To Thine Own Thing Be True

Do your own thing. The Sixties catch-phrase divided people back then, but it had its legions of disciples and champions(I actually saw the original Off-Broadway production because a friend of mine had one of the leads). Now it seems positively distasteful and even un-patriotic to mouth the words, and I'm afraid we may be going from the frying pan into the fire. How could it get worse? Well...

Do your own thing. Absolutely essential to the artist, but I would like to include everyone else. Why? The four words say it. Do: action. Your: we're not talking about your parents, your teachers, your boss, your friends, your partner, your commander-in-chief.  Own: your baby, your dream, your precious, your song, your heart, your dance, your thing. Thing: passion, pursuit, challenge, kick, itch, vision, mission, yaya, what makes you tick, what gets you up in the morning, what matters, what you care about. Despite that or because we live in this world of oppression, repression, obligation, prescription, redundancy, duplication, imitation, and restriction, doing your own thing is not only necessary, it is vital. We are nothing short of cattle being lead to the slaughter from cradle to grave. 

I know a lot of people who don't do their own thing. Their lives conspired to deny them this freedom, this power, this voice, this destiny. They couldn't and wouldn't know where to begin to find this in themselves now. Which means, of course, more beer for everyone else.

The cool thing about being an artist is that in that little time and space that is your studio, you have the promise, power, and permission to do your own thing.  No one likes you for it. It's costing them beer. In your studio you can do what you want, when you want, how you want, why you want, etc.  It is a powerful thing. Writers can do it too, of course. The blank pages of a book can become anything. Funnily enough, besides artists in their studios and writers in their books, only dictators and warlords have this kind of power. No wonder some world leaders get rid of artists first. No wonder that other world leaders have so much admiration for artists. This also explains why being an artist has such a high price. No one likes you for it, and no one wants you to get paid for it. Makes sense. Artists cost people beer, after all.

Do your own thing! And make it a good thing! Make it a makes the world a better place own thing! Right on!

Have You Seen Jack?

I was reminded again what a funny business painting can be, like so many of the things we do, personal, creative, or business. When you start out it is all talk, all go, all yes! You might be listening to something else, some muse, some inspiration, some subject, some emotion, some idea, but it is the blank canvas that is doing all the listening at this point.  Then along the way things start to change, and the talking has to give way to listening as the painting takes on a life of its own, and by the end it is all listening, all contemplative, all analytical. All over. When I start a painting you can't shut me up, but by the end I barely have anything to say, and for better or worse the painting is doing all the talking. 

I try to change this a little. Slow down the inevitable. Maybe less talk at the beginning will lead to a more consistent give and take, talking and listening, throughout the process. More conversational. My friend, Julie Glass, cracked up about something I think she said Fran Lebowitz wrote, that people aren't conversational, that they don't listen, that they just wait their turn; that there is even no such thing as listening, but just waiting your turn.  But if you're an artist, you have to learn to listen, don't you? How can you hear your own work? How can you answer if you haven't listened. Really listened.

It may be my nature, or it may be the nature of all the things we do. I don't know. My father detailed the cycle of any business enterprise in a book on management consultancy. It seemed pretty much the same. Enthusiasm marks the beginning of any creative undertaking. By the time the cycle completes itself, from conception to infancy to adolescence to maturity to old age,  we find ourselves at the end, at the death of the thing. This is why I suppose the French think of the orgasm as a death; it is the end of love-making. So like the French to be so brilliant and yet so wrong. I'm not talking about Jerry Lewis either. I'm talking about love-making, and the thing that happens: conception. The beginning.  Another Fran Lebowitz bugaboo: children who speak fluent French.

Speaking of getting it wrong. So many people don't get the dialogue thing. The conversation thing. The give and take. The talking and listening. Isn't this it? Everything we learn and love and live. Man vs. Society. Man vs. Nature. Man vs. Himself. Man vs. God. Isn't life just a dialogue. Isn't life just sharing? Aren't all those things just conversations? Society, Nature, God, the Self, the Other? Aren't we just sharing a conversation? Sure, sometimes it seems like we're the only one talking, and then sometimes it feels like we only get to listen, but isn't this it? Isn't it all about this connecting? Not so much connection, but connecting. Don't we just connect and then we die? Life of the bee, or something like that.

