Guest blogger Teresa LeYung Ryan, Author of Love Made of Heart

Teresa LeYung Ryan asked me to paint her story from her memoir/novel Love Made of Heart in a bookcase for her a few years ago. I did, so when I made my film Art and Gift, a voyage begins, I included her story and her photo in front of her bookcase, as well as her words regarding her request in the film, about giving away my art.  I asked her what she thought of the film, and she answered with a poem and a blog entry, presented here:

January 1, 2012

Chandra Garsson asked me today: “Teresa, what did you really think about my film?”

As I was telling her, she said “Could you say it in your blog?”

So, here goes… It took Chandra 9 months to create her documentary Art & Gift 2011.  9 months of work–being the film’s protagonist, camera person, director, producer, editor. What impressed me the most about this film is seeing Chandra’s generous nature on the big screen.  She could have been the sole narrator, presenting the conflict.  But, she did so much more.  She interviewed over a dozen fellow artists and writers to give us a chance to express ourselves.  She presents a story with fairness.  She listens to the other side; she even gives the other side the spotlight so that we can hear/see the other side without any filters. In the case of her film, the other side was the landlord.

During our conversation today, we talked about theme.  I was telling Chandra about just having finished editing a children’s novel and helping my client identify the themes in her story.  Chandra said  there is theme in her work too.  Yes, in deed.

The first time I experienced her art was when the fabulous Kim McMillon orchestrated authors’ readings during the5-week long exhibition of  Chandra’s Insomnia [Awakening] at Pro Arts in Oakland. I still remember what poet Mark G said about Chandra’s big pieces (Chandra had painted stories on doors).  “She understands trauma. I’m a vet.” That’s my recollection of what Mark said that day.

The plastic baby dolls in Chandra’s exhibit hooked my attention.  She understands broken child-within, I thought.

We’ve been friends since.

Please take a look at Chandra’s  film Art & Gift 2011!  I’m proud of my friend and her powerful work. I’m honored to be in the documentary with Lucille Lang Day, Mary Rudge, Pedro, and all the other artists/poets/musicians/writers who were invited to speak to Chandra Garsson’s camera.

December 24, 2011

My praise on Chandra Garsson’s latest film Art & Gift 2011

birds’ songs

dog’s barking

haunting music

You understand sorrow.

eviction.  Your losing your work space–to paint, to create, to sculpt, to work

from 2,400 square feet of artist’s space to 400

Your Insomnia [Awakening]

trusting Chandra Garsson to paint my dolls my ego my childhood symbolism onto Love Made of Heartbookcase

Your growth, blossoming, working with your hands, with colors, sounds, shapes.

Your masterpieces:  art-making; book-making; jewelry-making; film-making

Sincerely,

Teresa LeYung-Ryan, author of Love Made of Heart

Chandra Garsson says of her film:  “Documents the gift of a lifetime of art-making after eviction from art studio. Interviews with recipients of art, including landlord. My goal was to save art from the dump, and I succeeded.

        I am laughing in joy, Teresa, to read your praise. Thank you! Yes, it is true, after you presented me with the poem you had written in your blog about Art and Gift, I did suggest a more conventional essay approach to blogging. The poem sparked genuine interest in finding out what you were actually saying about my film, hence my suggestion of a more formal approach.

     I present here an introductory six-minute short film by way of paratext, or as I say within the film ‘paratextural’ information on the film, a play on ‘paratextual’ emphasising the textural qualities of the surfaces of most of my art: Paul Digby on Art and Gift, a Voyage Begins

      Believe it or not, I dove back in to create a second version very similar yet different from the feature experimental documentary Art and Gift, this called Art and Gift, a Voyage Begins: Art and Gift, a Voyage Begins

       And believe it or not I am still far from satisfied, as there are some technical flaws resulting from sound problems that could not be avoided, given my lack of experience making films, given the film software I worked with, given compression inevitable in the upload. Still and all, I am satisfied. I documented the gift of nearly all my art work, and I was able to realize my goal, that of saving my work from ultimate destruction brought on by the vagaries of the state of commercial real estate in the state of California, and eviction. Frankly, I was done, I wanted freedom from what had become for me an ongoing untenable situation.

Photos show bookcase Teresa commissioned me to paint her story on. Photo of me taking photo taken by Teresa.

