Ventura Elections

The theme of this election echoes the theme for a lot of activity at city hall in relation to the arts: lots of good intentions and ideas, really lousy, often terrible execution. This city could become a serious art center if it ever got its act together.

Recommendations and comment:
Measure A [increase local sales tax to help a lot of good causes]: A great idea; totally wrong solution. A sales tax hike at this time is completely wrong: it hurts the arts; it hurts small business; it hurts consumers; it's regressive, right at a time when people at the bottom are hurting the most. It is a contracting move at the depth of a contraction. Further, classic economic theory says it won't work: if you raise a sales tax during an economic contraction, you are more likely to DECREASE overall tax revenues because you are going to hurt sales volume to a point where you offset the tax increase. During a contraction, if you want to increase sales tax revenues, you have to increase sales: something this city seems to be real good at not doing. There was plenty of room for improvement on the city's part in terms of efforts to get creative and try to increase sales. But they chose not to do that. This ordinance is truly a case of too many people at city hall drinking the cool-aid.

Measure B [give power of creating building height ordinance to VCORD]: Great idea: the city really needs a view protection ordinance; but again, totally wrong implementation. Giving all this power to VCORD is NOT the way to go. We need to reform city hall, not give new power to special interest groups who have no responsibility to voters.

Measure C: Again, great ideas, really bad solution. This ordinance is written so badly it's insane. It cannot possibly accomplish what it claims to do.

City Council:
I have to confess I am conflicted here. I usually vote Democratic/Progressive, but they are all so strongly for Measure A, I have to pause. Also, a lot of the arts community, including myself have been very unhappy with recent actions and lack of arts leadership on the present council [for the supposedly "New Art City" - the Auto Center is still the number one priority on the city plan - which is really helping the city right now, right?]. I personally could not bring myself to vote for one incumbent. City Hall desperately needs new blood and new thinking. I went for new blood. I have no specific recommendations other than that William Knox III, Wendy Halderman, and Maureen O'Hara were the only candidates who seemed even dimly aware of the current arts situation here and the arts role as the most viable engine for the revitalization of this berg.

Wired for Ecstasy

Remember we are built for love; wired for ecstasy.
For our hearts to open, our arms to embrace;
Our fingers to touch gently and feel the delicacies of skin
For our legs to dance and run and climb up to the bluffs above the sea,
Our voices for shouting and laughing and singing and talking so softly
that it breaks another's mind, its resistance, the walls around the soul
so that tears wash our eyes that we may see all the more clearly the beauty
that this life offers each one of us and to each of those around us
Never ending, without pause, continually, a music surrounding us
below the world's terrors and fears, in the depth where our lips know
and kiss and touch the ends of fingers before we finally arive at death's door
and are no more

Re-Emerging

(painting: Oceanic Atmospherics)

OK. Graymoth emerges out of the chrysalis. Got onto Facebook - part of the process. That is an education in itself. Thanks, everyone, for the support. It's been quite a dance!!

Into the Flame

Well Grey moth flew into the flame. Back on again, buzzing homeward to the red weed flowers, night moths, grey moths, all drinking deep the nectar of life. If you've ever seen Jimi Hendrix singing at Monterrey, you know what I mean. Or heard the UK single release of his Wild Thing- which is not on any of his albums and was never released in North America.

What's up with that anyway? They've never put Buddy Miles' double album LIVE on CD either. One of the best rock albums of all time and it's not even on CD. Shows how depraved the situation is. OK, a lot of people never heard it or know it exists- that doesn't make it any the worse- and that's mostly because Buddy Miles studio work is lousy and flat and he had only one so-so hit single and when he played with Hendrix it was only for his drums- which is not his great talent. What he was good at was putting on a live show and singing improvisationally, live, to a responsive audience - and the only time that was ever published was on his LIVE double album- which has an incredible 20-plus minute improv of Neil Young's Down By the River during a live concert in Seattle, which is one of my favorite cuts of music ever recorded. But you can get an edited version of it on You-tube,where it can be confirmed by the adulation of others there that I am not hallucinating here.


Great art languishes, threatened with extinction, but oh my god, a corporation, which hasn't contributed one cent to real culture or to anything worth remembering, and that no one will give a damn about 100 years from now, starts stumbling and it's hey, here's a 100 billion bucks to help you out. While art that makes you thankful that you lived- that that artist lived, so you could witness these incredible moments, that will be rippling out with that feeling for centuries, no, that kind of thing isn't worth a dime.

Speaking of which, you can't get the very good English translation of Carpentier's The Chase in the United States either-- one of the best novels of all time-- nor the last three books of the US edition of the great new translation of Proust's In Search of Lost Time.

Or as Scott Moncrieff would have us have it, Remembrance of Things Past - but then Moncrieff calls the fourth book (Sodome et Gomorrhe) Cities of the Plain instead of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the second book, Within a Budding Grove (A L'ombre des Jeunes Filles en Fleurs) instead of something like In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower. A slight suppression of the poetry and sex there, Scotty boy? You can see why we need the new translation.

