Friday Comes Early

This has been a crazy intense week at work and every since Tuesday my mind has been processing over and over one question, "Is it Friday yet?" When the end of the work day arrived tonight you know what? It was Friday. Well, it really is only Thursday still but since I'm at my max for vacation time or it gets truncated, I scheduled a day off for tomorrow. So Thursday is Friday in a manner of speaking. 


After work I drove home, picket up Meghan (daughter) and drove back into the city to a gallery showing of work by the Kansas City area artist Jennifer Rivera.  It has occurred to me that walking around taking in artwork after a long day or series of days is a great way to unwind. A glass of wine and paintings and it takes the handcuffs off your mind. I would say in this case it was therapeutic. 


Jennifer's artwork is extraordinary with textures and colors that can be nova star brilliant or the darkened minor keys in a  Shostakovitch symphony and the many points in-between. There were three pieces on display that I especially enjoyed. 

Thought for the Day

"A man's life is nothing but an extended trek through the detours of art to recapture those one or two moments when his heart first opened." ~ Albert Camus

Kansas City at the Crossroads of Cultural Growth

In Kansas City, Missouri the Crossroads Art District has transformed vacated light business manufacturing structures into a thriving area. To the south of the Power & Light Entertainment area it offers yet another reason for people to go downtown at night rather then workers flee the business area for the suburbs come 5 p.m.

One of the  successes of Crossroads has been to stabilize an otherwise declining or at best stagnate part of the city. This has not happened overnight but has grown and in some respects once might consider that it has been enough of a success that for the new artist seeking a place to hang his or her hat & art, the options available may be tougher to find.  This has been the case in many other successful urban areas who have sought to revitalize areas by attracting the Bohemian demographic.

Such urban planning in many big cities began several decades ago. For Kansas City, the growth began perhaps less then ten years ago. This year however, the completion of our new center for preforming arts nearby is like icing a cake.

A New York Times piece by Elizabeth Curric-Halkett,  Where Do Bohemians Come From?  discusses the phenomenon of cities getting into the act of job creation in the arts. Currie-Halkett who is an assistant professor of urban planning acknowledges the success takes more than grants and tax breaks to make an art community that thrives. The Crossroads area in Kansas City had a lot of the kinds of structures that she insists are necessary for the success of such ventures, like oversized buildings, oversized doorways, lots of concrete flooring. 

I am well aware that the neighboring state of Kansas has battled Governor Brownback over funding for the Kansas Arts Commission. These are not easy economic times for any industry and people often look at the arts as one of the first places to cut. Going clear back to my days in school the music and other art departments were constantly fighting to maintain levels of funding much less come under the knife. 

There is this common portrayal of art as something for the rich. A frivolity that is not needed by most and therefore of less importance. Actually it is times like these when I feel that art has the most to offer. It is the distraction so many need from unemployment, foreclosures and food pantries.  Art is a human experiance and is most importamt at those junctures where humanity is most threatened.

I hope we see more successful art districts spring up throughout the country in the next couple of years and I sincerely hope that people everywhere get to experiance the art they deserve.

What am I Doing this Week?

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.  ~ Anais Nin



It's a new week.  I'm thinking about Anais Nin's words.  I'm thinking about the difference between writing and writing that is meaningful. Note to self... Step back and look at what you write and revise this week. Even if it is about the familiar, how does it offer a fresh perspective, a different view or image. Am I writing or is this meaningful. If it is not meaningful can I call it art?

Synesthesia - Poetry and Painting Exhibit Tonight

Abstract artist JENNIFER RIVERA will be showing work starting at tonight's opening at the Apex Art Space 1819 Wyandotte - Kansas City, Missouri.   The exhibition will feature poetry inspired painting  - some 30 works will be on display along with the poetry.

An artist reception from 6-9 pm and you are welcome to view the works and enjoy the music of Karim Memi & Beau Bledsoe from 6:30-8:30.

Two of my own poetry works will be among the selected works that Jennifer used to inspire her paintings.

Hope to see you there!

A Tolstoy Moment

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

~ Leo Tolstoy

Skin Orgasms - Who Knew?

Musical chills, write the authors, from the University of North Carolina, are “sometimes known as aesthetic chills, thrills, shivers, frisson, and even skin orgasms [who knew?] … and involve a seconds-long feeling of goose bumps, tingling, and shivers, usually on the scalp, the back of the neck, and the spine, but occasionally across most of the body.”

The scientific explanation for chills is that the emotions evoked by beautiful or meaningful music stimulate the part of the brain called the hypothalamus, which controls primal drives such as hunger, sex and rage and also involuntary responses like blushing and goosebumps. When the song soars, your body can't help but shiver.

