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.