Art and Gift Part Three, Part two, A Voyage Begins

     I wrote last about the publication of my latest film in the making, Art and Gift. I remade that, and the result is somewhat different in sound, some added clips and images, more than that, the overall feel is in another realm not quite altogether, but there you simply must have it. My hope is that you will watch the new version, Art and Gift, A Voyage Begins, and that you might let me know what your thoughts are, either here or where it is posted.

    The third and final film in a trilogy telling of the gift of all my artwork to those who valued the work, thereby rescuing the art from landfill following one eviction too many from art studios, due to owner's plans for development of the property. After my eviction by a  landlord from the Dutch Boy paint factory art studios, I was given a much smaller space by my friend of twenty years, a friend who had collected much of my art. In order to make that move to a much smaller studio, I had to sell a great deal of my work at prices far below market value at the time of that move, which was almost six years ago. The space my friend offered me she offered at a price well below market value. Now ensconced in the old Bank of America building, my friend sadly died. Her son inherited, he "had other plans for the building," so once again I had to move. He kept the rent the same low amount I had paid his mother until the time of my move. He offered me another space in another building about 1/4 the size of the smaller space I had squeezed into after eviction from the Dutch Boy. With enough space for my work, the rent would have gone sky high, well beyond what I could have paid. Just finding space large enough would have been a dicey situation, one that I had explored to no avail, especially given that neither commercial nor residential rents have come down in my area, despite the near depression economy.
It is difficult to say in a situation like mine whether the tragedy is the loss of studio/gallery/work/storage (all of that is what a studio is or can be to a visual artist), or whether the tragedy is the necessity of saving work from land-fill by giving it to others. It is both. The loss is of countless hours of grueling intellectual and physical work that goes into the making of any art---in my case countless paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and the objects that go into the personal collection of an artist, all grist for the mill, all muse, all props that hold the theater together.

Paul Digby, Vincent Andelmoth, Aki Sasaki and friends, and Danny Zingarelli and friends created hauntingly beautiful music which graciously they allowed me to use in my film.

The poetry of Lucille Lang Day rings true and clear throughout the film.

Poet Mary Rudge speaks eloquently at film's end of changes and passages, "Every time a person dies, a book is lost."

I gave it all up for free!

Note: There are at least two places in this film where the sound got away from me in transit (upload)---my great desire is that these two places will be heard as very avante guarde sound sculpture.

A Nine-Month Project, Newly Released: Art and Gift

I have been working on this film the past nine months, complete and uploaded to Youtube. I invite you to click on the link and watch this film complete with interviews of those I gave my art to, and my landlord who evicted me.  The film can be seen at this link:  ***Art and Gift,***  a film by Chandra Garsson, featuring art by Chandra Garsson.

Featuring Poetry by Lucille Lang Day, music by Paul Digby (music), Vincent Andelmoth, (music, inCissorS), Aki Sasaki, (music,Escape (Window), Slave Unit), Egmont van Dyck, Jan Steckel,  Teresa LeYung Ryan,  many more:  ***Art and Gift***

Bryan MacCarter Has Died, My Friend on Facebook

       'I'm writing to let you all know that our friend Bryan MacCarter died.

I thought you would want to know. I went to his friends page to see who were mutual friends.

I went to his page to check on him because it had been a few weeks since I heard from him, and found that he died at the end of October of a long time illness. That is all I know, You can go to his page and glean what you can, if you wish.

It is a very sad thing to me.

I am sorry if I shock you with this, I did not know he was ill, maybe no one did.'

                 This I wrote on a note at facebook to let mutual friends know of death. Then I wrote at the note:

Bryan MacCarter

Art by Bryan MacCarter

 'Some time back, Lana, I saw a very kind note from you to him at one of his photos that I could not comment on because it was so painful, I'm sorry to say. But thinking of that made me want to tell you and mutual friends.'

      At a post of Lana Gentry's I first became significantly aware of both her and Bryan MacCarter.

      To Lana Gentry from me on Facebook:

      Thank you for your note at the top and re-post of this photo and thread. In my sadness about Bryan's death which I only found out about yesterday, I have among other things been trying to remember when and why I first became friends with him. I believe this, maybe my first conversation with you, and must be where I first met Bryan.

       August 23, 2010. Seems I knew you both longer. But that is the nature of facebook, sometimes. Sometimes you have a friend for much longer, before you become aware of their art, for example. Sometimes you are aware and have given recognition and support for the art long before you have a real conversation. I 'member this well, I remember clicking 'like' on nearly every comment at your thread, and connecting on a conversational level with you for the first time. I believe Bryan may have begun to really connect with me, and I with him, at this very thread. Again, thank you. I am so sad.

