The DAPHNESAINTSEBASTIAN series -Kavalos,2001

Yes...

content subject intent

content subject intent

content subject intent

content subject intent

content subject intent

content subject intent

content subject intent

content subject intent

content subject intent

Father forgive them, they know not what they do

today shall thou be with me in Paradise

Woman, behold thy Son; Son behold thy Mother

I thirst

into thy hands i commend my spirit

it is finished

Sometimes,behind the creative process...

Sometimes,behind the creative process...

The lines are cast and the nets are set and waiting.
Now the tunnies come, slipping through the moonlit water.

Sometimes,behind the creative process...

I have two sicknesses, Love
And Poverty. Poverty
I can stand, but the fever
Of Love is unbearable.

Sometimes,behind the creative process...

Ok.I tried to keep my mouth shut

A little aside.

In starting this “blog” I’ve been learning by looking and searching through other sites.
Finding myself traversing various artists sites of their recent artwork.
Links upon links with site names regrettably as bad as mine.
All are young artists it seems.
Under-grads in most cases I suspect.
Students at various NYC art schools.
Seemingly serious.
Most, apparently passionate about what they do.

Just having a professional looking site as an undergrad is impressive to me.
Wait.
They teach that now right? Part of the BFA curriculum?

But...

Dear god has every one of them taken the same pill or something? Studied with the same person?
Where does this penchant for random interior decorative style of “sculpture” or "site pieces" come from? Didn't that die around the 90's?
I missed something again didn't I?

Is it a combo of Judy Pfaff (pure decorator) or
Jessica Stockholder (much better but I keep thinking why doesn’t she just make paintings and cut the crap of proscenium stage,one view point object-hood) or is it the trendy embrace of this immature style by the “New Museum” that's led to this regrettable parody of change?
So very provocative.
So very challenging.
Artwork that has no meaning beyond the "navel contemplating" boroughs of Manhattan as envisioned by so many magazines and "reality shows".
"Put this here it looks right”. "Place this in reference to it to give it visual weight", meaning.
A "visual sentence".

To make non-objective sculpture with random yet recognizable objects is usually easy and free of any serious challenges.
There are no criteria of success or failure.
Anything works and nothing can truly fail.
Where is the mastery-the challenge-the defeat of a failed expression?
Instead of "do something"."Do something to it"... it's "arrange something". "Arrange something with it"...

And the drawings...

Does everyone think they can continue to scribble into their young adulthood?
Is this feigned innocence or pure in-ability? Is an unsteady hand evidence of sincerity?
Like Klee?
Dubuffet?
No I’m afraid their way to challenging to emulate.
No, more like a combo of Haring and Basquiat run through a "Cuisine-art".A desperate attempt to bring back the NYC of the late 70's and early 80's as imagined by the present downtown art students.
Wherever they are. The "mark-making" these sites feature is about as sincere, as felt as a paint your own ceramics shop in a Jersey strip mall.
Bust of Elvis anyone? Wait a minute...what could I put next to it?

It’s as if the style-yes, it's a major one- is to make whatever your drawing look as if it were done with a worn down crayon on extremely lumpy paper.
Jumpy.
Nervy.
Felt.
The angst of late Guston or the look of impending doom of Wiemar Germany.
However-
Here and now - The angst acquired.The marks accordingly from somewhere else.

Some other else.

Maybe next time painting

The following thought provoking statements
appeared over the last few months
on a Methodist church's events board that
I pass twice daily on my commute to Princeton.

This is the level of intellectual discourse
the Christians are using to bring one to God.
Plain, direct, witty and "bite sized".

Spectacular. Seriously.
You know why? Because I remembered each one
over those many months.

Just like this one...

The true artist Helps the World
by Revealing Mystic Truths.
Bruce Nauman

God does not grade on the curve
He grades on the cross.

Take God out of good
and it equals
zero.

God answers
Knee mail.

So it's Friday and I'm watching Fritz Lang's masterpiece-"Metropolis" twice today with the Art History Classes...And getting paid. Sometimes life is more then good. Below a few more drawings
in honor of Friday. Yes?!

Got home early today
took the opportunity to hug this beautiful rain and
rain and wind.
I live a few blocks from the shore and
those who know me are aware
I'm always dressed for foul weather.
Don't go to the beach in summer
people
must share
Winter,
bad weather
it's mine

Walked to the beach
an alley between a beach club and a new Versailles
private, overgrown
emerged into a sheet
of rain and spray
carried
by a wind that I thought
by then
had already soaked me-
Walked tentatively down to the waters edge
slippery
out of shape
to the jetty
the farthest point out
pretended,
played,
dreamed I
fell
into the wild notion of being
in and on the waves-
wetting my boots-
drenched
No horizon
no
no
fixed resting point
sense of where.
just down in
deep
blinded
fear
delicious

To turn around would kill it
the thrill
The smell of salty water
decay
that depth of imagine.

Go home
slowly
somehow
tired
wet
really lonely
then remembered
Homer nailed it.

