Old Dog News

I hate people that give their dogs human characteristics, but I'm a big hypocrite, as I'm one of them.

With Delilah's slow demise, Rhonda has "stepped up to the plate" as the number one food beggar in the family. She now rests dirctly under the kitchen table at every meal, usually resting on our feet (she ain't a small dog)...Delilah begs, but more from her bed, those pleading eyes never resting until the dishes are washed.

She is on her feet much less now, her back legs failing more and more. Some days, she is more peppy than others and wants to play. At other times, it seems like once down, she'll never get up again-but she never misses mealtime-I take this as a good sign. She barks more often now-sometimes in order to go out, sometimes to move Rhonda from the best (in her mind) spot on the dog beds... sometimes for seemingly no reason at all-I worry when I can't figure her "reasons" on these occasions. The idea that it is invisble pain bothers me, but the next second, she seems normal. One tough dog or, as my friend Ruth says, "some kinda dog."

Obviously, both of these demons have risen from the depths. Delilah is on the right and Rhonda, aka my leg attachment, is on the left.

Reasons to be Cheerful-part 4

On Thursday, I leave for the Outer Banks. I'm going to help my friend Bob with setting up his camera and shooting the sound.

I want to see the ocean badly-so many memories and such a beautiful and moody place. I can still smell the ocean from the pier at Asbury Park so long ago when I was 7, tagging along with my grandparents and my Mom. A grey, rainy day-but the ocean...rolling eternally. And all the mystery of the dark boardwalk and pier. Smoking cigarettes and sleeping on the hot sand in Sea Girt after driving down in the early morning in my 55 Chevy, a parkway spirit. Shooting tin cans in the dunes of North Carolinawith my new BB gun, a reborn kid in my twenties. Bagged lunch on the beach at Sandy Hook, all too embarrassed to be with my parents. Unreal surf in Hawaii. Looking at the light of the seashore without the benefit of language, an infant nestled between my parents. An outdoor shower at Jeanie's grandmother's after a day of sun and surf.

Untitled and unfinished, this sculpture uses an old 20's medicine cabinet that Darrell gave me.

The carving has been around for a few months, waiting for a good home.

Reasons to be Cheerful-part 3

Here's a quip, a little filbert that came to me this morning-most of you probably know this already,maybe even as a cliche, but it can't hurt to sound it out again:
Being a painter insures the fact that you'll always have questions to answer-or should I say, you'll always be engaged in attempting to answer. The unresolved for me talks directly to what art (and the artist) should be about. Answers are good for the short term only. Boredom sets in quickly and the mundane, unchecked, reigns triumphant over all. Pursuing the undefined and the mysterious provides chills and thrills-hours of fun! Creating language and then attempting to communicate with others using that language can create doors where there once were solid walls or lead directly to madness. Good luck.

Sermon

The show in Tuscaloosa was a good one, accompanied by a perfect weekend weather-wise-"Bama even won the game!

When I'm at these art shows, I spend a lot of time with my work, not doing or making it, but just looking at it. I tend to think of this time as similar to the time spent just before sleep, where you might go over your to-do list, mull over the events of the day, think more in depth about your interactions with others and all that. Many inchoate ideas that (good or bad) disappear right after you lose consciousness...this is true of the thousand thoughts I have while in the booth-fully engaged with them until someone steps into the space. Most of those thoughts vanish (unless I wrote them down) and few reappear-unless they are very strong (this could mean that they are worrisome, problems needing attention or, occasionally, bits of brilliance that may or may not lead me somewhere).

So what does this mean to us artists? Speaking to two friends this past weekend, we compared notes on where we were vs where might like to be (in terms of our work). We all agreed that, although our work isn't exactly famous or a traded commodity, we have seen some degree of success with it, that we are tied into making "things" that get us not only approval, varying degrees of recognition and money-in short, we are "known" and our work is our signature.

So how hard would it be to leave this behind and start some newer, more challenging work (referring back to the inchoate or even burgeoning ideas of the daydreaming mentioned before)?

It's tough, if not impossible to leave what you have (somewhat successfully) started behind-I wondered if it would not be possible to divide up the time, much like I have in the past with part time jobs-having predetermined that such and such days of the week be devoted to the new stuff and the remainder used for the "signature" (maybe I should call it the cash crop) work.

