Week of April 20 I think it will be valuable, for my last posts for this class, to do one for each of the areas we studied.
Art
Working on the Patrick Dougherty installation at Bernheim is one of the best things I have been involved in artistically. To be able to work with someone who has an international reputation, to be able to see just how far use of natural materials can be carried, to see his approach to working with the large number of volunteers that he uses, and simply to see first hand how his works are constructed - these are among the reasons that I am making the drive to Bernheim as often as I can. The work starts with the grunt work of dragging three saplings of the proper height and diameter (Patrick has a lot to say about this as he is the only one with any idea of what he wants he finished project to look like) and setting them into 2 foot deep holes (which is a part of the grunt work I was not involved in), tamping as the dirt is being filled in. This is his framework and what makes the piece secure, despite its ultimate airy look. After setting the framework, there is more grunt work of raking up the loose dirt and spreading mulch so that if it rains we are not working in the mud. This took the first two and 1/2 days. Finally on Wednesday afternoon the weaving began. Patrick uses scaffolding, rope, and string to create the shape he wants the framework to take but by the time all the weaving is done, all of this support is removed. The saplings have dried into shape and also are held by the intertwining. The weaving has several layers. There is the first pass which creates a sort of loose skin. then the skin is filled in with more branches. the last part is the exterior weaving, which is what creates the illusion of movement in the piece. As each of us gets more experienced, he trusts us to weave different layers. I was privileged to weave a part of the exterior layer (though it was on an inner wall) last week. Patrick tends to weave the most visible parts of the exterior himself. This week I will be involved in the finishing of the project. By the time I get there on Wednesday it will have been a week since my last work day. Much will have been done but, I suspect, much will be left to do before the grand opening Thursday afternoon. I am scheduled to work Friday as well. I asked, "Will we still be working on the piece Friday if the opening is Thursday?" Patrick asked the project coordinator, "When am I leaving?" When she told him he was leaving Saturday, he answered me, saying, "We'll still be working." Along with everything else, I have learned what it means to be a dedicated artist.
http://www.bernheim.org/dougherty.html

thinking
http://chronicle.com/article/Shift-Happens/131580/
This article is about the book "The Structure of Scientific Revolution" by Thomas Kuhn, which was published 50 years ago and how it is still important and controversial today. It is a long article but for me it was worth reading. Approaches to doing science are not really so different from approaches to doing everything else in life, even art. To do good science you have to have a creative mind, just as artists do. And philosophy is relevant to  science just as it is to all parts of life. In science, just as in art and just as in the well-lead life, philosophy matters. Your initial mindset matters. And what you think may not be the same as what others think, even if you are using the same words; the post-modern argument applies in science too. All of us who are doing good work, whether we are politicians, artists, bankers, horticulturists, or scientists are using the same kind of tools - critical thinking and openmindedness. This is why, even when I can't really grasp what my husband is thinking about, I can still on some level understand what he does.

social change
I have no children living at home and, when I am in school at all, I am only a part time student, so I sometimes feel have to do something more to validate my existence, to make a difference in my community. I choose to volunteer. I work at Yew Dell Gardens for several hours every week and I have been involved in the Patrick Dougherty work at Bernheim. I also am the chair of LATFA, the Louisville Area Fiber and Textile Artists and I help with jurying artists for the Crescent Hill Art and Music Festival. Clearly I am selective about what I get involved in. And I sometimes wonder if it is enough. The volunteer work that I do makes me very happy and it is done for organizations that provide other people pleasure. But sometimes I think I need to be more directly helpful to people who are in need. The most socially active thing I have done recently is challenge people sitting in their cars with their engines running, asking them if they need to do that, given what we all know about 1) conserving fossil fuels and 2) AIR POLLUTION!!!!

Artwork

This is the completion of something I started earlier in the semester when we were to do a piece using natural materials. It is framed pretty casually because I do not think it will last for very long; when I was sewing the squash onto the paper, it was like sewing through apricots. So I expect to see some rotting going on some time. I call works like this my impermanent collection. They are not meant to last forever. Sorry about the crummy photo. I am not a photographer. This piece is called "The Order of Things: One of These Things." The name refers to the Sesame Street song and the close-up is a photo of that one thing.

Week of April 3, Week of April 10
I have no link for this post, which is the point. A friend's son brought to her house his new iPad and showed her all the cool stuff he could do with it, like find out what stars and planets he was looking at in the night sky. Her response was, "So we never have to wonder about anything any more?" And it struck me that we need a sense of wonder. I have to admit I am the first to say, "Look it up!" when a question occurs to me. But often we look it up, get on our devices, when looking around might offer us a more special (maybe you could say more spiritual, more meaningful, more divine?) experience. Instead of looking it up, look around. How's that for a motto. Instead of looking at your device, look at what is around you. In support for this idea I offer a photo taken on campus of cherry trees in bloom. I have to admit I was on my cell phone when I walked by them but luckily I happened to look up and realized that I was surrounded by this absolute beauty. And I stopped for a few minutes to appreciate it.


 Here are the blossoms a week later, pink snow under the trees.