Some people report lots of skin orgasms and some people say they never get them, but the personality trait “openness to experience” seems like a good predictor. (By "open to experience" the researchers seem to mean those people who enjoy art, good movies, aesthetic stuff.)

Thursday Thought

The modern artist is working with space and time and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating. - Jackson Pollock

Life Images

A person's work is nothing but a long journey to recover, through the detours of art, the two or three simple and great images which first gained access to their hearts.  ~Albert Camus


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Limitations Be Gone!

Art does imitate life, it has to come from somewhere. To put boundaries and limitations on it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. ~ Christian Slater

Quote for the week

Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos.  ~    Stephen Sondheim

A New Project Idea

I was listening to an NPR story this morning (big surprise) about a visual artist and I was struck with an idea for a new poetry project.

It struck me that everyone's handwriting could be seen as an artistic expression.  While we have a generally recognized alphabet that makes up our language, each of us has a personalized rendition of each letter. While our handwriting may follow a generally recognized formula we, like any artist have our own flair that distinguishes our writing.

In this age when letter writing is almost a lost art, and we see written communications mostly in printed text format, I thought it would be interesting to collect a number of samples of handwriting from different individuals and treat them as though they were each individual pieces of artwork. I would then select four or five of these and write a poetic expression of what the artwork speaks to me.  I don't mean the words but rather the lines on the page. This would not be really any different then writing a poem inspired by a painting or a picture.

Anyway, if anyone is interested it contributing a few paragraphs of handwriting sample for the cause, e-mail me at poet@michaelawells.com

 

Technorati Tags: poetry and handwriting as art,new poetry project

Poetry That Won't Compromise

My previous post was a simple statement from Brad Holland. No additional commentary, just his quote which I now repeat.

Many of the contradictions in Postmodern art come from the fact that we're trying to be artists in a democratic society. This is because in a democracy, the ideal is compromise. In art, it isn't. ~Brad Holland

For most of you, the name Brad Holland will likely mean nothing. It meant nothing to me till I ran across this quote, which I’ll admit to instantly taking a liking to.

Holland is an illustrator who was born in 1947, so he is my senior. He was born in Ohio, and began drawing at an early age. He sought employment by Walt Disney, but was turned down. He started school at the Chicago Art Institute, but decided it was too restrictive for his liking. He went to work at a tattoo parlor and later too a regular job at Hallmark Cards in the mid 1960’s and spent his off hours developing a serious portfolio. In 1967 he moved to New York with his portfolio and from there made a name for himself as an illustrator. Freelancing, he became perhaps most notable for his work in Playboy magazine, Avant Garde magazine and various other publications. In 1977 he published Human Scandals, a social commentary using ink drawings.

While Holland is not a poet, he is truly a student of the developing history of art and culture. I have found a degree of cynical humor in some of his statements, but the one I have focused on for this post seems pretty straight forward. I think what he is saying is something which I whole heatedly agree with, but perhaps would never have quite been able to articulate it as well as he has here.

There are two points about this axiom which I believe stand out as fundamentally sound. One is the tendency to treat most of what we do in the constraints of what we believe principals of democracy. That is to say, we naturally fall into the trap that in society what the majority of the people perceive as “good” or as “acceptable” is just that. It is the cumulative value of the majority view. The other fundamentally sound argument Holland makes is that is that this is exactly what art is “not.”

Let me shift back to poetry for the rest of this discourse. It is after all, an art.
When it is said that the job of a poet is to name the unnameable (a concept that we've all heard and I believe is attributable to Salman Rushdie) I think one has to expect that poetry has to take us to new places. It may be in the way words are utilized, it may be in physical location of those words on a page… their presentation, or the metaphorical image, but above all it is not the same old standard commonplace usage of language that everyone expects. It is not simply the cumulative value of how most people see something.

It is true that some people want to hang a still life painting of a bowl of fruit on their wall that looks exactly like you could reach into it and pick up an apple. To paint that well indeed takes skill. It is a craft that not everyone can or has mastered. It would however be a contradiction to the concept of postmodern art which settles not for carbon copies but originality, not cookie-cutter art but for audaciousness.

And so my question to artists, but especially poets is, what two or three things most prevents you from freeing yourself of being an artist/poet in a democratic society tradition?


writing and poetry

Think About It....

Many of the contradictions in Postmodern art come from the fact that we're trying to be artists in a democratic society. This is because in a democracy, the ideal is compromise. In art, it isn't. ~Brad Holland

Technorati Tags: postmodern art,democratic society

A Bear Market for the Arts

  Under normal conditions the outcome of the Presidential election might well have been one to favor the arts.  There were signs that Obama acknowledged that art plays a significant role in society and examination of McCain's various policy statements showed his public policy on arts education to be quite contrasting. Additionally McCain had a well known record as he voted repeatedly to cut funding for or terminate the National Endowment for the Arts. 

