"God, you artists are a defensive, jealous lot."

Courtney - 100810

"God, you artists are a defensive, jealous lot."

I overheard that during a critique.  It was not directed at me, but it could have been.  As I swim deeper into the art world I am noticing a few common character traits among artists.  The first trait is a sense of self aggrandizing of the artist's work and the second is a jealousy of other artist's success.

As I grew up, my parents showered compliments on anything I created.  They wanted to encourage my creativity.  Every picture I drew was beautiful and every concert I played in was amazing.

The first time I received criticism on my music or art came in ninth grade.  I took both art and band.  Both teachers were trained in their field and were very accomplished in their talents.  Both teachers wanted to encourage us and gave us time to develop, but also made sure to let us know where we could do better.  It was tough hearing the truth, "Karl, sounds like you didn't practice or put much effort into it.  Is that true?"  Tough feedback pissed me off, especially when it was true.

When you take art in college, you had better get used to the critique.  Most students, but not all, are easy on each other.  The professors are much tougher.  Most of the time I admitted the faults of the work and learned how I could do better.  Once in a while though I got defensive and stood up for my art.  "I did it right.  You are seeing it wrong."  That is a common mantra in my mind during critique.  I bet it is the same one for many artists.

As we develop, we grow our own artistic styles.  We choose our tools, tonal palette, media, materials, subject matter, angles, and aesthetic that speaks to and from our artistic soul.  As a tuba player, I live for playing Bach.  I come alive as I play the contrapuntal bass line that completes the harmonies and gives it a foundation for the whole piece and ensemble.  I don't really care for marches since the tubas only exist to keep the rhythm (Except for some of Sousa's marches.  Listen to the tuba line in Stars and Stripes Forever (check out the video at 1:29).  You can also see the great tradition of when the brass (trumpets, trombones, baritones, and tuba) stand up for the last chorus.  I don't know where the tradition started, but it makes the march come alive at the end.)



I know most artists do not find an appreciative audience who truly understand their work.  They continually have to put up with "that's nice" from family and either silence, obscurity or criticism from the public.  With out that support, the artist has only two choices - fight for their art or drop it.  To remain an artist, he/she must fight for it, believe the art is important,  be open to suggestions, but in the end know it is his/her art. 

This self defensive wall is a big challenge in critiques.  It is important to listen to the criticism and decide how to improve the art.  At what point do you say to the the critic, "You just don't get it." ?  When do you defend your art?

This need to believe in the importance of your art pushes most artists into the second issue, creative jealousy.  I've seen this jealousy in myself and others  manifest in different ways.

The first is a jealousy of another artist's work.  Your colleague created something so amazing that you kick yourself for not having done it first.  Maybe he or she was working on something similar to your work but took it to another level or direction and created masterpieces.  I always ask myself, "Why didn't I think of that?"  I feel deflated when I see that and wonder whether I should even try doing my work anymore because it has been done better by another.  I also feel anger since as I begin to feel they took my idea and went further with it.  At some point though I have to realize that unless they actually stole my idea, it is done and I have to learn and move on.

The second type of jealousy comes from seeing others get opportunities and recognition for their work that you feel is no better than your own.   A month or so ago I found out a friend had orchestrated a major multi-artist exhibit and print edition.  She knew I had worked in the same theme with the same exact materials.  For some reason (and to be honest, I haven't asked) I was not considered for the collaboration.  I've seen a few pieces from the collection and know my work is as good or better.  She even notified me about it after it was done (that felt like a deep cut) so I could contact the people involved since I knew a few of them (and that was salt for the cut).

I felt a deep jealousy and anger toward all involved.  I've supported their art and felt betrayed.  After reflecting on it I came to a sadder conclusion.  I wasn't betrayed or purposefully excluded.  I was either forgotten or didn't even pop into the group's consciousness as a consideration.  It wasn't that I was cast to the side - I wasn't even considered.  It may have been my lack of a name in the community or not having enough ties, but in the end I wasn't even noticed.

My friend James is a writer.  He has had a number of essays and short stories published, but his first novel (a truly great read that needs to get published) keeps getting rejected.  James is a bit more zen than I am.  He believes it will get published by the right publisher at the right time.  He has a collection of the rejection letters and plans to burn them when his book gets published.  

This type of jealousy burns deep and I have to figure out how to deal with it in healthier way like James does.  He believes in his novel and knows it will get out there when the right opportunity opens up and he seizes it.

After reflecting on these two traits, my belief in the following statements grows deeper.  The last three I learned from Duane Michals.  I don't know where the first came from.
1. Luck is when opportunity meets ability.
2.  Nobody really gives a fuck about you, it is up to you to make your art important. 
3.  Don't go against your intuition.
4.  Two choices in life - doing it or becoming bullshit.

A moment of solitude

Valya - 092910

Sometimes we all need to be alone.   We shut out all the unneeded and only focus on ourselves.  For some, it is a stress relief.  For others, it is a way to cleanse our mind, body and spirit and celebrate a unique and personal gift.  

The Eyes Have It

Moon - 091210

In a recent post over at What We Saw Today, How We Evaluate Ourselves, the good doctor quotes Robert Adams' Beauty in Photography.  There is one small part of the quote I feel is key to good art.

 Finally, I think the success of a work can be measured not only in its freshness and the diversity of the elements it reconciles, but also by the apparent ease of its execution.  An artwork should not appear to have been hard work.  I emphasize appear because no artwork is easy to make. - [emphasis mine]

If you are showing me your photos that you worked on or are in, you may not like my feedback.  I will tell you what works and doesn't work for me as tactfully as possible.  One area though I tend to be harsh on is the obvious overuse of tools to doctor photos.  The first place I look for these issues is in the eyes of the subject.