Is there a link between creativity and intelligence? I got to wondering about this and asked a very intelligent person I know if he was creative. He said, "Sometimes." I asked if others thought of him as creative. He responded, "Sometimes." It turns out that he feels that when he is surrounded by creative people, he is creative. When he is with boring people he is dull, he thinks. Anyway my question was answered in part that very week, when the show Being with Krista Tippett , aired on WFPL Sunday mornings at 6 a.m. had an interview with Rex Jung, in which he proposed that the ability to allow the mind to take a meandering pathway is necessary for creative thinking. The article to which I link here .http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html further suggests that it is first the meandering path of thought then a following path that links suggestions encountered on the meander (divergent and convergent thought paths) that allows us to come up with creative solutions to problems. Troublingly, this article also suggests that the ability of American students to do this is in decline. Teachers say there is no room for creativity in the classroom. (!!!!!!!!) What a failure of understanding what is needed in the world! We do not need to know facts. We need to know how to use facts to come up with solutions to what ails us. Every once in a while, when I can't solve a problem around the house, I say to myself, "Brad and I are intelligent people, we surely can figure out a solution." I think what I really need to do is not invoke intelligence but rather our creative abilties, our abilities to think of things other than the normal path and then a solution will be within our grasp.

http://spalding.edu/visitors/huff-gallery/
I have lately been pondering how to make art relevant to social change. It is not perfectly clear that there is a link. Social change involves making people think differently. Art can do this but in order to do this it has to be seen. I would think further it has to be seen by people who do not normally look at art to have its greatest impact. So just having it in a gallery may not be the best way for art to create social change. Gwen Kelly, local artist/activist, had a show recently at the Louisville School of Art entitiled  “Meditation on Houses and Other Everyday Objects” in which she showed work related to abandoned properties in Louisville, particularly in her own neighborhood. A part of the show was an opportunity for the viewer to send a post card to the owner of an abandoned property. This truly made the show a work of activism. I'm not yet sure how to make my art so activist but after taking this class, it is something I will continue to think about.

detail from Gwen Kelly's 

http://swissinstitute.net/exhibitions/exhibition.php?Exhibition=119 This is a link to a current show in NYC entitled "Heart to Hand" organized by Berlin art world denizen Pati Hertling around the idea of"art being received in connection to a political progress of thought. The exhibit questions the role of art in these times. I'm sure the organizer does not mean to suggest that art has no role in today's politicized world but I think the point is well-taken, that it needs to have a part in that world, rather than being on a pedestal, in a gallery, apart from what we might think of as these troubled times.

 My art: A first attempt at something I have had in my mind for a long time. I received this plastic yarn about 4 or 5 years ago and had the idea of panels of knitted lace to be displayed in the garden, inspired by the fact that my husband wanted to shield our view of the neighbor's house. I did not have a good source of bamboo until this year so finally I have begun to implement the thought. I want the panels to be mounted onto bamboo, but I need to create a better framework than what I have done here. I believe that cutting the bamboo so the parts fit together smoothly at the corners, then tying them together with the green plastic yarn will be the solution. I will also use the plastic yarn to lash the piece to the bamboo. The panel shown here will be part of an installation which will include both larger and smaller panels. I hope to enter it into the sculpture show at Yew Dell Gardens in 2013.

Week 10 posts

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/opinion/bruni-a-farewell-to-newt.html?hp

It's been said before and it has been said again - there is too much news coverage resulting in our paying far too much attention to issues which are perhaps not worth our time. Political candidates are a case in point. Endless discussion ensues about their every statement and every vote they do or do not get. It is not necessary that we have this level of discussion and it is not worth the time it takes to listen to it. If news media did not have 24 hour a day coverage they would not feel compelled to discuss such minutia and instead we might get more important news coverage. Philosophers as far back as Plato have pointed out that we look for experts to take care of our health, to build our houses, people who have studied and prepared themselves to do these tasks. Why should we look for less in our political leaders? The ability to get votes does not guarantee the ability to run government. And Newt Gingrich isn't even capable of getting votes! One way to diminish unwanted behavior is to ignore it. If our news media ignored the unqualified (yes this is a value judgment that I am not sure I am really qualified to make) people running for office, they would not have a voice and would not be able to effectively campaign. But this would be undemocratic, wouldn't it? We are all allowed a voice in our democracy. So let's all speak up. But let's not all think that we have the ability to run the country, even if we do have a PhD in history and/or even if we do claim to represent the common people.  I let my elitist bias out here by saying, as have philosophers through the ages, that democracy means that all should have equal opportunities offered to them, not that all people are equal and qualified to perform every job.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/opinion/sunday/art-has-legs.html?src=recg

Once again the question of is it art arises. 

In this case the object is a Larry Rivers sculpture of legs hanging in a tree in Sag Harbor Long Island where it has hung for 4 years and has been in dispute for at least half that time. Larry Rivers died in 2010. His art commands high prices so this piece probably has value. It is being argued that it should not be considered art but rather a structure and thus should be removed under village zoning codes. Acceptance of this piece as art is a true case of the theory of institutional art, as judged by the prices that Rivers' work sells for. Too bad we just can't decide on the basis of is it attractive and appropriately displayed. In that case I think the piece might have to go, at least out of the tree. To me it just looks dumb hanging there. 

