last weekend and we met for breakfast. We chatted away and drank lattes from giant bowls. When we parted, the morning felt different than it had upon arrival at the Patisserie. I felt as though I was out of town, which I am and am not.

If you are so fortunate as to have a friend you can travel with – hang on tight. They may travel to you and brighten your day.

november

2009-11-14T22:48:00.002-06:00

"Like everything which is not the involuntary result of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will, any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting than any romance, however passionate." W.H. Auden

I like November. It appeals to my senses; the smell of fallen, damp leaves - and when you’re lucky - the smell of burning leaves; the gray and silvery skies; the earth preparing itself for a long winter’s nap.

The primary reason I like November is that it is the month in which I met Mat, twenty-five years ago. I have known him for more than half my life. The funny thing is that the last 14 1/2 months feel infinitely longer than the span of 25. We’re on the home stretch now and waiting patiently to begin our next chapter is difficult. Whatever or wherever it is we’re agreed, it will be together.

We like sparrows. We call them the jesters of the bird world. We give them suet and seeds in the winter and sneak crumbs to them when dining outdoors. Last summer, Mat half-jokingly said, “I think you should paint a giant sparrow”, and because I take him far more seriously than even my painting, I did.

A Marriage, 2009, oil on linen, 30”x 40”

perfect

2009-11-05T10:23:00.018-06:00

Last weekend on my trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I had the opportunity to see what may be a perfect painting, Johannes Vermeer’s The Milkmaid. Only thirty-four paintings are “officially” attributed to the artist, so I make it point to see one if I am in a city so fortunate to own one. The Met has five of its own works by Vermeer. Of course it does. They own a possible sixth but its provenance remains in question. The Milkmaid is on brief loan from the Rijksmuseumin, its home in the Netherlands.

What is it about this painting (and others by Vermeer) that demands respect from historians and artists of every discipline? The first aspect perceived in a Vermeer is the quality of light. Many attribute this to his possible use of the camera obscura which caused a halo effect when drawing the projected image onto the support. As a painter, I know how hard it is to effectively translate a drawing into a painting, and although the device may have assisted Vermeer in the composition, it would not have produced the optical effects his paint creates. That comes in the application.

Vermeer’s paint is luminous, and the light is projected from within the layers of pigment, not the surface. Of course, the pigments, particularly the lead-based ones used, assist in producing the layers of paint that independently project their characteristics. Yes, lead-based white, or Flake White, is still the best white and with care can be used safely. Vermeer worked with a very limited palette. Unlike the commercially produced paints available today, the chemical composition and reactivity of his paints varied color to color. Thus, it is believed, each area had to be applied and then allowed to dry before the application of a different color. Thus the blue in the skirt of the milkmaid maintains a mind-boggling brilliance.

It is obvious that every inch of the painting was given equal importance. So much so that even a dent in the white plaster wall behind the subject is as fascinating as the bread on the table. This is a consistent quality found in master paintings executed centuries later; consider the work of Cezanne, Matisse and Pollock. Finally, the milkmaid herself is given the dignity and presence of a person of much higher social standing. This may be the most enduring, and radical, characteristic of the work.

I like to think of this painting as an execution in extravagant simplicity. The Milkmaid's continued relevance lies in the attention given in equal parts, to every aspect of the work; conception, composition, materials, care and execution. Had there not been a crowd, I could have lingered, gazing at it for hours.

Seeing, The Americans

2009-11-01T12:01:00.004-06:00

Bar, Gallup, New Mexico, 1955, printed ca. 1977;

Gelatin silver print 36.9 x 24.2 cm (14 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.)

Purchase, Anonymous Gifts, 1986 (1986.1198.17)

Signed in ink on print, recto LR: "Robert Frank"; inscribed in pencil on print, verso UR: "RF.A. 29"

I was unaware that comparisons had already been drawn between Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and Robert Frank’s The Americans, but the relationship was the first thought that came to mind while viewing the powerful suite of 83 photographs currently on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The photographs document the cross-country road trip the Swiss-born Frank undertook from 1955-1956. At the outset, Frank said, “ What I have in mind, then, is observation and record of what one naturalized American finds to see in the United States that signifies the kind of civilization born here and spreading elsewhere.” The exhibition marks the 50^th anniversary of their publication.