Oddly enough, I know very few artists who are good listeners, especially when it comes to other people's work. If you're talking about their work, that's different; they could leave something on the stove and let their house burn down, that's understood. But other people's work? No. I made a living listening to other people's work as an art critic/writer/reviewer, and artists always thought it was amazing that I could understand what they were up to. I just looked and listened. I didn't have some special gift.  Just looking and listening. That was all that was required. 

When I was a teacher RISD, my last act before I retired about twelve years ago, was to make sure that my students could listen by the end of term. They had no idea what I was up to. They didn't have the first clue how to listen, and they could not have cared less. I wanted to give them listening, knowing that that is what they really needed. To just pay attention. Don't take anything for granted and you'll be fine. Listen. I shouldn't have been disappointed that they just wanted their 'A' and they wanted it to be theirs alone; it wasn't enough to just get an 'A,' everyone else had to fail. Wasn't this the way I was? We all were?

But I did it. By the last class, outside on the grass on the RISD farm, I actually got them to be able to listen. I got them to be able to listen and like it. I got them to be able to listen to each other's work and talk about what they were hearing. Looking and listening are pretty much the same for me. Just goes in a different way. But they were listening and then talking up a storm. It was great. They got it, and they found it really exciting. No more sitting alone in the little cubicle of their own work, they got to be out there in the great give and take. It was pretty great! Then it was over and I haven't taught since.

But this is what it is about. Conversation. Not waiting your turn, not waiting for your chance to jump in and take over, not trying to hold the floor and not be interrupted, but give and take, the great flow of give and take. The two-way street.

I'll tell you what it isn't about, either: the one-way street. You hear this garbage all the time from the mitre-boxers, the ones who can only measure their way through life inch by inch. It isn't all about being the master. Being accomplished. Being the one holding the floor, doing all the talking. Being on top. This is so crazy. I remember when I was teaching and it was pretty much agreed by all my students (stupids) that you only wanted to be on top. Yes, again, it was a relationship thing. I could not believe my ears, but I was alone. Everyone agreed that no matter what, they would be on top and never be on the bottom. Losers were on the bottom. 

At the time I was painting horizontal paintings with my eyes closed so that I could remove as much verticality and control from my paintings as possible. Having my eyes shut helped me to listen. Not just to the painting, or myself, but to everything. I had to keep this to myself of course because I was already alien. But these stupids of mine couldn't have cared less that being on top meant someone else had to be on the bottom, someone else had to lose, someone else had to fail, and presumably that someone on the bottom was their brother or sister in life. Just as long as it wasn't them. This is what they learned at home and in school.

Wouldn't you know that it was about the same time that Bush Senior said we should be a kinder, gentler nation and I knew then and there as the words came out of his mouth that we were in trouble: rich people need definition, they need poor people to make them rich, not just to work for them, but to make them rich by way of comparison, the haves and have-nots, through power, appearance, property, you name it. Well, my students didn't clue in that someone else had to lose so that they could win. Just as long as they got to be on top, got their 'A,' got their turn, got to talk, nothing else much mattered. No sharing, no connecting, no mutual respect, no mutual anything. A world of one-way streets. A world of one-way streets that don't connect. Artists have to listen to what they are doing and what they have done, and then listen some more. They have to listen to each other. If they are mitre-boxing instead, just checking out each other's joints, well then, they aren't listening. These former stupids of mine are now the artists, and teachers, and bosses, and parents, and politicians of the world. They're my neighbors. They're your neighbors! And we're all listening! We hope they are too!