This works well for those of us who can compartmentalize-I mean, it is a good theory but I can't tell you that I had that much experience trying it.

I have tried to do this with painting...those of you who know me realize that I've always been a jealous bastard when it comes to good painting and painters. I decided to spend one day a week painting-physically removed from where I make sculpture (the change of scenery is key here, but how many of us have more than one workspace?). This worked, but relatively soon, I could feel that the painting needed more time. My next plan is to spend two consecutive days working on my painting. I'll let you know how it works out.

What I realized while painting: my sculptural self was not firing on all cylinders-habit seemed to be taking over my thinking and think-time in the shop. Whatever resources I use to work more efficiently (on my signature work) is pushing out new thoughts-effectively muting them . There's a comfort issue here-repetition does feel safe. People are such efficient machines-at least until their brains come into play. Is this obvious? Yes and no, since we've all experienced owning habits that don't make much sense or are not good for us, but make us feel safe. Many of us live with some habits for our entire lives since the alternative is, well, an unknown.

Anyway, I hope that I've made a clear point here and that maybe as artists we could all stand to devote a day out of the seven we've got each week to rethink what we're doing and where we are going.

This is an older piece made from some auto steel and some other recognizable parts.

Leaving Today

Today I leave for the Kentuck show in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
I imagine my van bedecked with retablos and glued-on bultos, traveling from the realm of the actual into the realm of the spiritual and supernatural. This is in the act of traveling, more than in my destination. Although the event I'll be attending takes on a certain spiritual glow, this has diminished through the years-or maybe I've just grown jaded to it all.
The vision of old black men spreading their creative wares on the ground under the pines while onlookers grab and buy all that they can was one of my first impressions of this show. There is a lot less enthusiasm as the elders have passed and have been replaced by a younger generation well versed in art history and marketing. I am among these replacements. here is a certain sadness as I think of the brand of authenticity that probably can never be again.
I put a lot of hope in Danny the Bucketman, aka Hoss, aka Hoskinson. He was the real deal-I never saw him in shoes. His art consisted of melting plastic 5 gallon buckets into heads and fantastic figures, all the while pouring pigment into the melt and working the substance in his own way. He fascinated me as a living remainder of an untrained primitive or folk artist. Much like the life stories of many before him, he was almost unknown and little appreciated (a least in my eyes) out of his circle of friends and admirers. Danny passed in July of this year, seemingly a victim of his own process and materials.
I leave soon for Kentuck and hope to see some new faces carrying on where Danny left off, but realistically braced for the fact that I may be looking for something or someone that has become history. I'll find only ghosts where Danny used to be.

I dreamt last night that I was short of money.

The photo is from a triptych called "The Witches."

Where I got my start

Trimming them
Trimming all of them

and I haven't a clue
I got no idea
of how to cut this
much less of what I'll encounter
under these cheap straw hats
and these swept up coiffures

there's a call
on the phone
outside the Surfside Store
It's for you

crash it's the ocean
in the phone booth
time bleeds listening
to many conversations
all going on at once

you are crawling
you are using
your last breath
the world that belongs to you

all at once
cloudy glass booth
sad old spiderwebs
in the upper reaches
woven long ago
for midnight insects
from summers past

Ariadne confined

a stupid geometry
food for ghosts

looking like a rubber
that could fit Mr. Machine
smeary with seaspray

the ocean achieving climax
every minute andahaff
for all eternity

ha ha

some partner
that rascally shoreline.

This sculpture is called
"The Introvert."

Losing work

O.K., race car fans...just worked on an older draft for an hour or so on this blog and then COMPLETELY lost it...

I have no idea where the thing went, but it's out there in cyberspace some old place and I can't find it-maybe those of you familiar with this blogspot know something that I don't, but I feel somewhat useless in thios matter.

The writing described an event in my life that stays put in my memory-maybe I'll try and recreate it, but probably not.

Anyhow, here is the photo that I was to publish alongside the written piece. It is called "The Tubing Bender." It either hangs on the wall or sits on a mantle.