When assessed aesthetically, the photographs are riveting. Often shot in situations that precluded the formal considerations of focus and composition, they still mange to hold the viewer captive within their moment. Each is titled only with the site and/or location. They are extremely pure. There is no sense of the clandestine nor suggestion of either the arbitrary or the staged. One understands that Frank’s subjects were clearly aware of his presence. Finally, there are no gimmicks. Frank did not rely on special effects, manipulation or cropping as evidenced by the marked contact sheets included in the exhibition.

As a narrative, the suite captures the purposefulness, diversity, and individuality inherent in the American character. It also speaks volumes about the disparity, prejudice and disenfranchisement existing mid-20^th century and still today. This remains our birth defect conceived when slavery was sanctioned coexistent with the demands of liberty made plain in the Declaration of Independence. One cannot help but recall the nation’s response to Hurricane Katrina when viewing Frank’s photographs taken in New Orleans. And here we are fifty years after these photos were published to ample criticism and disparagement.

I would encourage anyone living in or travelling to New York to view this exhibition. If you can’t, buy the book. It is a document that should be present in every American’s visual vernacular until we correct our vision and begin to see differently.

as seen on oprah

2009-10-26T23:19:00.006-05:00

“As seen on Oprah” So proclaims James Arthur Ray’s website. When exactly did this become a credential for serious consideration? For those of you less familiar with the self-help guru that trademarked the term Harmonic Wealth™, it was at his $10,000 per person “Spiritual Warrior” retreat that three people died in a sweat lodge. Several others were critically injured.

Mr. Ray states that he wants to, “assist you in everything from setting and achieving your goals to building the million-dollar lifestyle you deserve.” I am a stickler for credentials and was curious about Mr. Ray’s other-than-Oprah qualifications. I learned that in addition to studying Business and Human Behavior in college he had read extensively in History and Psychology. Prior to establishing to his personal development career, Mr. Ray was a sales manager for AT&T where he was commended for five consecutive years. In addition he was commissioned for the establishment and management of a telemarketing venture at AT&T. He received honors for this role.

Somewhere along the line, Mr. Ray missed the flashcard demonstrating “material” as the antonym for “spiritual.” While I mourn the tragic and senseless loss, I wonder what its is about our culture that makes us willing to pay $10,000 to a telecommunications salesman to attain spiritual growth?

Granted, I am a skeptic. I would gladly forgo bedside manner in exchange for a degree from Johns Hopkins any day of the week. But I also believe in God and find revolting those hucksters and charlatans who use the ubiquitous catchall of “spirituality” to profit from and consecrate our own insatiable desire for more. Native American groups, deeply saddened by the recent tragedy are also incensed, citing the lack of respect and the ignorance demonstrated when self-proclaimed experts appropriate tribal traditions that are specific in protocol and complexity.

The result of a quest for spiritual growth can produce a variety of outcomes. Last week I went to the Kandinsky retrospective at the Guggenheim. His practice was a dedicated search for a higher consciousness. It was grounded in the emotional and visceral responses that result from the interplay of color, form and geometry. He opened up abstraction. His prodigious project presaged, informed and enhanced the aesthetic practice and experience of others for decades. It continues to do so.

As a person who once woke each day wanting to die, I have found that, with the exception of Paris, the most satisfaction comes from those endeavors that don’t necessarily cost $10,000 and don’t qualify themselves with guarantees. My own satisfaction and growth has resulted from:

The search: hard work consistently practiced over a long period of time - it’s an inside job

The credentials: The advice and counsel of one more educated and experienced than myself. Remaining willing to accept their point of view, criticism and support

The giving: developing my own credentials that I can share only when invited (this is really hard)

The messiness: The living of life with all of its love, pain, joy and vulnerability (this is also very hard)

Finally

The NO: Not getting everything I want, and not always getting to know the reason why

My friend Cindy has repeatedly said, “What you came here looking for, you came here with.” I believe this but I doubt that this would get any play on Oprah. Perhaps I should talk to that Shaman wearing the sandwich board. He’s outside the donut shop on 14^th & 3^rd.

