dolores

Spanish for pain.
There's been a lot of it since the last time I wrote.
It could be the climate here, perhaps the fact that i might have pushed myself too hard. I dunno.
A pinched nerve? Sciatica? Arthritis?
I have a left hand that now has a real hard time zipping up zippers. Carving wood has turned into a contest of sorts, with the wood usually winning.
My legs ache a lot and getting up some nights and mornings has been murderous, the pain shooting up the back down the leg and then doing another relay. Several times it has almost brought me to the floor. Thank goodness for this old pencil post bed-something I can hold onto wincing and trying not to cry out for fear of waking Laura…
This all came on me sometime in September /October. The hand problem had been building and I was aware of it, but all of sudden, the pain seemed to get a green light and it just blossomed (or would a more appropriate word be exploded?). But the back/leg thing seemed to come on strong while I was still working at the Horse Shelter-I thought it was the mucking that did me in. After all, my math skills tell me that between Sarah and myself, there was about 3000 pounds of manure being shoveled, lifted and dumped every day. Sure, I only worked two days-but I s'pose it brought on something else.
After all, in NJ I lifted some pretty serious weight daily at my last job…
I go to see a physical therapist in a few days, but I've little faith that they will help at all. Almost every day, the little cracks I've develop in my good hand (winter, dryness, age?) hinder me even further. The right hand is almost as useless as the left. I take little comfort that this lasts only through the winter months.
Well, I just wanted to cry on somebody's shoulder.
Here's a story and a quote I heard today from The Writer's Almanac:

Writer and comedian Sam Levenson grew up in a Jewish section of Brooklyn and later said, "It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.'"

Ok…
Here's a sculpture I'm (almost) finished with (yet untitled) that serves as an homage to writer Bruno Schultz and his drawings of Undula.

Lou Reed

Lou Reed pushed against everything.

I was a bit suspicious of him and the Velvet Underground, what being backed by Warhol and all, but their music was strange and somehow appealing-the lyrics not only fresh, but way different than what I'd been hearing...You have to credit Andy with his backing of the VU and Basquiat, among others. Strange to think of Warhol as an arts backer, but he certainly loved his stars...when Reed came out with Songs for Drella, I realized the depth of their connection.

I never saw Lou Reed in Blairstown, NJ (where I moved to after my time in NYC) but understood that he lived there for a while. Strange for anyone to land there from NYC, but it "worked for me" and I guess for Reed-for a time, anyway.

I got to see the German chanteuse Nico at the Mudd Club. She was ornery and quite large -playing her fiddle, she refused to go on unless the crowd "stopped making all that fucking noise" (she screamed in that heavy accent)...and give her a modicum of respect. The now-fat and aging singer got neither-she passed a few years after that.

Thief!!!

"Good composers borrow,  great ones steal" Igor Stravinsky

Much like old-school students who copy the old masters paintings, yours truly has put this same strategy to use ostensibly to help kick-start my on-again, off-again interest in painting.
I used this "method" aways back, trying my damnedest to modify the work so that I could claim it as my own. It's still stolen: I long to be as talented as the artist I've "borrowed" from, but no dice, it just ain't happenin'. I keep hoping that painting the genius that I see before me will instill something-maybe a smidgeon or a trace- of what I admire and maybe cause some sort of spontaneous combustion of painting talent. Uh-uh...at least so far. Nose to grindstone, I'll keep the copying going.
Maybe something will eventually flake off.

Darker thoughts

Here’s my thought for the day, and a dark one it is.

The next, upcoming generation does not see art the same way we –meaning my generation-does. The stuff I make is permanent and substantial (think solid as opposed to thinking of that word as a value). What the art or amusement of the young looks like is much more transient- computer images, like Utube and all those throwaway funny pictures-images used once and then disposed.  The fact of the matter is, there is SO much visual stimulation out there, why stick with one thing? As William Burroughs wrote in Nova Express, “Images. Millions of images. That's what I eat.”

Why stay monogamous, when there is so much out there to sate your taste? We have those picture “frames” that move through your snapshot collection (ain't it nice to cuddle and coo over the relatives without the use of your hands?) and monster TVs that dominate a wall with an ever-changing, multi-media show. Even the news mags/rags carry a plethora of images far more interesting and emotionally moving than a static thing you hang on your wall. After all, the thing does not move, does not speak and it needs occasional cleaning. Why be married to a dinosaur?

As for my older audience, rapidly marching to communal homes in which to spend their final years-they all seem to be downsizing-moving to much smaller quarters…

And for those those in between, so many now are in danger of losing their jobs, once thought permanent (a word that is rapidly losing its value). If owning a home is risky, then what possessions can you count as keepsakes? A keepsake or anything sentimental means nothing when forced to become nomads for survival.

I don't know that traditional art that has substance will ever disappear, but the art museums will become similar to libraries. Who needs reference books when you can get all the information you need from your smartphone? And novels? Simply visit the internet, pay your money, and download whatever to your e-reader.

For me this is scary stuff-but it is the present and not what is to come. I can't imagine what's around the corner, considering how fast things are moving day-to-day. I s'pose it's great to be a witness to it all, but there's a point when I'd like to know that there are brakes-but there are no brakes.

Exclusion

Dunno if it’s just a sense of tribalism, or perhaps it’s my skewed misperception, but I feel excluded from the local crowd.  Last night at the kick-off for the open studio tour, both Laura and I compared our “notes” after the “doo” and found that we both felt  overdressed for the event. And certainly out of place, even though it seems easy to individually relate to many of the souls there. I can’t imagine that we are too old for the thing, as there are plenty of folks our age in attendance. We seem to need more “grunge” in our attire when in town. It does not help that the main center of all activity in the tiny town is a huge bar/roadhouse. Speaking for myself, bars are places I’ve never felt very comfortable in –I cant help feelings of disdain whenever I see one or two individuals inevitably “holding court” in these joints.

All that being said, Laura phrased the main event there perfectly: the auction seemed a bit like high-school, with the “popular’ folk getting higher bids. Truth be told, I found much of the work to be sub-par and the remainder simply adequate. The auctioneer’s helper pronounced one artists’ work as pretty good, but anything done by this artist, he said,  (a female who hung from a set of chains in a recent acrobatic performance) was terrific. ‘Nuff said?

I plan to skip this event next year unless my sales are better than expected (and I expect next to nothing). I prefer to stick to self-promotion rather than try and gain favor with this crew.

It seems as though Sarah, who I worked with at the Horse Shelter, said it all-if you don’t hang out and drink at this townie bar, you ain’t nobody. We are feeling the effects of small town life. Yet I never felt this in Blairstown-maybe cause I never really ventured forth with my work? Dunno, but we will test this out in the upcoming time to come.

This is the piece I donated to the benefit auction-"Seernore".