Monday, September 17, 2012
"Making music is like constructing a machine whose function it is to dredge up emotions in performer and listener alike. Some people find this idea repulsive, because it seems to relegate the artist to the level of trickster, manipulator, and deciever -- a kind of self-justifying onanist. They would prefer to see music as an expression of emotion Rather than a generator of it, to believe in the artist as someone with something to say. I'm beginning to think of the artist as someone who is adept at making devices that tap into our shared psychological make-up and that trigger the deeply moving parts we have in common. In that case the conventional idea of authorship is questionalble. Not that I don't want credit for the songs I've written, but what constitutes authorship is maybe not what we would like it to be. This queasiness about rethinking how music works is also connected with the idea of authenticity." David Bryne, How Music Works.
Reviews aside - I find the book interesting. Bryne discusses some of the very issues that I spend a lot of time talking through with students. AND. Dancing to Burning Down the House, I discovered, is just as much fun decades later as it was the first time. Great concert in Milwaukee last night - thank you!!
Saturday, September 08, 2012
MORNING GLORY
These days when the weather is cooling down and I can bear to go out in the yard and drink my first cup of coffee, I am immediately drawn to the morning glories growing all over last years Christmas tree.
A couple years ago I saw this idea somewhere - for keeping your tree year round. We go on our yearly trek to the tree farm in early December and get a robust tree. Mid January it comes down and we prop it up in a snowbank outside the kitchen window so we can watch the birds use it for shelter as they come to and from the feeder. By May it is a brown, dry mess - and as everything is turning green in the yard it's planted and staked out back of the studio - morning glory seeds planted under and around it.
By the end of August very little of the old fir tree is evident, as it has been covered with morning glory vines and flowers. GLORIOUS. They last awhile - as they seem to enjoy the cooler weather as much as I do.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
IT'S BEEN A YEAR ....
....since I last posted on this blog. But this past weekend a wonderful thing happened, which inspired me to begin posting again. I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with my niece Audrey - who was visiting with her family from Seattle. We had a chance to talk about life and art and the future and school. We even had the chance to do some work together (see our collaborative water color above)!! So our challenge will be to keep up on our blogs and pass some work back and forth between the middle coast and the west coast. If you are lucky (HA) we will share some of it here with you.
A friend of mine in Ireland sent me this poem today - and I love it. Like me, Michael Hefferman was born and brought up in Detroit.
Pietá
Everyone’s agenda’s different. Reaching between
ease and contrition, edges weaken, cohesion drifts.
For ages we have witnessed the same scene
through the same windows. Even the sky shifts
focus. The ground goes on being the ground.
Nothing is ever mentioned about ecstasies,
longings, renunciations, the peace we found
in momentary meadows darkening into trees.
We could fall into a crack in the countryside
and no one would catch on. We could combine
the mightiest things the human hand has made,
display them in the world’s greatest room.
Faces agape, we’d wander into the rain,
piecing together cab-fare to take us home.
by Michael Heffernanfrom 'The Breaking of the Day'(Salmon Poetry, September, 2012)
Saturday, September 03, 2011
The Keystone XL Pipeline
Hundreds of people continue their nonviolent protest outside the White House, urging President Obama to not approve the potentially environmentally disastrous Keystone XL pipeline. The Keystone XL pipeline, which if approved would run from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico and carry some 900,000 barrels per day of crude oil refined from bitumen in the Canadian soil, has been denounced by environmentalist Bill McKibben and NASA scientist James Hansen and many other experts. But last week the State Department issued an assessment of the project that concluded that there would be "no significant impact" on natural resources near the pipeline route, while also downplaying the potential for increased greenhouse gas emissions.
The Nation's George Zornick captured the scene at the White House this week, and documented the arrests of protesters.
For more video, visit TheNation.com
My sister Fran was arrested this morning. I'm proud of her - and everyone who went to Washington
The Nation's George Zornick captured the scene at the White House this week, and documented the arrests of protesters.