My art:

Here is Abraham Lincoln wearing the scarf (which did end up to be 12 feet long) that I worked on in class. I think it suits him well. I hope to have photos of more sculptures wearing this scarf in the future, maybe even the Thinker. I probably need to get permission before I start messing with him though. 

Week 9 posts
Lying in the name of postmodernity
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/22/writer-vs-fact-checker-this-time-its-personal/?scp=1&sq=Gideon+Lewis-Kraus&st=nyt

So telling the truth has gone by the wayside for good it seems. It doesn't matter any more. In this commentary from the New York Times, the author takes to task a writer for not accurately reporting facts in his story about Las Vegas; the writer says he did it because it makes a better story. Ira Glass on This American Life will be issuing an apology this week because in the story he presented a while ago about working conditions in Apple plants in China, the author said he witnessed certain events which it is now known he did not actually witness, though some or all of them did really happened. The whole world is being photoshopped so to speak (using that term to apply to words as well as pictures) as people report what they want to see in words that they want to use rather than reporting with accuracy and specificity. Mitt Romney's campaign says that it is mathematically impossible for any other candidate to win the nomination while at the time that he said this it really was mathematically possible, just not very likely. Words lose meaning when they are not used to say what they mean. I know that in the post-modern world words have meaning only by what the hearer knows them to mean but I think we have taken this a little too far. There are meanings that we can all agree on and to use words to mean something other than the agreed upon meaning is to lie. And in my opinion lying is not okay. I seem to be in a minority these days. A slightly different take on lying is when Rick Santorum justifies saying that in the Netherlands people are euthanized against their will because in his heart he believes it to be true.  (See end of this clip from Colbert Report - http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/410721/march-15-2012/march-15--2012---pt--3?xrs=share_fb). He is telling a lie but because he believes it in his heart it is okay? What does this make him? A good Christian or just, excuse me for saying it, stupid?

Feminist art

I have tried to deny that my art is feminist but after reading the articles in preparation for our feminist art lecture I see that I must give in. Though I like to see my art as just art, not women's art, the fact that it is knitting gives lie to this. Knitting is seen as a woman's activity so no matter how I view it, my work will be seen as such. Knitting has a grandmotherly aspect to it, which is both good, with grandmothers being seen as a source of comfort, and bad, as many people have received as gifts hand knit sweaters which were not well crafted or were ill-fitting or totally unfashionable. Hilary Clinton once claimed she didn't stay home and bake cookies (as I did for our International Women's Day class, another feminist statement of some sort I guess) and I'm sure she would never admit to knitting either.Old ladies knit. This image is I think changing with the help of such people as Karen Searle (http://www.karensearle.com/) and as more young people take up knitting. There is still plenty of tacky knitting around but the craft is also being incorporated into artworks that transcend the "oh my mother used to knit" image. My very large knit works do this by putting the knitting directly in your face. In some of the work the stitches are so large that you can't ignore them. Unlike in a sweater which we take for granted as a knit fabric, in my big knitting each stitch counts. The process is more visible. People find the Giant Shawl so impressive, yet it is only 38 stitches wide and 160 rows long, not very much knitting compared to what goes into a sweater. It's just that each stitch is so visible. I also see this piece as interactive knitting for non-knitters. It is a plaything, as you can see in the photos I have posted. It can be a source of comfort, a trait that I think is inherent in knitting, to many people at one time. This piece is currently on view at the LAFTA (Louisville Area Fiber and Textile Artists) exhibit at the LVAA  gallery at the Water Tower on River Road.

new art
One part of the lace installation outside Carnegie Center in New Albany in conjunction with  Tools of the Trade: Fiber Art by Bette Levy, Opening Fri. March 16, 6-8 pm
Yarn bombing is a relatively new idea of covering an environment with knitting or crocheting. In order to keep this installation tasteful, the requirement was that all the doilies be shades of white or off-white. They were purchased and volunteers attached them to permanent structures outside the Carnegie. With the help of Kathy Loomis, I attached doilies to this tree at the side entrance to the center. A question was raised as to whether this use of the doilies demeans the work of the women who made them. Bette maintains that she found it demeaning that they were being sold in junk stores for only a dollar or two and that this use  celebrates the work.

Lettuce Landscape

Even the butt end of a head of lettuce that has been in the compost bucket for a day can have a certain beauty.