       

      Later, when I gave away my art, Bryan asked me for the piece in the photo at this entry. I said no, the piece is very delicate, he on the other side of a continent from me, I knew it would be damaged in the mail.

I now of course regret that I did not find some way to wrap it so carefully that it would have survived the journey. It hurts inside that he wanted it, that he was dying of a terminal illness, that I did not know that, that as far as I know, no one knew that Bryan was dying. To know that he could have been looking at it while he was so ill, that he asked me for it and I said no, hurts my heart. What hurts my heart even more is 
that I did not comment at his photo. I did, I do, and I should have known better, given the nature of the image.

       The above drawing, Lana Gentry made of me, posted on facebook. It includes the piece I now call 'Bryan MacCarter,' and is now an altar to him. I will think of him every time I look at it, and because he was one of the most understanding, supportive, kind, intelligent people I have ever met anywhere---I will revisit him at this altar, often.
       I wish that I had known of Bryan's illness. I understand that he felt he needed to face his death in his own way. We all make these choices for ourselves. I just wish that people would not feel the need to hide the facts, or hide from the facts. When even the most difficult of all problems are brought out into the open, there is at least potential to deal with them, maybe even with friends.


To me when I gave away my art: 
"Chandra, I have postage covered, plus, dear. Is the skull on the hand pedestal still available? I'm in Richmond, Va. Don't tell me if you don't feel like it, but what's wrong? I can arrange shipping, poste haste, if you'd like. And I will repost this, but if you have that work, and you really want to keep them in the public trust, i'll take them and pay you for your trouble. I hope you're ok. Oui, non?"
And then: "So, eating it's own, if you still have it, i'd love to have it. We just need to figure our shipping and other various jazz... : )"
Finally in regard to art piece: "If you send me the message, i'll repost it, i can't find it on your webpage, buuuut, if you're being evicted (?) you should charge for your lovely paintings, and such, , you might make a mint. : ) And i'll buy the original work i mentioned, so holler..."
OHhhhhh, my heart, I swear I never saw those last two, I actually thought he had dropped the ball to some degree, OH GOD, the technical vicissitudes...


In his own words about himself:

 "My uncle was a bank robber, and he was one of the funniest, smartest guys that I knew when I was a kid. My mom's dad ran shine back in the day using trucks from his Ford dealership, and my pop's dad had speakeasies throughout the city during prohibition. heh Me, I just paint, write, and jabber about philosophy. I went to jail once, for being drunk in public, and I hated it. I like to be able to walk to the store, or the river, as I please. Plus, daughter, dog, elderly mother. They would be screwed." 


      A strange thing, the death of a friend. I have been crying over my facebook friend Bryan for two days. The thing is this: What would he think? I mean, we weren't that close, it's facebook. But I think Bryan wouldn't mind. He 'like'd me, at least in part, because I am emotional. That's why we were friends.

Occupy our Environment!

Interesting new reports about Fukushima nuclear disaster reported by Michio Kaku. It is now known that the one order that was disobeyed at the time of the accident saved Japan from utter and complete destruction. That was the infusion of millions of gallons of sea water on the completely melted down core reactor. Had this order not been disobeyed, Japan and all its people would be no more, and the accident which is now known to be 1/20th that of Chernobyl would have been ten times Chernobyl. According to Kaku Japan has born the brunt of the disaster, and while the effects will not be known for decades, the rest of the world has been impacted by a trillionth of the radioactive fallout. Meltdown continues, that is the nature of meltdown, into the ocean, effects not known. 
Heard Michio kaku on Forum, KQED Radio, today. Here is latest i could find on this for now: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/asia/one-mans-bold-decision-thwarted-ignorance-in-nuclear-plant-crisis/446761

Occupy the Wall Street of Your Womb

Praise be, Mississippi woke up. Fetal Personhood law was roundly defeated and was voted down. You know, why not make every little sperm a person? We all know where that would lead, those clowns pushing this with their lies and gobs of money would have to keep something zipped. Sanity prevailed this time, but vigilance remains of paramount importance. Hey, what about the rights of everyone between zygote and corporation?

OCCUPY THE ART WORLD!

       I've tried hard to get away from what for me can only be described as the pain of being an artist. Once again, I am sucked back into it all, with what I can only describe as all the ugliness attending what by all rights should only be a beautiful thing, a consolation. For me art is a kind of slavery. That is what it is for all of those who give themselves over to her, spirit courageous and raw...only to be slammed one way and another, no matter the intrinsic worth of us as people, as artists.

