Sometimes friends move away, and life goes on — but not quite the same.
And art goes on with new grout for the cracks. Here is a book that finally finished itself. Chris’s vibraphone inserted itself on the left where you see the rising steps of the metal bars and the fluorescent mallets that turned themselves into roses. And on the right you find Chris and Colleen in a new environment with flowers from someone really appreciated the neighborly pot of chicken soup. And in the center, the cello and the vibes swirl all around in memory.
You can enlarge images by clicking on them.
Sometimes in the studio I hear a familiar singer and think, “that sounds like Colleen”. And there it is in the iPad playlist — “Something Forgotten, Remembered”.
It’s been a while, but here’s a new one, still-in-process of becoming an artist book — notes from my journey around the United States after calling it quits with teaching art in the California prison system. This segment of the trip starts in southwest Texas during the freeze of an ice storm and ends up on the Rio Grande during the aftermath of same storm.
Last week Oola and I did a road trip and spent some time camping with California’s biggest and hungriest mosquitoes. Also shared coffee next to some old guys in bicycle spandex. Happily we arrived in the Bay Area itchy but not with too much psychological damage to visit family and friends.
One highlight of the trip was to visit the Seager Gray Gallery in Mill Valley to catch the tail end of the 13th annual Art of the Book show. This was always a special treat for us when we lived in the Bay Area.
Ascension is a kind of work I mentally associate with the gallery: mythical, magical, meditative, lyrical, both in and out of time, contemporary and ancient all at once. And I was not disappointed.
But, as in any Artist Book related show, there were a wide variety of approaches.
You can click on any image to see an enlargement.
World Books, Brian Dettmer
World Books (detail), Brian Dettmer
From this angle, Brian Dettmer’sWorld Books reminds Oola of the curiosity and affection of a baby pangolin focusing its gaze on Suzanne Grey at the desk. But when observed closely, the delicacy and intricacy of Brian’s cutting can only be called amazing. Still, this brings up an issue in the Artist Book world: a book is something that one interacts with physically, intellectually, and emotionally page by page to absorb its content. Brian’s work, from what I have observed, lives more in the camp of the artist book as pure sculpture, not to be touched, only to be admired from a distance.
Pulp Discourse, Andrew Hayes
Another artist, Andrew Hayes, lives in the same camp. He is not interested in conveying story or the content of the book so much as the play of iron with paper. The gestural action of the two Pulp Discourse pieces is something one feels viscerally. They certainly are beautiful and noteworthy forms, but not to be touched.
Once, while I was working as an artist in California Prisons, I brought some clay to the AIDS ward. I put lumps out on the table for the guys who gathered around and seemed interested. Naive as I was, I said “show me the inner man” and they got all poetic with their clay because that is what they thought I wanted. One fellow, however, was having none of my foolishness. At the end of the hour he presented me with his “Intestine Man”.
Valérie Buess‘s works in this show reminded me of that incident, of the hardshell-covered vulnerability of the men, and their humor even in that musty place. At least, I want to believe that her work Prescious Capsule is about vulnerability. Here is a case where the tactile wants to tell truth to the hand.
Valérie’s work Regulations is hilarious. It is spun from books documenting changes in the law. In the words of the artist, they “hold/hide their meaning very tightly, shut in the words…twirled, spiky and barbed”.
Inheritance, Jaz Graf
Inheritance, Jaz Graf
Jaz Graf‘s piece, Inheritance, consists of letterpress on porcelain pages spread out on the wall by means of steel hangers. Each pages says “nous sommes simplement de passage”, or “we are only here for a moment’s time”. This is a reminder of the intimacy of a book in a public place. I love the artist’s statement that a book is “the ghost limb of an author, but more importantly it becomes an extension of the reader’s body and experience.”
Shpilkes, Lisa Kokin
Fragment, Lisa Kokin
Traditional books by their definition need words to convey content. Artist Books, not so much. Lisa Kokin‘s work in this show uses words that have no semantic content. Just thread and recycled objects and, like she says, “shpilkes” or nervous energy.
Durer’s Deer, Renée Bott
Durer’s Deer (detail), Renée Bott
Renée Bott works to paint out the words from narratives about human cruelty. She paints the beauty of the natural world seeking to discover a future where humans live in harmony with it.