week 8 posts
Smells
Not to mention that if we always are plugged into our electronic devices then we do not leave ourselves time to think unimpeded by outside interference (see last week's post about the muse), there is lots to learn without ever turning on an electronic device and sometimes I think we hforget that. Steve Van Zandt, formerly guitarist with Bruce Springsteen, formerly Silvio Dante on The Sopranos, now host of Little Steven's Underground Garage, a music show that airs Saturday evenings on WFPK, talked last night about his predictions for the year 2030. As electronic devices are speeding everything up so much, he predicts a change in our brains such that attention deficit will no longer be a disorder but rather an adaptive strategy and in fact we will be taking drugs to help our brains work faster. Get me out of this world!
Today on the public radio show The Splendid Table, the host interviewed a woman who talked about smells and what they do inside our brains, and who leads smelling tours of English cities. Proust, who wrote  À la recherche du temps perdu  between 1913 and 1927, knew the power of smells as he wrote about madeleines, simple small sponge cakes, and the involuntary memories their odor produced. Scientists are now studying exactly what happens in the brain when we smell a familiar odor but I don't need to know. I know that the smell of muddy river, stale beer, and urine means I am in the French Quarter of New Orleans on a Sunday morning. I know that when I am walking from downtown to U of L, the smell of tomato and too many spices means that I am near the Paradise Tomato Kitchens on South Brook Street. The smell of lilacs in the spring is a memory of my childhood home. The damp smell of chlorine in an enclosed space brings me not only memories of my daughter's swim meets but also the sens of peace that I get when I swim, back and forth, following the black line, turning every 25 yards....  My favorite smell is perhaps the smell of rotten seaweed, evoking time spent at the beach, poking around at low tide. If you must have a link, here I hope is the link to the bit about smelling tours from  The Splendid Table. http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/www_publicradio/tools/media_player/popup.php?name=splendid_table/2012/03/03/splendidtable_20120303_64&starttime=00:01:20&endtime=00:08:23

Ruth Asawa artist and activist
http://www.ruthasawa.com
Ruth Asawa was born in 1926 in California to a family of Japanese truck farmers. Her Japanese immigrant  parents were neither allowed to become citizens nor to own land. As a child Ruth was always drawing and her artistic talent was acknowledged in school. After her family struggled to get through the depression they were deported in 1942 to an internment camp for Japanese Americans.  Ruth learned from other artists in the camps. She ended up in a camp in Arkansas and graduated from high school in the camp. She attended teacher's college but found that, due to lingering ill will toward the Japanese, she could not get a job. She deicided to support herself as an artist and attended to Black Mountain College where she met and worked with many influential artists as well as the man who was to become her husband. They decided to live in San Francisco where they felt they would encounter less prejudice. They had six children, which prompted Ruth to help create art programs in the public schools. While creating a huge body of work of her own in many media, she also encouraged children to be involved in the arts. She felt that " through the arts you can learn many, many skills that you cannot learn through books and problem-solving in the abstract. A child can learn something about color, about design, and about observing objects in nature. If you do that, you grow into a greater awareness of things around you. Art will make people better, more highly skilled in thinking and improving whatever business one goes into, or whatever occupation. It makes a person broader."

Ruth with work done by school children

One of Ruth's crocheted wire pieces

Proposals for Art, Thinking Social Change

Deborah Levine March 1, 2012

Mid-term power point

Floating Garbage

Both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans now contain large mats of floating garbage, deposited there by currents. While we may think that recycling plastic is the answer to this problem, too much of it is not recycled and, because it floats, it is washed away and when it reaches the ocean it ends up deposited in these locations. I would like to discuss in this presentation the following:

1. How the garbage got here

2. What can and cannot be done about it

3. What is being done about it.

Final paper

My knowledge of philosophy is abysmal, given that I present myself as the product of a good liberal arts education. I would like to remedy this by writing a paper that is a summary of the history of philosophy in eight pages. To begin, I will read Will Durant’s Story of Philosophy and will then supplement it as needed. This will benefit me greatly so I hope it is acceptable, ridiculous as it seems to present so broad a topic in such a short paper. 

Week 7 

Walking clears head for muse to enter 

Hartford Connecticut was home to Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and poet Wallace Stevens, who lived there from 1916 to his death in 1955. Stevens is proof that to be an artist one does not have to give up the middle class life; he worked as a claims lawyer for a Hartford insurance company and wrote poems in his spare time. He turned down opportunities to teach poetry, instead preferring his alternative life as insurance man. He never learned to drive and walked the 2.4 miles to and from work every day, composing poems in his head as he walked and writing them down when he got there.. The time spent walking the familiar path was time for the muse to work within him. Today the thought of doing this seems to be totally in opposition to how most of us live our lives these days and even to how we create art. We drive. We use electronic devices. We do both at the same time. We are never unoccupied. I am guilty of this too even though I know that when I am walking, thoughts do enter my head that I might not have otherwise had and problems resolve themselves without my having to consciously work on them. Solutions just come. This is why it has been very hard for me the past months when I have not been able to walk without discomfort. Walking is time for my mind to clear. I have missed it.

Below is a Stevens poem with which I am familiar. It is dense stuff. Having a traditional job does not mean that one can’t be a weird artist too.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/travel/for-the-poet-wallace-stevens-hartford-was-an-unlikely-muse.html

The Emperor of Ice-Cream
by Wallace Stevens
Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month's newspapers. Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. Take from the dresser of deal, Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet On which she embroidered fantails once And spread it so as to cover her face. If her horny feet protrude, they come To show how cold she is, and dumb. Let the lamp affix its beam. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Week 7 art - 2 pieces

1.

Just prior to and during the time that I had the cast on my foot I created lots of art pieces that I now need to finish. This week I worked on finishing this piece. It is a cast of a piece of knitting. It was done by putting ink onto the knitting and pressing it into paper pulp. The paper pulp was made from shredded credit card bills, checks, and other waste paper. I then cover the piece with acrylic medium to make it harder and less vulnerable to moisture.  Because the process uses lots of water, the ink did not really show up the knitting pattern, But I find that adding some color to these pieces does help make them more visible than when they are solid white. Below is a close-up.  I guess there is some irony that this is cast paper and relates to a time when i had a cast on my foot but this was unintended. 