But these are not ordinary times. Today is supposed to be the big retail day of the year and shopping results will likely be disappointing to those who mull over the the sales stats looking for a some kind of trend. 

The economy that is being transferred from the existing administration in Washington to the new President Obama is dismal. Employment figures are taking a beating. Sales of big ticket items, cars, homes, etc. are stalled and investments in traditional commodities and job creation are in decline. It is not likely that as the song goes, "Happy Days are Here Again."

Poets & Writers online features a story this week that  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt recently requested that its editors stop acquiring books.  We are talking about a significant sized publisher here.

In these hard times that are likely to grow even more worrisome in the months ahead, it is hard to see how the arts will likely benefit from much philanthropic activity if business are fighting for survival.

Small publishing houses who often find it hard to make ends meet will be challenged even grater. I can't imagine the state of writing grants improving.  These things surly will make the competition for those looking to get their first manuscript published more exigent.

It is hard to see the way out of this economic calamity that we are in, but I might suggest that if you are one who is still doing Christmas/holiday exchanges, you might consider giving a new copy of one of your favorite poet's works that was published by a small press.  It's a place to start.

Technorati Tags: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,Arts,economy,art philanthrophy,grants

Poetry and the President

No one doubts that President-elect Barack Obama has a very full platter. With all the critical transitioning, staffing decisions and planning for the serious financial crisis it seems he still has time for a little poetry. There a strong indication this President will be a strong supporter of the arts.

Three days post election, Obama was seen carrying a book of poems by the West Indies Nobel laureate, Derek Walcott, Those my age will recall another President who exhibited a fondness for poetry, John F. Kennedy. Will we see another poet employed in the inauguration ceremony? And if so, who might we see?

Technorati Tags: President,Arts,Poetry,Obama

Letting Go - Part I

"All truly profound art requires its creator to abandon himself to certain powers which he invokes but cannot altogether control" ~ Andre Malraux, "Goya"

The word all leaves no room for question and requires is a strong verb.  So when you think about the above statement it's about as weighty as you can get. Given this, I've been thinking a lot about it this evening. Assuming that this statement is a universal truth about art, it behooves us to learn just exactly what it takes to surrender ourselves to certain powers. And where do these powers come from?

 

Technorati Tags: art,Andre Malraux,Goya

Words to Stroll By

As a Capricorn, I like to think of myself as an earthy sort of person. It is true I like a safety net, the secure feeling. Still, I do like a good shakeup once and a while. A little something new can be a good thing under the right circumstances. Even to a Capricorn. So when I saw an article about a man in St. Paul, Minneapolis that was bringing poetry to the people in a new way, I sat up and took note.

It seems that poetry has taken up a rather permanent position around the city on sidewalks. The project was conceived by Marcus Young who was looking for a way to integrate art into the public view.

Working with twenty poets and the Department of Public Works in St. Paul, Young was able to orchestrate poems etched into the concrete where repairs were being made in public walkways. Presently there are about 50 poems completed in various parts of the city and another fifty to go.

I thought about during next poetry month doing poems in chalk on sidewalks but this is way more cool, and lasting.

Technorati Tags: St. Paul,Marcus Young,Poetry,Sidewalk art

Dana Gioia Takes Another Direction

The arts have truly had an Ambassador in Dana Gioia who has served as Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts since 2003. But Dana who wrote poetry quietly while working in corporate America has announced that he plans to depart from his second term at National Endowments early next year and will join The Aspen Institute, an international nonprofit organization founded in 1950 as the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies.  The position at Aspen will be a a half-time position. Dana plans to return to his writing as well. He has been both a poet and a critic. In fact leaving to accept this new position is really about freeing up time to write. About his decision, Gioia noted, "I announce my departure with mixed feelings," he added. "I will never have a more interesting job. But I am a writer. If I don't return to poetry soon, the Muse will never have me back."

At Aspen Institute he will be the Director of The Harman/Eisner (H/E) Program in the Arts. A new program of the Institute the purpose of which is to deepen the Institute's work by incorporating leading artists and to use the Institute's convenings to support and promote the arts.

Technorati Tags: Dana Gioia,National Endowment for the Arts,Poet,writing,Aspin Institute,Harman/Eisner Program

Therapy on the page

What do Latinos, poetry and therapists all have in common? They are all a part of Daniel Cubias' latest blog post on The Huffington Post. It's pretty funny.

It's said that one can observe Rumi poetry in many of Elham Moaidnia's paintings. Here is an article about her exhibition in Dubai as well as a look at the work of this Iranian born artist at her own web site.


"Poetry tries to bridge abyss lying between the name and the thing. That language is a problem is no news to poets." ~ Charles Semic