I've got a painting on the line right now. It's hanging on the wall over there. It's talking to me. I'm listening hard. I'm happy to listen hard. I'm connecting/connected. I'm almost there, yes, I think I've got something to say. Yes. It is about that blue. That soaring blue. It wants to be like lightning in a night sky. It wants to spread its wings and lift the viewer high into the air, so that they feel the rush, feel the flood of ions, the electricity, the connection, the life! Now what have I got to say to that? Well, let's see!

Aziz, Light!

We're brought up to analyze, criticize, and complain; and we feel entitled; we feel empowered!  BUT, life comes "as is."

We think we are in control, but we aren't. What we do have control over is ourselves. That is scary, right? Because most people realize on some level, that in fact, they don't seem to have the slightest idea how to control themselves. One remembered dream tells us that. Most of us would like to control the things we can't, and turn our backs on what we can. 

BUT, life comes as is! The weather, people, movies, and yes, art! Arguing with any of it is like shooting yourself in the foot: a waste of your valuable time and energy! 

As an artist you have control over the time and energy you put into your work. Everything outside of that is out of your control. Pretty much everything, anyway. You can count on it. What you can control is the question; and here is the hard part. If you don't like something: don't do it, don't eat it, don't look at it, don't take it, just walk away. Just do something else. Arguing with life is a waste of time, and... it is negative!

I lot of people thought I was some kind of rebel when I was a kid. When you're a rebel, you are locked in conflict with something else. I wasn't. If something wasn't working out, or to my liking, I just did something else. I just had something better to do. For example, when I was a pre-teen, I didn't do school; I didn't like school, but I didn't sit around whining about it; I did something else instead. I didn't give school another thought. I put my energy into painting because at the age of ten I was lucky enough to have a studio the likes of which I will never have again. OK, it was on Via Margutta in Rome, giant windows, tall, beamed ceilings, and outside was the Pincio, the western edge of the gardens of the Villa Borghese. It had been at one time Raphael's studio, and all the artists called me Il Piccolo Raffaello. Ok, so I definitely had something better to do!

But as an artist we can't get caught up it the way things are supposed to be. It is a delusion we will never escape. Things are as they are. I also learned that in Italy. You do what you can do. Things are as they are. Que sera, sera. You do what you can do. Smile and wave, Boys, smile and wave!

Now have I been blindsided by this stuff? I stand here guilty as charged. I once tried to hold on to a relationship that was over, because I thought it was "supposed to be." Really thought it was supposed to be. Almost killed me. It was a hard lesson. Crazy the way we think we can want what we want. Do I have other examples? Plenty. How long have you got?

In the end all I could do was pick myself up and clean up my own house. Open some windows. Get the pizza boxes off the sofa. Clean up the shit on the floors! I had absolutely no control over anything else. If someone loves me, they love me, and if they don't; they don't. That's amore!

So if some gallery wants to show your work, they will. If they don't want to, they won't. Maybe you can win them over, maybe you can't. BUT: THEY ARE IN CHARGE! I can't tell you how many times I have seen artists try to take charge in a gallery situation. SURE AND SUDDEN DEATH! Always. It's THEIR gallery. THE GALLERY IS IN CHARGE. THE GALLERY IS IN CHARGE. THE GALLERY IS IN CHARGE. Never forget this and you will be fine. 

I see people trying to take charge all the time in situations where they are not in charge, and anything but in charge. These people keep bumping their heads up against this wall and never get it. If you are not in charge, don't argue, don't pick, don't do anything but say yes; or go elsewhere. It is comical really, but a little sad. 

Life is delicate. Life is complicated. Life is chemical. Forget "supposed to be." There is a show up right now a bunch of people think is important. The artist is supposed to be famous. He deserves to be famous and successful and everyone should buy his paintings. Sounds stupid, but this happens all the time. People really fall into this trap-- all the time! Smart people. Really. Maybe it will happen, and maybe it won't. Que sera, sera! Aziz, Light!

The Joy of Painting

The Joy of Cooking was clear. The joy of cooking. Not The Joy of Being a Cook. 

