Category: Art

Colour Me Happy – Orange, from debiriley.com

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!

You tell me, what does it matter?

Time to go into sleep mode. Whadeye do today to justify my existence?

I worked at making art.

I did drawing exercises… anatomy–working on the arm. I finished #178, made progress on another in that sort-of-figure series (like 176, 177)–on the tall pieces of plywood.

I try not to think past doing. Like.. what is going to happen to all these pieces? Where am I going to put them? I played out a fantasy as I walked to the wine store… getting a commercial gallery to give my stuff a show, and they make a bunch of money… and the gallery peeps tell me when i show them new pieces that seem to have no relation to what was selling–that I have to make more like the one’s in the show… it always ends on that kind of note. Different downer, but always, that going that route would be wrong, wrong, wrong. Why I refuse to sell

Fuck Capitalism!

..and not think past but I have this deep down thing about growing in what I’m doing. And I’m encouraged in the sense that, yeah… I am getting better.
But what does better mean? What does it matter? That’s what channels my dreams. If I could only admit that it doesn’t matter–but then… in saying that about my work, am I saying that ART doesn’t matter? So am I an artist? Is the stuff I’m making, ‘art?” If it is–if that’s what I’m doing–how can I say, it doesn’t matter? But then… the stuff I make, piles up, gathers cement dust in the basement. But then… the Universe doesn’t give a shit about us. And soon, the Sun will go Red Giant and consume all the inner planets. All it comes down to in the end.

55 Days of Occupy Philly: Day One

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.

10/6/11
Thursday
Up at 5:15 AM 40 minutes to eat and be out the door. A personal grocery cart with poster boards tarps an upholstered cot mattress put out for pick-up outside the shop on Passyunk. Have blocks there too but will have to have someone with car to pick them up.
7:00 AM
… on Dillworth plaza police gates to courtyard closed

Glassy towers gleam in morning sun TV trucks helicopters – spread tarp SW corner loaf of bread 2 small jars of peanut butter – loaves & fishes! food for thousands 5:00 PM nap on cushion drummers drumming people gather to talk & talk & talk – numb from lack of sleep – quilted blanket under invisible stars to drum beats sliding into dreams approaching dawn how strangely quiet shadow form of sleepers murmur of the city waking buses queuing up on 15th Street for the first run street vendor’s carts back over the curb walk in morning darkness told the Mayor came to visit some time after midnight – two boxes of Dunkin on the table – breakfast under way. The day begins
7:50 AM
On Dilworth Plaza – Police—a strong but discrete presence. Not quite “invisible” but making a show of force not the plan. Entrances to City Hall closed. Sky absolutely clear—in the 50’s—say it’ll be 70 before day is over. First one here… waiting for peeps in Food Working Group. TV news trucks here – more visible force than cops.
5:00 PM
Took a little nap on the cushion I brought in my grocery cart this morning. Helicopters overhead. Drums, people talking. People talking. People talking.

Last meeting after breakdown—food put away as best we could manage. Boxes stacked on tables. Worry about rats. Plans for tomorrow. Turns for breakfast, lunch… food teams become servant class if we don’t give each other relief to go to GA’s, be part of the community conversation. Exhausted. A 19 hour day. More a part of food group end of day, less of the facilitators—exhausted. numb—so numb, sleep walking—deliriously happy—and ready for sleep.

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Day One Occupy Wall Street to Philly October 4–LINKED HERE

Where does it come from?

Using a crow quill (#102 nib)… how I communicate with my mother… who had superb control and draftsmanship with that instrument. Once the pen of choice for comic strip artists. A 0.1 STAEDTLER liner pen makes a line as fine, but without the nib and the dynamic line. Stippling, the micro splatters and splits using the nib make for more interesting shading–have to do that deliberately with the liner pen. When I work that fine–much of the interest is in exploring up-close, so it makes a difference.

I’ve been thinking about doing something like this, much larger scale. (this is a detail from a 23×40 acrylic https://jacobrussellsmagicnames.com/page/3/) …for still larger, and more complex detail, need liquid acrylics and finer linen canvas, gesso sanded smooth, to work with that level of detail.
I took children’s classes at the Chicago Art Institute when I was, like… 6 or 7. Seurat’s Un Dimanche a la Grande Jatte burned a hole in my brain, passing by as I came and went.