Flying Paint by Chandra Garsson

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

2012-01-10T19:37:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-02T12:14:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-09T13:29:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

'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!

2011-11-10T16:56:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-11-08T12:56:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-07T10:42:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-06T10:21:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

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

2011-11-04T06:03:00.000-07:00

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/

In the Wake of the New F-word (Fukushima), Occupy Wall Street, Oakland

2011-11-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

My original plan had been not to add a new blog entry until that situation was resolved. Too much time passing, without resolution, so I've been occupying Wall Street in Oakland. My hope is that the nuclear and all other environmental concerns will become a part of the movement. For the sake of these beautiful people, and all other living things, as far as I'm concerned it is top of Occupy Wall Street agenda!

Photos I took while there before the police crackdown ordered by Mayor Jean Quan:

Violence is wrong, I do not believe in it, as I have made clear all along. I do believe the so-called "anarchists" to be plants by those who oppose to make movement look bad. I believe them to be infiltrators, not part of the movement. Important to me in all of this is that I am looking up from F, I am doing something new (we have to live, as long as we are alive!), and I am taking heart that there will be no more violence. This movement has got people thinking and talking again. I do not condone militance from any camp. I hope for better.

And a little movie I made there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibdex1VCNYI

The Great Giveaway, Part Three--- Just what are we giving away? On art, nuclear fallout, and our planet

2011-04-29T00:47:00.000-07:00

I dread the visions I have of the future, especially if we let right-wingers hold sway...do they want to see us dyeing in the streets of painful disease, young and old, together with children,decrepit, sick, homeless, those who are still able predatorily taking advantage, while the rich who have taken all for themselves die in underground bunkers clutching the money they saved from closing down mental hospitals, health care, jails, police, fire departments??? After they did this nuclear deed to all of humanity, all other life on Earth? This is what I fear, it's been going in this direction far too long. If we shut down our willingness to engage about it, we cannot plan for a better future---and we must. We must begin now to plan compassionately for the massive die-off. And we must plan for knowledge of finding a way to end the nuclear nightmare, so that it is not ongoing for the next million years, with or without us. I don't think most people even realize that nuclear fission means never-ending.

   What goes through my mind about this beautiful planet, her waters, her air, her bodily self is so complex I barely know where to begin. I find myself in the old existential dilemma---whether it's better to face what feels horrific about our world, and all the most difficult feelings attending, or whether to do as I do in most of my life, and find a way to remove myself from the angst of our human condition---I mean the ones that we have created as humans---the nuclear nightmare, and the global warming conditions that threaten the existence of all we hold dear on Planet Earth, Earth herself. My feeling is that if we continue as a species to ignore, we are doomed.

   Now that we have opened Pandora's box and faced the worst consequences of meddling with nature, essentially playing God, we have a responsibility to make certain Earth does not "throw us off" as one put it to me lately in her explanation of how she sees recent nuclear catastrophe at Fukushima, Global warming events as Earth's revenge for our poisoning of her, her waters, her air. She said "if Earth wants to throw us off her, she will, and Earth will be fine without us." Would that it were that simple! Think of the result of Chernobyl's continuous nuclear fission under the sarcophagus there, and the 15 years overdue new covering over the old one. The billions it will cost to build it are not nearly paid, it will be as high as the Eiffel Tower, 500 (?) yards long circumference, and will last 100 years. Thud.

   In geological time it is barely the blink of an eye. If we do not continue as a species, how do we maintain Chernobyl and the rest of the nuclear power plants around the world? All of life on planet Earth is at stake. To all of you who love life, animals, water, air, Earth, I ask you if you believe there is a way for a critical mass of humanity to get to the point of expanding beyond merely maintaining the tiny status quo of our little lives and find a way toward apology and care for our Mother Earth, at (long overdue) last?

  To be alive is to think. Most in our culture repress thought too much, and untold damage results. Yet, we can not help but think, even if it is "...McDonalds...gambling..heroin...shopping...who can I hurt...air freshener...TV..." all manner of trivial drivel that might hold it all together somehow, for a while, but keeps individuals and everyone else in perpetual ignorance...when we could have been so much more! By using our brains for more than just survival, by embracing art (and the love of it), love for writing, reading, true philosophical thought, how to make the world a better place, how to treat children, how best to feed our bodies, get out of addictive cycles, affect politics toward the betterment of all of society, the environment, away from all the selfishness, the greed, the infantile need for leaders, even bad ones...if only we could have used our minds to lift ourselves up and out of the mess we're in...maybe we never would have been in this mess to begin with. Ever since we got Fooked, I cannot be other than real, as real as I can be...I'm so outraged by the fact that it finally happened, and once again the world shuts down thought, stands by, lets it happen. Better to my way of thinking, we would think and discuss our way to solution, or at least psychological grappling with it... The Joseph Campbells and the Buddhists are all well and good, I suppose, but what about you and me and the rest of us?

Gandhi said anger is energy. If nothing is done with it it can kill. If it is used for the good of all, to the very best of one's individual and collective ability, there is no end to the good it can do, for self and world.

First comes horror, fear. Then comes the anger as a defense against the terror, and galvanizing of the human spirit to do do one's best to rectify if at all possible. And if this intense need to create solutions goes unsatisfied, well then when the time to die comes, one goes out knowing that as much as possible to fix was carried out by the individual, possibly there is personal peace in that. I have not given up all hope.

Another thought: I think that given the state of this world, no wonder people can't easily tune in to one another. Maybe it is understandable given all the problems, and given that this does indeed look hopeless. I would say that probably there is no hope, but I am one that needs to feel that there is, in order to keep on going as long as I can. Part of the hope I need to have is that somehow less damage can be done, some can survive, someone can fix it, somehow. I see how ridiculous that looks, given what we know, or probably know, but I am probably one who would have gone to my death in the concentration camps believing all the while it wasn't going to happen. This terror that they unleash on us from the inception of the insanity of nuclear knowledge, as surely as whatever was done to us by violating parents, societal violence, war, illness makes many of us to some degree crazy, including the craziness that has kept people in ignorance and denial of it all from 1942 on.

Tree Spirit, owned by Meena Antonia Miller
The Animals, owned by Aki Sasaki
Out of the Depths, owned by Aki Sasaki
Hand Book on the Out of Hand (Pandora's Box), owned by Terrry R. Flowers
Sink or Swim, owned by David Stuart Rose
Gandhi, owned by Rahela Ranjbin

Yes----failure of imagination, that is exactly the trouble: http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/6404

Unspeakable reality voiced on Australian 60 Minutes, CBS:
http://www.worldwidehippies.com/2011/08/18/fukushima-now-radiating-everyone-unspeakable-reality/

Jellyfish may be to the rescue: http://hken.ibtimes.com/articles/177027/20110709/millions-jellyfish-invade-nuclear-reactors-japan-israel-2011-power-plant-shut-down-unusual-growth-tr.htm

Sunflowers, too: http://www.care2.com/causes/sunflowers-may-heal-fukushimas-radioactive-soil.html

From Dr. Helen Caldecott on radioactivity in the U.S. following Fukushima:http://www.nuclearfreeplanet.org/news/2011/07/12/radiation-levels-in-northwest-rain-were-up-to-130-times-drinking-water-standards-following-fukushima-japan-nuclear-reactor-explosions.html

And in the United States: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/nuclear-flood-nebraska-fire-us_n_885534.html

Recently uncovered and written about by Annie Jacobson in her book about Area 51, called Area 51: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-05-13/americas-secret-nuclear-test-revealed-in-area-51-by-annie-jacobsen/4/

Grab a cup of coffee or tea, sit back comfortably for about an hour and listen to the voice of reason, Dr. Helen Caldicott:
http://worldstreams.org/past141.html

An excellent organization, on facebook, too: http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2011/6/1/check-out-and-download-our-new-ad.html

Worse than a meltdown at three reactors from The Guardian:http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/08/fukushima-nuclear-plant-melt-through?cat=world&type=article

A good compilation on the latest news out of Japan: http://www.infiniteunknown.net/2011/05/12/japanese-officials-admit-for-the-first-time-nuclear-meltdown-at-fukushima-plant/

A warning to stay out of the rain, good links at this blog, and some interesting discussion: http://stokereport.com/rant/radioactive-rain-california

About your milk and fish: http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/radiation-in-milk

The Nuclear Engineering site from U.C. Berkeley provides some interestin discussion indeed: "The one thing I do know is that the EPA has been less than truthful (I'm being kind), concerning information on their website. They've removed and changed information and ignored important facts that should have been posted. And along with that, I don't need some happy, little colorful map. I learned to read when I was four. All I want is the truthful findings from their tests and some unbiased background information pertaining to those tests. I'm not a moron or a child that needs government lackeys to draw pictures for me and tell me everything is going to be ok."
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/node/2347

Setback at Fukushima: http://www.euronews.net/newswires/921253-japan-readies-new-tactics-for-fukushima-after-setback/?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4dd00a1934f450df%2C0

Architectural plans for new "safe" sarcophagas at Chernobyl: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvEDVuGOJ6Y
Protest of NRC: http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/apr/28/anti-nuclear-protest-planned-at-nrc-meeting/

Burning radioactive waste debris for fuel in Japan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKHCK0DvnI
A man living in Tokyo who wants the truth and tells us we should want the same: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pHwvRWw7kY&feature=related

Yuko Noguchi on NPR about Japanese people burning debris from Tsunami with unknown asbestos and radioactivity: http://www.ideastations.org/npr/135770675-one-big-obstacle-to-japans-recovery-trash

"One of the most monstrous medical cover-ups in history" Helen Caldecott, M.D.
http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITrXVJMKeQ&feature=related gundersen

Arnie Gundersen on NPR Democracy Now with Amy Goodman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5mxi1HJP7Q&feature=related

"Bury it!" from Michio Kaku: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DkCD5IInMY&feature=related

An interesting spiritual perspective/meditation on denial and compassion from Portland, Oregon:
http://www.gaiaworkshops.net/fukishima-fallout-and-the-spiritual-challenge-of-nuclear-disaster/

Great radio programming around this and all environmental issues: http://www.tucradio.org/

Very good article by excellent journalist, Alexander Cockburn on California nuclear dangers from plants: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/76471,news-comment,news-politics,alexander-cockburn-another-fukushima-in-america-not-if-but-when

The Great Giveaway, Part Two

2011-04-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

Chandra, here the entire poem is.
Did you see "The Queen Of The Sun?"