The joy of painting. Not The Joy of Being an Artist. I'm not sure I have ever seen any Joy of Being an Artist. Not any that wasn't completely delusional. Not any that wasn't a charade. It is a cliche of the first order to say that the pleasure is in the doing. Cliches are cliches because they are tiresomely true. The joy is in the painting.

It is like the real estate cliche. The joy is in the painting. The joy is in the painting. The joy is in the painting. And you have to keep saying it and never forget it.

Lately I find I avoid my artist friends because they are caught up completely in being artists. There is no joy in painting when you do that. I recently had the misfortune of trying to cheer up an artist at an opening who had just humiliated themselves at an auction where they had had to talk about their work to start the bidding; and no one bid! They just stood there as the egg was dripping off them.  I gave them every possible piece of sunshine regarding their work, and threw in a boatload of extra. It was like snowflakes in hell. They didn't want to hear about their work; they wanted to hear about their career, their success, their glory, their immortality, their fame and fortune--how great they are.

Now I have a friend who would be old enough to retire from teaching who is actually going to go into an art program(read school) and has to scrape up the money to pay for it. Money he doesn't have. Money he wants to bum from other people. And why does he really want to do this? Because he might be "discovered." Discovered by people who are still waiting to be discovered. He doesn't want to go to learn; he wants people to tell him how great he is. The last thing he wants is someone breathing down his neck while he is doing the one thing he loves. The last thing he wants is someone trashing the one thing he loves. Picking apart the one thing he loves. 

It is like these people who force their little girl up onto the stage. He is literally sacrificing this innocent thing, the joy of painting, for some greater glory. I've seen and known these artists with the greater glory. Half of them killed themselves. The other half were just miserable. There is no joy in being an artist. There is joy in painting.

Three painters I regularly enjoy talking to about art recently had their big shows. I haven't spoken to any of them at all since. I suspect they think it is because I am envious of their good fortune. Not so. I want nothing but the best for them. What I would prefer not to do is listen to them go on about how they were not selling, or not getting the attention they deserved, or not getting the parade carrying them off the field. At an opening a week or so ago I made the mistake of speaking to an artist because their work was an incredible relief. It was fun and funny. Then they proceeded to tell me how it wasn't their normal work. That their normal work was all about war and stuff, but they didn't think people wanted to see that. It was like stepping in dog doodoo. I spent ten minutes trying to get it off my shoe. People are the only creatures who make their own pain. Artists too often make the mistake of rolling around in it.

I love hearing about these people who achieve glory and success in some field like politics or movies and then turn to painting for pleasure. They really enjoy it. They love to paint. They never ever ever achieve any success as an artist. Never. Not one of them. You can't get in the back door. Not Winston Churchill. Not DH Lawrence. Not Garcia Lorca. Not Lawrence Durrell. Not Henry Miller. Not Anthony Quinn. Not John Lennon. Not Paul McCartney. Not Anyone. But. But they thoroughly enjoy painting. Sometimes I like their work just because of that. The joy, the innocence, the naivite. It is what is behind the appeal of outsider art. The joy of painting.

But not in the art world. Art World. In the art world that is just a load of hogwash. Something else is going on. Can you guess? Not the joy of painting. In point of fact, the opposite would probably be true. Isn't that sad? I think it is where Richard Tuttle and I parted ways; the sheer dismissiveness for the joy of painting; the sneer for those who felt it. Art is about something else. It is pain. Reminds me of the Crusades(killing for the love of God). The worst he ever dressed me down was when I really loved this little piece of his. Big mistake. It was all about his pain. Why didn't I see that!

I have work by Garcia Lorca, Henry Miller, and Lawrence Durrell hanging on my walls. Right up there with works by Pollock, de Kooning, Guston, Motherwell, Resnick, Picasso, Braque, Walker, and Jensen. Right up there with work by my children. The Pollocks and de Koonings have to meet those standards, and they do. Maybe it explains their success. The paradox of it. If you forget you are lost. The joy of painting.