But I Didn’t Sleep Much, Tamar Stone
But I Didn’t Sleep Much (detail), Tamar Stone
Tamar Stone tells stories of women in their own words as they travel alone in troubled times. Her use of traditional text in low contrast or on distracting background makes the words seem camouflaged. The reader has to become intensely involved with unmaking, reading, then remaking the layers of the bed. These secret stories require effort to enjoy.
Meanwhile (opened on table), Macy Chadwick
Meanwhile (detail), Macy Chadwick
In Macy Chadwick‘s Meanwhile words from A Thousand and One Nights swirl through the book like a murmuration of starlings.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy from the Assassinations series, Brian Singer
Martin Luther King, Jr. from the assassination series (detail), Brian Singer
While in the gallery I heard another visitor ask “What’s with all the guns?”. Our society and culture is in the grips of a huge gun struggle and with ever-increasing frequency we convulse under the weight of a new outrage. It is on everyone’s mind. I think it necessary for artists to deal with the subject.
This show presents two artists who talk about this obsession in two different ways. The first is Brian Singer (above) who presents the guns of historical assassinations. He prints images of the guns of specific events on pages of books about the event. He cuts the paper into blocks which he turns on their sides. The images of guns appear as delicate drawings on obscured lines of text (as in the detail image above). I did not see it, but evidently with each image comes an indexing of the name of the person killed, the type of gun, and the name of the shooter. I have a couple of thoughts on this series. I think the artist misses the mark here. The “how” outweighs the “what”. I am not a fan of ambiguity in social/historical art like this. I am disappointed in this series in that it does not address the horror and helplessness we felt when we heard that the President or Martin or Bobby was shot.
Further, having worked (as an artist) in California prisons, I have learned that there is a social ranking among criminals as to who is the baddest outlaw of all. There are people who do terrible things with the goal of fame in mind. I have met them, made art in the same room as them. Other prisoners cluster around them as though they were movie stars from whom some of the fame might rub off. So I take issue with the parts of this series that names the shooter — thus, inadvertently we hope, glorifying them. The best (worst) thing that can happen to these individuals is that they, as persons, become utterly forgotten and unnamed in the world.
Shooting Range, Audrey Wilson
The second artist in the show to speak of shootings is Audrey Wilson. Shooting Range is about the Columbine slaughter. She puts her emphasis on the deaths of young people in school where we should be able to expect that they are as safe as anyone can be on this planet. Shooting Range is as different as it can be from the assassination series. It is neon, hard edged, political, urgent — and personal.
*****
This show is closed now and I couldn’t write about all the wonderful work. You can see the show catalog on line.
But, if you are in the area, take heart!
Chris Gwaltney: And Another Thing…
June 1 – July 1, 2018
Reception for the artist:
Saturday, June 9, 5:30 – 7:30 pm
It looks like a show well worth seeing.
SeagerGray Gallery
108 Throckmorton Avenue
Mill Valley, CA
415.384.8288
Tuesday through Saturday,
11am – 5:00pm, Sunday 12 – 5pm
The drive home was uneventful, but Oola did enjoy meeting a couple from San Bernardino.
The drawings have been getting darker over the past year. In my new artist book The Horsemen of the 21st Century I remember an event from one night of camping in the Sierras.
We are tented on frosted ground near the edge of a night forest.
A pounding of hooves rushes close by.
Deer? we ask. Let’s hope it is not those four horsemen late for a logistics meeting.
Somehow I just can’t get past the feeling that those guys from the Bible and from the Fellowship of the Ring are more active than usual lately.
edition of 15
Ultra chrome pigments printed on Canson Infinity Rag Photographique, backed with Rives BFK and joined with Tyvek
Accordion fold construction with nylon tent material for a cover
The drawings are started in photoshop by drawing figure studies into transparent layers from which some lines are selected and combined in new ways with some of my photographs until a new image emerges. They are printed archival on an inkjet printer, then bound into a book form.
Yesterday was the opening day of Unrestricted: an Exploration of Artist Books at the Port Angeles Fine Art Center. The show will be open through May 13, 2018.
This exhibition is a collaboration with the Cynthia Sears Collection in the Sherry Grover Gallery, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.