Last night, as I was sleeping

by Antonio Machado
(1875 - 1939) Timeline

English version byRobert Bly

Original LanguageSpanish

Secular or Eclectic

20th Century

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

     Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

     Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

     Last night, as I slept,
I dreamt -- marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

-an email from my friend Lemora Martin

-artwork, For Van Eyck, owned by Lana J. Rose

The Great Giveaway, Part One

2011-03-27T15:57:00.000-07:00

   How to commemorate the Great Giveaway of nearly all of a lifetime of art? Especially as the huge physical push on the parts of myself and others that it entailed coincided with the Great Earthquake and Tsunami of Japan? That soon after beginning to realize what was happening there, one of the Great Nuclear Disasters in human history was taking place for the people of Japan? For the world?
   I felt guilty continuing to process all that I had been put through, all I was putting myself, friends, acquaintances through. For me this past eviction from my art studio and all I did to save my work from the dump will always be somehow preempted in my mind by tragedy on a scale of which my relatively small drama pales in comparison. It is just as when Pedro's and my exhibition at Deeproots, the reception of which was in the very week I realized that the studio I had occupied for the past twenty years would have to be vacated by Pedro and me despite more than five years fighting my landlord there, coincided with the breaching of the seawall that was Hurricane Katrina. How to properly address one's own personal tragedy in the face of catastrophic disaster affecting entire regions, an entire country, the world?
   I don't know, I suppose it's something to do with the famous selfishness by necessity of the artist.
   I blog, I have begun to work on a documentary film about this eviction, and the imperative of the art I had to give away, the imperative of the giving away of the art.

Painting, The Beating Heart of the Butterfly, owned by Lana Jean Rose

Having Been in a Garden of Sorts all This Time

2011-02-19T23:15:00.000-08:00

I find myself cast out. I think that after this eviction and the giving away of the artwork of my entire life as an artist, not only will I survive, but I will Feel a great liberation.

I wonder how Adam and Eve felt to leave The Garden of Eden and to discover a whole world beyond the only world they had believed they would ever inhabit.

Janette MacKinlay on December 9th, 2010, RIP

2011-01-20T12:46:00.000-08:00

The last time I saw Janette MacKinlay was about two years ago at her home up on Ridgewood Drive, where she served me
the heartiest most delicious vegetarian, home-cooked meal of Soup, bread, and salad. Then she offered me, and I ate, her exquisitely delicate home-baked cookies. The meal is memorable not only for the wonderful quality of the food, but even more because we had fairly recently written memoirs (hers about her experience on 9/11/2001 living across the street from the World Trade Center), which we were exchanging and talking about the entire day. On that day we filled in the gaps of our entire life histories. On that day she also purchased a necklace I had made right off my neck, at a time when I was sorely in need of cash. That is how I will always think of Janette, to me she was giving of herself first and foremost, and generous materially as well.
I first met Jeanette when she owned and operated The Art Club Gallery in the Fruitvale section of Oakland. The Gallery was a converted movie theater at least 50-60 years old. Janette lived there, adventurous one that she was. There she offered and made possible Dreams, Shadows, and Archeologies, an exhibition including two other artists and myself, Lemora Martin, and Long Nguyen. The friendship between Lemora, Long and me fast became a friendship and long association with Janette, who I confess I wish I had seen more of over the years. I will miss knowing that Janette is living among us, the world will miss her creativity and generosity.

In searching through my emails for the exact date of Janette's death, I accidentally skipped to "oldest" to find one of the first messages on facebook from Janette dated from about 3 years ago:Janette wrote on your Wall:

In searching through my emails for the exact date of Janette's death, I accidentally skipped to "oldest" to find one of the first messages on facebook from Janette dated from about 3 years ago:

Janette wrote on your Wall:
"Hi Chandra,
Great to get your message. Lemora was in time a couple of weeks ago, and we were reminiscing about the opening at the Art Club. I found some photographs of the event which were fun to see. When Lemora is in town next perhaps we can all get together.

My Open Studio was quite meaningful. Lots of friends from years past stopped by and it was wonderful to see everyone. And of course it was gratifying to see my work displayed.

Thanks for keeping in touch.
Janette"

The Belief I Hold in Your Ability to Fly

2011-01-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

I still believe in the ability of sites like this (my blog, your blog, Twitter, facebook, etc.) to foster true Democracy. How much respect do you have for your own truth-telling thought process, independent of all you have been taught in life? Certainly incorporate some of what you have been inculcated with, if it truly resonates with what you yourself know to be true. This is a clarion call for independent, critical thinking---and the willingness to share it with others.

At least one friend, Zhenne Wood, was inspired by my post. She is an artist and a poet. At the end of her response I shall provide a link to her beautiful blog, All Zhenne And Everything:

Hi Chandra,

I was so taken by your beautiful and poetic title of your most recent blog, I was inspired to quickly write a poemy kind of thing. I didn't want to post it as a comment, but thought you might appreciate a look at it. I wrote it very quickly without editing and for some reason it came out kind of rhymy. Anyway, I guess I could continue writing on it all day but while on the subject of wings - I turn my attention to making little birds for nests. Enjoy a fulfilling and inspiring day, in or out of your little nest.

♥,
Zhenne

Here it is:

The Belief I Hold in Your Ability to Fly

Never wavers, never flags, never dims
as across a littered landscape
you skim...

Strewn with abandoned houses,
fallen feathers, detritus of the past
footfalls of broken journeys
that could not last...
you rise above lost territory
continuing to soar...

Mapless, beyond the roiling, darkening skies
you push wings' limits
continuing to rise

'Til, like a beacon spreading eastward
New light reaches and opens your eyes...

http://zhennewood.typepad.com/

The Poem, The History Of Our Love, is by poet Jan Steckel. As it happens it goes nicely with my collage/painting. Jan is a friend and colleague, and we thought that the two artworks together in some form, perhaps as a broadside, would be a lovely addition to someone's collection.

2010-12-28T14:06:00.000-08:00

The History of Our Love

If you were a skeleton,
and I were a skeleton,
we would weave our bones together
in a death’s head embrace.
I’d be able to get closer to you
than I’ve ever been,
my clavicle bumping up
against your acromion.
Every one of the twenty-seven
little bones of my hand
would grab your iliac crest
with equal enthusiasm.
The chalky scrape
of kneecap against femur,
the click and rattle
of your metacarpals dragging over
my fibula and tibia,
would drive us to ever-increasing
ecstasies of excitement.
When you drew your phalanges
over my ribs, I’d sound
like a horny, bony xylophone.
We’d grind, scrape, click and rattle
right through the night,
and the day, and the night,
wearing ourselves and each other away
until nothing was left
but a happy, exhausted heap
of calcium carbonate,
like a pile of powdered Tums
or crushed Rolaids,
ready to be pressed
into a stick of chalk
for a child to write on the sidewalk
the history of our love.

By Jan Steckel. First appeared in Redwood Coast Review, October 2007.
http://www.jansteckel.com

The art piece is one inspired first by how moved I was by a photo in National Geographic, of a couple who died at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius, in Pompeii. I worked from the moment of my emotions, which reflected a mixture of tragedy at the timing; a moment of love between the two, and a profound feeling of the coincidence surrounding the utmost bliss possible for two humans in love, combining with horrific death in the face of unstoppable forces of nature.
At the moment that I saw the photo in old archives of mine, I was working on a series of Adam and Eve inspired artworks. the collaged painting of Adam and Eve is from an old master, Jan Van Eyck, I believe. I felt in the moments that I was creating the mixed media artwork that all tragic death of humans (and I think it can be said that all death is at some level tragic), is a good metaphor for the casting out from Paradise of Adam and Eve.

Reflection on the Waning Days Approaching Winter Solstice

2010-12-13T19:20:00.000-08:00

   Just a quiet reflection on these times we are living through, as the days grow shorter until December 21st, the longest night of the year. After, in incremental minutes and then hours, the days grow longer until the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. This photo of necklaces I make seems somehow appropriate, as we approach the Winter Solstice, perhaps what feels to me to be the holiest time of year.

   Pyrope and Grossular Garnet, Malachite, Fluorite, Pink Opal, Tourmaline, Golden Beryl or Heliador, Carnelian, Amber, Red Aventurine. What other than these names are needed for poetry?

   Click twice on the photo for a treat.

16 Days of Artivism and Healing of Violence, November 23-December 10, 2010

2010-11-24T11:41:00.000-08:00

http://16daysofartivismforthehealingofviolence.wordpress.com/press-release-calendar-of-events-nov-23-dec-10-2010/

Organized by Kim McMillon, publicized by Teresa LeYung Ryan.

In Honor of National Stand Up to Bullies Day---Two Stories

2010-11-19T10:49:00.000-08:00

The first is a simpler story of the playground in elementary school. It is a tale of triumph. The second can

can be found in the last photo, if you click on it to enlarge. It is from my book published for my exhibition in 2004, Insomnia (Awakening), about human on human cruelty. This story as well,

although a story of greater terror and longer term consequences, has in it an element of triumph, in that certain intentions were thwarted.

A word about the text on the page of the book: I wrote the first draft of all text in the book in pencil. I wrote second drafts in ball-point pen. Third drafts were written with black sharpies. I then typed several drafts on transparent paper on an old typewriter. It was a first book, with myself as editor, and no computer. I read from the book at poetry open mics in the year following it's publication by Meridian PressWorks, a limited edition of 100 in color, 100 in black and white. Each page of text is accompanied by a photo of my art work. As I read aloud to the public in that year each time (five times I was feature reader) I used the same copy to read from, each time I edited further. It was a first stab at writing for me, and was intended at first as a catalog for the show. How I wish I had not been in such a hurry to publish; while the text itself is art, clearly further editing was needed. Even with this blog I have the luxury of amending again and again, and I do.

When I was nine, I had a classmate named Mary Ellen Weingarten (not her real name). She made fun of the "clodhoppers" I wore to school--- practical, all white oxfords---saddle shoes without the saddle, far from the fashion of the day. I had no choice, these were the shoes my mother chose for me. Mary Ellen was twice my height. I was the better athlete, small but wiry, and I was very fast. One day while the class played in a softball game, I was able to hit a few home runs, and I was able to tag several members of the opposite team on which Mary Ellen played with the ball, before they got to various bases. I tagged Mary Ellen for the second time before she got to first base. She lost her temper. She ran at me, grabbed my hands fast and hard, interlaced her fingers in mine, and before I could protest, my fingers were being bent back, torturously slow. I thought my fingers would break. I was in pain.