2. Bundles and Rolls first installation

This is either the first in a series or a study for a larger installation. It is composed of 5 bundles of junk mail wrapped in cotton string and 20 tubes of magazine paper taken from a previous week's art (made from magazines taken out of my recycling). They were placed in a small trench (about 10 inches long and 5 inches wide) in my back yard. I intend to photograph them periodically to see how they weather. My intent is that they will eventually totally disintegrate. I put them in a place where I will never be tempted to grow edibles as I do not know how the inks and the paper itself might affect the soil. I have been making bundles from my junk mail ever since I thought of this project and have thus slightly decreased the amount of paper that goes into the recycling. Whether it is a reasonable trade-off to then bury this paper in the ground where it might add toxins to the soil I am not sure. This bundling and wrapping of materials holds great appeal to me. It somehow seems homey and comforting, even though it is made from trash. Putting it in the ground is a way to make this art temporary (making it a part of my Impermanent Collection), which appeals to me because I do not have room to store all of the art that I am inspired to create.  It is also a way to get rid of this trash. If it contaminates the soil in the process it is not a good solution. If it merely adds texture to the poor soil in my back yard then I will be pleased. 

News: Slavery after Emancipation

Tomorrow is the groundbreaking ceremony for the new building for theNational Museum of African American History. (The museum, created by an act of Congress in 2003, is currently located in a gallery of the National Museum of American History.) Well it's about time, isn't it? African Americans have been a part of US history since the founding of the country. They have conributed to our economy in ways that most other people have not. Without their free (slave) labor, the country would not perhaps have become as srong as it did. A recent PBS broadcast showed how even once slavery was abolished, white businesspeople managed to keep it alive so that their businesses could thrive. All they had to do was to rent a black man from prison. And if the supply ran low, there were always trumped up charges on which black men could be arrested to keep up the supply. Businesses in Birmingham, Alabama took full advantage of this labor to mine the coal and other raw materials that they needed for their thriving steel industry When this scam was finally outlawed, a new way to get free labor was invented - the chain gang. Chain gangs did not work for individual business owners but worked on public projects such as road building. This was the worst yet as no one had a financial investment in these men so that there was no incentive to treat them well. When one died, more were available for free. 
When I spoke with  my partner at the diversity workshop we attended earlier in the semester, he said that one reason he is reluctant to talk about race because he thinks that peole will look at him and sigh saying, "...another angry young black man." After seeing this documentary, I am angry too.
http://video.pbs.org/program/slavery-another-name/

week 6 news

It is hardly news but the oceans are full of floating garbage and we need to be much more concerned about it than we as a society seem to be. As of 2009, as reported in the New York Times, every pound of plankton in the central Pacific Ocean was offset by 6 pounds of litter. On August 5, 2009 the Times reported the beginning of Project Kasei. The ship set sail to chart the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch", with the goal of increasing awareness of marine debris, its impacts and its possible solutions. The initial thought was that there might be potential for recycling some of this mass, although after time the plastic breaks down into a goopy mess. The organization  celebrated June 11, 2011 as World Ocean Day, collaborating with researchers and recreational users of the ocean to sponsor local beach cleanups.

One problem is debris tossed by fishermen. Its impact on wildlife can be seen in this photo of nets being pulled from the stomach of a dead sperm whale. Another problem is plastic bottles. They float. They wash away in storms. If they make it to the ocean, they get caught in currents and end up in a vortex with tons of other garbage. My personal way of helping with this problem is to use plastic bottles as little as possible. Tap water is rarely so bad that I don't prefer it to buying a bottle of water. The widespread promotion of bottled water as being better for us is simply another lie being foisted on us by various industries and we would do well to ignore it, the consequences of its overuse being what they are.

Project Kaisei - Capturing the Plastic Vortex

www.projectkaisei.org/

week 6 art
1. Here is an installation I found ready-made outside a MARTA station in Atlanta this weekend. Why did someone leave one shoe and a pair of jeans? I almost hate to think..... For some reason the image won't load in the proper orientation. The trashcan really was upright.

2. Went to the Picasso to Warhol exhibit and got inspired to try my own drip painting. Was limited in color palette by the house paints we had that were not dried up. I didn't realize the patience required and made a mistake by pouring big blobs of paint on to start rather than strictly sticking with drips, which I think would have been better. I wasnot as free as Jackson Pollock to fling paint, not wanting it all over my basement, nor did I have all of the tools I might have liked. May try this again some time in a freer environment. It may not be my medium of choice but it does have a vertain appeal.

 below is a detail of an area of particular energy.