Back in the 1988 I took my first photography class during my undergrad years.  We learned how to develop and print black and white film.  The instructor taught us about using filters, simple tools, and other techniques to fix contrast, dark/light spots, and other issues to make our prints better.  In one photo I had a person who wore a hat on a sunny day.  Most of the detail in his face was lost in the shadow.  I tried to dodge the face to keep some detail, yet have the rest exposed for the correct time.  On the first print the face looked white and the subject had a light halo around his head.  The next try wasn't any better.  I went through so many sheets of paper trying to get the dodge down right and I never quite succeeded.  I should have used a reflector to bounce light back onto his face when I took the photo.  That experience taught me two key rules in photography.

Since then I got much better at my darkroom technique.  I also learned the golden rule of photography that applies to both digital and film - thou shalt get the image into thy camera as close to perfect as possible.  This golden rule has an auxiliary admonishment - tricks are for kids (thanks Uncle Ron, photo guru, for that quote).  This auxiliary teaches us that not all images are salvageable.  If it can not be fixed cleanly, learn from what went wrong and make sure you get the image right next time. 

All photographers should strive for getting the image right when taking it.  I know sometimes the moment is so crucial to catch that we have to sacrifice perfection to get it though.  Even then, if that photo requires too much  effort in post production to make it work, it isn't worth it. A true craftsman (what is the gender neutral term for craftsman?) of any trade wants the work to come out right with little need to for touching it up after making it.

With all that said, I appreciate photographers who incorporate a roughness in their images.  Robert Frank's photos are no where near as well printed as Ansel Adams, Brett Weston, or Paul Strand's photos.  That didn't matter because his photos carried much deeper contextual messages that made a minor lens flare, hot spot, and other little imperfection irrelevant.  What I appreciate though is that you don't see obvious instances of over correction to fix those flaws.  Remember, Frank took around 28,000 images and selected around 80 of them for his book, The Americans.

I took almost 3000 images in New York and maybe 50 are graded at very good.   I would say 10 will make the final cut.   Even these selected ones have minor flaws that I will need to fix in Lightroom.  One of the main reasons each of these images work for me is that I tried to take the best photo possible.  I don't like having to perform major surgery on images to save them*.

Now, I am going to get nit picky.  With the digital tools available, many photographers are trying to improve the most important parts of the image to make them more powerful.  If the image has something with eyes in it, that is the most important part.  We naturally drift our gaze to the eyes of the subject, whether she is an Angelina Jolie or a cow moose.  There is a temptation to give the eyes a "modification (also called mods)" or "tune up".

A friend of mine was rebuilding a pickup and decided to plunk in a much larger V8 to replace the native inline 6 as a modification.  He added exhaust headers, a four barrel carburetor,  electronic ignition, and other adjustments to get maximum horsepower from the engine.  When he was finished, the engine had almost three times the horsepower and twice the torque of the original.  After gently breaking it in and driving it, he decided to drag race it.  On his first run down the lane, he destroyed his transmission.  It could not handle the extensive modifications and improved power and torque.  In the end, he replaced the transmission, exhaust system, brakes, suspension (the new engine weighed far more than the original) and even added a larger fuel tank.  Making overly brash mods to our images can wreak the same unintended havoc on our work.
 
We may start with lightening the eyes, and saturating the colors of the iris  We then add highlights, sharpen them, add detail to the lashes and make them darker or lighter, adjust contrast, whiten the whites, get rid of wrinkles, etc.  After all these adjustments, we may believe the eyes are now gorgeous and perfect.  The problem is that they don't match the rest of the image in aesthetic or quality.  The eyes now show every lash in brilliant definition, but we used softening tools on the rest of the skin and that makes the photo feel awkward and fake at best, and at worst, a bad cosmetic surgery addiction as we try to fix and balance everything (think of Michael Jackson).

Below are two photos of Coach Jim I took a few weeks ago.  I actually captured his eyes pretty well the first time.  In the first photo I went to work accentuating "the windows to his soul" to make them "perfect."  In the second, I did a few touch ups (slightly darkened the highlight and lightened his irises.)  Do you see what I mean by over doing it?  As my former photography instructor Ron reminded us, tricks are for kids. 

* Unless I am re-purposing the image for a completely different intent than straight images.

3
Video

Nine years past September 11th

Is there ever redemption?

I don't call it 9/11 or 911.  Those are models of Porsches or the emergency phone number.  For me, it is September 11th.  I was going to work in San Francisco that morning.  By the time I was crossing the Bay Bridge, the first tower had collapsed and the call had gone out to land all planes.  The skies over the city were filled with airliners waiting to land at Oakland or San Francisco.  We were scared crossing the bridge, not knowing what could be targets.  It is important to remember that three of those flights were headed to SF.

I found this video a few months ago and chose to share it here.  It is important to see an image of what the towers were like before the carnage.  We all remember what they looked like that day as they burned and fell.

I have no profound words, just sadness.

Photo note - Taken across the street from Ground Zero in June.

Marketing

Vatican - January 2010

"I've found artists are lousy at self promotion, monetizing and maximizing earning."* - Jim

Last night I had dinner with my best friend, Jim.  Jim is a web design/internet marketing consultant and content producer.  He mainly helps entrepreneurs build their web presence by creating effective and eye catching sites that help the consumer discover their services and products.  His goal is to help each client find at least a 10 fold increase in revenue over the cost of his services.  Jim is an ethical business man who wants entrepreneurs to succeed.

We were chatting about my websites that I need built for my photography.  We came up with the fact that I need two sites, tied together.  One will be my portfolio site that I can give to potential galleries, magazines, contests, etc.  The other is a commercial site promoting my future photography courses, photo books, photo contract work, and other services and merchandise.  I may even need a third one for my adult content (not porn, just not appropriate for the youngin's).