An exhibition featuring Pratt MFA candidates

2009-10-19T20:51:00.008-05:00

"Autobiography" oil and graphite on panel, Sioban Lombardi, 2009

Speaking to a Kitchen Mouse

October 18-28, 2009

Steuben Galleries South and West

Pratt Institute

200 Willoughby Ave.

Brooklyn, New York

At the Still Point of the Turning World: Ree Morton at the Drawing Center

2009-10-13T21:39:00.009-05:00

Ree Morton, Untitled (Repetition Series), 1970. Pencil on paper, 14 x 10 inches. Estate of Ree Morton, Courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York and Annemarie Verna Galerie, Zürich.

Ree Morton: At the Still Point of the Turning World currently on view at The Drawing Center, offers a glimpse into the drawing practice of the late artist better known for her influential sculpture and installations.
Though sculpture is included in the exhibition, one might fail to notice the larger, three-dimensional forms. Those who do might experience a measure of irritation over these work’s more heavy-handed intrusion into the lyrical, modest and highly personal drawings that span the length of the artist’s all-too-short career.
Made more than 30 years ago, Morton’s work is unusually refreshing and current, lacking the “looking for Mr. Goodbar” aesthetic that dates the work of some of her feminist contemporaries. Perhaps this is due to the fact that Morton had already exorcised much of the baggage associated with feminist art of the 1970’s. Having married, raised children and then divorced in order to completely engage in her art making practice, Morton was able to incorporate these experiences into the broader pool of dream, spontaneity, myth and poetry.
In addition, Morton demonstrated an ease and faculty with materials at hand, freeing her from any sort of material carbon dating and allowing her obviously rich imagination to roam freely through her work. In works such as her series of Untitled Line Drawings, 1970, one is reminded that a static line on paper can demonstrate tension, temperament, movement and space. Though heavily influenced by the drawings of Eva Hesse, Morton’s drawings possess a far more organic and ephemeral presence than structural one.
Morton’s line quality and spare execution reveal with simplicity and candor, the benefit of making drawings discreet from preparatory practice and an artist’s principal project. Her works also fortify the notion that the stuff of inspiration is not limited to spectacle and conflict, but can still germinate within the antiquated realms of music, nature, myth, literature and dreams.

carol jean

2009-10-05T01:00:00.003-05:00

Five years ago today my mother died. The offending event, a massive stroke, came quite unexpectedly. Her death was one of a handful of seminal events in my life and bookended her period of mourning following the death of my father in 2001. I believe that her grief could only be relieved by the companionship of someone she loved, lived with, raised a family with and battled for more than fifty years. I do believe that they are together today.

Time alone in my studio facilitates reflection, and I have been thinking about her a lot lately. I think about the night before she died, and how I had planned to stay with her at the hospital. She was in hospice care, and with the decline of her brain function, her breathing became a loud, labored rasp followed by a wailing inhalation kicked into action by oxygen and CO2 levels. It’s called Cheyne-Stokes respiration. She was unconscious and in no pain, but the sound was unbearable and at about midnight, I had to go home. She died very early the following morning. This is a deep regret. I’m sorry I left you alone Mama.

What little there is that is remarkable about me is at least fifty percent due to my mother. As a young woman, and throughout her life, she was a great beauty. (My sister looks so much like her!) She had wanted to be a cartographer or stage set designer, but as with so many young women of her generation, the opportunities presented to her were nursing or teaching and she chose the former. She never lost her interest in the Arts and in her fifties returned to college to get her degree in the Humanities.

Though much of her adult life was afflicted by the same demon that is a constant companion to myself and several family members, she passed on her visual acumen, her sense of style, and the understanding of color, line, shape and proportion that affords me attendance at one of the finest art institutions in the United States. In addition, thanks to her, my sister and I are both excellent cooks.

Now nearly fifty myself, almost three quarters of the way through Graduate School and with the 20/20 vision of hindsight, I recognize all that I inherited from her. In May, when (God willing) I walk across the stage at Radio City Music Hall and collect my Master’s Degree, I can celebrate that this is indeed the stage set she designed. Please take a bow Carol Jean. With all my love and thanks.

sloan

2009-09-29T01:37:00.017-05:00

Sloan is another member of the cadre of girlfriends I began to introduce on May 12. Sloan is a dear friend and she is also my cousin, the fifth of my beloved Aunt Grace’s six daughters. Our mutual awareness seems to coincide with her family’s move from South Shore to the North Shore. I caught her wedding bouquet and it worked. (Or should I say, she handed me her wedding bouquet.) It still worked.

