SCAD

Last year I was accepted to SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design). I didn't go, but was glad to have the chance for my portfolio to be reviewed and to see if art was a viable option for me. I submitted some traditional drawings - portraits - and then some more abstract drawings and paintings. I decided to push the envelope a little and submit these drawings too. I feel emboldened by their acceptance. I feel that if I pursue my inclinations and impulses in the art-making process - whether professionally or not - there will be someone who can track with that process. You might be surprised at a couple, but here goes....

Leave a comment if you'd like to see the rest of the portfolio.

A Shift

Am I making an ideological and aesthetic shift away from Expressionism? Current preferences:

                                 

Silence

In college (#3) I helped edit a journal. The theme was 'silence'. All contributors gathered together to perform various writing exercises, one of which was to discuss the nature of silence. I made the point that there is no such thing as true silence.

Of course this was famously stated and experimented on by the composer John Cage. He said (in his book called Silence):

                                There is no
such thing as silence. Something is al-
ways happening that makes a sound.
No one can have an idea
once he starts really listening.
It's very simple but extra-urgent
The Lord knows whether or not
the next

He believed in the (he might have hated this phraseology) musicality of sound - the idea that sounds in themselves are deeply active, interesting and pleasing. There's no need to order them or duplicate them as such. They don't need to personify or [snuff break] mean something. Sounds can just be sounds. And it is okay for sounds to overtake what we would like to believe is silence.

His (in)famous illustration is in his piece 4'33'' ( four minutes, thirty-three seconds) where the pianist, or orchestra members, approaches their instrument but plays nothing. The conductor conducts three movements of varying lengths of silence. The music is the concert hall, whatever ambient sounds arise. (Watch a YouTube performance: there's a strange mirror-in-mirror effect. People pay to hear instrumentalists not play, pay to hear each other hold in coughs - being and not being part of the music.)

For some reason this topic, as I find out now and may at one time have known, is not unrelated to the fact that I think of canvases painted white. Robert Rauschenberg, a year earlier than 4'33'', painted White Paintings. He wrote of them in a letter that they deal "with the suspense, excitement and body of an organic silence, the restriction and freedom of absence..." Among other complex ideas, they surpassed the limits of two-dimensionality and pigmentation to create a space-receptacle for shadow, dust, life-noise. Cage and Rauschenberg became well acquainted with each other and shared ideas and influences that go deep. But this entry is long already.... I'll be quiet now.

                              

Seamus Heaney

Maybe it's because I was putting in my last few hours as a temp in the Binghamton University paint and masonry department (dorm halls, not fine art) and hanging out with Janell that I didn't hear that Seamus Heaney died on August 30th, 2013. I'm just finding out today after reading it HERE.

Directly after having a cavity filled in October of 2002, I drove to Cambridge, Mass to hear the poet read in a cozy lecture hall, next to a kind woman, at Harvard. "He was the author of over 20 volumes of poetry and criticism, and edited several widely used anthologies. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 'for works of lyrical beauty and ethical depth, which exalt everyday miracles and the living past.' Heaney taught at Harvard University (1985-2006) and served as the Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-1994)."

His poems should be heard. They are dense with sound, imagery and inflection. They are earthy and Irish. When he read, each sound filled his mouth fully - long enough to make the impression last. I didn't know what to make of him as a man. I didn't linger to fawn or get an autograph. He reminded me of Robert Bly whom I had met a few times and didn't care for - though what I read as haughtiness may just have been shyness. But his poetry kept me spellbound.

To this day I'm only really familiar with his verse translation of Beowulf, but when a few dollars roll in I will buy a used copy of a slim volume to patch the cracks of my days.

Image and quotation from The Poetry Foundation

Entertaining

Last night Janell and I were invited to dinner. The hosts were a former professor of hers and his girlfriend, with whom we are becoming friends. (They are also an inter-racial couple with a... substantial age difference!)

 Each of the five courses were comprised of local (where possible) and organic foods. Wine accompanied the first three, tea the fourth, and a fine scotch for the final. Between courses, dishes were whisked away, washed and reset. Adjustments, such as a new bowl of soup sans lump crab to accommodate my failure to notify them that Janell has a shell fish allergy, were made seamlessly and artfully. A menu was placed beside each plate for reference and conversation:

They were such gracious hosts. The conversation was intelligent and the food superb. It reminded me of how I want to eat, how I want to order things in my life (especially my kitchen), and how I want to entertain guests.