All because of some stupid corporate copyright shenigans, Americans will have to wait till the next decade to read Proust in a better translation. Wait. That is what they tried to do; but you and I know better- just order the UK cheaply bound Penguin version and you can have the UK version which is almost the same, as long as you're willing to put up with faded, near invisible, microscopic type ... it's so good to know we can get anything we want here in the US of A, land of the free, where we don't have any censorship (Carpentier is Cuban), or anything like that ...

It's over

Direct Hit acrylic on paper 2009

It's over. Direct hit sustained. Those who know what I'm talking about, know what I'm saying. End of an era. Short one at that. Eight years lived in 2 and a half. At least. Over 400 paintings. No regrets. But the Swedish Fish is going down, down, down. Down. Don't know when I'll come back up again. Bye for now. Good fishing all ...

Economic Plummet

State of the state.

Graffitto

Yes, there is a relationship between my imagery and graffitti. The original meaning of the root word for graffitto referred to inscribed marks, which I frequently use. My work is more in line with pre-spray paint, or as we learn to not use so many flourocarbons, post-industrial graffitti. All those signs and marks scratched and drawn onto walls in the spur of the moment. The residual of signs covering our walls, buildings, and streets that need no industrially advanced technology or tools to make. Many of the works on paper have marks literally lifted off the alley walls. But I use the other usual sources as well: the drawings of children and the marginalized, impromtu remains of fleeting moments, left behind with the visual detritus of the damned.

Broken Remnants

Painting for me is letting go. Giving up all the ideas, leaving nothing but the mark. Hinted and broken remnants of a visitation from beyond the veil of consciousness.

River

Hallejuiah, I'm a Bum

Mary-Mary, the gospel-rap Campbell sisters duo talks about getting the music out to the "unchurched" - and "churched" is used as an adjective by NPR. I like that, the neat distinction from spirituality, the compactness of the labeling of a human being as having been successfully brain-washed in a specific way. Sort of how militaries "train" soldiers by breaking them down and "building" them back up again as sociopathic killing machines. Who, if they insist on their humanity and break down, are sent off into oblivion as the PTSD disabled. It once was "shell-shocked" and gradually, war-by-war, devolved into 1984-speak Post-Traumatic-Stress. Without sufficient medical benefits. Of course many of the combatants in these wars, on all sides, have been properly "churched" before they ever signed up for duty, in many cases, the churching being a psycho-sociological pre-requisite for even conceiving of soldiering as a "career" option. As the Mullah said, "Only a fool refuses to play the God-card when unleashing genocidal mania."

The Naughties

If we call the 1920s the twenties, the 1990s the nineties and so forth, what do we call the first decade of the century? My wife, Andrea, said the naughties.

That's about right. So many have been so naughty this last decade.

While his kleptocracy funneled billions to old business buddies, Bush was still able at the last minute to intimidate Congress into dumping hundreds of billions of taxpayer money so more of the big boys could get their end-of-year bonus and pay a few dividends. Those dividends of course go mostly to extremely wealthy stockholders and other corporations. Not to mention all the greedy little games the bankers, financial wizards, and politicians engaged in to bring down the global economy. All kinds of shenanigans become the norm, including double-dipping. Or triple.

I like the story of the guy getting a full pension as a retired navel officer, a full retirement pension from a subsequent civil service job with his state, who then gets a hefty full salary from a high-powered technology and policy consulting firm, and gets consulting contracts from the Federal government. He gets four full paychecks, three funded by your tax dollars. Not to mention that he came from a generations exceptionally wealthy family to begin with which included the neat little perk of his own significant trust fund. A fund that is full of tax-free governement and state bonds, yes, you guessed it, with dividends funded by our tax dollars. These are the kind of dividends the first bail-out money went to protect.

To paraphrase Summers, basically the game for the last eight years has been: every American in the bottom 80 percent income-wise writes a yearly check for on average ten grand to the top one percent. That's the Republican "level" playing field. Anything less than that is "wealth re-distribution" and Socialism.

Definitely the naughties.

Cannot say enough

Thank you everyone for such lovely support!

Apologies

Google allowed an ad to be placed on this site for a Fascist propoganda site. I apologize to all who were upset and offended. I was horrified and upset beyond telling. This ad placement was done by Google, not me. I have since been able to take it off the site, but it is still upsetting nonetheless. The insensitivity of Google here is mind-boggling. I am sorry that this has happened and will take every step possible within my power to prevent this kind of outrageous activity in the future.

Opening with New Work

What a week since the opening. New and positive feedback on the new paintings coming in from every direction. This weekend attended a fantastic printmaking workshop run by Virginia Furmanski. New monotypes coming out soon. Thanks, Ginny!!