Everyday Olympians: Tilting at Windmills

Drop the Ball. Muddy the Waters. Shoot Yourself in the Foot. Tilt at Windmills. Put Off. Turn the Tables. Fake It. These are just a few of the events of the Everyday Olympics: the Olympics for the rest of us.

These are our skills. The things we really learned from our families and teachers. We're good at this stuff. We deserve to be recognized! If we can't medal we can at least be contenders. We could have all been contenders!

Over in the Media Pavillion at 3pm is the Fault-Find Floor Exercise, and we've already had our first scandal! The shoe-in for the Gold has been disqualified! Shocker! It seems he worked as a successful management consultant his whole life, staying in shape well past retirement. Fortunately, amateur status is still observed. Apparently there was also some question as to whether he was taking steroids. 

This evening, over at the Aquarium, Muddy the Waters will be held in the four Olympic pools simultaneously. Bring your glasses. At the same time Putt Off was supposed to be taking place in the Youngian Arena, but was postponed until later on in the Games. This is an event that often gets concluded some six months later, if ever. 

Tilt at Windmills is a fan favorite, along with Fight for the Right to Be Wrong, and Drop the Ball. Shoot Yourself in the Foot would be right up there, except that by the time the Games start, hardly a country in the world can field a team due to injuries. 

Of course for some people the Opening Ceremonies are the most fun.  The competitions haven't started and the entrants are still good-natured. This year the United States once again enjoyed the roll of host nation and as a result lead the way with this season's Queen of Da Nile, and you know who you are. The problems start immediately after that however, with the Japanese Involve Everyone Else in Your Argument team getting everyone in a huff. Getting everyone in a huff used to actually be one of the premium events until they dropped it when the French kept cheating and winning.

The raciest event is always Cover Your Asset. This year promises to be no different, with some of the biggest assets in recent history making their way to the Games. These are the true Everyday Olympians, which is why this event is saved for last.

News Flash! This just in! Over in Jack Horner Stadium they finally have a winner. Canada and Switzerland tied for the gold and Tibet took the bronze in Hide in a Corner. Happens every time, and still the Tibetans cry foul! Of course, in Cry Foul they did take the gold, so why complain?

My personal favorite has already taken place, and this event always leaves a pit in my stomach. Drop the Ball. I was so proud to see my wife on the stand. It is her fifth medal in these games. I swear, she is so fast you would never know she ever had the ball. 

I trained all year for Nit-Picking, but who knew the competition would be so stiff? I didn't even make the US team! My wife suggested I try out for Nagging, but even there I was out-classed. I'll be ready next time. Watch out! I've beefed up my regimen.

So that's it from this Everyday Olympics. Until next time, have a Happy Holidays, and remember: you have skills that could make your family and teachers proud! Bring home the gold! Just do it! (Oops! That's THEIR event!)

 

Resnickless

What remains salient at this point, after attending yet another art
opening, is that besides never accepting another drink, you just never
know; life will surprise you everytime.

Last Friday I went to Pierre Menard to see Duncan Hannah's show:
Cautionary Tales. Initially I was there to apologize for my hanging of
his work almost 30 years ago in the NewYork/New Wave show at PS1.

DH has to be in every way the anti-Resnick. Why should I have been
surprised? It has been my experience that nevermind what the work
looks like; every artist of even the most minute consequence is a
blowhard and a bully. DH was just like his paintings: mild mannered/
well mannered, and quizzical.

What a pleasant surprise. I wished I hadn't geared up with liquor
because I ended up being the other.

The Sun Shines Brightly...

The sun shines brightly when you're up on a pedestal. It is hard not to enjoy it; it is hard not to want it. The sun shines brightly when you're on up on a pedestal, and it is a temptation that is very hard to resist.

It takes falling off of few times to get the message, and it takes longer than that to fully understand. There is a lot going on there. In the end, however, we all get it: beware the pedestal.

