tongue-tied and jibber jabber

Standing in front of group of teachers, graduate students and assorted spectators, I found myself tongue-tied when one of them put a very simple question to me. “How is this painting about unity?” It is one of those funny little questions that artists get asked whenever the audience wants to reduce the conversation to the formalist aspects of an artist work. There are the elements of design, the line, the color, the shape, the texture and so forth. Then there are the principles of design, unity, variety, balance, scale, and proportion.

Want to ask an artist a straightforward question about why they chose the color red? You are just as likely to get the proverbial cold shoulder, as you are to get an answer. Why? Because you are engaging in an age old dialogue of art that questions the use of the techniques of an artistic medium to capture the essence of a thing rather than its mere outward appearance. Which is more important. That it is red, or that it is Red? I know. I don’t believe it either.

Now, in usual fashion I would embark at this point in either of two directions, one, that the question asked to me was just wrong and would go one to whine about “How unfair.” Or two, begin a lengthy discussion on the difference between Plato and Aristotle and the evolution of the language of formalism in the twentieth century. However, I plan on doing neither. (Yes, you can breath a sigh of relief)

You see, as I sat there momentarily stunned by the professors question debating with myself the direction I should go, and, at the same time stammering something about composition and color, I realized that I was, in fact channeling the spirit of Sarah Palin. I suddenly understood why I hated listening to all the jibber jabber about her.

I guess I have been where Sarah Palin has been, tongue-tied and trying to talk myself into a job that I might not be readily qualified for. Not that I am not qualified to be an artist or professor of art, but that I am just starting out and still have much to learn. And President? Honestly, who is qualified for all of the things that the president is supposed to do? Who has the military, economic, energy, social welfare, etc. experience that would make them uniquely qualified? No one. (Incidentally the original job of the president in reality is only to Veto, run the military and enforce the laws of Congress. Not all this other crap, but I guess those days are gone.)

I am an incurable romantic. I romanticize painting, I believe in true love, and I love the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington because it embodies the same romantic idealism about America that I share. You know, those ideas like the separation of powers, the idea that one vote can make a difference and that anyone can grow up to become president, no matter how humble their beginnings. (or how stupid their rhetoric)

Sarah Palin is no Jeff Smith. But like the Smith in the movies she gets a lot of bad press, she is inexperienced, and she appears pretty stupid at times. Still she should have her shot, as much as anyone should, I guess. Not that McCain/Palin will get my vote. I get really tired of the demeaning bad press, and I respected Biden’s restraint from indulging in this behavior during the debate. I, for one, am going to take my queue from this leader and follow suit. Hell, I will even vote him.

The Belief-O-Matic

skwarepeg invited me to retake the Belief-O-Matic test.

I told her that I and everyone I knew inevitably came out as Buddhist. PROVE ME WRONG!

“Even if YOU don’t know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic™ knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic™ will tell you what religion (if any) you practice…or ought to consider practicing.”

My results:

1. Mahayana Buddhism (100%)
2. Hinduism (99%)
3. Neo-Pagan (91%)
4. Unitarian Universalism (89%)
5. New Age (81%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (78%)
7. Jainism (76%)
8. New Thought (75%)
9. Liberal Quakers (74%)
10. Sikhism (70%)
11. Reform Judaism (60%)
12. Scientology (59%)
13. Taoism (59%)
14. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (54%)
15. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (51%)
16. Bahá'í Faith (48%)
17. Orthodox Judaism (45%)
18. Islam (34%)
19. Orthodox Quaker (33%)
20. Secular Humanism (33%)
21. Nontheist (18%)
22. Seventh Day Adventist (16%)
23. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (14%)
24. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (13%)
25. Eastern Orthodox (13%)
26. Jehovah's Witness (13%)
27. Roman Catholic (13%)

Crisis, the Bard, and (finally) Acceptance

I am starting to feel like I am living in a constant state of crisis mode. By this I do not mean that I am living from one crisis to the next while all around me the world is falling apart. Rather the source of the dysfunction seems to come from within. Disruptions to my expectations of how the day should go seem to send me in to a tail spin. I probably need more rest. I feel busy all the time, even when I am just sitting. The other day at school (work) I was standing at the copier when a lady came up behind me and said, “You just can’t stand still can you?” I realized that I had been nervously fidgeting the whole time, hoping from one foot to the other like a small child with a urinary infection. The worst, though, is when there is any kind of disruption to my schedule.