Sloan is beautiful, but it is an unusual beauty and always has been. So unusual in fact, that as a child, her siblings managed to convince both she and the neighbors that Sloan was an adopted Vietnamese war orphan. Her beauty attracts equally unusual admirers. There was that interesting chap than unzipped and placed a particular part of his anatomy on her shoulder on the 151. And I vaguely recall a story about the French TA she dated in college. I believe that relationship cooled when he showed up for a game of Squash wearing a Speedo.

Setting aside the funny anecdotes, Sloan’s beauty is surpassed only by her kindness and compassion. She freely embraces the deeply spiritual component of her character, spending time away from family and a successful career to teach catechism to the intellectually challenged.

I love to talk to Sloan about life, love, God, family, books and art; also fashion, food, Paris and Argentinean Polo players. We had the privilege of seeing Merce Cunningham dance in 1984. This event served to enhance the Cadre’s ritual of throwing offbeat dancing into the party mix at only a moment’s notice.

Together we invented the cheeseburger diet, sweater syndrome and a million other crazy notions. I am extremely lucky that I get to share the bonds of friendship and family with Sloan and I look forward to doing so well into our dotage.

Happy Birthday Darling! Just remember to leave your shoes near the front door so that my parents know you’re here.

jennifer bisbing

2009-09-22T04:12:00.010-05:00

Chicago photographer Jennifer Bisbing’s personal work exists in response to the ultimate existentiality of being a human within landscape and social construct. Existing in those obscure places between dream, memory, consciousness and truth, her contemplative rural landscapes suggest both longing and nostalgia.

In contrast, Jennifer’s urban encounters are, like the city itself, much less forgiving. Still, they too emphasize the isolation of one’s existence, albeit in the hard steel and concrete framework that abets our anonymity. Her photos of Gary, Indiana, manage to maintain an exquisite aesthetic while documenting the vestiges of the Modernist failure that is that city’s legacy.

Jennifer is talented portrait photographer. Her project Wicker Women has been documenting women living and working in the Chicago neighborhood of Wicker Park. While the face of this population has certainly changed in the 15 years since I worked there, Wicker Park demonstrates the lively, ever-evolving character of Chicago’s neighborhoods. In addition, all proceeds from the portrait sittings will benefit CAWC (Connections for Abused Women and their Children). This yearlong project will culminate with an exhibition benefit at Chrome Gallery, 1462 1/2 N. Milwaukee Ave., Chicago, on October 10, 2009. Please help support this important organization and celebrate Jennifer’s impressive and dedicated work on its behalf. Complete information about the event is available on the Wicker Women Blog site accessible on my Blog list.

salad days

2009-09-21T07:05:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was a cloudless and temperate late-summer day in Brooklyn - a perfect day for a street fair. I’ve now lived here for just over a year, and my love for this Borough continues to grow. Prior to 2008, I imagined it as the neglected, illegitimate sibling of a spoiled and privileged Manhattan. Though one might consider its history noteworthy only for the Bridge, the Dodgers and Coney Island, Brooklyn has a rich and storied heritage. To me, it felt immediately familiar.

Archeological evidence demonstrates that the Native American Lenape people populated this area as long as 12,000 years ago. In 1646 the village of Breuckelen (Brooklyn) was chartered by the Dutch West India Company. Though the approximately 2.5 million residents remain largely working class, Brooklyn is also home to a roster of artists, musicians, writers and scholars too large to individually name. In fact, I have heard that Brooklyn boasts more Guggenheim Fellows than any other municipality. It is also responsible for the Teddy Bear, the Roller Coaster, Twizzlers™ and single-packet sugar.

As with any large city, Brooklyn has its share of problems. Yet the culturally diverse residents genuinely appear to love and share their community. The population represents the largest number of people from every cultural, ethnic, and racial background, thus making Brooklyn more like a salad bowl than the proverbial melting pot. Each unique flavor adds to the spice and vitality of the community. Then too, gentrification appears to have been kinder here.