Life is filled with traps; pedestals are only one of many. Sure, we let ourselves go there because we're really looking for something else. Love. We only find out it wasn't love when we fall, and we fall far. It is a long way to the bottom. The thing about the pedestal is that it is secretly about the person or people who put you there. They need you on that pedestal; they want you on that pedestal! Why, because they are there! They've put you there for company! Their company! Up on the pedestal with THEM! One happy family. One big party! And it is even easier to knock you off it than it was to get you up there in the first place! You can be replaced! So: beware the pedestal!

You can learn these lessons from parents, family, friends and the workplace. As an artist you can learn this lesson a thousand times, and you can still take the bait in the bat of an eye. We want to be loved, and getting love for our work is almost better. Of course, pedestals are for ideals, and as soon as it is discovered that we are just human: whoops!

Still, it is hard not to go there. Then, of course, on the flip side is how we handle those we've put on our pedestals. No doubt they suffer the same awful fate when they don't conform, or we feel betrayed by their fallibility. Sayonara! The past couple of years we have watched this play out on the political stage. Whatever I may think of Bush, I don't understand all of these people who voted for him, and who have now thrown him under the bus! But there you have it. 

Obama is very careful about being on our pedestal. All of us would have jumped a long time ago. With him it seems that the more he shuns the pedestal the higher we put him, and again, there you have it.

Artists have a similarly tricky situation. It is hard for them to succeed without accepting the pedestal. It is part of the landscape. Many artists have tried to have it both ways. Richard Tuttle comes to mind, and long ago he counseled me to never confuse the two(the work and the pedestal), even as I watched him dancing up there on occasion(do as I do, not...). Staying real, staying down on the ground, well, the only people telling you that often seem more like people who are just envious or jealous of your apparent good fortune instead of people who actually have your best interests at heart.

Picasso tried to have it both ways. He even said something about living like a poor person with money(instead of letting money make you a rich person). He may well have succeeded. Too many of us would jump on that bus so fast that the world would spin out of orbit in our wake.

Richard Tuttle was also smart enough to know that being on someone else's pedestal was just an expression of their narcissism. That it was about them and their needs, hardly about him; and he wasn't about to accept that bargain. He mentored me because I needed it, not because he wanted to be my mentor. And of course he paid too high a price; as "no good deed goes unpunished!" The only mistake he actually made was thinking that I might have been smart enough to get it. I wasn't. At that point I was still not wise in the way of pedestals. Now I just hide from them like a man who can't swim and moved to the desert. Eventually I will drown!

But there you have it.

Meet Challenges; Have Life

There is the fork in the road. We never have much more than a split second to make the right turn, the right decision. Similarly there is that point where we are faced not with a decision, but a challenge. It is that point where we are literally facing a hurdle, where we can charge forward and jump as hard and high as we can in order to clear it, or we can balk, and stare at it and go back.We can run away!  It is the four point turnaround in basketball. It is the difference between living and dying!

I can't pretend I haven't balked at my fair share of hurdles, but this much I understand: we are our challenges. Yes, you could even say, we are our problems. If we take them on we have a life. If we run, then we are always on our heels. Owning our problems can mean owning our lives. The well kept secret is that when we can say "It's my problem," we've already made it manageable; we've already started to take it on.

Artists get to understand this in a fluid way. It is part of the process. Making something, anything, at some point presents challenges. Not meeting those challenges means the process breaks down, stalls, comes to a halt. The challenge is not just part of the process, it is what makes us who we are and what we will become. Artists instinctively understand that not only is a challenge our friend, it is the one friend we have, and have to have. Without a challenge we are nothing. It is amazing what kind of challenges artists create for themselves sometimes. It confounds other people. "Why would you do that," they ask.  Not much different from someone setting off to climb a high and dangerous peak. What's that all about?

By accepting, even embracing challenges, artists own their lives. It makes them strong. It makes them free. It makes them alive! What could be more valuable?