Week 5 art  The Soft Crutch
Hand knit tubes of wool stuffed with newspaper

Week 5 posts

We have torn up the fabric of our cities and replaced it with utter ugliness. The basic landscape of cities and suburbs, is not only ugly but totally unfriendly to people, except for people in their cars. Think about The Summit, think about Preston Highway out near the Outer Loop. Think about trying to walk through these landscapes to get from one business to another. It is not safe unless you are driving. By my examples I mean to show that this difficulty is not limited to poorer areas of town. Downtown Louisville, despite the number of buildings that have already been torn down, still has areas that resemble the old type of Main Street where people were what mattered. Every old building that is torn down tears at this remnant. Historic preservation is important if we are to save our downtowns and make them livable again. Louisville is making some good progress in this regard and a part of the reason is the people who speak up when preservation efforts are threatened. The Courier Journal link is to an editorial written to protest proposed changes to the preservation ordinance, changes which will make it much more difficult to protect historic buildings. This change has not been reported in the CJ as far as I can tell and I am aware of it thanks to getting news updates from a local preservation organization and thanks to my councilperson who posted news of it in her weekly newsletter. It should not be so difficult to find out about these things.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012302120050

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZeXnmDZMQ

TED talk by James Howard Kunstler in which Kunstler rants againstsuburbia. Though he is a bit of a curmudgeon, I agree totally with what he says.

Quote from his blog: “James Howard Kunstler says he wrote The Geography of Nowhere, ‘Because I believe a lot of people share my feelings about the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work.’”

India Flint

India Flint is an environmental fiber artist. She dyes fabric using materials that she finds around her, in her travels, and dyes them in a manner safe for the environment and portable as well. “I make marks with bio-regionally gathered, ecologically sustainable plant dyes.” She wraps of bundles of fabric and plants, heats them, lets them sit, and creates very interesting pieces of clothing and hangings from the results. She uses what she finds around her and thereby limits her impact on her environment. When she travels she brings a pot with her to cook up whatever fabric and plant bundles she is able to create where she is. The blog post is an example of her inventiveness. I like to think that my approach to art and to the world as a whole is at least a little bit like India Flint’s.

http://prophet-of-bloom.blogspot.com/2012/01/simple-folded-
paper-bag.html

week 4 art

These are assemblages made with natural materials on handmade paper. I have not yet made them permanent (in other words they are just laid out on the paper right now)  but will ponder them for work I want to do later in the semester.

Week 4 posts

Peter Richards, environmental artist

Peter Richards has long been the artist in residence at the Exploratorium, San Francisco’s museum of science, art, and human perception. His art installations help people connect with the space where they are sited. He has no signature style because each site demands a different approach and takes advantage of and reflects the particularity of that space. He has helped create a public greenspace in Palo Alto wetlands that were once the site of a landfill. (http://www.ci.kent.wa.us/content.aspx?id=7610) The point here was not to try to recreate a pristine space as it was before humans intervened and screwed it up but rather to take advantage of what the space offers now and make it amenable to human recreational activities. Another work that particularly interests me is the Wave Organ, an installation on a jetty in the San Francisco Bay. Richards was brought up in the mountains so the ocean was new to him. When he discovered this jetty, created in part with stonework from a demolished cemetery, at the end of a path that seemed to lead nowhere, he was intrigued, both by the ocean influence on the space and the appearance of ruins created by the cemetery stones. He collaborated with sculptor and stone mason George Gonzalez, to create vent pipes that would amplify the sounds of the water moving against the ends of the pipes. This was inspired by a recording made by Bill Fontana of sounds from a vent pipe in of Sydney, Australia. Combined with the already-present ambient sounds of water, birds, and other aspects of the space, Richards finds the site calming and always wondrous. It attracts local visitors to a space that would otherwise be abandoned and unappreciated. http://www.exploratorium.edu/visit/plan_your_visit/wave_organ/

Blue Marble Images of the Earth

In the late 1960s, scientists first were able to show us images of the whole earth from space. The images have changed and improved over time but they remain a startling depiction of how small the earth is in the scheme of the universe and how interrelated everything on earth is. This report aired on NPR’s Science Friday on February 3; I heard it and was interested. But today, listening to it while looking at the images, I realize how compelling the concept is – to be able to see the whole earth at once, as a unit, as the one place where we all live. It is inspiration for the environmental movement and gives rise to all sorts of philosophical thoughts that most people were not thinking and perhaps were hardly capable of formulating before the 1960s when these images were available. Astronaut John Glenn saw it first, when he orbited the earth in 1962.(See the film The Right Stuff for a reenactment of how exciting it was for him.) To see more versions of the blue marble, go to NASA’s website. http://visibleearth.nasa.gov

Here is the link to the Science Friday broadcast. http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201202034

So now we know, the earth really does look like the maps, just a lot more real.

Week 3 art - Magazine Rack. Holds twenty.
Because I have not been able to help take out the recycling, I felt sorry for my husband and decided to reduce the load by using some of what was in the bin for this week's art.