Jim asked me a while back to send him links to websites of other photographers that I really liked.  I told him how I liked the clean, simple, elegance common in all of them.  I don't want the formatting and graphic design parts competing at all with photos and words.  He felt that was really helpful, but then he asked the hard questions, "Who are your buyers, customers, consumers, clients, etc.?  What do you have to sell to them?"  These questions that makes it hard for this artist to self-promote, monetize, and maximize earnings.

I've been thinking about these questions a bit now.  Who would buy what I create?  What would they buy of my creations? With those two simple questions I've come up with a list of potential things I can offer and who would buy them.  This is important so we can point our advertising to those narrow groups to maximize revenue from advertising with out sending out spam for unwanted stuff and wasting effort and resources for those limited gains.

Here are a couple of tidbits I discovered from talking this through with Jim.  Very few art buyers, if any, will buy my photography, especially the nude art, and hang it on their walls.  As much as I love seeing my work big and on a good wall, society isn't ready to have those photos hanging in their homes.  My photos are also not the type that make for good subscription-based websites.  I don't produce enough content fast enough to do that, and to be honest, while I want some of my photos to arouse and excite, it is not for the quick masturbatory relief that subscription sites aim towards (not a judgment on those sites, I think they are helping the environment by reducing the amount of paper going into Hustler, Barely Legal,  and other stroker mags.)

For now, I am exploring where my work can be exhibited/published to get to an audience and make me some scratch from it.  I have some ideas, but they are not ready to share.

It is hard for artists to self-promote because many of us create art for ourselves and then hope some audience will come to us wanting it.  That doesn't work unless you are extremely lucky and good.  We are in the age where artists must promote themselves and be willing to sell both their art and themselves as a branded product.  I am coming to accept this as not selling out, as long as I keep to my artistic morals, aesthetics and ethics.  Now comes the next challenge, what the hell is my brand????


*This quote may be off a bit due to the influences of enjoying a cold beer, good Italian food, great company and eating outside of a restaurant on the first warm summer evening in northern California.  I think that is the gist of it though.

Money - Pink Floyd - The backup singers at 7:00 minutes are priceless and damn sexy.

The Rat Pack

Artist unknown

I just read  an interesting article at Slate.com about the formation of the Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack and how the original movie Ocean's 11personified this group.  Sinatra and his group of tag-alongs became the symbol of playboy masculinity of the late 1950's and early 1960's.  While I know of some of their hijincks, I didn't know the genesis of the pack.

Most people think the Rat Pack consisted of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr. with Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop playing secondary roles.  According to the article, the group was formed in 1955 after Sinatra invited a group of friends to Vegas for days of non-stop partying.  At one point, Humphrey Bogart's wife, Lauren Bacall saw how hungover and worn out they all looked and said, "You all look like a goddamn rat pack."  The name stuck.  

That is a funny genesis story, but what shocked me was that the beginning Rat Pack had women in it.  Some of the female members were Judy Garland and Lauren Bacall.  These ladies were high-up officers in the club and participated in the fun. 

All this debauched antics and craziness took its toll on its members.  Bogart, the group's rat in charge of public relations, once shared with a reporter the packs self serving purpose was "The relief of boredom and the perpetuation of independence. We admire ourselves and don't care for anyone else."   Bogart died in 1957 from cancer.

I find it interesting that even back then, the burden of celebrity had made these people create a group to escape its traps.  They no longer wanted to be constrained with being role models and the boredom from that life. 

What has changed since then?  Not much.   Many celebrities have his/her own entourage they hang out with.  This loyal group of friends help the big name cope with it all.  This coping can manifest in true help or dangerous help, depending on the enabling intentions of the group.  Many celebrities also hang out together because who else understand you better than fellow celebs.  Maybe one change though is the growing number of female celebrity rat packs like Paris Hilton playing with the Karsdashians and others. 

So, where does all this rambling about the Rat Pack mean for us mere peasants?  We all seek to be part of communities that understand us.  We have churches, clubs, careers, charities, and other groups that share our interests and challenges.  I like to hang out with models, artists and photographers.  I also like to hang out with other loners (I know that doesn't make sense, but for most of us loaners, we enjoy spending time with one or two others who appreciate and respect each others' privacy). We talk the same language and share similar experiences.  We go out together to push ourselves (not quite like the original Rat Pack) yet also have a safety net group to come back to who understand us. 

Portland, Oregon

Moments

This morning I listened to the duet "Portland, Oregon" from Loretta Lynn's Van Lear Rose album featuring Jack White on guitar and vocals.  This song makes me smile for many reasons,- the location, themes, Jack's guitar and voice talent mixing with Loretta's, and what I know of both performers.

Location 
I've been to Portland many times.  It is a clean, progressive city in the northwest tip of Oregon.  It  is flanked by Mount Hood to the east.  The Columbia River forms the city's northern boundary.   Most  days seem to be overcast and gray, but the rare sunny days are true beautiful gifts.

In the mid 2000's, Portland boasted having more strip clubs per-capita than any other US city.  Most of these strip clubs are small "ma and pa" establishments.  The performers tend to move away from the typical strip routines and perform more burlesque or performance art pieces that have strong erotic content set to individual sound tracks.  In other words, they aren't just stripping off pink thongs to a Bon Jovi song.

Portland quiets down after midnight.  It becomes a quiet city under rainy skies.  I've spent a few nights there in a hotel's bar.  The bar in the video is not much different than the ones I patronized.  They are kind of empty and full of solitary people who want something more for the night. 

Well Portland Oregon and sloe gin fizz
If that ain't love then tell me what is
 Well I lost my heart it didn't take no time
But that ain't all. I lost my mind in Oregon

Themes
I imagine this song is about two people visiting the city separately, but finding each other over drinks.  For reasons that may be both right and wrong, they extend their night together until the next day.  They are reflecting back on it with a smile.  They know it was one night "party" with each other and may feel a small bit of regret, but mostly a fond one-time memory.