For those of you who can’t travel to the Olympic Peninsula, here is a visual synopsis. Clicking on any image will give you an enlarged version and/or the beginning of a slide show.
from the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Sherry Grover Gallery Artist Book Collection
Children of Margem, Robin Hruska
Manual of Weeds, Deborah Peek
The Ice Slide: An Educational Game from Jupiter’s Moon Europa, Carolyn Terry
Mortal Salt, Daniel Smith and Karen Finneyfrock
A Solemn Request, Amy Pirkle
In addition to the 17 BIMA artists, 30 invitational works came in from artists in the western United States and Canada. in the PAFAC large gallery:
overview
Ancient Forests of Frying Pan Creek, Lucia Harrison
Lovely and Amazing Photo Albums, Alicia Bailey
Soldier’s Heart, Mari Eckstein Gower
AK-47, Cora Li-Leger
Untitled, Randi Parkhurst
365 Debbi Commodore
Every Step a Lotus, Alicia Bailey
Suze Woolf
Lucia Harrison and Deborah Greenwood
The Old Chain, Carletta Carrington Wilson
Meditations on a Credit Card, Jan Dove
In the second gallery at PAFAC:
Overview and Broadsides by Ellie Mathews.
Mary Ashton, Japanese Rain
Amy Lund, Hygge
Pamela Hastings, Ancestors and Memories: How I Began
Diane Williams, Trash Talk
Lorna Leedy, Exactly the Same Except this Quietness
Mark Hoppmann, A is for Alien
Lynn Skordal, ARMANI unglued
Bonnie Thompson Norman, Ballot BOX
Bettina Pauly, Hänsel & Gretel
Laura Russell, Magnificent Beast
Curator: Jan Dove
Port Angeles Fine Arts Center
1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
Port Angeles, WA 98362 pafac@olypen.com (360) 457-3532
HOURS OF OPERATION: Gallery:Reopens February 24 at 5pm
Thursday – Sunday
11am – 5pm Art Park: Dawn to dusk 7 days a week.
Nine months of work and anxious procrastination later, and I have finally finished my artist book “Meditations on a Credit Card”. I call this the completion of a Journey of Sorts.
I received a Visa card. This card is dark grey with red edges such that when one looks into the wallet, this card shows up first. Genius marketing, I thought.
I also had stacks of old prints which I had cut up for book markers — which nobody wanted. I imagined them with bloody edges. This book started coming together. Now…I’m only reluctantly an observer of marketing ploys, but I thought about this card, about revolving credit and about the pain it can bring.
This artist book not a tome on our economy. It is a collection of short musings on capitalism, consumerism, and financial plastic.
A picnic table in the rain
One seat is still available.
What does it profit man to gain the whole world and lose his planet?
Once, when speaking about the corrupting effect of the profit motive on the production of art, Ursula Le Guin said “We live in Capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the Divine Right of Kings.”
The root of the word materialism is from the Latin “mater” which means mother.
Our trip to Portland OR on Amtrak was cancelled due to mud slides. So I cannot tell you about the opening, and show you works in the “Build” show. Bummer.
But Busy Hands here has another small book to show you.
Since moving to the Northern Olympic Peninsula I have been captivated by its natural beauty. I find myself fascinated by river rocks, and I see that many of my neighbors have collections of their favorites too. River rocks are reminders to me of the beauty in small common objects. I find visual and verbal poetry there.
My book “Build” which I featured on this blog several weeks ago was accepted into a show called “Built” at 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland OR. which opens next week. It is a book about things to build in the time of tyrants.
If you are in the area, drop in and have a look. It promises to be a great show. You can check out the online portfolio here, and you can tell Oola if I am wrong. We’re taking the train down and would be happy to see you at the opening.
If you come to visit Port Angeles, you will be captivated by its beauty. If you stay for a while, you will get a more realistic look. This is a artist book about the Port Angeles that is growing in my heart.
Scenes and Musings in Port Angeles
1.
Here’s how it happens.
The clouds sink under the mountains
to the south.
Venus hums above.
A red copter circles the sea
to the north,
and tankers shoot the harbor to light.
A solstice breeze questions
the darkness
between the trees. The town below
circles like a frost dog
to begin its sleep.
On the bluff above bag-piper sings vespers,
a little ragged
but sad and sweet.
2.
Grey frigid noon.
A gathering of crows
warms the highest branches.
Then they scatter, an episode worthy of Hitchcock.
Below,
a creek of newly melted snow
rampages. Its teeth bite the sky.
It shouts escape from its cement captivity,
gallops bridge under bridge under bridge,
barely notices the cable-bound timber
that lines its course.