I bent my right leg at the knee, raising it and my leg as high as I could behind me. With all the desperate furious adrenaline fueled strength of my tiny but fierce little body I could call forth. I let her have it with the full force of my clodhopper clad foot: a lightening fast kick aimed and landed square in the center of her bare shin (we all wore dresses to school back then).

Soon enough I was being called into the principal's office. Mary Ellen was in there with Mr. Reid. She was crying, a huge red welt obvious on her shin. He looked at me sternly, inquired if I had done this to poor little giant Mary Ellen. One arm's elbow akimbo, teapot style, other hand gesticulating my sense of justice, I explained the situation in no uncertain terms to Mr. Reid. His jaw dropped to witness such articulate power in a very small girl. He dismissed us both, no punishment to either meted out. My first political battle won, I had successfully stood up to two bullies in one day!

While you may notice I used no actual names in this story, except for the name of the principal, it is a testament to the terror that is still in me over the Insomnia story, that although I know the names, they are not used. That is the triumph of the even greater brutality that that narrative portrays. In some measure, there is always some degree of silence. The best and only way to fight sometimes is to break the silence.

http://www.vspcity.com/insomnia

Mini Installation For Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos

2010-10-15T10:02:00.000-07:00

When ready, it will be. Or not. If this seems cryptic, so be it. It is a memento mori, and not the first.

10/10/10 Day of Climate Change Awareness Action: This movie (a first!) and this photo, are my action.

2010-10-12T10:45:00.001-07:00

Compulsion, at Berkeley Repertory Theater

2010-09-23T14:17:00.000-07:00

Photo to left is a Self-Portrait as a Puppet by artist Pedro Moreno. I usually show my own works at this blog, but I saw Compulsion with Pedro, I am friend to him and his art, which I adore, and after all, his drawing is of a Marionette.

Photo at top is of my  Chrysalis sculptures, which I chose for the strings on which they hang, and for their symbolic value, given that Anne Frank was an adolescent while she wrote her diaries while in hiding, and who died at age 16. The Chrysalis is the adolescent stage of the insect, for me symbolic of the stage of adolescence, symbolic of the way my people were seen by the Nazis, as insects to be exterminated.

The final photograph below the rest was taken by Egmont Van Dyche on August 11, of the mess I cultivate at my studio. I chose it for puppet reference, for death symbolism, for depiction of young life cut off before growth and full potential of life could flower. I chose it for Anne Frank, the theme of the Play, Compulsion.

I am compelled to write about a theater piece written by Rinne Groff, Compulsion, about the author of the first non-fiction novel, Compulsion, written by Meyer Levin, which was about the true life crime of Leopold and Loeb. Levin, who sued the father of Anne Frank, Otto Frank, after Levin was entrusted by Mr. Frank (without written contract---important to the story) to do two things: to disseminate the prolific diaries of Otto Frank's daughter, Anne, and to write and produce a play based on her diaries.

   This post is about the play, Compulsion, currently at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. To unravel the tangled threads of the Marionette that is the story that became so burdensome as to nearly ruin the lives of Meyer Levin, his wife Tereska Torres, Otto Frank, who's life already was in ruin by the Nazis, Judith Jones, publisher at Doubleday, Barbara Zimmerman, editor of Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl, who was herself the age Anne Frank would have been, had she lived---is too much for me here---I suggest you see the play. If I could, I would compel everyone to see the play.

   It all seems complex, I'm sure, so I suggest you find your way to Berkeley to see the tour de force production starring Mandy Patinkin no less, along with several lovingly hand-crafted works of art that are the Marionette puppets, and their three young puppeteers, Emily DeCola, Daniel Fay, Eric Wright. Puppets are courtesy of the puppeteers, of Puppet Kitchen, and Matt Atcheson, Puppet Designer and Supervisor. As Emily DeCola explains in the Puppet Kitchen video at the Berkeley Rep website, http://www.berkeleyrep.org, "Puppeteers are often Puppet Designers, are often Puppet Builders, there is overlap all the time." Also, in the playbill credits, Puppet Consultant, Basil Twist.

   This post is about two things:
   It is about what I experienced the play to be about, the colliding worlds that are the universe within each human being, in conflict with other universes within other humans in normal times, that which the Talmud tells us is saved when a human life is saved, that which is lost when murder is done; it is about the horrific consequences of totalitarian war and regime on innocent defenseless humans; it is about the post traumatic consequences of that murder and persecution for the world, forever after.

   It is also about my seat at the theater last night. I was seated in the third row, on the far left. I saw the play in profile. From this privileged vantage point I was able to look up and down the silvery strands that are the work lines of the Marionettes in between the wooden holders held by the three puppeteers, and I got to see the puppeteers themselves, hidden from most of the audience. While the great actor that is Mandy Patinkin in what I heard him in interview on NPR say was the role of his life that has nearly undone him, over and over, in rehearsal and performance acted and I watched; as I sat in awe of him, and his fellow actors, held captive by the diologue and drama, which moved me to tears again and again, I also got to watch the puppeteers themselves. As an artist I know what creative concentration is. I was allowed to look up 25 feet or so, to see the look of art on their faces, watch their graceful movements exactly mirroring the movements of the puppets far below.

The affect on me was two-fold. It was the feeling of being initiated into the esoteric inner world of something sacred, which made the play, already profound in ways that for me defy description, even greater in it's import. Then there was the juggernaut of the subject matter having to do with the consequences of Nazism which made puppets of the victims, puppets of the nazis themselves, puppets of the people of those dark times, and the people forever after, who are reminded in so many ways by too much in our world now, that we are all puppets.

Aging is Non-Discriminitory--- We Are All Approaching 80--- If We Are Lucky

2010-08-15T13:08:00.001-07:00

Amazingly our somewhere around 92 year old neighbor, "Elle," has Alzheimer's dementia, and she is quite seriously on her own. It is not so very surprising that she is alone in life, no spouse, no relatives, no friends, it happens. What is shocking is that in the state she is clearly in, in the State of California, there is no help for her! Here are the facts: she is a veteran of WWII. She has lived in this building of 18 units for the past 40 years. she was fired from her job of many years as resident manager for some bizarre behavior (a result of beginnings of Alzheimer's) three years ago. She and I had been previously friendly, but after I was hired by the old old landlord to do the job she had held, she became verbally abusive whenever she saw me. Once when the smoke alarms in the building went off, house filled with smoke everywhere, I called the Fire Department, warned everyone, and when I knocked on her door she was scathing in her criticism of the responsibility I had taken, calling what turned out to be her pyrotechnics "just a small kitchen fire." I tried to remain friendly and helpful for a while, but decided it was best all around if I steered clear.

Another neighbor helped her out with several things for a few years. He was her only friend here, although everyone was courteous and friendly. One day about a year ago, in the middle of the night she banged on the door of the young couple living in the unit below her to complain of "loud music and noise." They assured me the next morning they had not been making noise, which I knew to be true. Elle had engaged in a struggle over their door, which had been opened slightly to her by the young man. He got it closed, and she banged so hard on it with something in her hands that she actually broke part of the moulding on the door. Soon after the couple moved out.

Once I heard a loud noise from the second floor where she lives, so I knocked on her door to see if she was OK, thinking she may have fallen. She yelled at me as if I had flung at her the worst insult imaginable.

Meanwhile, her helping neighbor had reported to the property owner that he had grown wary of Elle, her behavior was growing increasingly bizarre, he was no longer in a position to be of help to her. The landlord asked me to call social services to see what help could be offered to a lady of such advanced age, a veteran of WWII, on Medicare and Medi-Cal. Shockingly, Adult Protective Services could offer nothing beyond, "call the police to 52/50 her. The landlord must evict her." Not one to give up easily, I began a campaign of information gathering, to little avail.

A few weeks ago I ignored it this time when again I heard quite a loud noise somewhere in the building. One of the other neighbors, a young man knocked on my door to tell me Elle had fallen on the top of the carpeted stairs, that she had hit her head, he and another neighbor were attending to her. I called 911, asked them to send an ambulance. She spent a couple of days in the hospital. Meanwhile, I got on the phone to APS again, believing for all the world that this crises would galvanize them to action. I was told that unless she makes the decision to get help for herself, no one may step in to help her, not even if she is in a state of dementia rendering her a danger to herself and others. Help could not be given to her unless she herself sought it, even though Alzheimer's is a medical condition, causing deterioration of the brain. The property owner was given no other choice by Adult Protective Services than to evict, the prospect of which is loathsome to him, understandably enough.

I was told a few days ago by a first floor neighbor, that one night several months ago she had been awakened in the middle of the night by Elle banging hard on the door of two other very nice neighbors, yelling at them to "turn off that music!" Clutching hard at her sheets, the downstairs neighbor had grabbed her phone in panic, ready to call 911. People are not used to calling the cops on a 92 year old lady. Soon after the neighbors of the early AM door-banging moved out. The landlord and I never even knew the reason why, at the time.

A friend of Elle's visiting her for the first time in years called the paramedics to come pick her up in an ambulance. She had some kind of "shortness of breath." Back on the phone to report this to APS, I met with what seemed to me cold callousness, or ineptitude, no help, once again.

Elle back again the next day from the hospital, I returned around midnight two nights ago to the stink of chemicals and several messages telling me the police had been called, Elle had been hauled off again to Summit Hospital. She had been pouring bleach and Raid all over her apartment and the stairs because "the snakes were now everywhere, had been biting" her all over her body. I was told she had been threatening to murder the neighbor who had previously cared for her. She had become paranoid that he was stealing her money, taking her prescriptions.

The police took her again, without her keys.

I am the keeper of the keys, and I am "out of town." At least for a few more days.We all need some breathing room here, and she needs proper assessment.

She needs proper help. This is beyond the call of duty or the capabilities of the landlord, or anyone living in this building. We are not doctors, nurses, social workers, the police or a hospital. We are not her friends or relatives. Most importantly we do not have power of attorney.

My advice to everyone of any age, especially those more or less on their own, is to make a living will, and set up a good friend or pay someone to have power of attorney, just in case. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. Alzheimer's, or any dementia can spiral out of control at what can seem like a moments notice. We are not a society practicing the control of population at one end or the other. We do not limit the birth rate, we keep people alive long after in earlier times they would have been dead. Since 1960 the world population has doubled. This trend continues exponentially. The state of California is in a fiscal mess beyond reckoning. Californians have voted in a state constitution by which laws cannot be changed or made except by vote of the people, who are largely short-sited, want only not to be taxed. 2/3rds majority legislative vote and Proposition 13 limiting property taxes have nearly broken the system. In the seventies it was decided in an election by the people of California, that they did not wish to have extended care coverage as part of Medicare, which could have been paid for by individuals who wanted it, seven or eight bucks a month. Elle has Medicare and Medical, a nursing home will be paid for, if only the professionals will take some responsibility. in part their hands are tied by legislation enacted at the behest of both liberals and civil-libertarians of the sixties, horrified at the state of our mental health institutions, the cause taken up by Reagan Republicans, who for financial reasons tore down the entire system. The baby was thrown out with the bath-water.