Week 3 posts

Art

The Stuckists are an anti-postmodernity movement. They propose instead Remodernity, to reapply the principles of Modern Art, highlighting spirituality rather than formalism.  They do not believe that a urinal is art. They feel that art has taken a wrong turn when it abandoned a dedication to human issues and want to bring some form of God back into art. While I may not agree with all of their principles, I concur that art has taken a wrong turn somewhere. Damien Hirst’s art is a good example of what I think is wrong. A shark in formaldehyde is a wonderful example of natural process but is not art. And his dot paintings, of which there are thousands, mostly made by assistants, are nothing to me more than interesting wallpaper. Perhaps Martha Stewart could put them in her home decorating line. Yet he makes millions of dollars on what he puts forth as art. I do not begrudge Damien Hirst the money but I prefer art that has a soul, some of the spirit of the artist in it. If Hirst’s art expresses his spirit, then he must be at heart a cynical smart ass, from what I can see.

http://www.stuckism.com/stuckistmanifesto.html#manifest

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/arts/design/damien-hirsts-spot-paintings-at-gagosian-in-eight-cities.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Thinking

I can’t cite an online reference, but to quote from Francis Collins’ book The Language of God,  “For those who argue that materialism should be favored over theism, because materialism is simpler and more intuitive, these new concepts [6 flavors of quarks, each of which has three colors, rather than simply neutrons and protons, are the particles of existence] present a major challenge….Today Occam’s Razor [that the simplest explanation is usually the best] appears to have been relegated to the Dumpster….” The explanations that work the best are mathematical and thus are not available to the understanding of most of us. Thus many people turn to a Higher Being and say that he is the reason things are so. For Nietsche’s Übermensch, explanation would not be necessary as he will just embrace the particles as the way things are and will not need a resolution of why they are that way. I think this is grossly simplified but is the way I currently understand this concept. For the Übermensch, it is not having it all make sense that makes life worth living. It is what it is and one revels in that without sense or reward.

Social change – 2 posts related to Lee Mun Wah’s presentation

The questions that Lee Mun Wah poses are key for us to confront why we don’t talk more about race. I think of myself as not racist but I think in all honesty we all have biases that are hard to admit to, especially to people of another race. By this time of my life I would like to think that my prejudices have less to do with race than with other factors, e.g. I can’t understand the fashion for having one’s pants hanging so low that you have to use one hand to keep them from sliding around your ankles. I dislike this style whether it is a white or person of color wearing it. Perhaps the best thing that ever happened to me in this regard was when, in art history class, I referred to some figures in Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights as Negroes. I did this after some thought, thinking that the figures were meant to be of the Negroid race. (Why I didn’t just say black figures, since that is what color they were, I don’t know. I definitely overthought this.)  Another student in the class gave me a daggers look when I said this and after class she came up to me and said that she was very uncomfortable with my use of the word Negroes. I apologized and said that if we had been talking about something current I never would have used that word and that I appreciated her speaking to me about how she felt. Later on in the semester we saw each other in the library and joked about the papers we were writing. No hard feelings because she spoke up when the issue first arose. Talking does help.

http://www.stirfryseminars.com/letsgetreal/

News: Oui, je parle français. Wanna make something of it?
On last night’s All Things Considered there was a discussion about how speaking another language fluently ahs become a liability for political candidates. As if it is an issue at all. Kennedy obviously didn’t speak German when he announced, “I am a jelly doughnut” (“ Ich bin ein Berliner.”) but everyone appreciated his willingness to try, as did the Italians we met this summer in our travels. When we tried to ask for things in Italian we invariably got complemented, not that we spoke good Italian but that we cared enough to try. NPR let out that Obama speaks Indonesian. Don’t spread that around – who knows what the wackos will make of it?

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=146062632&m=146062627

week 2 artwork

This week's artwork - title: Superstar.  Inspiration was a piece of metal I found on the ground after Wednesday's class and a wad if wire in my studio.

Excuse the busy background as it was not possible to set up a better photo shoot while on crutches.

Week 2 posts

Art:http://artandperception.com/2009/10/sloppy-craft-its-getting-interesting.html
The author of this blog quotes artist Ann Wilson who suggests that the word sloppy is used as a sound bite, that it means concentrating on technique as it helps further the art rather than just to produce a finely crafted object. Artists are taking up craft when they need it for their art, rather than learning a craft as an end in itself. The rawness of the work, while not constituting fine craft, may well make it fine art if the rawness contributes to expressing the artist's idea. The quilter Sarah Mary Taylor from Yazoo City, Mississippi, has said that she is not interested in neatness in her stitching. The stitches are only of use insofar as they hold together the pieces that she is using to create her idea. When I am creating a piece I often follow this precept, of doing just what it takes to get the work done, because in the creative moment I just don't care what my stitches look like on the back. This may be a part of the distinction between art and craft which has bothered craftspeople for so long. More about this in later posts, undoubtedly.
  Photo of a Taylor quilt from http://www.gordongallery.net

Thinking: http://www.unfitnews.com/authors/RJga01blurbs.html

Why are we here? How did we get here? What is the nature of the universe? Do we really matter? Does it matter what we do?  These questions come to mind now and then and finding out about the creation of the universe and its ever-expanding nature answers nothing. It just causes more mind-bending thought. The universe is so large and is just one of so many universes that, from that perspective, we don’t matter at all. What is art? Does it matter? Not in the time frame of the universe, not in the vastness that is all of existence. And how did it all start anyway? When the scientists scale the peak and see the theologians sitting on the other side, what have they learned? That God exists? But if the original universe was created from nothing, how could God have been there to create it? Is God nothing? This kind of thought can give me a headache. On the other hand, when problems  overwhelm me, these thoughts make me realize my insignificance and that is comforting. It really doesn't matter.

