View GALLERY HERE.
Self Portrait 29×32 acrylic on canvas with street dirt. I found this canvas in the trash, probably an art school painting. Poorly stretched… badly warped. I restretched it. Painted over it. A color scheme I saw in a dream last night.
Saturday 11:17
10/29/11
Day 24 Weather 45 — 33, Snow
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, click: 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
My day off – 3 ½ hours standing in sleet, snow & rain—walking back from Temple with 17… of those who came to the “Silent-No-More” vigil. Clinton was to be on campus, but canceled cause of weather. Ache all over. Facilitation tent blew down. Tents sagging under wet snow—wind predicted for tonight. Haven’t heard how Scott Olsen is doing—fractured skull from rubber bullet [Oakland].
1:20 PM At Hidden River reading—have 5 Songs of Occupation now—have to be back for a process meeting (City Hall) by 3:00—likely six hours outside to end of GA. Dressed for that, so overdressed here. Bright crisp normal autumn day.
Saturday, October 29, 2011: Temple University
Rain -- Broad Street ...
…again
Universe -- of learning
cordoned off
our feet cold
ice pelting our cheeks
mouths silenced
logos -- Exxon
PB Bank of
America
new
word
rising from the depths
10/28/11 Day 23 Weather 51 – 37 Rain
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, click: 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
Thursday GA—Difficult. Assaulted by a Lone Ranger. Last night—pouring rain, in Friend’s Meeting House—much better. Tonight—our Occupy Together meeting. Information & development pouring in faster than can assimilate it. Meeting at COSI—Friend’s Center closed.
Opened an account with TruMark Credit
Union. Will close my Citizen’s Bank account as soon as rent & Comcast checks clear, and I can restore my SKYPE number. [A sandwich board sign in front of TruMark with a Guy Fawks mask, and invitation to join].
Angela Davis will be speaking at Temple & Dilworth today.
I haven’t had a whole day off from OP since before the 6th.
Friday October 28, 2011 Angela ... ... arrives at City Hall Advent at Liberty Plaza Broad Street whistles in the rain Chants from another time so little changed since then so much – a chance of snow hangs overhead waiting, weighted, heavy with voices --Annunciation!
October 27, 2011 Day 22
Thursday
Weather 64 – 42 Rain
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, click: 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
Candles windblown…
… one to one
each one a-flame, fingers
coated in wax
our not so silent vigil
tear gas wraps the little crowd
gathered
where he lies black
jackets, masks
helmets, trudgeons
a continent away
we see what they have done –
our brother – Scott Olsen -- carried off
across 15th Street
clouds of rain sweep the towers
the lights we carry
flicker & blow out
Youtube video of Scott Olson shooting
Wednesday
October 26, 2011
Weather
60 – 42 Partly cloudy
I will be posting these for each of the 55 days of Occupy Philly on Dilworth Plaza, from October 6, 2011 to November 30, the night of our eviction.
To view all posts to date, click: 55 Days of Occupy Philly.
Letter to City/State/Nation/World…Dear Ones …
… among the stars, winding through back alleys
boardrooms backyards fields plowed & fallow
shattered glass we woke
last night we woke to a child’s cry
to relieve ourselves from dreams
to the smell of smoke to drums
to helicopters in morning mist to old men
foraging for rags and tobacco butts rich
men setting the alarms lockstepping minds
vaulting secret desires
Dear World…
…last night we called
for clarifying questions, concerns of state amended
wings to woolen coats defied the northern wind
blew our tents like flags across the square, sang
songs unheard since the first
king first
sent our children to slaughter our neighbors
shackled our labor, heaped
wheat in towers while the people starved
Dear Wheeling Galaxies…
… your billion sons & daughters
on this speck of earth reclaim our commons
throw off the shame of ownership, the prison state, release
love’s body, make all worlds
a home for all, hold
all in common – refuse!
to end this song, refuse – to end
this poem, this occupation – here
begin again, here --
here on the Commons of a thousand cities
to begin again we rise, we rise again like
Adam in the garden of desire!
What can be said of Halloween as a symptom or form of surplus-enjoyment? Perhaps that it is queer or a repudiation of what Lacan called the university discourse, or what we might call the dream of a big Other that exists. It is unfortunate that Lacan referred to this discourse as the “university” discourse, for naturally this evokes connotations of universities (for a discussion of how Lacan’s discourse theory works, cf. the appendix to my article “Zizek’s New Universe of Discourse”). While certainly we can draw on this discourse to understand what transpires in universities or what Kuhn referred to as “normal science”, it would perhaps be better to refer to it as the “universal discourse”. Within the universal discourse, we have S2, the big Other or system of signifiers, addressing the objet a or anomalous; naming it and situating it in a system of social categories and identities. In…
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73×24″ Acrylic, oil pastel on cardboard on weathered plywood
I’m posting this in B&W, as well as color, because working with intense color, tonal contrast can be a problem, as hues of equal tone can give an appearance of tonal contrast: warm hues, like yellow, will spring forward while cooler tones will recede–something you can clearly see when you compare these. When I look at the monotone photo, I think that I might like to have made those blues even darker. One can have strong intuitive sense of color expression, but there’s no substitute for knowledge of color theory. This has been a weak point in some of my pieces, so I’m pleased with the how this holds up in monotone–it would make an interesting etching!
66×23″ Acrylic on weathered plywood, with leaves (I think I was channeling my Saturday morning “Trees of Fairmount Park field trip for this). I used strips trimmed from stretched canvases to define the borders.
View GALLERY HERE.
I love her blog. Beautiful art, and always something to learn. She must be an AWESOME teacher. Her students are very lucky. I linked THIS, because I’m feeling bliss, having spent the whole day painting–finished #379 (photo tomorrow)… even though orange is my ANXIETY COLOR!
I love the story of the origins of Indian Yellow… the sacred urine from the cow, the lush sensual color of the mango–synaesthesia– color you can taste!
I’m convinced that synaesthesia underlies all the arts.. the bed rock. How else is it, that we associate colors with emotions? I don’t.. quite… taste color. Or see sounds. But pretty close. And what would poetry be if not for the power of words to link all our senses?
You ask–what of conceptual poetry?
What of it? I’m no gatekeeper. I don’t make–or believe in rules that say what can or can’t be art, or poetry! But I think conceptual poetry draws on something of the power of fiction/crossed with philosophy: in that it conjures alternate realities… that is… alternate to our received and habitual ways of comprehending the world.
It’s the transgressing of boundaries that all forms of art have in common, sensual, imaginative, cognitive, and in this age of our Empire of Money & Death… Political!
A break from painting–working on two pieces, 379 and 380. The last of the broken plywood–these are 6 feet high or more. I have to stand on a milk crate to work on the top, even when one is on the floor, and the other, on the lowest rung of my easel.
Being poor is a material factor in choosing my color schemes. When I have paint left on my pallet from one, I use it on the other rather than let it go to waste. I have several pieces like that–as variations on a color scheme.
Jacob Russell's Magic Names 