For more video, visit TheNation.com
My sister Fran was arrested this morning. I'm proud of her - and everyone who went to Washington
Saturday, August 27, 2011
History of Chapbooks
From xylography to xerography, chapbooks tell the history of literacy and disseminate the expression of thought, from musings to manifestos. To enlighten us on this subject Rain Taxi Review of Books editor Eric Lorberer will give an overview of the chapbook, paying special attention to its fascinating history, its variable design elements and formats, and its vibrant role in contemporary literature and publishing. Rain Taxi, a nationally acclaimed journal, includes regular critical commentary on chapbooks and will be launching a Chapbook Finder feature on its website soon. The chapbook is generally a pocket-sized, paper-covered publication, noteworthy for being accessible to create and circulate. Its pages may contain edicts issued by the establishment or criticisms articulated by a counter-culture voice.
Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Text/Messages: Books by Artists and Multiples Mall: A Bookish Fair.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Two favorite poems and a memory.
Last week I was talking to a friend about her recent trip to Ireland - and walking along the flaggy shore that Heaney writes so beautifully about. My mind immediately went back to this evening when the sun was setting and the light was gold and spilling a golden glow over everything - water, land, dog, man. Part of my heart is there.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Onyx Ashanti: This is beatjazz
Onyx Ashanti is a musician, geek, open-source advocate, Maker, collaborator ... and we come back around again to musician. The intrumentation he has created fuses technique and technology into a full-body musical system, playable with hands, arms, mouth and body.
As he says:
I am what can only be described as a cyborg musician. in other words, the music i create live, can not be replicated without technology. My music is called "Beatjazz." It is a mix of sound design, live looping and jazz improvisation. My instrument of choice over the years has been a Yamaha Wind MIDI controller, but now the limitations have started to stunt the growth of this new form, so i designed an instrument that can take it into future.
He is now working on the next iteration of his instrument, codenamed Tron, and built around a helmet-mounted controller.
Onyx Ashanti on the Web
Twitter: @onyxashanti
Blog: beatjazz.blogspot.com
Friday, July 08, 2011
STEPHEN FRY
I first became aware of Stephen Fry from a British friend who told me I should follow him on twitter. I did - and occasionally I would be amused by something he said - but I never really looked deeply into his life/work. Then another friend from Sweden posted this on FB (all these connected ways of learning from like minded people) and I had to post this here. I love his ideas about music - and especially this idea of a concerto being a conversation between the individual and the state. It made me immediately go to itunes and create a "concerto playlist" and start listening.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
James Baldwin
Absolutely one of the most brilliant and prophetic writers ever...witness...survivor. I've been about him for the past few years....and I just can't get enough of his wisdom, his wit and his unflagging love.
(Broadside by Patrick Sharrow)
Each one teach one....
I have been teaching long enough now that when I see former students giving the same advice that I give in the classroom....well - big internal smiles. Not that I take any credit for their wonderfulness - but love that I have had the honor of working with them for part of their / our journey.
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Exhibition opportunity!
Abecedarian Gallery is hosting a juried exhibition of altered bookworks. There is a reduced entry fee student category and awards in that category. Your assistance distributing information about the opportunity is appreciated. Prospectus is available by visiting www.abecedariangallery.com, click on opportunities for artists link.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tarabeans Blog…form AND content
Since Tara posted about her altered book after last weeks crit…and I have been thinking about the physical/digital assignment (book of scans/transformations/autobiographical/20 pager) OMG is that part of the confusion???? How many ways have we referred to this project? Anyways….I decided to post about what she had written.
One of my favorite blogs ever is the CONVIVIO BOOKWORKS blog. I love these guys, the work they make (so unlike mine, but so attentive to details and so crisp and clean in its letterpress work.) I love the letters they send out every once in awhile….just talking about what they are doing and why – and telling stories about their lives and work. I have never met them, but they have answered every email I have ever sent them, quickly – and as if I am a long lost friend that they have just been waiting to hear from. This is from an email I saved – because I love the phrase in bold -
This is a link to their latest project it…
http://www.conviviobookworks.com/pages/Works%20on%20Paper.html
This (in a very round about way) does bring me back to Tara’s blog and to Keith Smith.
Tara’s blog reflects her interests re: ideas and text. Even in her blog itself – there are not a lot of images …. and this is not a criticism …. because there are alot of ideas and thinking going on. She is honest – very honest. And she isn’t afraid to put herself out there and get messy with her thinking. I love this. It is where some hard work gets done and where some discoveries get made.