In a booth in the corner with the lights down low
I was movin' in fast she was takin' it slow
Well I looked at him and caught him lookin' at me
I knew right then we were playin' free in Oregon

Performers
In my opinion there are two types of female voices in classic country music.  The first is the angelic pure voice that melts your heart with its beauty.  Patsy Cline had this type of voice and style.   Listen to her sing "Crazy" to hear the purity of tone and the beauty she shared.

 

The second type is the sultry and worn voice.  Where the first type melts your heart, the second either stokes your heart's arousal or breaks it from the sadness of the singer's story.  These voices may have been tempered by smoking, whiskey, and over expression to create that mix of eros, pathos, despair, dark night clubs, and broken marriages, Loretta Lynn has the second type of voice.

Loretta Lynn is a country music legend.  Her autobiography, Coal Miner's Daughter,  was made into a Oscar winning movie.  Lynn's library of country music has too many themes and styles to list here.  Combined, they show how she has lived a full life and sang about it.  The memories may be good, bad, old, or new.

Jack White was the singer and guitarist for the Detroit neo-punk blues band The White Stripes.  White's music is known for his hard, bluesy guitar playing and solos that are both technically and musically amazing.  His lyrics tend to be dark and reminiscent of childhood, relationships, and his perceptions of them.  I saw The White Stripes in 2005 and it was the best concert I've attended.

Portland, Oregon starts with White's high-pitched, fast, pizzicato guitar lick that sounds like a humming bird's heart.  It is a mix of blues, country, and flamenco guitar styles that provides the feeling of growing interest, excitement, and buzz of the night, yet slightly deadened by the alcohol fueling the moment.  After White's solo, the tempo slows down and he slowly strums a repeated string of notes as other instruments join in.  They speed the tempo up again and grow in volume right before the singing starts.

When you combine both of them, their duet takes on a new life.  You can hear Jack's young male voice (he is 35 years old) mix with Loretta's sultry experienced female voice (she is 75).  To me, they show his young, brash yet shy, eagerness and her wizened yet quiet desire to make the night one to remember.  They both sing and perform very well to their respective roles in the song. 

White and Lynn then take turns singing individually and ending the song together as they sing the songs final lines: 

Well sloe gin fizz works might fast
When you drink it by the pitcher and not by the glass
Hey bartender before you close
Pour us one more drink and a pitcher to go

And a pitcher to go [repeat]

This is not an important song in the annals of music.  It doesn't tell an important story or share deep parts of the human psyche.  It is a short story of a short moment in two people's lives.  It does not idealize or romanticize the night, it tells the story and alludes to the role of alcohol, location, and opportunity in making the night go its path.


Portland, Oregon
Loretta Lynn and Jack White


Well Portland Oregon and sloe gin fizz
If that ain't love then tell me what is
Well I lost my heart it didn't take no time
But that ain't all. I lost my mind in Oregon


In a booth in the corner with the lights down low
I was movin' in fast she was takin' it slow
Well I looked at him and caught him lookin' at me
I knew right then we were playin' free in Oregon


Next day we knew last night got drunk
But we loved enough for the both of us
In the morning when the night had sobered up
It was much too late for the both of us in Oregon


Well sloe gin fizz works might fast
When you drink it by the pitcher and not by the glass
Hey bartender before you close
Pour us one more drink and a pitcher to go


And a pitcher to go [repeat]

Who is right? Get your documentation in order.

Who took this??

I came across this little photo rights story and realized I need to go through all my model releases and get them in order.  With how many images I create I need to have them protected from wrongful use and also ensure I protect myself for how I choose to use them.

Here is a quick summary of the story. 

• The band Vampire Weekend bought the rights to use the photo above for $5000 from photographer Tod Brody for their CD cover.  The photo was taken in 1983.
• The model in the photo, Ann Kirsten Kennis, states the photo was taken by her mother (who may have sold the image), not Brody, and she had not signed any model releases for using the photo.  She is suing the band, record label, and photographer for using the photo without her permission for $2,000,000.
• Tod Brody claims he took the photo and has a model release for the image.

Please read the whole story to get more details.

Here is my non-legal-expertise-based thoughts.

1.  If the mother sold the photo she took, then Ms. Kennis may have little ground to stand on.   Technically, shouldn't the mother have had to gather model releases before she sold the photos? Who owns the rights to unclaimed/unattributed photos?  How responsible is a commercial user in determining this? 
2.  The photographer's credibility is in question.  His misspelling of the model's name is odd.  There are other awkward parts to his story.  Supposedly he has the model release forms and I assume he either showed them to the record label or has them available.  If that is true, then at least the record company should be released from liability.  It should not be up to them to have go and dig through the whole back story of the photo.  If the photographer did anything wrong (i.e., stole the photo, did not have a model's release, forged papers, etc.) then he is liable.  If his papers are legitimate and he is the photographer, he is free of liability. 
3.  If he bought the image and yet claims to be the original photographer, that seems dirty.  He should have known better than to claim it as his.  I am not sure if he is liable for selling it to record label, but may be for stating he took the image.
4.    I would expect any company that deals in the sales and distribution of artistic property (music) to have a smart legal staff to ensure artistic property rights are taken care of in agreements.  Sadly though, the record company is a larger target with deeper pockets than the photographer, so they will have to pay through legal fees and maybe fines.
5. In my humble opinion,  I don't consider this image damaging to the model's character.  The band and label did not intend to malign her by using it.
6.  This photo was taken with a Polaroid camera, the fastest image and printing system of the day.  With the speed and proliferation of digital cameras and the instant availability of the images, we (models and photographers) need to be very careful in how we use the photos.  If we intend to use them for any potential money-making purposes, we need to get everything down in writing.  Don't assume a handshake will protect you.  I took the photo below with my iPhone camera before I wrote the first sentence of this paragraph and uploaded to here before writing this sentence. 