So, whats it gonna be my fellow humans who are aging, going inexorably toward what lies ahead for half of us if we are lucky enough to make it to eighty, namely Alzheimer's or other Dementia? Do we want a safety net for Elle? Do we want a safety net for ourselves? Do we want to be put in the position of caring ineffectually for neighbors and friends, doing work that is beyond our capacity? Do we want to see buildings burn, neighbors threatened with or actually murdered, poison dumped in the hallways where we live? Do we really want to see our oldest and most frail turned out into the street, or having to face an eviction judge in their (our) eighties? Nineties? More than 100s?

After Elle was once more sent to the hospital for starvation and sitting all day in the sun on the front stairs in her underwear (she had locked herself out of her apartment and no one at home had an extra key to let her in; I was not home. The landlord could not be reached), I received a call from APS. They wanted to be sure her door would be open, they wanted to dump her off yet again.

I spelled it out for them what could happen to this most vulnerable lady, if they brought her back again. I left no rock of detail in place, exposing in the harshest terms what I felt they would be responsible for, should further harm come to Elle, due to their negligence.

It seems this time they heard me; possibly even they felt they could not turn a blind eye to Elle's predicament. She has not been back in several weeks. The landlord informed me the other day that Elle will not return, she is now being cared for in a nursing home.

Written For an Exhibit at Deep Roots in Oakland Where my Work Was Shown Alongside That of My Friend Pedro Moreno in 2005 and an Update

2010-08-09T13:06:00.000-07:00

Inspiration for this Show and a History

I moved to the Dutch boy Paint Factory Art Complex in 1987. This dilapidated patchwork of buildings in the heart of the industrial neighborhood of the Fruitvale District of East Oakland is considered by most to be the first artist's live/work studios created from an old factory or warehouse in the East Bay. At the time I moved in, while mostly artists lived and worked in the complex, I was told by my neighbors that the heyday for artists in these particular lofts had already past. Many were moving, had moved, planned to move. These circumstances, I was told, were due to two major factors: after artists had made their places habitable (without reimbursement from the landlord), rents had steadily climbed, pricing most artists out of the market, the other factor being the general unwillingness or slowness of our scofflaw slumlord to fix anything that might be in need of attention in our units. He was (is) an absentee landlord, who from the beginning took advantage of the poverty and need of artists for cheap space and lots of it, to use as residence, studio, gallery space, and storage. He cunningly made use of the inventiveness and creativity of people who were capable of making raw, formerly undesirable space into something quite attractive, while they simultaneously drew people to what had been and remains a remote, forbidding terrain. While I noticed that artists were indeed moving out, other artists would move in to take their place. More often people who were not artists moved in, attracted to the allure of a place that had built its reputation on the hopes and pioneering enthusiasm of artists. Also attractive were the high ceilings, large spaces, and again, perhaps the hope that something of what it is to be truly creative might rub off in some way, be contagious.
Jump cut a decade or more into the future, it is 1995. A baby has been born, is living where we were all assured from the time we moved in that all toxic materials had been removed from the days when our homes had been a factory. The baby is found at a local clinic to have dangerously toxic levels of lead throughout his system. The clinic by law must report this alarming news to the proper authorities at Housing Code Violations.
I date the beginning of the time when all hell broke lose in this place for all tenants from that child's personal calamity, which became the process of eviction for us all. To placate his alarmed tenants, who already saw the writing on the wall, the landlord initiated several meetings, where nothing was accomplished. Nothing was meant to actually happen. Soon after, the evictions began.
Understand that soon after 1978 when my landlord began to do live/work loft business, all tenants were given thirty page leases carefully delineating the demands of our landlord and the regulations governing our residencies on the property; fundamentally, our own rights were signed away. Understand that his agents instructed us with a wink- nudge- nod, that although we were to live here as others had and would, we must keep that knowledge carefully hidden from City Officials and Inspectors. Understand that this landlord was a notorious scofflaw, with or without City sanction and knowledge- the man was doing business without regard to official demands of building code, or permit processes. Understand too, that twenty-six years after he began assuring tenants the clean-up had been done, during which time he had rented to several people who lived here with children, including his own employees, toxic clean-up began. Nine years after the city busted him, forced to enforce by the finding of an infant with lead coursing through his blood stream, toxic clean up finally began.
In the fall of the year 2004 our numbers were down to about 20% of our former population, interestingly almost all artists again. Twelve trees were cut down on the property. Mountains of dirt that had been brought in from the Oakland hills the year previous would soon be put to use. Other mountains of toxic dirt heavily laced with lead and arsenic were trucked out. Under the ground where seven trees in giant wooden tubs had been removed from the parking lot, were seven underground vats containing 94,000 gallons of linseed oil, 12,000 gallons each. A caravan of 48 toxic clean up trucks removed the linseed oil. Next Eighty-seven cement mixer trucks came through to fill the underground tanks with concrete. What had taken the landlord twenty-six years to get around to, finally had been accomplished in roughly three weeks. The kicker is that he had the very cheapest concrete mixed. The stuff exposed at ground level still can be seen to be merely sand under foot at the above ground entrance to each tank. We live above a parking lot filled with sand.
Meanwhile, ongoing construction in the spaces of tenants evicted over the ten year period continues. Essentially the majority of the large spaces are being gutted and divided, most often into thirds, each of which the landlord plans to charge as much for as the previous entire space. It is unknown whether he will again allow tenants to live in the spaces, he has taken out bathrooms, is not building new ones. Sheer wall goes up, windows get covered, and the remaining windows of antique frosted chicken wire glass are relentlessly replaced by the thousands with clear panes. Aside from privacy issues, aside from the obvious earthquake safety of chicken wire glass, aside from aesthetic issues, most of these windows face southeast. On the hottest days of the year the sun comes blasting in. Imagine seeking refuge in your home from 95-degree weather to an indoor area 10 to 15 degrees hotter. I can only imagine this state of affairs when the relative protection offered by frosted glass is removed.
The man who had built a career on lying to the tenants he had built a fortune on, the man who had lied to and evaded city officials always, was finally cleaning up and making his buildings stronger. The man, who appeared to be doing the right thing for once, was once again doing it on the backs of his tenants.
Pedro Moreno became my art student, and very soon my friend, in the summer of 2000. Once a week he visited my studio for the sake of art and learning, in all day sessions that continued for three years. In this time we became the very best of friends. When a loft mate moved out two years ago, Pedro told me he would like to move in to the upstairs studio and bedroom across the larger downstairs studio from my upstairs living quarters. Although at first I felt the need to deliberate long and hard over this decision for many reasons, I gave him the go ahead, and feel now for many more reasons, that it is the best decision I ever made. We are friends, and we are companions in battle against the landlord.
The landlord has been trying to evict Pedro and me since my last ten-year lease ended in January of 2004. On September 1st, the same day of the opening of this collaborative exhibition commemorating our art and our valiant stance, the last evicted tenant will have moved from our building. Pedro and I will be living together, alone in a huge three-story structure that has become a vast wasteland of sporadic construction activity. Our busily productive live/work studio is the last of its kind here, for now. It is, and we are, endangered species.
Our legal battle for now takes place at the City Of Oakland Rent Adjustment Program. Our primary aim as of this moment in time is to both assert and establish our rights as residential tenants, under the law. From the time my last lease ended and the landlord began to try to evict us from our home, it has been one year and nine months. Thus far, we prevail.
Chandra Garsson, 2005

Pedro and I are the best of buddies. We have the kind of friendship that is steel both strong and flexible as can be the case when friendship is subjected to the fire of mutual suffering, the only way I can characterize the eviction of artists.

I landed in a tiny apartment by a lake to live in, my studio of four years is in an old Bank of America Building (a step up I suppose from an old paint factory---at least it is not on toxic ground).

The place was given to me by a dear friend and collector of many years. Very sadly, she died. Her son inherited the building and me. Now he is evicting me. He tells me on the official eviction notice all tenants received:

"Chandra---You don't have to move on the same schedule as rest of folks. Also---I have a space for you that I think will work well. Love, David (happy face drawing :) )"

The move was heavy and long. Much was sold cheap and much else was trashed. Much was fixed after being damaged in the move. Some was left behind by movers disgruntled by a bigger project than they had bargained for. Much was retrieved, including my sanity, after four years of allowing myself to do only that which I choose.

I have tried in vain for a week and a half to arrange a time to see the studio or at least the complex which he thinks I will find suitable, to see if indeed this is the case. I have left several unanswered messages. For now, my only plan is to wait. When he sees fit to show me the other space, then I shall begin the steps necessary toward vacating my studio once again, again to haul, and to begin to build again in a new place.

Love Made of Heart by Teresa LeYung Ryan

2010-07-18T16:12:00.000-07:00

My friend Teresa LeYung Ryan (left in center photo, and to right of me at top) wrote the exquisite fictionalized memoir, Love Made of Heart. At a point in our friendship, she commissioned me to paint my interpretation of her book, inspired by the cover, on her book shelves (photo above). To see reviews of her book, click on photo of back cover.

I so enjoyed Teresa's book, that I have read and re-read it, and I have given it as a gift to several friends. There is profound authenticity here; there is so much well written story about the author, and about her world. It is a coming of age tale in the vein of the best of those written. Also, what can be said of her work is that there is transcendence, renewal, faith, and hope. Teresa, and her book are an inspiration. From her website, which I encourage you to visit and re-visit:

Teresa LeYung Ryan

http://www.WritingCoachTeresa.com

Career Coach for Writers

and

Manuscript Consultant

polish your manuscript by identifying the themes and archetypes;

market yourself to agents and publishers;

map out your career.

Teresa edits women’s fiction, mainstream fiction, memoirs, children’s and young adults’ fiction, and short stories.