Social change: New country old violence

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/world/africa/south-sudan-massacres-follow-independence.html?hp

Violence has erupted again in South Sudan less than 6 months after the elections which created this new country. The tribes that forged a coalition in order to create the new country have realized that this doesn't mean they like each other. It seems to be in the nature of humans to like to be around people like themselves. The very sad thing is that this results so often in intolerance for the unlike. The Nuer and the Murle did not invent racial bias. It was not invented in the Southern United States after the Civil War. It seems to some extent to be a condition of human nature. As individuals we can easily overcome this intolerance but as a society it seems to be not so easy. The United States cannot be called post-racial yet. I wonder if it ever will be?

Is this interesting only to me?

Before I post for week two of class, I need to think about why I create. Often materials rather than concepts drive me. I see yarn, it suggests a garment. I see bridge undersides, they suggest fabric that I might create. I am given a yarn I would never ordinarily use and I try to come up with a use for that yarn that makes it more than  the plastic that it is, that transcends the ordinary I guess would be a more artsy way to express it. I have an urge to create something when I see rusty pieces of metal. I don't always know what that will be when I collect them but they tease me with their suggestiveness. Why do I do this? I like producing things. I like baking bread too. I like having something I can look at at the end of the day and say I made this. I am not driven to express great truths or to confront controversy with the things that I create. Do I need to have a concept beyond creating something pleasing to my eye? Whether what I create is art or not remains to be seen and I hope, by the end of this class, to be able to answer that.

Week one posts

Art of discomfort –The Music of Scott Walker                 . 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEYWGQMqC74 This is a link to the documentary 30 Century Man.
            I knew of Scott Walker as a pop music heartthrob in the Carnaby scene in England in the sixties. “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore,” seemed overdramatic but I loved it anyway, in part because he was so cute! And that voice was compelling. I forgot about him until today when I found a documentary on tv about him. Apparently he didn’t care about being a pop icon. He just wanted to write music. The music that Scott Walker is creating now is not what I remember from the sixties. I do not normally listen to music like this but, because it was in the context of the documentary, I did and it is lingering in my mind.
            The music is not always comfortable to listen to with its silences and dissonances. A comment was made that in a particular guitar passage you couldn’t tell if the instrument was in tune or out of tune. It seemed to be both at the same time.  One piece evokes Scott’s memory of seeing the hanging bodies of Mussolini and his cohorts in newsreels when he was too young to know what he was seeing. The music is emotional. He demands of his musicians that they share in the emotion. They all must live the feeling. This is not comfortable stuff. He is compared to Francis Bacon. I get it. He has been an influence to people like David Bowie, Radiohead, and many others. I don’t know why he wants to write music like that but, with my growing understanding of my own artistic impulses, I appreciate that he does it.

What is art?
http://www.aristos.org/aris-04/lansing1.htm
            Re Kenneth Lansing’s discussion of the need for a definition of art, I concur that if we want to talk about art we need to know what it is. His definition is open-ended enough to include just about all that we might want to talk about; my only quibble is that he says that the work of art, be it beautiful or ugly, must be “inoffensive to perception.” Does this mean that it should not physically hurt to look at it? This is imprecise use of language. But I do agree that art must be defined if we are to be able to discuss it. There are many definitions of what art is and isn’t and it doesn’t matter which one we use as long as it is clear in the discussion. I have no problem with multiple definitions of art. I see art in abandoned buildings, though the creator of the buildings had no intention that they be anything of the sort. I see art in black walnut hull pieces left by squirrels on my deck railing. I see art in the Mona Lisa. I do not claim that all three are art by the same definition.  By the end of the semester I hope have a  clearer personal definition of art.

All the news fits in the 24 hour news age
 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/us/politics/cast-as-romneys-victim-gaffney-sc-says-huh.html?ref=politics
What is newsworthy? Merriam Webster dictionary definition is “interesting enough to the general public to warrant reporting.” What is news? According to the same source, it is a report of recent events, previously unknown information, something having a specified effect (as in, “The rain is good news for gardeners.”), material reported in a news venue, or matter that is newsworthy. Are these endless discussions of the GOP debates and primaries really news? Yes, as they are recent events. Are they really newsworthy? To some extent, but not to the extent that people belabor them. Because of 24 hour news, pundits proliferate and use any excuse to run their mouths. For a news show, having talking heads is less expensive than actually sending people out to report the news. If I had any hope that we could learn about candidates from these debates, that would be one thing. But they seem to be nothing but lies, misrepresentations of the truth, personal attacks, and promises with no ideas to back them up, not to mention fear mongering. Speaking of which, is Iran’s potential nuclear capability news? (See Daily Show link) I would love to hear news that matters, that may actually have an effect on me or at least that has an effect on someone and is not just an excuse for pundits and candidates to spout off. Words are cheap.

If life really did imitate knitting how would it be?
It would be repetitive, soothing, satisfying. It would have background noise of the constant slipping of loops through loops, upon which the rest of life could go on. There would be a continuity to it. This is not to say that life is not these things, but rather to say that these are what knitting is to me.