Open Letter to the City of Ventura

Respected members of the council,

In regards to city planning, funding, and recent developments in the arts funding of the city of Ventura:

The city of Ventura currently faces a major economic and fiscal crisis of unprecedented proportions- in large part brought on by a declining tax base as real estate values and retail sales nose dive, not to mention the $10 million in bad investments and bungling on the part of the city. So what is it proposing to do? Cut back on the one engine capable of accelerating the recovery of the city- that is, her arts.

A lot has been invested in creating a "New Art City" in Ventura. New blood and talent has moved into Ventura in the past year or two. Cutting this growth toward a critical mass at this vulnerable time may be a long-term mistake difficult to correct later. Once it gets out that you've cut off the New Arts City track, it will be very difficult to resurrect. Short-changing the arts now could do permanent and long-term damage.

But have the arts in Ventura been that well-supported even up to now? As the North Avenue Developmet project, a project for a part of the city central to a lot of its current and future arts growth and rejunenation, several years after its inception languishes without a designer or serious support within the city machinery, having missed many of its intermediary goals, is now still number four on the priority list, the Auto Center development project sits as the number one priority.

The Auto center - wouldn't that have saved us in this economy!!

The Mid-town corridor, another critical area, isn't even on the planning list. Concurrently, the city sits poised to throw its cultural plan out the window. We see a pattern here- of short-sighted misjudgement compromising solid long-term thinking.

We probably should be asking why the arts are and have not been receiving MORE support. Instead we are debating whether the arts will continue at the level of their past, inadequate priority and support. And it is just not arts issues that are ill-thought-out. Raising sales taxes in down times, when there is a shortage of buyers, only drives sales elsewhere.

Then there's the kids. If you've ever seen the excited, joyous faces of the kids that rush into the Bell Arts kids art classes- the younger sisters and brothers of the teenagers selling drugs on the street only blocks away, you'll realize how much the arts mean for our future and these kid's future.

Remember, any vote by the council or move against the arts today is a vote against the future: it is a vote against the economic future of Ventura, it is a vote against our kids, and their future. Strangely, there are those who believe that cutting a buck from the arts today actually saves them a buck tomorrow. In reality, every buck cut from the arts today costs us many times that tomorrow.

Upperware Parties

The new thing - women getting together to sell their jewels at Upperware parties. Trade stories about all the ex-whatevers who gave you the goods and sell them to a buyer for cash on the spot. Clear the air, that ring from the old asshole is your next paycheck. No guilt or having to go to a pawn shop to hawk the family jewels. Do it discreetly in the privacy of your hostess's home.

Abstraction

Abstraction is inherently emotionally distancing. Twenty-first century abstraction in painting often seeks, like Klee, some sort of personal or internally generated iconic mapping back to personal events and feelings, frequently veiled by obtuse references.

There is a great misconception in visual art today, a misconception that believes that great art, or at least the next great new thing, is somehow inherently impossible to understand; but as Dave Hickey points out, the techniques and means to achieve this have become almost universal, so that we have thousands of people cranking out shit that no one can understand.

The original impetus toward abstraction was to create images that were universally understood--independent of one's cultural filters. This brought out an unprecedented level of technical invention. Today this has been turned on its head: everyone seeks to be completely opaque and incomprehensible while technical invention has hit a new low, technique has almost disappeared.

Similar things have happened before--in all Mannerist epochs. History tends to judge harshly, with subsequent generations (except for a handful of specialists) often forgeting entire generations. A generation forgets quality and meaning at the risk of being dismissed. The weakness that fears making a judgement, a determination of quality, which used to be the hallmark of a critical facility, is a weakness that leads to oblivion, that generates forgettable "art". We've just passed a generation where anything goes. This is good, but after a certain point, in the end, when anything goes, everything goes, and nothing remains of interest. The confusion and ennui of a "late" mileau overcomes itself, like all empires, with its own garbage.

Realism

Realism is a nineteenth century invention. It had to overcome Aristotle's observation that it was a fairly poor artist who merely copied nature. Aristotle's mimesis originally was about achieving a certain emotional veracity in a stage production. In other words, he is the first to point out that over-acting bleeds a dramatic performance of a certain natural emotional truth and power. It took another couple of millennia before Grotowski and the Method, respectively, created the polar foundations of modern theatre. Grotowski, through stripped-down staging and an intensely artificial technique achieved a heightened sense of emotional truth, very unlike "reality TV", which uses real people to produce an incredibly artificial surface effect; an artificiality with its own queasy addictive quality--like bad chocolate.

Beyond Einstein

Scientific American March 2009 issue has article on how Einstein theory of special relativity might be wrong. Not quite fair title, I mean Bell's Theorem was published long after. It's not that Einstein was so wrong, as that folks have gone beyond him. Ah well, entanglement roars again. All the paranormal coach-philosophers will have another field day. Which is good. A lot more interesting than bank statements and foreclosures. Check it out.

Putting up (with) a blog

OK. Finally posting a blog to my site after, what? Four years of pressure from friends and enemies. So here it is. Still trying to figure out how to do a slideshow of recent paintings. Not going to happen today.