Some comments from her clients:

“Teresa is not only a lovely writer and a wonderful person, but also an enthusiastic, inspiring, and thorough mentor. Her far-reaching knowledge, networking expertise, and organization ensure that an aspiring writer will have the strongest foundation possible to launch him/herself on a successful career.” Pat Windom

“Teresa, . . because of you, the story has grown. You make me dig deeper and it brings more life to the story.“ E. Hartshorn

“Teresa, . . . I even see myself succeeding and being put into print and making money with my writing ability. I am so grateful to you.” D.Warner

Teresa LeYung Ryan is:

Member-at-Large at Women’s National Book Association-SF Chapter;

Past Co-Chair of Group Mentoring at California Writers Club-San Francisco Peninsula Branch;

Past President of California Writers Club-San Francisco Peninsula Branch;

a 2004 recipient of the Jack London Award for her services to California Writers Club;

Speaker and instructor.

Teresa LeYung Ryan uses her mother-daughter novel Love Made of Heart to advocate compassion for mental illness and to help survivors of family violence find their own voices.

In Love Made of Heart, protagonist Ruby Lin is forced to look into her past when her mother shuts down her own painful world. The story explores the complex bonds between mothers and daughters, the choices we make when our hearts are broken, and the choices we make when our hearts are healed.

archived at the San Francisco History Center;

recommended by the California School Library Association;

recommended by the California Reading Association;

used in Advanced Composition English-as-a-Second-Language classes.

www.LoveMadeOfHeart.com

Todd Lilienthal, Artists, Babysitting, and John Henry

2010-06-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

I am reminded of the day I met Todd Lilienthal, now a thundering musician, singer, steal-drivin' banjo man with his band out of Boulder, Colorado, Moonshiner.

I met Baby Aaron's brother Todd when he was just a year older than in his photo (right), closer to the age he is in the photo with Aaron, but earlier than that, at about age six. I was glad to know this talented person until he was eight. At the time I was very happy to meet such a personable, engaging, friendly boy in my new job as nanny on Quail Avenue, in the Berkeley hills just shy of Grizzley Peak, near Tilden park.

I was primarily there to care for his new born brother Aaron, A little bitty boy, layin' in the palm of yer' hand... oh wait. I guess that was John Henry, Aaron was a little bigger than that, 'tho he was but two weeks old when our association began.

I found them both on facebook! Amazingly, the boy I knew from age six to eight, Todd, is now the leader of a steal-drivin' gang... hold on. He is a great banjo picker, a singer of John Henry, and covers of other great bluegrass, soul and rock tunes such as Time (Pink Floyd), Brown-Eyed Women (Grateful Dead), as well as some they wrote themselves, and many wonderful others. The painting is of some of the tools of my own trade.

Moonshiner has been described thus:

"The hard driving newgrass outfit from Boulder County is known for their invigorating innovations of traditional forms with insurmountable twang."

- Marc Tonglen, The Mountain Ear

"Moonshiner formed based on long standing friendships and common, deep rooted musical interests. The band is focused on playing high energy shows and writing tunes that fit their unique style of playing..." is their description of themselves
Moonshiner link is to your right at this blog, have a listen!

Baby Aaron

2010-06-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

The miracle of facebook for me is that I was able to reconnect with Aaron, the tiny babe I cared for from the time he was two weeks old until he was two years old. What an adorable little golden- curled personality was this child.

I would stroke the little soft spot where the cranium has not yet closed in infants ever so gently, barely touching it. A look of sweetest contentment would enlighten his already Yogic little face as he lay upon my belly, then the two of us would sleep an hour or two.

His first word was "Nanra," for Chandra. Then he said "Mama," "dogie" for doggy, "hoie," for horsie for the giant horse that the Revolutionary War soldier rode in the enormous painting at the Berkeley Art Museum. It was wheelchair/stroller accessible, and I frequented it with Baby Aaron on a regular basis.

I had taken care of and taught art to hundreds if not thousands of children (beginning when I was eleven, until well into my thirties) by the time I met Aaron, and after as well; but he is the stand-out in my memory, the most precious little infant of all. we met when I was twenty-eight, as I recall. Now Aaron is studying for the Bar examination!

Pages are from my book, Insomnia (Awakening).

Assemblage sculpture was the first of it's kind that I did. It is made from the baby-suit, tiny tee-shirt, and outgrown stroller given to me by his mother. It was created in the garage of his parents that they graciously allowed me to use as my art studio.

The original photo of the piece (smallest, yellow and black) was taken by Amanda Dahl, for the website created by Aki Sasaki for my work, http://www.darksecretlove.com/chandra.

San Francisco Ballet, Romeo and Juliet

2010-05-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

I took my best friend, Pedro Moreno, to the San Francisco Ballet again. This time, how lucky we were to see the Helgi Tomasson choreographed production, danced by Prima Ballerina Sarah Van Patten as Juliet, and Primo Ballerino Pierre-Francois Vilanoba, as Romeo. How thrilling to see the pair embodying the tragic lovers.

How gorgeous to revisit through exquisite dance, perhaps well-meant but nonetheless cruelly consequential and misguided parental skills, as danced by Mariellen Olson as Lady Montague, and Jeff lyons as Lord Montague.

How delicious to once again partake of Shakespeare's supreme psychological insight into the desructive meddling goodness of the perfectly beautifully danced parts of Nurse, and Friar Lawrence by Anita Paciotti, and Ricardo Bustamante, respectively. How horrifying to realize yet again the cruelty and ignorance of human existence through the barbaric testosteronic ego and body slaying antics of the supreme athletic grace in the dance of Damien smith as Tybalt, Pascal Molat as Mercutio, and sad to say, Romeo.

All, all, all, were as great as can be expected from a world-class ballet company, and much greater than that. Ask me if I am a fan of the ballet, and I shall tell you truthfully that as an artist, and the artist that I am, I am in a position to appreciate as much as any, all of the higher arts. I should have been partaking my entire life, but the cruelty of economics in this country prevented me from going as often as I most assuredly would have preferred. Ballet, Opera, Classical or any other musical form should not be only for the wealthy. Theater was intended by the greatest playwrights, including Shakespeare, for the masses. I rue the day when art museums began to charge for admission, and then to prohibitively increase those charges, year by year. Volunteering is an option, but competition for placement are fierce, and people must work to earn a living, so time is short.

I do know this. I was afforded much time my entire life to make art by the fact that I could rarely attend the art of others. I was rendered poverty-stricken by the fact that as a teacher of art I was very poorly paid, and the better jobs went from scarce to nearly non-existant. So work as an artist I did, long hard, rigorous hours. It's a bit different for me now, in so many ways; that is all subject for other blog entries, other times in the future.

Juliet is one of the Three Sisters of Hope and Fear, You may know her by her cap, and by the fact that her Shakespeare written words emerge from her youthful lips as jewels. She is created from found objects, fix-all, pigmented resin, texture gel, and vintage and antique jewelry. The assembled tiny hands in the panels behind her are cast from the hands of my five year old friend of several years ago, Heather Bui, daughter of Rebecca and Thai Bui.

Romeo and Juliet are in reality Adam and Eve, playing the roles for just this blog entry. They inhabit their 5 and a 1/2 X 4 foot canvas, swathed in their nakedness by acrylic and oil paints, various secret and hidden textural drama, and a fig-leaf (or two), symbol of repression (in this case), but more hopefully also symbolic of sharing, and fruitfulness (fruitility?). they are owned by Maureen Anglin.

Pyramus and Thisbe, owned by Barry Ress, are also stand-ins and early inspirations for Romeo and Juliet. They are created on the backs of wooden drawers, each 21"x 21" from tin, wood shavings, vintage can labels, and layer upon layer of acrylic I painted using dual tools of concentration and love, wielded from faith in my own universe.

The jewels in the black table I began to make in the tiny apartment I now inhabit, my studio being much smaller than in years past, and across town, an hour and a half away by bicycle, as opposed to the short trip downstairs that I made in the past to produce my work. They are comprised of Turquoise, Coral, various quartzes, aquamarine, garnet and other jewels fit for young Juliet.

Deep Green is Not the Same as Dark Green... Gushing Oil Blues

2010-05-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

A prominent theologian recently wrote a book detailing the green movement as a religion, which he calls "dark green religion." Another who conflates ecology with religion because she grew up in a forest with a father who was both fundamentalist Christian and a forest ranger says that both fundamentalist Christianity and the Green Movement have in common a dearth of humor. She asks if anyone has ever heard of stand-up comedy performed by the proponent of either.

Well, I have also never heard of stand-up comedy about the Holocaust, slavery, child abuse, rape, or mass murder. I have not heard a whole lot of stand-up about war, which generally along with greed and the corrupt usurpation of land and power practiced by nearly all nations and peoples throughout history, is widely glorified and celebrated.

I am deeply green. This is not a religion for me, although I do hold life as sacred. I am aware every day of my duty toward preservation of the planet, including our atmosphere and our oceans. As such I do not drive. I happily walk, ride a bicycle and public transportation everywhere I go. I proudly state for all to hear that I have brought no child into this world to exponentially increase my carbon foot-print in perpetuity. I do not use heaters or air-conditioners, or excess electricity (I keep all plugged into power strips which I regularly turn off when not in use), and I use CFL bulbs. If I owned the place where I live I would go solar. I have not eaten meat, neither chicken or fish, for almost two thirds of my life. I get my Omega 3 fatty acids from Flax Seed Oil. I never fly in a plane.

I deeply mourn for the Gulf of Mexico off of four states, and who knows how much by the time this finally ends, who's coastlines and wetlands will be devastated by the gushing British Petroleum rig sunk more than a mile deep into the waters where perpetual oil bleeds from a major artery without end until it is capped (???), or until our earth is a suffocated, poisoned, dried up little wrinkled raison of a planet forever doomed by threat from nuclear annihilation from the dual catastrophic hazard of both weaponry and energy.

Originally the piece photographed and presented here was made in compassion for the child victims of the Catholic Church. It is part of an installation presented at ProArts Gallery in Oakland, California in which I exhibited over two hundred artworks detailing my feelings about human on human cruelty, called Insomnia (Awakening). It is now time for humanity to awaken from it's long slumber with dreams attending of money, lust, and power; there is still hope that we can save ourselves yet. I recommend knowing how you truly feel and allowing yourself to feel it, for starters. I am talking about deep greening of yourself.