These water-dense logs
provide a homeless shelter
where,
hidden from vigilantes,
nights of cold rest
imprint the sand.
The crows spy
an orange syringe in the rocks.
The belted kingfisher hovers,
dives.
The creek surges into the sea,
mane and tail.
3.
Downtown you will find a great whale.
Its skin — an iridescent bubble —
undulates in the early breeze,
head draped over warehouses,
tail sunk into deep harbor.
One immense bone — a chiseled,
polished, stone vertebra — anchors
our whale to the cropped lawn and regulated roses
in the city park.
One sleepless woman watches
and remembers a time before the whale fed itself
to crabs and smoke-eyed ravens.
Her twisted fingers speak of cold
and the the hunger of small birds.
She watches the morning children
emerge from SUV belts and tumble
into the park.
Untutored by memory
they climb,
leap,
shout,
measure their thin edges
to the convex and concave
of the whale’s vertebra.
Affixed to the present, they grin into dad’s camera
through a neural canal.
Scenes and Musings in PA is a book of my observations made in the town of Port Angeles, WA on the northern slopes of the Olympic Peninsula.
The Whale is based on a sculpture by Alex Anderson at the Valley Creek Estuary Park.
The horse draws its inspiration from poems by Pablo Neruda.
The anonymous bag-piper really did play, magically and alone, on the bluff above downtown PA as described.
I made the drawings on a Wacom tablet, directly into Photoshop. We are very lucky to have an active figure drawing group not very far from Port Angeles.
Photos, drawings, writings, design, printing and binding, and paste paper by me. (The binding is a double dos-a-dos construction with a slip cover.) And Oola stole the old map of Port Angeles from the web.
Spring is pumping like a hurdy-gurdy here, and the first salmon berries are poking their pink goodbyes to Winter.
People who have lived in Port Angeles for a long time tell me that this cold is unusual, even for Port Angeles. I have a new appreciation for those who say “Snow is beautiful. Let it stay in the mountains where it belongs”.
But staying indoors, in the studio, is a good way to produce more art. And here is my latest. It is called “Build” and it is a dialog-with-self about what creative people can do to resist the authoritarian forces that have been chilling us for the past many weeks.
“Build”, front view, opened
You can click on any image to see a larger version.
“Build” from the side“Build”, from the back, opened“Build”, detail
“Build”, front and back, closed
The size closed is 10″w x 13.5″h, x 4″d. It’s made of an old wine gift box, linen, acrylic paint, scraps of leather, telescoping tubes, plexiglas, handmade paper, and some of my figure drawing (dancers) pigment printed on transparent film. (A couple of years back these drawings were printed very large for an artist book installation.)
Here is my text which I hand printed in the little book.
Build:
To construct something complex by putting parts together over a period of time.
Tyrants divide and dominate. They manipulate communications to spread the fear of “other”. Then they work the resultant loneliness to their personal gain. Tyrants reward the venality that allows the tyranny to live and metastasize.
The bully has no use for tellers of truth. No forbearance for people who think their own thoughts, write their words, share their stories, dance their dances, generate peace. No tolerance for the Victor Jaras of this world.
Yet, there are many ways to resist despots, all requiring courage. This book urges rejecting the lies, mending the broken bonds and curing the loneliness. It advocates the building of community — groups too large and joyful in their purpose for the tyrant to crush.
This book suggests the following physical and metaphorical items for individuals and communities to build.
Build friendships, families, a nest, a bridge, a menu, a book, a bookshelf, a library, a house, a home, an armature, a trellis, a boat, a life, a seedbed, a garden, a nursery, a farm.
Build a base camp, understanding, a sanctuary, a troupe, a shelter, a future, a chord.
Build harmony, a sand castle, a montage, a movement.
Build diversity, trust, a path, a reputation, peace.
Build a theater, a team, a dialogue, build strength.
Build a tree house, stamina, links, a framework, a lean to, a habitat, a buttress, scaffolding, a gazebo, trade, structure, meaning, a fire, build resistance.
Build what gives joy. Build it well.
Build a ground-swell.
[Victor Jara was a popular teacher, poet, singer/songwriter, theater director, and political activist in Chile in the time of Allende. When Pinochet came to power in 1973, Victor was tortured and killed by the military junta.]
You can see this book in action, and hear the text in a 2 min. video.
Next month I will drag Oola out from under the double down quilt to take an Amtrak ride to the Bay Area. We will see what adventures come from that.