 Well...someones gotta say it.

      Yes,  and I thank you all again for all the help that you,  fellow artists, and others who care have given me, especially as I was doing the painful process of pulling away from it. Abandoning something one has sacrificed everything to over a lifetime is painful. 

      Sometimes the downright honor of being invited back into that realm and then my own natural feeling of wanting once again to involve myself...that can be  painful. But I shall do the very worthy task at hand, and then I will slip quietly back into retirement...film and photo notwithstanding.

The Time Is Now For The Future

        We are the 99%. Who are the 1%? Coal, oil, nuclear, hydraulic frackers horizontally drilling through shale are the 1%, and we cannot allow them to destroy our planet. There are and always have been alternatives. Call out our President who accepts weekly campaign contributions from the polluters to do his presidential duty, starting now. The 1% are eco-terrorists, guilty of bribery, and murder of our planet.

       Yesterday 10,000 people marched on Washington D.C. to demand of our President that he reject the Keystone tar sands pipeline.

http://www.tarsandsaction.org/

http://www.350.org

Occupy Wall Street---The Time is Now For You To Lead

        We are the 99%. Who is the 1%? Monsanto! We have no choice any longer than to resist and free ourselves from these phenomenally self-serving and destructive promulgators internationally of Frankenfoods that are actually a recipe for hunger, starvation, suicide, and destruction of earth and life. We need good government to regulate, not deregulate! Ban GMO! Don't just listen to me, ask Vandana Shiva.
        ‎"People once thought slavery was normal. It took a few people saying slavery was wrong to abolish slavery of another time. Now we need to speak up and get ourselves out from the dominion of Monsanto and GMO. Each of us has a spirit that is dyeing to break free." - Vandana Shiva http://www.vandanashiva.org/

Pink Flamingos, and Sympathy For Those Who Do Not Always Have Sympathy

      
       You know, I have some experience. To all former wealthy who can no longer make a living, and to people of all ages pushed out of the job market. I feel for you, to be sure, who doesn't? It was the case all along and still is the case that for 99% of artists, facts of education, talent, ability, work ethic, productivity, real can-do attitude and willingness to do it all...counted for virtually nothing in U.S. middle American culture; they also did not count in the exploitative art world. Most of us were far from appreciated all along, let alone honored or allowed to earn a living. Always generous, I have this to say to the unemployed and those employed beneath their level: yes, it hurts to feel you are a tree falling in the forest with no one there to hear. My heart goes out to you, just wait it out, keep going, you never know. Survive.

      Along the road to destruction, how many jewels have been thrown by the wayside, how much cultural wealth, our national treasure, has been allowed to slip through the cracks? People will not pay for fine art, but millions of dollars have been thrown away on pink flamingos for the garden. The question remains, what did most waste their money on then, and what is money wasted on now?

       I was taught in grad school that our reputation was everything, we could easily be blacklisted, be careful. But the level of repression of every genuine human instinct and thought that this engendered was phenomenal. In the long run all the walking on eggshells has done artists little good. Maybe it is time for a paradigm shift? Easy for me to say, I recently gave away a lifetime of art work, which did incidentally free me up to say what I please, no small matter at all.

They Are Not the Real OWS

       I've been giving careful thought to so-called anarchy at Oakland General Strike. I talked on the very eve of the the event with a friend and said I was afraid to go, because I thought there might be violence, police or otherwise. Here are my thoughts about what some call anarchists, others call hooligans, I simply call them thugs. Sometimes I call them young thugs, since most of them are young, so at times I call them destructive brat hangers-on. But whatever they are called, they are not part of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Whether they are plants or infiltrators or just kids with way too much destructive energy, the point is that just as other groups have had to divorce themselves from the destructive among them, I too say that these destructo brats are not the real OWS.

      In fact, I invite young people everywhere to say that these are not the real young people. In fact:
       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OvModwZRWI&feature=colike

       Every movement has had the same problem, those who will destroy a movement or group from within, even as they come from outside, whether sent by the enemy to make a group look bad, or outside real thought about why they do what they do, or real, cogent thought about anything beyond destruction feels powerful and good to them. Those who don't know how to be creative or appreciate those who do, are often destructive, whether it is through out and out violence, a thousand tiny cuts, or simple ignorance.
     
      Riot grannies aside, the worst thugs who do the most damage are a bit older. See Glenn Greenwald on OWS: http://www.salon.com/2011/10/17/what_are_those_ows_people_so_angry_about/