Earth Days

2010-04-20T17:19:00.000-07:00

As the Icelandic volcano Eyjafijallajokull spews ash across Europe, Mother Earth complains to humanity with the barest tip of the Iceberg that is her power and wrath. Her rage at unthinking, uncaring, ignorant humanity is a just, deafening, blinding, inferno. "Ground the damn planes now and forever!"...seemingly she shrieks. We can all have empathy for a planet besieged by one species--- humanity--- which having the capacity to know better, is concerned only with puny self. It is time to begin to think, and think carefully, and think again about the cruelty of bringing new ones into this world. The new ones are innocent, just as Mother Earth herself is innocent. They are undeserving of what greater and greater havoc will be turned by her on the glut of greed and ego that is the ever unthinking and exponential human birth rate.

I do not call for a complete halt, but this is a call to each individual to assess for her or himself the true need for another vulnerable little one added to the mess we have collectively brought down upon our world. This is a cry out to think about how casually we fly in machines that spew millions of tons of carbon dioxide into our friendly skies. Think also of the killing machines we drive which are costing us our atmosphere and killing more people each year than Cancer or heart decease. Automobiles have killed many times the amount of those killed in the hundred or so years since their invention than have all the wars fought by soldiers in the entire history of the U.S.A.

1000 deaths, 240,000 auto accidents caused by driver cellphone use in 2002

1,187,037 Americans killed in wars 1775-1998 3,159,489 Americans died in U.S. Highway accidents 1900-1998

I urge everyone on the planet to re-think their dietary needs and realize once and for all that they do not need meat, it's a very bad habit learned in childhood; it is a habit easily broken. Simply learn to appreciate delicious vegetarian and vegan food. Learn the virtue of good whole local food, food from close to it's source. Support your local Farmer's Market! Grow your own food!

In honor of Earth Day, I urge you to throw out your air-conditioners, jettison your addiction to electrical, gas, and wood heat; learn to dress in layers, move your body to stay warm, open your windows, open and change your minds, before it is too late.

You've been told before and in defense of Mother Earth I'll say it again: use CFL bulbs, turn off lights not in use, plug electronics into power strips then shut them down when not in use (for the day when you leave the home, for the night when you go to sleep), then turn off the power strip. It's easy, it gives you the wonderful feeling that comes with doing what's right, and multiplied by billions, it will make a huge difference.

Let us all put an end to the individual use of pesticides, herbicides, and huge corporate agribusiness. Pressure corporations and congress to come up with solutions to the crisis of global warming and ocean acidification now. The time of worship of the almighty dollar has passed. It is time now to embrace again the ecological philosophies of ancient indigenous cultures worldwide, especially those we stole this land we call America from, the American Indian (they laugh at us for calling them Native Americans---they never called this land America, and all of us born here are native Americans).

Each of us must finally realize, we are in this together, it is not only about my ego, my money, my power, nor is it about yours. It is about a sustainable future for the planet's suffocating atmosphere and oceans and it is about the survival of our and all other species.

All of us together are one eco-system, mutually dependent on us all for everything. Do you care enough about your child to care for her the way she deserves? Do you care enough to not bring him into this world?

I am proud to say I have never brought a child into this world, I am proud that I have been a vegetarian for nearly two thirds of my life, I have not turned on a heater in years, never have I owned an air-conditioner, I never fly, I have never owned a car or driven one, after the license to drive one that I obtained long ago. I walk, ride a bicycle, and public transportation everywhere I go.

I am happier and healthier for facing the truth, I am proud of doing all I can individually and bringing pressure to bear on collective humanity, including the biggest and the most powerful. We are all David against Goliath, if only we are willing.

A Reminder of the Beauty of Life...

2010-04-13T14:58:00.000-07:00

...In the form of a few simple gifts from the Earth: Turquoise, Aquamarine, Beryl, Carnelian, Garnet, Amethyst, Fluorite, Moonstone, Quartz, and more. It is interesting that coincident with the economic downturn, I came to realize with sadness that this was yet another gift not given of Earth's own free will. Excavation, wounding of the Earth, the destruction that is mining is involved. I slowed way down, production of these jewels has all but come to a halt. Now, photography of them has become the thing for me, still not ecologically pure, sadly, yet a nearly harmless pursuit of the joy I take in any creative endeavor. I continue to weigh what I give, what I take, and where I am closest to my ideal of ecology, the areas of greatest neutrality.

Thank You to the Heroes of the Catholic Church Who Courageously work to Bring to the Attention of the World Rampant Child Abuse

2010-04-13T13:54:00.000-07:00

It affects children of the church, families, neighborhoods, every kind of temple, schools, swim teams, I defy you to name which part of our world anywhere has not been affected by this scourge. The sisters of this evil are rape of women and men, every nameable and unnameable human on human cruelty. Silence = complicity. Say no to every form of tolerance of every form of child abuse perpetrated anywhere by anyone.. Jail the offenders!

The Little Mermaid

2010-03-28T09:39:00.000-07:00

I was so privileged to be able to see Sarah Van Patten dance the title role in The Little Mermaid and Garen Scribner dance the part of the Sea Witch in the San Francisco Ballet production of choreographer, scenic, costume, and lighting designer John Neumeier.

While this was modern ballet at it's finest, and while consummate artists are at the core of every aspect of the tour de force that is The Little Mermaid, it must be stressed that Sarah Van Patten could not have taken on a greater role to express her artistry (at least for this moment in time). Beyond the obvious talent and athletic ability of the artist, the dancer Van Patten exactly embodies the tragedy of sacrifice for love both specific to the story, and more generalized, along with the tormented darkness of the rejection of that love to which all has been lost. Suffice it to say that it is nothing short of a miracle how she is able to show us the anguish of simultaneous flight from her own oceanic world and the grace of her every movement there, to transformation of her body: accompanying legs for the first time, the crippling pain thereof, her balletic expressivity of the gracelessness of foreign new limbs. Her social world too has been sacrificed; this new heavy, earthly world of gravity and human hierarchy is totally alien to her. The mermaid's tongue has been cut out for the beautiful voice contained therein by the Sea Witch, the evil exchange that ultimately alienates the mermaid. She cannot even tell her story, nor explain to the object of her love that she saved him from drowning, and that is how she came to love him.

The original star of the story of course is Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote the story two-hundred years ago. As a child I swam in the bathtub, pools, and oceans of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Venice, California pretending that I was a little mermaid, while I read Andersen's tale over and over. Let's just finish this little piece with the understanding that in too many ways Disney mangles every story it gets it's hands on. The best way for children to learn of the real tragedy of life (and all about life, as preparation for growing and development) is to read the original literature, and to see the greatest art that has been spun from the original.

Title Page, and Bones of the Artist

2010-03-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

Photos by Author and Eric Sahlin means only that E.S. came into my studio to photograph some of the artwork in my studio. It actually happened at some website or another that E.S. was given credit for the artwork. Someone did not understand the difference between photos and artwork in a book featuring sculpture, painting and installation fine art. Reminds me somehow of a student (no excuse for ignorance) journalist who saw my graduate exhibition at the Union Gallery on the campus of San Jose State University. She believed that poems on the wall, which I had posted by my work, which I had clearly attributed to Shelley, Keats, Byron, Sidwell, Dickinson, etc. were my poems. She actually criticized these masters, because she thought their work mine, and she had not bothered to read carefully enough to read the quotation attributions. And while my ever-voluminous work covered an area of about 1,000 square feet in the gallery, and she clearly was not happy with my work, she saved her most scathing criticism for the opening foyer of the gallery featuring obvious Guatemalan folk art, starkly not mine, which she also believed to be mine.

Maya

2010-03-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

A Slight Detour From The Book, Me at About 8 or 9 Months (?)

2010-03-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

Must have been my Edward G. Robinson phase.

Couplings of the Written Words With Images

2010-03-20T18:26:00.000-07:00

...And also interesting, the couplings and the pairings of people who go into it believing fervently in their mutual destiny, unwilling or unable to truly see into one another, or the future.

We were like Icarus, we flew too high, too close to the sun, our wings melted.

Mine grew back again, I guard them carefully, I know how delicate they are.

Studio Stories of Childhood and Crucified Barbie

2010-03-19T22:56:00.000-07:00

Leonardo and The man of Perfect Proportions

2010-03-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

Maybe Alberta

2010-03-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

And in black and white, see color below. Select pages from this book soon to be posted at this blog.

2010-03-17T10:59:00.000-07:00

Front and back covers of book Insomnia (Awakening) for exhibition of same name in Oakland, California, at ProArts Gallery

2010-03-17T10:43:00.000-07:00

Smoke Backwards

2010-03-16T12:01:00.000-07:00

And please don't hang out in front of the building smoking. If you do the residents or workers will not have the option of opening their windows.

One More against the Filthy Addiction to Smoke (see below, below, and below)

2010-02-16T15:27:00.000-08:00

By the Three Little Sisters, who sadly were subjected to second and third-hand smoke (the kind that clings to houses, furnishings, art, little animal lungs, little child lungs, and disgustingly, the clothing, hair, and breath of smokers, even long after their last cigarette or cigar). Incense also stinks.

In the apartment complex next door one of those horrible smoke/fire alarms that can bust everyone's eardrums has gone off, just as I was completing this post... The power of blogging!

These are Sculptures of My Two Sisters and Me Coming Out Against Smoking

2010-02-16T15:06:00.000-08:00

The photos were taken by Rafael Landea, an artist in his own right, and they were creatively worked up by me.

They were shown at Expressions Gallery in Berkeley, where they created quite a stir. In post below they valiantly speak out against the filthy habit of smoking, especially near innocent non-smokers.

Frankly I'm Disgusted That I Would Have Had To Post This Where I Live

2010-02-16T14:40:00.000-08:00

To all my neighbors,

Some of you are new here. Some of you who are new may not realize that it is against Oakland housing law to smoke on the premises, anywhere on the grounds of this building. Please will you all leave this posted so everyone knows.

All of us living here would like to be comfortable. That means we wish to open our windows for fresh air anytime we feel like it. There is a ninety year old neighbor living here. She served in WWII. Doesn't she deserve to be comfortable? Others do not smoke and do not wish to breathe in second-hand smoke, nor should they have to. Others are artists and they do not wish their artwork or their furnishings to stink of your smoke.

I believe that there are times for radical honesty, and this is one. I have asthma. I smell the smoke from anywhere in or around this building. It makes me cough. It gives me headaches. It stinks.

More radical honesty: My mother recently died a horrible torturous death from Lung Cancer. She had smoked for 35 years. She weighed 60 pounds at the time of her death. She had tubes coming out of every part of her body. She was delirious, and like many smokers, in denial about the cause of her illness right up until the very end. It was not pretty. I will go so far as to say that the death of my mother was about as ugly as death gets.