Sleep Cycle

by Dean Young

We cannot push ourselves away

from this quiet, even in our sprees

of inattention, the departing passengers

stubbing out their smokes, arrivees in tears,

lots of cellophane, the rumpus over parking.

Wind scrapes leaves across the road,

first flashes of snow, it is dark then

it’s really dark. Forgive me for not

writing for so long, I’ve been

right beside you, one of the vaguer

divinities blocking your way with its need

to confess all its botched attempts at love,

what started the whole mess. I love this place,

its absurd use of balustrade, the chairs

that dig into the spine, motorcyclists

propping their drunk girlfriends in the sun,

men playing timed chess with themselves,

the guarantees and warnings that entice us

to the brink of what they warn about.

But we can do no more than pass through

these rooms and their sudden chills

where once a plea was entered almost

unintentionally that seemed at last

to reveal ourselves to ourselves,

immaculate, bereft, deserving to be found.

In the Meantime

by Lisa Olstein

What seemed a mystery was

in fact a choice. Insert bird for sorrow.

What seemed a memory was in fact

a dividing line. Insert bird for wind.

Insert wind for departure when everyone is

standing still. Insert three mountains

burning and in three valleys a signal seer

seeing a distant light and a signal bearer

sprinting to a far-off bell. What seemed

a promise was in fact a sigh.

What seemed a hot wind, a not quite enough,

a forgive me, it has flown away, is in fact.

In the meantime we paint the floors

red. We stroke the sound of certain names

into a fine floss that drifts across our teeth.

We stay in the room we share and listen

all night to what drifts through the window—

dog growl, owl call, a fleet of mosquitoes

setting sail, and down the road,

the swish of tomorrow’s donkey-threshed grain.

"Here’s the new art of the twenty-first century: the art of curating, the art of plucking all the good stuff from a superabundance of crap… Why should you watch something that’s not great?"

— Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Couple of days ago I finally moved aside a painting I had been working on for many weeks
To stretch and prime a new canvas. It’s still probably not done.Re-hung it so I could keep an eye on it as I move into the new one.
The new one.
Nice,
White clean square. About 6ftx 6ft.
Just a few layers of flat house paint.
Got a nice even surface ready to begin work in the next few days.

The process was so satisfying.
I’ve been struggling with so many emotions recently that I was unaware through most of the priming how calm I had become.
Just completely satisfied.
Sated.
How old all this is.
How many times has this been done.
By others.
By me.
So essential. So simple.
looking and seeing everything .
Everything.
I am so lost in so many ways right now.
Off balance.
Personal. Professional. So feeling challenged in the day to day.
Bored too.
But this.
This ancient, essential thing that
I as a painter do
got me through.
I felt elated.
So very alive…and ready.
It’s so easy to forget this .This what in what painters all know.
Before the first mark
Bringing chaos to that field
You dwell in the ecstasy of Titian, Dove...
Of the potential.
Nothing else can ever equal that moment of anticipation.
Beginning. Again.

O restless, caressing eyes,
You say a certain special thing.
Pleasure and light love sit there,
And sensuousness sits between.

"Things only get harder to articulate when the religious meanings come into focus, and it begins to appear that the studio work- the labor - really is about redemption. In my experience it is rarely apposite to talk directly with an artist about the underlying spiritual meaning of his or her work. For any number of reasons, religion is no longer an easy subject, and many artists do not link it directly with themselves or their work. The buried spiritual content of modern and postmodern art may be the great unexplored subject in contemporary art history."

"The suspension of such colours in the egg medium and laid over a gesso or gilt-gesso ground,
allowed the light to pass through the materials and be reflected into the eye in a series of events that are almost alchemical in that they demonstrate a transformation of matter, or rather,of vibrations of light. The transformation of matter by the finer vibrations of light can be regarded as more than the ultimate spiritual symbol: it is a demonstration of actions of divine energy manifested on the physical plane."

"[Love] is an abyss of illumination, a fountain of fire, bubbling up to inflame the thirsty soul. It is the condition of angels, and the progress of eternity"

Who does one "speak" too on a blog?
Oneself?
How pathetic is that?!
Pathetic, true.
None- is out there.
Ever.
Never.
So...
I'll need to keep in mind as my "none"
an image of
a friend
of
depth and caring
who challenged me to
shake off the
intimacy
the seductive nature
of the safety
of talking too
and
through
and sometimes even with
an individual.
Of seducing one or two or some and got me to go on the web.
To do some real plowing.
I'll blame her.
I'm pathetic.

Welcome to the"roundup" of my veritable romance with thoughts.
Nothing
in the act of sharing
is not
seductive. Yes?

So...
None of this will be
unique or
original or
insightful.
May
be
brilliant.
Will
see.

Here now.

I care most about the visual arts; It's centrality to all that goes on around us.
To the every way knowing
of the day
to the creation
of God.
To the choosing of shoes or
the buying of a President.

It seems obvious and "right and full" that in the wake of life,
of sex,
of murder,
of "doing"
came the need to mark and record.
To show.
To pass on.

To be human

the calculated arrangement of pigment,
of light
is all we can smirk-less-ly claim as our own.
Imagine no images.
Do you see?

Soon, next.