Surrendering to the Sublime; Part One

Joan Snyder; Seed Catchers, 2007, Oil, acrylic,
berries, paper mache, burlap on canvas, 36 x 48"

There is this place. It is as light or as dark as you make it. Call it the glass filled half way. Always filled half way. That is the point. Call it half full, half empty. Your choice. You can look for the light until you're blue in the face. You can measure forever to see if the glass is half full or half empty. Won't make any difference. I heard this Rabbi tell a story on television to illustrate a point: when a boy called up to God and asked why God wasn't taking care of all the terrible things in the world, God said that he had, he said: "I sent you." There is this place. Welcome to the inner life.

This is a rich place. This interior space; it is at once the spiritual, emotional, intellectual/mental, intuitive, psychological domain of the self and of all selves; the shared self. The soul. Everyone has one. It is the place that the outer world speaks to, if we let it, if we listen. We probably aren't listening enough. This is the place that among so many things, art speaks to.  Some artists look to and at this place, and what they do in response is what their art becomes. Some artists live in this place. Some artists seek it.  Joan Snyder seems to go back and forth. 

I've admired her paintings for about twenty years now, and sometimes the relationship, my relationship to her work, takes different turns. I felt the same way about the work of her friend, Porfirio DiDonna. This is to be expected. I feel it in myself, in my own work. I see the journey. I see the ups and downs. The inner life(inner light) is not the same as the sublime. All inner life is not sublime and all that is sublime is not inner life. Where they intersect, however, they are one. Where they intersect, they are inner LIGHT!

I'm just not sure that the inner life is something you seek. I could be wrong.  If you do you become a seeker, it is like the premise of the law of attraction; you just get a lot of seeking. I believe that the inner life, the sublime, is something that is always there. We don't need to seek it, or talk about seeking it; we just need to stop fighting, to stop being afraid, to just be, to just surrender. When people say that they are looking for "peace," we understand what this means; that there is no peace. 

These new paintings by Joan Snyder strike me, literally, as mostly about seeking and less about the other thing. But the show at the Nielsen Gallery in Boston is entitled "and seeking the sublime." It gives me no pleasure to say this, quite the contrary.  There is no way in my mind, however, that anyone could lie about this. Ignore this. It is so painfully obvious. The paintings rub our noses in something else; and that stuff we smell is her pain. Welcome to Joan Snyder's garden, an essentially dark and savage beauty filled with anger and sadness. Suffice it to say that these are not her "pretty(a term Resnick threw at me to dismiss his paintings from the Fifties--clearly he didn't think the inner life was a pretty place, and he killed himself to prove it)" paintings. But maybe she didn't name the show. Maybe she let the gallery or whoever wrote the catalog make their pitch.

Ordinarily I would refuse to say anything. Whatever Snyder's struggles are, they are hers, and she is entitled to them. Bless her for them. That is understood. I would never argue with her paintings, or her pain. She has my complete sympathy and understanding. 

What I can argue about is this bit of spin. Seeking the sublime. Reminds me of the idea of trying. If someone says: I tried to save so and so. What that tells us is that they didn't save so and so. That they failed. And that is what they should have said. Don't try to score points by talking about trying. In the words of the moment: don't put "lipstick on a pig."

Seeking the sublime. How about "struggling" with the sublime. What this tells us is that she hasn't found it, and we won't either when we turn to her new paintings. What we will find instead is gaping wounds. Lots of them. The show would have been more aptly titled Gaping Wounds(My Stigmata by I. M. Bleiding?). Then we would know what we were in for. We could decide if we were up for that. We could decide not to go. We wouldn't be tricked into thinking that we would be in for THE SUBLIME. I have to add that I am now one of those recovering Catholics who finds the image of the Crucifix macabre, so that could be where we part ways. Sorry. More drawn to the Mother Mary. I think Bernini had it right with St Theresa.

I don't need to go to see Joan Snyder's work to find the sublime. I have some works of hers in my home, and I find them plenty sublime enough for me. I own my own responsibility anyway where the sublime is concerned. So I will look at these paintings in greater depth. I will feel their pain, the depth of their pain, and her pain. I will let them be. I will surrender to them. If going through the pain... ok, ok... so be it. That is the inner life. And that just might actually be sublime.