With so much malice and divisiveness occurring in the country today, Brooklyn seems a better angel of the United States’ nature. I wish everyone could experience its magic.

You can have your Tea Parties – I’ll go Brooklyn!

the death of painting, and the death of painting

2009-09-11T08:57:00.003-05:00

I find myself pondering this statement-turned-question often. I also find myself saying, “I am just a painter.”

Certainly, as a documentary or didactic vehicle, painting’s usefulness was replaced long ago by the speed and accuracy of the photograph. Yet, like classical painting, photography cannot always escape the actuality of the subject matter captured.

Video, and sometimes performance, can provoke profound emotional, visceral and intellectual experiences. Video in particular, can compete with and satisfy the desire created by the insistent mass-media culture in which we exist. Yet the experience of video and performance is often ephemeral. For those seeking beauty, the methods can render the viewer bereft. A return viewing may offer nothing to enhance the experience.

Painting has the alchemy and the voodoo. Representational or abstract, painting can effect those same intense experiences. It has done so for thousands of years, with the same humble material, pigment suspended in liquid. The stuff, applied with intuition and practice, is bolstered conversely by imagination and lived experience.

The alchemy is often the hook that turns a visual into a painter. It is a heady, sensuous mixture of plasticity and color. It incorporates smell, movement and texture. It is the satisfaction derived from transforming the infinite into the particular and the pleasure of making something from nothing. For the painter, the alchemy is the love potion.

The voodoo is the realization. Rembrandt never met the Prodigal Son, yet he painted his return with acute insight and sensitivity. When I saw the work, I recalled every grace granted and found myself crying in the middle of the Hermitage.

In contrast, the modest, abstract paintings of Raoul De Keyser (currently on exhibit at David Zwirner) negotiate the gap between object and space and explore the tension amid color and form. While they talk about their paint, these paintings also materialize an aesthetic very different than the jam-packed, monumental canvases symptomatic of a recent, more conspicuous time.

In its innumerable forms, painting remains relevant. Perhaps it’s wise. It has the capacity to simultaneously reinvent and reflect upon itself.

Last night I visited Chelsea for the opening of the Fall Season. There was a lot to take in. I encountered and admired examples of those other forms, but I sought and contemplated the paintings. Dead? At least for the painters, not yet.

(photo: the floor in my colleague Russell Tyler’s studio)

The Fall Season Commences!

2009-09-10T00:22:00.000-05:00

new digs

2009-08-24T07:12:00.003-05:00

Until a year ago, I had lived at the same address for twenty years. In fact, though well travelled, I’d lived in the same state for forty-eight years. I am now in my fourth Brooklyn domicile and have also moved into a new studio. Most of my recent moves have been à pied, and though one was a distance of only eight floors, each move has meant packing and unpacking my possessions. I hate moving.

Fall has always been the start season for me. This sense is only amplified by my current academic situation. With one week left before classes commence, my literal and intellectual sketchbooks are jammed with ideas for new work. I am not, however, making plans. I regret the plans that didn’t come to fruition over the summer. Life, circumstance and of course current economics have a way of affecting my designs. I once observed that a worried friend was so busy looking for the miraculous, that she was missing the spectacular. I should follow my own advice. One shouldn’t plan too much.

So, with the start of this year, my only plan is to embrace what comes my direction, concentrate on the work in front of me, and try to notice the little spectaculars that occur in the now.

Who knows where I’ll be a year from now.

josh garrett

2009-08-20T07:38:00.002-05:00

Chicago artist and musician Josh Garrett consistently seeks perfection in his work and in the world around him. He does so with the conviction that ultimately, perfection is the sole purview of God. Josh’s work represents his earnest effort to understand God’s will in his life.

His current body of work, Providence I, is executed in his preferred materials of pigment, fire and metal. It addresses the age-old conflict between God’s will and man’s will, and does so with minimal description or narrative. Despite his emblematic iconography and the aggression implied by the materials he employs, the works are elegant and highly personal.

Josh’s work is currently on exhibit at Ossia Fine Art Space, 410 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago. The exhibit runs through September 25, 2009.

symbols

2009-08-08T15:56:00.015-05:00

The twentieth-century artist who uses symbols is alienated because the system of symbols is a private one. After you have dealt with the symbols you are still private, you are still lonely, because you are not sure anyone will understand it except yourself. The ransom of privacy is that you are alone.