Instant Me

Here is a Vampire Weekend video.   I'm not a big fan, but it is light and pleasant.

Different than what we learned in P.E.

Moon - 071710

Please watch the video.  We never learned to dance or do gymnastics like this.  I am going to need to take a cold shower.

Be careful of your thoughts...

The Cage

Be careful of your thoughts; they may become words at any moment. --Ira Gassen

Maybe that is why I like photography.  I put out the image of my thoughts, you provide your own words for it.  


"Words are very unnecessary.  They can only do harm." 

This video is haunting to watch.  The song is great, but the setting and location and the shooting in bright, smoggy daylight gives me chills to watch.





Words like violence
Break the silence
Come crashing in
Into my little world
Painful to me
Pierce right through me
Can't you understand
Oh my little girl

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Vows are spoken
To be broken
Feelings are intense
Words are trivial
Pleasures remain
So does the pain
Words are meaningless
And forgettable

All I ever wanted
All I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Enjoy the silence

Clip Show, Aggregates, and Lady Gaga Videos

Selling Sex in Midtown

I am a busy boy with thousands of images to edit and figure out how to present.  Work is super busy with pushing out employee training deliverables (business speak)on a really crap project that I can not control. Personal life is full with visitors, yard work, and other obligations.

I am tempted to create the blog version of a clip show and hope that will do.  For those who have been spared the pain of watching clip shows on TV, they are a cheap and easy ploy where the characters reminisce about things that happened on prior episodes.  The scene clips from those earlier episodes offer very little new content, just a cheap filler.  They are easy and cheap to make.  They are similar and about as inspiring as a greatest hits album.

In an effort to avoid creating a clip show,  I am going to do  the next cheesiest thing - stealing... errr... I mean aggregating (hate that term)... err, spotlighting things I've seen or read lately and not offering much for an opinion on them.   Seriously though, they are interesting nuggets and insights into art and music.

Here are some interesting quotes from the McChrystal career-ending issue of Rolling Stone  (July 8 -22, 2010).  Text emboldened by me for emphasis.  None of the quotes are from the McChrystal article.

Interview with veteran rocker Tom Petty being asked about his new album, Mojo.

Interviewer: To me, this album has a feeling of being on the run, outrunning the cops...
Petty: ... or outrunning life itself.  I didn't write it as a theme.  Inevitably, though you find a theme creeping in.  But any attempt to intellectualize my stuff embarrasses me.

From the article about Lady Gaga.

The former Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotto is on a mission: to prove that Lady Gaga is art and that her art is not a mask.  It is her life.

"I'll always have one high heel in New York City.  I live in Hollywood, but you can't make me love Hollywood.  I'll never love Hollywood."


"I think, creatively as a woman, you change once you give birth.  I'm totally not ready for that."


"When you resign your life to something like art music or art or writing, you have to commit yourself to this struggle and commit yourself to pain.  And I commit myself to my heartbreak wholeheartedly.  It's something that I will never let go.  But that heartbreak, in a way, is my feature.  It's a representation of the process of my work.  As artists, we are eternally heartbroken."

"... So I guess I am a woman now.  I don't know when or why you realize that you've become a woman, but I'm different.  I feel different.  And I care less and less about what people think as the hours go by.  I feel very strong."

"I don't want people to see I'm a human being.  I don't even drink water onstage in front of anybody, because I want them to focus on the fantasy of the music and be transported from where they are to somewhere else.  People can't do that if your just on Earth.  We need to go to heaven.


"Some people need to be reminded it's OK to be different."

"When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl.  But I say, 'Bitch, you're Lady Gaga, you better fucking get up and walk the walk today.'"


"Music is a lie.  Art is a lie.  You have to tell a lie that is so wonderful that your fans make it true."

Interviewer: It's interesting to speak with you, becuase you have this ineffectual and artistic side, but half of your hits are about clubbing and being drunk...
Lady Gaga:  Well, now I have a little bit more of an opportunity to be that, don't I?  I don't mean to speak arrogantly about my musical strategy as a pop artist in the Warholian sense, but today you have to almost trick people into listening to something intelligent."
Interviewer:  So you're thinking, "I'm going to trick this idea down your throat"?
Lady Gaga: Or seduce people to be interested in something uncomfortable.  And I have been for three years baking cakes -and now I'm going to bake a cake that has a bitter jelly.  The message of the new music is now more bitter than it was before.  Because the sweeter the cake, the more bitter the jelly can be. 

For those who stuck it out to this point, I am interested in hearing from you what you think of these two performers and their art and quotes.  I become increasingly fascinated by Lady Gaga the more I learn about her and see her videos.  I wonder if she has staying power to remain current or ahead of current trends or will she fade into oblivion in the next few years.

Here are a few of her videos.  The first, Alejandro,  is filled with amazing imagery from many different themes and genres.  The second video, Telephone,  is an interesting twist on the Thelma and Louise, Kill Bill, and femme fatale themes in cinema.  The final video, Bad Romance,  has very interesting retelling of old movie archetypes and themes mixed with a Matrix  sensibility.


Alejandro -


Telephone -


Bad Romance -

Start Spreading the News

At the NY MoMA

Then
The romantic ideal
Frank and Tony  - New York, New York


Now
A contemporary take on how it is.
Alicia Keys and Jay Z Empire State of Mind
 

At the NY MoMA 2

Concert Review and Hitting the Road

Candle on Our Table at the Concert

I am going to make the 1200 mile drive up to Montana and stay with my parents for a few days.  I haven't been on a solo road trip since 2007, so I am pretty excited.

I will cross California,  Nevada, Idaho and much of Montana along the way.  My hope is to spend some time photographing a few of the small towns along the way for a project I am working on as a potential grad school application portfolio series.  More about that at another time.