Experience Versus Theoretical Knowledge

A few months ago someone who worked for the Obama campaign pointed out in answer to a query on foreign policy that the candidate had taken a course on the very subject in college. The interviewer laughed, and rightly so. The interviewee was offended. Life is strange.

I laughed too, of course, because my immediate thought was that maybe the person who taught the class might be more qualified to run for office. Then of course the little voice in my head said: those who can't do, teach, and then I was back where I started.

Experience does matter. I come from that school. The Jimi Hendrix are-you-experienced school. Experience is everything!

But wait, there's more. Apparently dyslexia is a "condition" that separates those who are more comfortable with hands-on(read: true life experience) with those who prefer the theoretical(read: fantasy). And the theoreticians want to call the shots!

After reading about dyslexia it turns out I'm their poster child, and, apparently so is George Bush. What is comforting, and not surprising, is that dyslexia experts and specialists disagree, violently. Gee, didn't see that coming.

Not entirely unrelated is the whole concept of reading. My wife is a very fast reader. I'm not. She was instructed in reading. I was not. They told her that speed was everything. They told her to just keep reading even when she didn't understand what she read. She was taught to read down the center of the page, every fourth word, that kind of stuff. Who are these people? If I don't understand something I don't move on until I get it. I will read something over and over until it sinks in. I don't care if it is poetry, philosophy, or instructions for operating a band saw. I read for content, comprehension, and results! I've always been fascinated by how my wife has nothing to say about the four hundred page novel she just ripped through. If I only read the first page of a book I can tell you about it. But apparently I'm dyslexic.

I love how everything is a condition. Apparently we're not just different. Apparently there is an ideal, a perfect model, and the rest of us are deviants. Sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? Hitler! I always love it when you find out that these perfect models were the real deviants: males judges wearing women's underwear under their fancy robes. It was like the dysfunctional craze; turned out we were all dysfunctional.

Apparently art is the big tent for everyone that doesn't fit it. Welcome on board! Crazy isn't it(we're going crazy; want to come along)? John Lennon sang about it. Herbert Read wrote about it. Carl Jung even made it seem normal. Then again, it's all a Catch 22, no? Hobson's Choice, or Morton's Fork. We're either psychotic or normal-neurotic. One kind of dilemma or another. Take your pick.

So who do you want? Who do you want to be? Do you want to have taken a course in flying a plane, or have actually flown a plane? Do you want the pilot to be someone who took a course or someone who has actually flown? Choose wisely. Do you want to learn about love and sex from someone who read a book, or someone who actually has been in love and had sex. Do you want to learn about sex from nuns?

I talked to an artist not long ago who was doing an exhibition about the war in Iraq.I can't remember his name. Harvard and Yale ties I think, which should apparently be enough. I said, oh, wow, have you been over there? He said no. He didn't think that that was important. I wondered aloud what he possible had to offer on the subject. Needless to say I was not convinced. Sex from nuns. Who are these people?

PS I was inspired to write this in the heat of the primaries. Now I'm inspired to add something. Do I support Obama? Whole heartedly! 

So what changed? McCain is a pilot after all. He has some experience flying a plane(and being shot down!). What about Obama? Well, Obama is my vote. Just one vote. We all get one. You have yours. I believe that there are other questions where the pilot is concerned, and I have been forced to consider these. 

For starters, where is this pilot taking this plane? Not a bad question. How will he get us there? What kind of judgments will he make? How will he handle the inevitable surprises and challenges? Etc. Obama is exceptional, and I believe this. That makes him the exception that proves the rule. I don't think we can afford to ignore this. To not consider the exception is to ignore the opportunities that are put before us. To not consider the exception is to turn our backs on hope!

So in the end it isn't even who's flying the plane, but where it's going!  The experience thing is very reasonable, and I believe that; but sometimes we have to go beyond that. We have to go with a gut feeling. My gut feelings have served me very well, so I trust them. My gut tells me Obama will fly our plane where we need to go, have to go, but also to someplace new and positive-- someplace that will restore the potential that is ALL our lives!