Text has played a major role in each of her projects this semester…the two she has finished as well as the one she is working on now. I have encouraged her to go back and read what Smith has to say about text – and I am going to share some of his thinking (and my own) here.
Smith outlines the ELEMENTS of the book….
the binding (the binding determines the type of book)
the pages
text and/or pictures
turning pages
display
He continues, “Like the formal elements within the single picture, the elements of the book function work in union to create the book. Each element must be conceived as part of and helps determine the other elements.
Picture, and/or text must be incorporated into the pages. If a writer hands material to a publisher, it is merely stuck into pages as convenient packaging.
Words should not be housed, but revealed by the (book) format.”
Let’s look at it another way as well….a book houses content…but in the genre of bookart – the book becomes the content as well. (not just the packaging).
Thomas McEvilley – in a riff on Wallace Steven’s 13 Ways of Looking at A Blackbird, wrote about 13 ways that we determine content in looking at art work. Very applicable to looking at our books – and in thinking about the elements of these final projects. The ( ) are my questions/comments to you.
1. Content that arises from the aspect of the artwork that is understood as representational. (DO we see nature based on how we have seen it represented in art?)
2. Content arising from verbal supplements supplied by the artist. (Title, what the artist says/writes)
3. Content arising from the genre or medium of the artwork. (How do we come to a painting vs. a book? How is a digital book different than a physical book – aside from the obvious?)
4. Content arising from the material of which the artwork is made. (When, for example, a jeweler works in some other medium than gold, because gold mining is damaging to the environment and does not return profits to the miners themselves.)
5. Content arising from the scale of the artwork. (Especially relevant for land art, earthworks. What about works at the nanoscale?)
6. Content arising from the temporal duration of the artwork. (Virtual work, Film, video, performance, music?)
7. Content arising from the context of the work. (Such as site specific work)
8. Content arising from the work’s relationship with art history. (A piece that specifically references something that came before it. Altered books in some cases – look at Smith’s examples of altered books made using Jansen’s History of Art.)
9. Content that accrues to the work as it progressively reveals its destiny through persisting in time. (Duchamp added content to the Mona Lisa – altered books, again)
10. Content arising from participation in a specific iconographic tradition. (Certain colors or forms, or even subjects, have a particular meaning (very similar to context)
11. Content arising directly from the formal properties of the work. (A Pollock drip painting asserts flux and indefiniteness of identity as qualities that can be found in the world.. Sherman photographs for a certain period formally reference 50′s film stills)
12. Content arising from attitudinal gestures (wit, irony, parody, and so on) that may appear as qualifiers of any of the categories already mentioned. (for eg., Natural Born Killers, which tells the story of a pair of mass murderers while parodying various media forms like TV sitcoms…)
13. Content rooted in biological or physiological responses, or in cognitive awareness of them. (Sexual arousal, disgust, visual responses like persistence of vision (when you stare at an image composed of complements and then look at a white wall and still see it, but with colors reversed) op art)
One of my favorite blogs ever is the CONVIVIO BOOKWORKS blog. I love these guys, the work they make (so unlike mine, but so attentive to details and so crisp and clean in its letterpress work.) I love the letters they send out every once in awhile….just talking about what they are doing and why – and telling stories about their lives and work. I have never met them, but they have answered every email I have ever sent them, quickly – and as if I am a long lost friend that they have just been waiting to hear from. This is from an email I saved – because I love the phrase in bold -
We also just got a fresh supply of Shaker Herbs in for the Convivio Book of Days Catalog… The house smells just like the Herb House at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community in Maine. Smell, great portal to memory.
This is a link to their latest project it…
http://www.conviviobookworks.com/pages/Works%20on%20Paper.html
This (in a very round about way) does bring me back to Tara’s blog and to Keith Smith.
Tara’s blog reflects her interests re: ideas and text. Even in her blog itself – there are not a lot of images …. and this is not a criticism …. because there are alot of ideas and thinking going on. She is honest – very honest. And she isn’t afraid to put herself out there and get messy with her thinking. I love this. It is where some hard work gets done and where some discoveries get made.