Do you know that even third-hand smoke (the kind that clings to insides of houses, in hair, on skin and worst of all on the breath of smokers even when they are not smoking, even when it has been hours since the last smoke) can be deadly? These are the latest findings.

I am an artist, so I have tried to be a little bit more casual and creative than this posting is, but sadly there are perhaps a few of you (judging by the different brands of butts I find on the ground here) who continue to smoke even though I have spoken to you, and left other notes here as well as little butt installation artwork on this table. Both have been promptly removed.

Please do not remove this note. I have more, and I will replace it. I need for everyone to get the message: DO NOT SMOKE ANYWHERE NEAR THIS BUILDING.

For all of the above reasons, please also do not burn incense.

Thank you for your cooperation in this very important matter,

Chandra

Haiti 2010, The Dolls, Toothpaste, a Little Girl, and the BBC

2010-01-21T12:22:00.000-08:00

Note that the Angels and the Devils are in the details. I think the detail of reports coming out of the rubble of the Haiti Earthquake that burned like lightening through my heart, was that of the toothpaste. Even the dolls could not compete, doll person that I am, little girl that I was, alone as I felt in those days.

The young man reporting from Haiti for the BBC told of a detail of the catastrophe, a detail of a little girl alone. His voice from the radio by my bedside was obviously overwhelmed by his desire and his inability to help, to do more than merely report; what tore him inside was his inability to help at all in the face of so much need all around him. I heard it in his voice.

He reported a few days after the Earthquake from the street where finally people desperate for food had been able to gain access to a store. He was obviously moved, I could hear it in his voice. He told listeners of a little girl, about seven years old, a little girl alone. She had been in the store broken into by desperate others, in one hand she held a bag of dolls, she held in her other hand a tube of toothpaste,the only goods she had acquired from the store. Chaos all around her, a man ran by, grabbed her bag, and the toothpaste tube out of her hands. The young reporter described her cry, pain in his voice, helplessness all around, even as he held the microphone to the keening wail of the little girl, and even as I write these words, my own heart is rent by the remembered sound.

It seems to me her family, her only home, whatever she might have had before the horror of the quake, was gone, and she was alone. It seems to me she took the dolls in desperate need of any kind of family. Her only family was now taken from her, cruelty upon cruelty, a child kicked when clearly down. All children are down, even in the best of circumstances. Care and soothing were not forthcoming for this one in need. She was trying to care for herself and her family of dolls. She had been taught to brush her teeth, and knowing how to care for herself in this way was important to her dignity and sense of reality. In this moment however, dental hygiene was not a comfort allowed her, alone and traumatized though she was in the hellish world she inhabited. I think of her daily since I heard the story, I wish her help and comfort, I wish her soothing and love.

Adam and Eve XVIII

2010-01-12T15:04:00.000-08:00

This is one of a pair in a series, as were the originals,(see below).

The sculptures, also in the grouping of Adam and Eves, stand alone in the crowd.

Adam and Eve and the Short Distance of Time Surrounding an Object

2010-01-12T13:40:00.000-08:00

As relative time passes and relative distance grows it becomes clearer what is important to me. This is relatively important as I am the creative person that I am, and I am not you, or any other. There are times to be swept up in the minutiae of daily and bureaucratic life because there are times and places when we really seem not to have a choice in such matters. Such a time it has been for several months, and my life has been the place around which the objects of law, the requirements of material, and the obstacles to freedom have seamlessly flown into my path.

And so has finally arrived the moment of some creativity, when I allow myself to briefly comment on this seventeenth Adam and Eve I painted or sculpted out of twenty-nine that I created seemingly, but not quite, out of thin air. This for example is oil paint on canvas.

More important to me than material concerns (although as one glorious Art Professor at UCSC, Donald Weigant pointed out--- "art is SUCH a materialist pursuit"---and he did of course refer to visual art as that is what he taught) are not the spiritual either, as Kandinsky would have it, but the personal/psychological in art, in Adam and Eve, in life.

This began to emerge from my work in a much more literal than ever before way in this Adam and Eve series, some of which appear further down this blog, some of which I shall post above, with as little explanation as possible. Suffice it for now to say that for me they are an original male fantasy of bearing no burden of guilt, of finding yet another use for the female of the species, that of Carrier of Collective Guilt. The more interesting question is how it happened that the guilt itself through the culture of at least one of the three religions influenced by the story was interpreted. Through the ages (time and space again) sex and the perception and resultant feelings surrounding all of these became the fulcrum of debate, shall we euphemistically call it. Actually, as many understand the myth, the tasting of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, resulted in the sin of knowing what only God heretofore had known. Tragically, it was a story told by men, notorious deniers, hiders from many truths, that set the world up for destruction by thousands and thousands of tiny cuts, as the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny continues to cut it's swath through the diminishing jungle that should have been this world. Or should it have been the Garden of Eden? It's all relative.

Necessity From Finian's Rainbow, Musical with book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, Lyrics by Harburg, music by Burton Lane

2009-12-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

I posted this and the next two backwards, so you could read a story forward from this to the next two posts. It's a timeless American tale:

What is the curse
That makes the universe so all bewilderin'?
What is the hoax that just provokes
The folks they call God's children?
What is the jinx that gives a body and his brother and everyone around...the run-around?
Necessity, necessity.
A most unnecessary thing, necessity.
What throws the monkey wrench in
A fella's good intention?
That nasty old invention
Necessity.
My feet want to dance in the sun
My head wants to rest in the shade
The lord says go out and have fun
But the landlord says, 'Your rent ain't paid!'
Necessity, its plain to see
What a lovely old world
This silly old world can be
But, no it's all in a mess
Account of necessity.
I'd like to play some tennis
Or take a trip to Venice
But sister, here's the menace
Necessity.
Oh, Satan's the father of sin
And Cupid's the father of love
Oh, hell is the father of gin
But no one know's the father of
Necessity, necessity.
That's the maximum that
A minimum thing can be
There's nothing lower than less
Unless it's necessity.

Come and Get it from Finian's Rainbow, lyrics by E.Y.Harburg

2009-12-02T07:12:00.000-08:00

On that great come and get it day,
Won't it be fun when worry is done and money is hay.
That's the time things'll come your way
On that great, great come and get it day.
I'll get my gal that calico gown.
I'll get my mule that acre of groun'
'Cause word has come from Gabriel's horn
The earth beneath your plow is a-buddin'
And now it's yourn.
Glory time's comin' for to stay
On that great, great come and get it day.

On that great come and get it day,
Won't it be fun when worry is done and money is hay.
That's the time things'll com your way
On that great, great come and get it day.
My gown will be a calico gown.
My shoes will dance all over the town.
'Cause word has come from Gabriel's horn
The earth beneath your plow is a-buddin'
And now it's yourn.
Glory time's comin' for to stay
On that great, great come and get it
And keep it and share it, great, great
I'll get my gal that calico gown.
I'll get my mule that acre of groun'
'Cause words has come from Gabriel's horn
The earth beneath your plow is a-buddin'
And now it's yourn.
Glory time's comin' for to stay
"Come and get it" day.

Idle Poor/Idle Rich From Finian's Rainbow

2009-12-01T13:37:00.000-08:00

When the idle poor
Become the idle rich
You'll never know
just who is who
or who is which.
Won't it be rich
When everyone's poor relative
Becomes a 'Rockefellative',
And palms no longer itch
What a switch!
When we all wear ermine
And plastic teeth
How will we determine
Who's who underneath.
And when all your neighbours
Are upper class
You won't know your 'Joneses'
from your 'Ass-tors'.
Let's toast the day
The day we drink that drinky up
But with a little pinkie up.
The day on which
The idle poor
Become the idle rich.
When a rich man doesn't want to work
He's a bon vivant.
Yes, he's a bon vivant.
But when a poor man doesn't want to work,
He's a loafer, he's a lounger
He's a lazy good for nothing
He's a jerk!
When a rich man loses on a horse
Isn't he a sport, oh isn't he a sport?
When a poor man looses on a horse
He's a gambler, he's a spender
He's a low life, he's a reason for divorce!
When a rich man chases after dames
He's a man about town,
A man about town.
But when a poor man chases after dames
He's a bounder, he's a rounder
He's a rotter, and a lot of dirty names!
When the idle poor
Become the idle rich
You'll never know
just who is who
Or which is which.
No one will see
The Irish or the Slav in you
'Cause when you're on Park Avenue
Cornelius and Mike
Look alike.
When poor tweedle Dum
Is rich tweedle Dee
This discrimination will no longer be.
When we're in the dough
And off of the nut
You won't know your banker
from your but...ler.
Let's make the switch.
With just a few annuities
We'll hide these incongruities
With clothes from Abercrombie-Fitch.
Wheeeeeeeeeen the idle poor
Wheeeeeeen become the
Wheeeeeeeen idle rich
When the idle poor
Become the idle rich!

http://www.artspark6.wordpress.com/chandra-garsson-and-d-quentin-paquette/

2009-11-30T14:04:00.000-08:00

The wonderful website created by Amy Sousa, artspark6 matched writers and artists. I participated as both. Partnered with D. Quentin Paquette I sent artwork for him to play off of as writer, and he sent me his story for me to respond to. Highlighted link to right of this page, along with link to wok done at same site by Meggi Raeder and me.
I have been reading the most wonderful book on arts and a history of economics in our times by Lewis Hyde, called The Gift. a few quotes culled from the book:

"Not any self-control or self-limitation for the sake of specific ends, but rather a carefree letting go of onself; not caution but rather a wise blindness; not working to aquire silent, slowly increasing possessions, but rather a continuous squandering of all perishable values." -Rainer Maria Rilke

"Thou hast giv'n so much to me,/Give one thing more, agratefull heart:/ See how thy beggar works in Thee/ By art:..." -George Herbert (1633)

"We're sleek we're fine, we're out the door/ We shan't be cobblers anymore!" -Two elves who worked through the night to make shoes that saved the Cobbler and his wife from ruin, after Mr. and Mrs. Cobbler showed their gratitude by clothing and feeding the elves.

Moon Uprising/ First appeared on website Spark 6 Writers and artists responding to one another, inspired by a photo by Meggi Raeder (and then distorted and revamped by me), link on right

2009-11-22T16:00:00.000-08:00

A treatise on the most frightening and destructive creature on Earth.