(Louise Bourgeois (b. 1911), U.S. sculptor. As quoted in Lives and Works, by Lynn F. Miller and Sally S. Swenson (1981).)

I recently viewed the film Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress and the Tangerine. The film was a thought provoking examination of the life and work of the 97-year-old artist, who continues to inspire artists and feminists, despite her own existence within and separate from almost every art movement since the mid-twentieth century. Knowledge about the work and practice of any such artist often prompts me to reexamine my own approach.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a symbol as a thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract. I have always incorporated symbols in my work. Those used are highly personal, persistent images the reoccur in my conscious and to which I assign meaning. Thus, my paintings reflect an attempt to visually organize thought using personal symbol and reference. It is through a visual vernacular that I discern, understand and communicate.

What I have only recently begun to understand is why I articulate them void of narrative or environment. I am a firm believer that we cannot escape the history in which we exist. Thus I returned to the visual source material I encountered as a child in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and that continues to attract my attention – print advertisement.

It is clear to me that I respond to any visual media that conveys meaning with a minimum of descriptive text. My mother, who is also responsible for any creative genetics I have inherited, was a magazine hoarder. I was a loner who spent long hours paging though magazines, returning over and over again to images that attracted me. Acting on this theory, I began investigating print advertisements of the aforementioned period. What I discovered seemed to confirm my theory and startled me with its precision.

Above, I have taken two print advertisements from the 1960’s, removed the text and compared them to my painting Toy Plane, Oil on Linen, 2007. While I have no recollection of these images, the visual relationship seems significant.

There are two things I have learned from this. I can confirm, at least for myself, that early visual information continues to inform my work. In addition, and most important, is the fact that the dialogues, real or fictional, I have with other artists, and the investigations they provoke, are clearly the impetus for a heightened awareness of my practice. I remain grateful for these conversations. Incidentally, if you have not already seen this film, I highly recommend it. The scene discussing her father and the tangerine will rip your heart out. Ms. Bourgeois is clearly a force of nature.

Veronika Szkudlarek

2009-08-04T00:55:00.005-05:00

My previous post reviewed the thought provoking drama Ruined, by Lynn Nottage. I had the privilege of attending this performance with fellow painter, Veronika Szkudlarek. As there are no accidents, Veronika’s insight into the plight of African women was invaluable.

Informed by extensive travels throughout Africa, the Mid-East, Europe and North America, Veronika addresses the ignorance and cruelty of war. Through direct observation of its methods, its structure and its victims, she plants herself firmly in the center as an artist existing within and relevant to a global community.

Veronika’s mural for the Mother Theresa Missionaries of Charity orphanage in Kigali, Rwanda brought her into direct contact with the more than one- hundred women and children, survivors of the Rwandan Genocide, that are residents. It also facilitated conversations with government officials intent on building sustainable living conditions and meaningful lives for the victims of the atrocity.

Veronika’s work doesn’t depict images of the horrors of war, but rather the vestiges of those horrors. It is as though her paintings themselves weep, with surfaces of lachrymose paint, bleeding image into ground. This sensitive marriage of palette, medium and subject engenders the essentially hopeful role of the artist, as if stating that there is another way.

Veronika’s work is included at the upcoming exhibition "Skin Deep" at Kips Gallery, 511 West 25th Street, New York, NY, August 18 through September 1, 2009.

Ruined

2009-08-03T07:48:00.008-05:00

The personal compromises and self-delusions a group of Congolese brothel women are willing to employ to guarantee survival in the face of atrocity and genocide is the core theme of Lynn Nottage’s 2009 Pulitzer Prize winning drama Ruined, produced by the Manhattan Theater Club, and being performed at Stage I at the Manhattan City Center. The play is co-produced by the Goodman Theater in Chicago where it premiered in 2008.

The Manhattan Theater Club, one of the nation’s premiere not-for-profit theater producers, has provided theatergoers with contemporary dramas, musicals and comedies since its inception in 1971. The Club incorporates three theater venues: on Broadway, The Samuel J. Friedman Theater (formerly the Biltmore Theater;) and Stage I and Sage II Theatres off-Broadway at the Manhattan City Center. Ruined is the sixth Pulitzer Prize winning Drama the club has produced.