Text has played a major role in each of her projects this semester…the two she has finished as well as the one she is working on now. I have encouraged her to go back and read what Smith has to say about text – and I am going to share some of his thinking (and my own) here.
Smith outlines the ELEMENTS of the book….
the binding (the binding determines the type of book)
the pages
text and/or pictures
turning pages
display
He continues, “Like the formal elements within the single picture, the elements of the book function work in union to create the book. Each element must be conceived as part of and helps determine the other elements.
Picture, and/or text must be incorporated into the pages. If a writer hands material to a publisher, it is merely stuck into pages as convenient packaging.
Words should not be housed, but revealed by the (book) format.”
Let’s look at it another way as well….a book houses content…but in the genre of bookart – the book becomes the content as well. (not just the packaging).
Thomas McEvilley – in a riff on Wallace Steven’s 13 Ways of Looking at A Blackbird, wrote about 13 ways that we determine content in looking at art work. Very applicable to looking at our books – and in thinking about the elements of these final projects. The ( ) are my questions/comments to you.
1. Content that arises from the aspect of the artwork that is understood as representational. (DO we see nature based on how we have seen it represented in art?)
2. Content arising from verbal supplements supplied by the artist. (Title, what the artist says/writes)
3. Content arising from the genre or medium of the artwork. (How do we come to a painting vs. a book? How is a digital book different than a physical book – aside from the obvious?)
4. Content arising from the material of which the artwork is made. (When, for example, a jeweler works in some other medium than gold, because gold mining is damaging to the environment and does not return profits to the miners themselves.)
5. Content arising from the scale of the artwork. (Especially relevant for land art, earthworks. What about works at the nanoscale?)
6. Content arising from the temporal duration of the artwork. (Virtual work, Film, video, performance, music?)
7. Content arising from the context of the work. (Such as site specific work)
8. Content arising from the work’s relationship with art history. (A piece that specifically references something that came before it. Altered books in some cases – look at Smith’s examples of altered books made using Jansen’s History of Art.)
9. Content that accrues to the work as it progressively reveals its destiny through persisting in time. (Duchamp added content to the Mona Lisa – altered books, again)
10. Content arising from participation in a specific iconographic tradition. (Certain colors or forms, or even subjects, have a particular meaning (very similar to context)
11. Content arising directly from the formal properties of the work. (A Pollock drip painting asserts flux and indefiniteness of identity as qualities that can be found in the world.. Sherman photographs for a certain period formally reference 50′s film stills)
12. Content arising from attitudinal gestures (wit, irony, parody, and so on) that may appear as qualifiers of any of the categories already mentioned. (for eg., Natural Born Killers, which tells the story of a pair of mass murderers while parodying various media forms like TV sitcoms…)
13. Content rooted in biological or physiological responses, or in cognitive awareness of them. (Sexual arousal, disgust, visual responses like persistence of vision (when you stare at an image composed of complements and then look at a white wall and still see it, but with colors reversed) op art)
Friday, October 16, 2009
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Creative Commons
What do you know about CC? You should be thinking about this as you put your own images out on the web…or utilize the images of others
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
circle press
Ronald King
Artist edition
London, 2008
This powerful sequence of 14 poems is the result of a unique collaboration between writer George Szertis and artist Ronald King.
Its genesis was King’s long fascination with Elias Canetti’s'Auto da Fe', the famously grotesque yet marvelous novel set in pre-war Vienna which contributed to Canetti winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981. To accompany his illustrations, King commissioned Szirtes to write a text inspired by and related to Canetti’s great work.
In 2008 the book was published in a limited edition of 35 copies letter-pressed in Walbaum onto 240 lb Barcham Green mouldmade paper with 15 etchings, one double-spread, thirteen full-page and one half-page; a total of 18 unstitched sections 350 x 260 mm, enclosed in a uniquely collaged card wrap-around and placed in a cloth-bound solander box.
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In making this book I struggled with paper weight and paper color. I am not a fan of yellowish looking papers which was the choice for the first book, so i chose a whiter paper. This paper was a heavier weight and in turn created some issues with the smaller books fitting in the case. The content in the book is somewhat mysterious and isn’t very literal but follows along with common numerology symbols that have been used for the numbers 1-4 over the centuries. I really did enjoy making the content for this book, it was probably my favorite part.