How frightening the creature who beheads ancient noble Tree. Once so tall and proud, she existed for a thousand or more years. She had housed Squirrel and Bird, Rabbit and Centipede; Jerusalem Cricket had made his cozy little home in her. Through the ages she had stretched her mighty yet graceful arms outward to embrace Sun, Cloud and especially Moon. She had never discriminated: she welcomed all to her embrace. She was after all, an emissary of Mother Earth, her roots were deep in her mother, her head was perennially in the stars. She proudly gazed upon Ocean, His sound and smell were treasured by her in her seemingly eternal stance.

Oh, she had wept to see the damage done by mighty Volcano, even as she had gloried in his beauty. Understandably she, the rooted one, had yearned to run away from Thunder; instinctively she knew what terrifying Lightening might render. Tree nearly shrank at the thought. But no, nothing could stop her growth through the centuries, for she was a maximalist creature, a grower of trunk, branches, twigs, and leaves.

What Tree loved most to gaze upon at night was Moon. Ever changing, growing, shrinking, hiding Moon, who believed, just as Tree did, in her own immortality. Moon sometimes hid from Tree, out of respect. She felt she knew that she had much more reason than Tree to believe that she herself would live forever. After all, she was many miles away in outer space, far from the selfishly destructive and acquisitive creature who came to call itself … Humanity.

Moon shuddered through the ages at the ever exponentially reproducing, inventing, grabbing, acquisitive and greedy animal, the one who believed that it was all for him. He believed that Earth was his. He believed that he could destroy and take and have and eat and warp and hurt and rape and pillage and burn to his endless pleasure, for all he believed and still believes is that Earth is his; for his ego knows no bounds. The Hubris of this creature, Moon has always known, is boundless.

Tree never knew what hit her; how she lost all, save her roots still able to feel Earth, still able to give life. All she knew was that one day they came to cut off her branchy, leafy, twiggy head, arms, branches, body, trunk. She was cut off at the ankle, after so many centuries had passed. Then the abused boy had set fire to the forest and millions of acres of what they call California burned to the ground. Bird, Squirrel, Rabbit, Butterfly, Centipede, Jerusalem Cricket, flower, all other Trees everywhere for miles around, The horror…the horror. It could have been prevented by knowledge of Inventing Human, of what it meant to strip Earth of her ancient fossil fuels; thereby depleting Environment, and poisoning Air with carbon dioxide, greenhouse gasses, global warming. Parents caring for and loving their children, rather than warping them through neglect and abuse into the pyromaniacal state could have prevented it.

What Earth, Tree, Ocean, Air, and most tragically Moon did not realize, until it was too late for Moon, was that Human knew he had destroyed Earth, Tree, Ocean, and Air. In his insatiably greedy quest for more, he had in early October 2009 shot missiles at twice the speed of a bullet into Moon, hoping to find water, hoping to colonize. Human was looking for a way to leave his nearly ruined home on Earth, hoping to find a new home on Moon, Mars, somewhere out in the infinite, pure, pristine reaches of ancient omniscient outer space.

Wounded Moon righteously, hissingly hopes… he… will… fail.

——————————————————-

Meandering

2009-11-17T08:53:00.000-08:00

It was suggested by my friend the writer Beth Blevins that I write about the mundane: the day to day life of the artist---me. Aside from the fact that I am not one to "do small talk" (my friend Mim has been telling me for years, "Chandra, you don't do small talk..."); what I have always done is try my best through art and as a fledgling writer, to tackle the big subjects. There has grown up in me over the years the feeling, since I was a small child, that life is an emergency. Aside from the fact that I was beaten and beaten down again and again as a child, by both parents, I have remained defiant in my belief and practice as a human being, that my truth is important, that I will be vigilant in my expression of that truth, that not only is this toward the greater good of me, but of the world itself. Global warming, nuclear proliferation, robotic warfare, war, child abuse, spousal abuse, rape, and environmental catastrophe affecting this planet and outer space (the moon fired at to find water for human-kind!) are not subjects that go away just because we hide from them. I have not been a little child with my head buried beneath the blankets for many years.
All of that notwithstanding, my friend Beth is a beautiful writer. Any subject in the hands of one whose primary talent is for writing will be profound, poignant, perceptive, insightful, and thought provoking.
That said, Shakespeare's greatest work did not come in the package of a Sonnet comparing his lover (or his agent) to a Summer's day. On the other hand, as we near the end of T.S. Elliot's life we ponder with him over the fate of his rolled trousers, and of course we know it to be great poetry; with him we ponder the Wasteland that every life eventually becomes. In the guise of the day to day life of the poet is embedded our greater questions concerning our mortality. While I love to frolic with Wordsworth in his field of Daffodils, my heart leaps up with his, when I behold a rainbow in the sky; for it is when truth to one's feelings about the larger subjects are tackled, that flight becomes possible.
So for now, I leave the art and writing about a day in the life to Lennon/McCartney, Morandi, Hockney, Dostoevsky, Monet, Whitman, Cassatt, Flaubert, Vermeer, and Blevins, among many others we would all do well to look to.

Writing Home: Postcards from Santa Cruz, by Beth Blevins

2009-11-13T17:23:00.000-08:00

Writing Home: Postcards from Santa Cruz

From a time when we created postcards together, something of a collaboration in art and writing, blog article written by Beth.

Writing Home: Artist Profile: Chandra Garsson Interview of Artist by Beth Blevins

2009-11-13T17:21:00.000-08:00

Writing Home: Artist Profile: Chandra Garsson

http://www.darksecretlove.com/chandra

2009-11-13T11:22:00.000-08:00

Aki Sasaki is the webmaster of http://www.darksecretlove.com, including the subsite he set up for me. He is a wonderful musician, and a wonderfully observant and appreciative person concerning the arts. Check out his website and his music.

Jaws

2009-11-11T20:52:00.000-08:00

In short, it could be said, and said again and again; and again it could be said: Life is sometimes like an innocent baby sitting oblivious to danger in the gigantic unseen jaws that could clamp down in a moment, or not. It is possible that the teeth might cut, or that the babe would sit cramped but unscathed in the closing mouth, beyond the reach of the teeth. Or finally and hopefully, calm on the infant's part might result in her being able to crawl free of the gaping maw.

Adam and Eve in The Dutchboy Art Studios of the Artist's Imagination

2009-11-10T13:03:00.001-08:00

The studio was real, this painting of it is according to anarchistic lack of law that is artistic license. It was the imperfect but grandly large and very utilitarian studio I was sadly forced to leave behind. For an artist, ultimate utilitarianism is The Garden of Eden.

Here I was able to work on the art you see at this blog, and so much more. I was able to show and sell the work, I was able to invite galleries, museums, collectors and friends to view the paintings, sculptures, artist's books, masks, prints, and drawings in person over a period that lasted twenty years. I held classes here, with the core group of students in attendance for over ten years. My best student was Pedro Moreno, who became my best friend. He took one on one classes here, once a week, for three years.

A Thing of Beauty

2009-11-10T13:03:00.000-08:00

A Thing of Beauty: Jane Campion's Film on Love, John Keats and Fanny Braune, and the beauty of Wet Paint Drying

I am inspired to write a little piece on a film I love, Jane Campion's Bright Star by a review written by a colleague* who stated that watching the creative process of poets is like watching paint dry. The colleague is a writer. I am a painter and sculptor who sometimes writes.

I paint and I often paint my sculptures. I have spent many an hour watching paint dry. I am fascinated by this vigil; as I wait for liquid to evaporate, worlds open up to me. Sometimes, as with polymer media mixing with a variety of agents and vectors, textures and objects, ideas and colors, juxtapositional unpredictables, the drying can be relatively fast. The excitement is in watching the crackle/ripple/ whirlpooling in your face to distant space effects transform before my eyes. Oils take a bit longer. Dare I speak of it in geological years? Epochs? Centuries? Decades...years...months? At least. It is believed by scholars that Mona Lisa is still drying. She is many layers, as are all good oil paintings. X-rays reveal her in many positions, with many different kinds of smiles under multiple layers of paint. We watch her drying to this day. This is the meaning of the Italian Renaissance word 'pentimento.' It is built into our definitions of what good painting is, that we can see through every layer to every other one beneath it. It is estimated that on average oil paintings take about three-hundred years to dry. Only enough of a surface needs to dry enough, that gently, patiently, softly, a new surface of image can begin over all that came before it.

My students were never bored by these processes, in fact they were rarely patient enough for me to get to issues of the technical, chemical and scientific; past such issues as I hold dear in all the arts: composition, subject matter, self-revelation, memoir, insight, perception, content.

As I watch the paint dry, I go into a reverie, each time. I muse on where this work will travel, before it alights home on a flower in the garden of my earthly delights. I keep a vigilent watch for elements of my own bright star, my own truth as beauty, my own nightingale singing my life.

Bright Star brings the viewer if she or he is willing, into the realm of another time, when the world was only on the brink of science and technology as we know it today. It was an era when nature could be taken for granted still, when the nightingale singing was the same one who had sung for millenia, would sing forever. It was how John Keats saw himself singing eternally, with Fanny Braune the woman he loved. And this is why I love the movie Bright Star; it is precisely because it brings me to eternal infinity of slower possibilities. It is because I am forever in love with the revelations brought on by watching the paint dry.

* In my lexicon a colleague is any of the many kinds of artists who are alive anywhere in the world at the same time that I am living.

Somewhere Between Collage and Sculpture

2009-11-09T20:24:00.000-08:00

The paintings "fall somewhere between collage and sculpture," as has been pointed out by a critic or two. So many artists, critics, and historians have described the painting as object. In my work the three-dimensional qualities inherent in collage and sculpture (in the round and on the wall), grow out of the textural qualities in the paint, as well as out of the metal plates I used to create Intaglio (Italian for gem, seal, piece of jewelry, or metal plate having an incised, sunken design) prints. Ink is then transferred from the grooves to paper, via a printing press. It is the historic (many would say authentic) way to make a print, as opposed to a reproduction, examples are Drypoint, Photo Etching, Monoprint, Lithograghy, Silkscreen, Engraving, and other centuries old print-making processes. All are labor intensive, highly technical, and involve the multiple uses of metal, ink, acids, various resins, grounds, tar, solvents, feathers, and many toxic substances. It is the main reason I quit making prints; the toxic substances and the delayed gratification of having to carry a work through so many processes before I could get anywhere near the finished product. I made prints using these methods a total of six years, beginning in High School. It was excellent discipline, it led to sculptural qualities in my painting, mixed-media and sculpture. There is something to be said for hard work beginning in high school. Sadly, I doubt that Printmaking is still offered to High School students. One can only hope for a return of the arts to education, I have always looked forward to a world of people who know and love the arts. It begins with education.