Travels to the refuge camps of Uganda, and the 1939 work Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht inform Nottage’s work. Initially, Nottage planned an adaptation of Brecht’s play, but her own experience interviewing Congolese women in Rwandan refugee camps prompted her own work. Unlike Brecht, the Brooklyn born, Cornell/Yale educated Nottage seeks to evoke an emotional response from the audience, rather than (in the case of Brecht) an intellectual one. “I believe in engaging people emotionally, because I think they react more out of emotion” than when they are “preached to, told how to feel. It was important that this not become a documentary, or agitprop”.[1] Nottage’s plays frequently pivot on the experience of women, and here, the brutalities they have suffered civil war-torn Africa. Indeed the title references women, who have experienced rape, sexual abuse and mutilation so brutal that that they are ruined physically, emotionally and culturally.

The play opens in the barroom of Mama Nadi’s brothel with Christian, a local customer and “supplier” delivering goods to Mama Nadi (the July 28^th performance featured understudy Jamie Lincoln Smith in the role of Simon.) Along with cigarettes, liquor and various sundries, Simon, a tea-totaller, supplies fresh women for the brothel. On this particular visit, he delivers Salima (Quincy Tyler Bernstein), a simple minded woman who has been rejected by her family and village as the result of her kidnapping and subsequent servicing of a band of rebels in the bush, and Sophie (Condola Rashad), a girl of eighteen, who has been ruined. The flamboyant, emotionally detached Mama Nadi (Portia) at first refuses to take on Sophie – it’s bad for business - but agrees after Simon begs, praises Sophie’s talent for song and reveals that Sophie is his niece. He also bribes Mama Nadi with Belgian chocolates.

It is clear from the get-go that Mama Nadi plays both sides of the civil war fence and is interested in one thing, self-preservation. Mama Nadi has convinced herself and almost convinces the audience, that her prostitution of these women provides safe haven from the indecencies and rejection that they have already suffered. In addition, her ownership of the brothel represents her independence, from the brutalities of war and from Simon’s genuine romantic advances.

As the drama progresses the warring factions draw nearer the brothel and tensions mount. Christian begins drinking, the customers become more raucous. In addition, the audience gradually learns the stories of both the now pregnant Salima and another prostitute, Josephina (Victoire Charles), a tribal Chief’s daughter who has been dehumanized by similar atrocities as well as rejected from her village. Given her emotional simplicity, Salima’s story is particularly heartbreaking. Although the title references her, we never do hear Sophie’s story. What the audience begins to understand is that all of these women are the victims of Congolese Civil War. In the end, each, even the apparently hard-hearted, mercenary Mama Nadi, though damaged, have not been destroyed by the conflict. It is their courage that enables their survival.

Additional characters, all male, include rebel leader Jerome Kisimbe (Chris Chalk); Commander Osembenga (Kevin Mambo); mercenary Mr. Harari (Tim Mardirosian); and Salima’s repentant husband Pascal (Ron McBee).

In a drama, where men could easily be seen as only as monstrous perpetrators of evil and women as spiritless victims, Director Kate Whoriskey, effectively draws out the subtle personality traits of each of the characters. She evokes sympathy and distain for almost all involved. Having previously directed another of Nottage’s works, Intimate Apparel, Whoriskey carefully balances the push-pull, intense emotions that the dramatist has penned. Here, almost everyone is a victim, either of the atrocities of war, or the Western Colonialism that left countries such as the Congo bereft.

Stand out performances culled by Whoriskey include the deceptively complex Salima, enacted by the aforementioned Quincy Tyler Bernstein; the delusional Mama Nadi, flamboyantly portrayed by Portia; and the sympathetic, sweetly voiced, yet spirited, Sophie as rendered by New York newcomer Condola Rashad. Rashad premièred the role at the Goodman Theater. Among the men, Jaime Lincoln Smith as Simon, reveals helplessness and fear in the face of the anticipated horrors. Initially, it was difficult to hear and understand Smith as Simon. But he quickly recovered his voice either as the result of his own confidence or an adjustment in the sound system. Indeed, despite the efforts of dialect coach Charlotte Fleck, all of the actors seemed, at times, to struggle with maintaining their accent. Of final note is Kevin Mambo’s Commander Osembenga, the character most closely identified with the senselessness and evil of war, and the ego and bravado necessary to justify its leadership and proliferation.