We had a torrential storm hit us yesterday and last night.  In between the downpours, we went to a bar by Ocean Beach in the late afternoon to watch the small cloud breaks and the waves hit the sand.  After that we went to a hip little night club on Market called Cafe Du Nord for dinner and a concert.  It is bathed in dark red colors and lit by soft lights and candles.  The two performers were Ryan Starr opening and Serena Ryder closing.

Ryan Star's Breathe
 


Ryan Star is a young thirty something singer/song writer with a huge sound and voice.  His voice sounds like a young Bruce Springstein with lyrics also like the master's mixed with an anthem sound.  I think he overdoes it a bit, but he definitely has chops and talent and with a little maturing could go big.



Serena Ryder - What I Wanna Know - The hair flip starting at 2:11 is awesome.  She did it last night. Her hair is just one manifestation of the energy and passion she puts into her music.  It is also sexy as hell.

Serena Ryder is a Canadian singer/song writer with a beautiful angelic and sexy voice depending on what she needs.  Her range is amazing both in her voice and musical styles.  She is a fun, sexy, talented and great artist.  I highly recommend listening to her and catching one of her shows.

Serena Ryder's song Sing, Sing, Sing.  This song has become the theme song for supporting music education programs in Canada.  It is a great song and it energized the crowd as we clapped with her.  It is my favorite of hers because of her great voice and also the cause it supports.

Empty Again in Wise Poverty - Sabbatical

 "Time, time, time, see what's become of me"
Hazy Shade of Winter - Paul Simon

 The Lucky Poor 

A beech tree in winter, white
Intricacies unconcealed
Against sky blue and billowed
Clouds, carries in his emptiness
Ripeness: sap ready to rise
On signal, buds alert to burst
To leaf. And then after a season
Of summer a lean ring to remember
The lush fulfilled promises.
Empty again in wise poverty
That let's the reaching branches stretch
A millimetre more towards heaven,
The bole expand ever so slightly
And push roots into the firm
Foundation, lucky to be leafless:
Deciduous reminder to let it go

- Eugene Peterson

It is time to do the spring cleaning in all parts of my world.  The backyard is a mess.  The dust bunnies have multiplied out of control under our bed.  The back porch needs to be painted.  My garage studio needs to come down.  My spirit needs to be purged of the cobwebs that catch useless things floating about in my existence.  It is time to reboot myself, not in a formal religious cleansing of grace, but a deep scrub of who I am and until it is raw and allowed to heal in the open air.  It is time to be Empty again in Wise Poverty.

A few posts ago I mentioned this blog needs a restart, reboot, renovation, or just a simple removal.  I am going to be on break for a bit.  It is time to revamp this old blog by painting the walls, hanging new art, and sprucing up the window treatments.  It is also time to take all the photos down as clickable links to enlarged images.  I need to protect my photos.  Thanks to Dr. L, Alex, and Stephen for that tip.

While I am away on sabbatical, check out the great blogs listed on the right side of this page.  You can also mine my old posts for a few juicy nuggets.  I may post an update or image every once in a while during the break, but I need to renovate and protect this blog and myself.

If I spent an average of thirty minutes for each of the 330 posts, then I've dedicated about 165 hours of writing and many more to getting images ready.  With all that work I put into this baby, I really need to take better care of it so that both you and I get what we need out of it.  For me, a chance to voice my thoughts, ideas, feelings, emotions, experiences, and desires .  For you, hopefully you will find something interesting, humorous, arousing, inspiring, thought provoking, arousing (I really like that word), or just pretty to look at.

To all my blog readers out there, please share the title from one or some of your favorite posts from this blog via the comments section.  I will update this post with links to them.  For blog authors, please feel free to put a link to your site, blog, MM profile, or whatever you feel should be linked to via the comments section.  I will also update this post with those active links.

Greatest hits as requested by readers/bloggers
Proust Questionnaires
Rome
Men Take the Light
Galicia
Hasta luego mi amigos. 

Sing me out Simon and Garfunkel


Hazy Shade of Winter
Time, time, time, see what's become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities
I was so hard to please
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the salvation army band
Down by the riverside, it's bound to be a better ride
Than what you've got planned
Carry your cup in your hand
And look around, leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say, but if your hope should pass away
It's simply pretend
That you can build them again
Look around, the grass is high
The fields are ripe, it's the springtime of my life

Ahhh, seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won't you stop and remember me
At any convenient time
Funny how my memory slips while looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme
Drinking my vodka and lime

I look around, leaves are brown now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground...

Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground...

Look around, leaves are brown
There's a patch of snow on the ground... 



One more thing... I am not taking a break from reading my favorite blogs.  I need to read those now more than ever.  They help guide me in ways that are hard to describe.

Percieving Art - a really long one... beware

 

Katie 022110 - Negative Neighbor 1

After reading a very elequont and well written articles by Dr. L. over at What We Saw Today about the future of art, I got to thinking about the relationship between perceiving art personally and how we learn as individuals.   We all perceive things differently and that affects how appreciate create and learn.  How will our ability to perceive art in the future define what art will become? 

One learning theory emphasizes the different types of learners and trying to meet their needs. According to Howard Gardner, people learn best through one or more methods of interaction with the subject.  Gardner came up with a list of eight multiple intelligences with a couple more to consider as additional avenues.  The big eight are:

1. Bodily- kinesthetic - learning better by involving muscular movement (e.g. getting up and moving around into the learning experience), and are generally good at physical activities such as sports or dance.
2. Interpersonal -  people who have a high interpersonal intelligence tend to be extroverts, characterized by their sensitivity to others' moods, feelings, temperaments and motivations, and their ability to cooperate in order to work as part of a group.
3. Verbal - linguistic - People with high verbal-linguistic intelligence display a facility with words and languages. They are typically good at reading, writing, telling stories and memorizing words along with dates. They tend to learn best by reading, taking notes, listening to lectures, and discussion and debate. They are also frequently skilled at explaining, teaching and oration or persuasive speaking.
4. Logical - mathematical - While it is often assumed that those with this intelligence naturally excel in mathematics, chess, computer programming and other logical or numerical activities, a more accurate definition places emphasis on traditional mathematical ability and more reasoning capabilities, abstract patterns of recognition, scientific thinking and investigation, and the ability to perform complex calculations.
5. Interpersonal - People with intrapersonal intelligence are intuitive and typically introverted. They are skillful at deciphering their own feelings and motivations.
6. Visual - spatial - People with strong visual-spatial intelligence are typically very good at visualizing and mentally manipulating objects. They have a strong visual memory and are often artistically inclined.
7. Musical - Those who have a high level of musical-rhythmic intelligence display greater sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones, and music. They normally have good pitch and are able to sing, play musical instruments, and compose music. Since there is a strong auditory component to this intelligence, those who are strongest in it may learn best via lecture.
8. Naturalistic - This area has to do with nurturing and relating information to one's natural environment.  Those with it are said to have greater sensitivity to nature and their place within it, the ability to nurture and grow things, and greater ease in caring for, taming and interacting with animals. They may also be able to discern changes in weather or similar fluctuations in their natural surroundings. They are also good at recognizing and classifying different species. They must connect a new experience with prior knowledge to truly learn something new.

 -Wikipedia

I would say I perceive things best using my visual - spatial and musical intelligences with a touch of the naturalistic as well.  I also recognize times when the other ones work for me, but these are my key ways I perceive and create things. 

Katie 022110 - Negative Neighbor 2

 

How we perceive art is as deeply personal as how we experience food, sex, attraction, revulsion, and any other life experience, different strokes for different folks.  Can you tell me what blue looks like?  You can list examples of blue things, elaborate on how it makes you feel, and even tell me which wavelengths in the visual spectrum are assigned to the blue hues.  Thankfully art is easier to discuss how we perceive it, but I know your explanation of your perceptions of art contain only a small amount of what you experienced, felt, and interpreted into them.

The visual-still arts are the most concrete to describe and elaborate on.  You can spend time with the piece to interpret it for your own consumption.  Your eyes can gaze on each part as long as needed.  If you can touch it, then you can touch it as long as needed as well.  For some art, a second is only needed, for other art, a lifetime.  What I appreciate about this form is that I can come back to it and digest bits of the piece or the whole thing as I need to.   This type of art has a very slow temporal life, limited by the length of the show, life of the viewer, or the decomposition, fading, or erosion of the piece.  Last month I saw the Pantheon in Rome.  It will probably be there the next time I see it.  It will be around after me and has been around for thousands of years before me.

Performance/moving art with a visual component is the next most concrete.  You are absorbing sight, sound, movement, action and other sensations to form your own version of the narrative.  With all this though, it is temporal.  The dancer's move, the actor's line, and the dialogue are gone after they are performed.  Only our memory (or a rewind button) allows us to experience it again.  During that instant though, our visual and auditory worlds have to be open to receive all the information we are going to get.  We are living in the temporal existence of the piece.

Music is the most abstract, for me.  I play music, love it and try to have it around me all the time.  It has some similarities to visual moving/performance art.  The temporal existence is a challenge since it lasts only as long as the note is held.  When the music stops, the perceiving time is done.  We are left only with our memories and feelings created by the music to create an interpretation.  A challenge unique to music and other auditory arts is the lack of all senses involved other than hearing.  I can't use anything other than my ears to capture what happened.

I love both listening and playing this piece - the tuba line is the best at  5:17 to 6:48 - I  get chills hearing and playing that part.


Another challenge with instrumental music (and dance) is the lack of words.  Everything exists in a temporal moment and demands the audience to truly make their own interpretation of the moment.  Music with lyrics may be abstract, but by listening to the words and how they flow with the music, I can get a deeper sense of the creator's message.

Flamenco music and dance flow with a passion that always stirs my heart, loin and spirit.  It can be inspire and heartbreaking all at once.


With all the above said, I have to go back to Dr. L's post.

Art is real. Its essence cannot be conveyed by pixels. The story of its time and place and purpose and moment resides in its physical package, the medium.

and

This is serious business if we come to accept a virtual gallery as a primary venue to show any kind of art. Nad's words "quickly forgotten" tell us all we need to know. We are not talking about just the end of literature. We are talking about the end.

I can see her point, but don't feel it is as widespread or absolute as may be feared.  If all art becomes an online gallery, it will be the death of art.  That wont happen though.  Viewing live sports events on location is still a preferred experience over watching it live on TV.  The televised version is probably closer to the action than the person in the stands, but experiencing it live is truly a richer experience.  Overall, I think people will always prefer the real thing to the recorded/digital version.

I think the impact of the internet on art, and any other form of communication and information, is similar to the printing press and the first recorded sounds.  Before printed words, all books were hand-written and most stories were passed down through oral traditions.  Before recorded sound, all music was experienced by live performers.  The temporal moment made it a cherished treat.  Within one minute, I can listen to pretty much any audio thing I want because of the ease of the internet.  While I may enjoy hearing Bach or Bachman Turner Overdrive through my computer speakers, listening to the real thing live is much better.  Seeing Ansel Adams Moonrise Over Hernandez on my screen reminds me of when I saw a real print of it, but since I don't have $40,000 to buy one, the virtual experience is better than none.

In considering the future of art, we always need to look at the technologies available to the artist.  Early photography was not considered art.  To make it more artistic, the pictorial photographer tried to emulate painted art.