The set, designed by Derek McLane, transitions between the barroom and the shared living quarters of Salima, Josephina and Sophie. Though it incorporates cheerful local color, it still conveys the poverty of the situation and the isolation within the density of the surrounding rain forest. Costumes designed by Paul Tazewell suggest the same local color while reflecting the rag-tag collection of characters living at Mama Nadi’s. Finally, the entire production is punctuated by music composed by Dominic Kanza with lyrics written by Nottage. Performed by Congolese guitarist Simon Shabantu Kashama and sung by members of the cast, the music transitions the narrative, and reflects the tradition of oral history and story telling indigenous to many African countries.

Ruined is a powerful drama that evokes complex emotions regarding the nature of survival, the power of evil, the evil of power and the uselessness of cultural judgments cast upon those incapable of defending themselves. What Lynn Nottage has so successfully written and the Manhattan Theater Club so powerfully staged is the experienced collapse and inevitable triumph of the human spirit in the face unimaginable evil. With so many spectacles, theatrical interpretations of animated feature films, and resuscitations of past productions populating the current theater scene in New York, it is edifying to leave a play a little sadder, a little more informed, and certainly asking a lot more questions.

[1] New York Times By Celia McGee, “Approaching Brecht, by Way of Africa,” New York Times: January 21, 2009,

Good-Bye Dear Freak

2009-08-01T09:22:00.008-05:00

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Council announced plans this week for the revitalization and redevelopment of Coney Island. The rejuvenation would include a new amusement park, luxury hotels, restaurants, retail stores, movie theaters and a new roller coaster. And so continues the homogenization of New York, and the eradication of that which made it unique.

Coney Island should be left alone.

I am not one for nostalgia. People tend to romanticize the past, just as they romanticize country life, their youth, family relationships, and Christmas. The nostalgic images we conjure of the past are often what we wish something had been. There is little today that reflects Coney Island’s heyday. In fact, Coney Island makes people uncomfortable, it is one of the United States’ last authentic freak shows. It is its wonderful freakishness that makes it attractive to those who don’t mind being uncomfortable and who don't mind seeing a part of our culture as it really is.

Although Mayor Bloomberg states that the plan will restore Coney Island to its grander days, he is indeed creating a simulacrum: a prepackaged, sterile and codified reproduction of something that never existed in the first place. What will be missing from Coney Island are the derelicts, carnies, and thousands of average families who, via subway, haul their beach chairs and sunscreen there each summer weekend. I find it difficult to imagine the Mermaid Parade, the hot dog eating contest, and the headless woman on view in a glass enclosed entertainment environment. Coney Island may be seedy, but its sleaze is out in the open for everyone to see and recognize. I will miss it.

d. stine

2009-07-29T08:16:00.007-05:00

I am neither a music nor literary critic, and I have seen very little of his visual output, but I have been informed by the extremely informed, that musically, Chicago composer, poet and artist d. Stine is a talent dedicated to his pursuit of the craft. Recently, he has been working within the construct of The Banana Twins on noise and ambient compositions. The works are a requirement each time I need to settle myself into the studio. Independently, a series of harmonica compositions he created for the film The Brave and the Kind evoke the same melancholy reflection I experience looking down an abandoned stretch of railroad tracks on a humid August day.

In addition, d. Stine has just published his third volume of poetry, Abacus, following previous works, Directional Forensics and Litmus. The implication of these titles is the synchronic counting, measuring, and testing apparatuses symptomatic of Post Modernism. My sense here however, is that d. Stine is a cultural skeptic cautiously dipping his toe in a broader pool of experience. It is fortifying to watch.

I am consistently surprised at what I learn about myself when meeting other artists. Part of it is learning about your own limitations. Poetry and music, necessary to my own art production, are art forms I am incapable of producing. I have tremendous respect for those who, as in this case, do it well. The other aspect is discovering hidden aspects of your own personality. I was indeed surprised by the discovery that, I do, after all, possess a maternal instinct.