Pictorialism largely subscribed to the idea that art photography needed to emulate the painting and etching of the time. Most of these pictures were black & white or sepia-toned. Among the methods used were soft focus, special filters and lens coatings, heavy manipulation in the darkroom, and exotic printing processes

Wikipedia

Along came Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and many other photographers stating, "bullshit" to the idea that photography had to emulate other arts of the time.  They defined a new genre of art that emphasized contrast, tonality, and clarity of image.  They created the concept or philosophy of the fine art print. In a previous post I wrote about a digital photography pioneer who challenging the concept that the traditional fine print is truly the only fine art photograph.  In the future, we may look back at the fine prints created by film photographers as garish, over-saturated, and with too much contrast.  Who sees true black in the real world?

It took some time and now photography is widely accepted and appreciated as an art form.  Very few cutting-edge artists exploring new media will have their art considered seriously in their lifetime.  This is the challenge of the new artists who is inventing the new art.

In the future, there will be new types of art that solely live in the digital world.  They may have no tactile, permanent existence. They will only be exhibited, performed, and created in the digital world of electrons and pixels.  We will only be able to absorb it through the machine that it lives in and puts it out onto the device we use to interact with it.  That same device may be what we use for communication, making lists, and doing our taxes.  Like music, they may be temporal and live only within one sense.   It may become something like a holographic universe that we absorb virtually through a connection to a computer.  Imagine if you could create a piece of art that a person could truly enter and be surrounded by to experience it.

Candace Nirvana 022110

All of this does not mean the death of art as we know it.  As Dr. L stated:

In the beginning was NOT the word, despite what we've been told. In the beginning was the image - those we saw before our eyes, and those we filed inside our heads.

Humans have been transferring images to walls for thousands of years.  We have been banging things together to create music and dance to a rhythm.  The piano, while made with better materials and engineering, is basically the same as the first pianofortes from centuries ago.  Every time a new form of art or technology/technique in art is created, we must make one of five choices, ignore it, accept it, accept parts of it and use it with the old methods, alter it for something even newer, or try to destroy it for all others.  There is some music I can barely consider music, so I ignore it or avoid it.  I've accepted using a digital camera.  I want to try making silver prints from digital negatives.  I would love to try taking digital photographs of my thoughts someday and push the format further.  I will always speak out about art that promotes hatred and persecution like many speak out about the nude art we create as dangerous.

In conclusion, humans will always need to create art and to experience it in whatever way is best for the individual.  Some will be tactile, or aural, or visual, or a mix of all the senses and types of intelligence.  Some will be using methods we can not fathom yet and others will be using the oldest techniques of art, a simple smudge on a flat surface.  Art is not going to die from new methods of exhibitions.  If it dies, it will be from others suppressing the artist's ability to make it.

The Boxer, Then and Now

Mollee 011610

My mom wore out three Bridge Over Troubled Water albums by Simon and Garfunkel. She loves that album. I know every song by heart, even the ones I don't like (So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright). I spent many hot summer days listening to that album with my mom as I read. Each song has meaning to me.

As a kid, my favorite was Cecilia due to its eccentric instruments and rhythms. I liked it even more when I hit puberty and understood the lyrics, I had figured out why he was washing his face -

Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia
Up in my bedroom (making love)
I got up to wash my face
When I come back to bed
Someone's taken my place

As I got older, I really liked Keep the Costumer Satisfied because of the massive brass section. In my mind, songs with "big brass ones" are the tops for instrumentation. You can listen to it here. The brass kicks in during the last half of the song.

In college, I listened to The Boxer's lyrics for the first time. One part really spoke to me.

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

If you listen to the original recoding, Simon and Garfunkel sing "cut" with staccato clipping it short so the listener feels the punch the boxer just suffered. That was the point when I learned that articulation of words can add so much meaning to the message. It made me listen to music differently. I wanted to hear how Frank Sinatra, Tina Turner, Pink Floyd, Al Green, Pavarati, and many other vocalists said the words so they had more meaning.

I also felt that verse of the song spoke to me since we all "carry all the reminders of ev'ry glove laid him down or cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame." What college student doesn't feel they are a failure in school, socially, physically, psychologically at some point?

In my thirties, this verse spoke to me.

Asking only workman's wages
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there

All I will say, when haven't we taken some comfort in places we are not too proud of visiting. I do declare.

Yesterday, I wanted to listen The Boxer again. I found a 2003 version of it from a S & G performance on David Letterman. The video is at the bottom. Once you get past the interview, the music starts at 2:00. Part way through, I heard a new (to me) verse.

Now the years are rolling by me
And they rock uneasily
And I am older than I once was
And younger than I'll be. That's not unusual.
No, it isn't strange
After changes upon changes
We are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same

That pretty much sums up a mid-life crisis. As pitiful and cliche as a mid-life crisis is, those lyrics are speaking to me and I am listening. I am not going to dwell on them too much longer, but they are important now.

I've listened to this "new" verse a dozen times now and found out a bit about it through wikipedia. It was not included on the original Bridge Over Troubled Water album.



The Boxer by Paul Simon and performed with Art Garfunkel

I am just a poor boy
Though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest

When I left my home and my family
I was no more than a boy
In the company of strangers
In the quiet of the railway station running scared
Laying low, seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know

Lie la lie ...

Asking only workman's wages
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers,
Just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue
I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there

Lie la lie ...
Now the years are rolling by me And they rock uneasily And I am older than I once was And younger than I'll be. That's not unusual. No, it isn't strange After changes upon changes We are more or less the same After changes we are more or less the same

Lie la lie ...

Then I'm laying out my winter clothes
And wishing I was gone
Going home
Where the New York City winters aren't bleeding me
Bleeding me, going home

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

Lie la lie ...

On David Lettermen




The original

x
One final note, it is good to hear S&G still have golden harmonies. They still give goose bumps with their beauty.