One example happened the other day. For weeks, the professors at school (school) have been debating when to have the graduate midterm critique. There seems to be no compromise between these people, and finally they decided to have it on two separate days. That’s right, I get to do my midterm, and then I get to do it again a week later. Happy! Happy! Joy! Joy! (I am pretty sure the exclamation mark comes from the Latin and is a derivative of the word “Joy” so to have it after the word Joy is a bit repetitive, but then a again so are two midterms.)

My reaction was to totally freak out. Not because I don’t want to do two midterms, well, at least, not any more than anyone would want to. No, my reaction was to the scheduling nightmare it creates. The delicate fabric of my sanity is held together by the structure of my day. Work, School, Family, Dinner, Sleep, Repeat. Interruptions are greeted with frustration, annoyance, and the pessimistic view that I am finally paying for the time I used a Ouija board in the eighth grade. I go into Crisis mode. J. calls it her egg timer. My mind flood with panic and fear and I find myself unable to concentrate on anything else. I become overwhelmed by emotion. It never lasts long. A few minutes, and hour, then I can let it go, but if the situation goes unresolved, I am certain to find myself back in the emotional headache before long.

Interestingly, in a play, the crisis is the turning point in a drama, the point after which the protagonist’s fortunes must either improve or grow worse. While nail biting, the crisis is not necessarily an intense emotional moment. Like the Bard says: “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.”

Funny. In my mind crisis mode is not the moment when things improve or worsen. Crisis mode is the time when everything is irrevocably f***kd. Actually I think the Bard’s quote I was looking for is: “Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

I make so much of the emotions I feel that I am often distracted from the solution. After all, what are feelings? Just the body’s way of letting you know something is going on inside that needs your attention. In the past I have taken comfort in the fact that eventually the emotion fades, and life remains the same. But I am pretty sure that just sets me up for more trouble later. Thinking about this I have decided that crisis is change, an opportunity. Usually I feel distressed by crisis, at worst, in pain, but pain is the ally that lets you know something is wrong. Distress lets me know that I have a choice, to suffer through the pain and continue on as before, or let the pain inspire me to acceptance and change, which helps me see solutions to problems that would otherwise seem insurmountable. Incidentally I found the solution to my midterm crisis, I found both acceptance and detachment, that helped me put aside my bitter and confused emotions, and in so doing was able to offer myself a solution that allows me to fulfill my obligations to both schools with the minimal amount of intrusion.

Getting your Woo-Woo on

I was talking to one of my professors last night "Your main problem, when talking about your art, is all the woo-woo."

I stared at him for a minute. "Woo-woo?"

"Yeah." he continued. "When ever I visit my brother in law in Austin, we end up going to his transcendental meditation retreat. When I come back home, my wife says, I can feel the woo-woo walking in the door with you."

I thought about it for a moment and said "So, woo-woo is a good? thing."

"Well, it is more like a spiritual thing."

Of course I knew what he meant. One of the hardest things for me is to talk about art and not begin to wax philosophical or (worse) poetic. The language of art, after all has its roots in formalism. I know this. I just spent four week s telling my students about this. Beating into them the language of art: The Elements and Principles of Design. The elements form the basic vocabulary of visual design, (line, color, shape) while the principles constitute the broader structural aspects of the composition. (unity, variety, balance, proportion) Content and Context are extra.

Alas, this is not the way I am hard wired. I am an Artist dambit! I have the soul of a poet yearning to be free. I can't be tied down to the Man's rules.

"no slave's unlife shall murder me
for i will freely die"

Talking to this man I finally understood why so many people had said "How you talk about your work is paramount." Not TALKING about your work, but talking. It suddenly occurred to me what my part in the insanity of Graduate school was. I have been so busy getting my woo-woo on that I have sort of missed some important footnotes in the graduate school process: namely that the context for the work, including the reason for its creation, the historical background, and the life of the artist, is secondary. (which isn't to say it isn't there)

Alas, I understand now why talking about the grand themes can be a bit of a dead end. Everyone knows that injustice is wrong and Justice is great. Rolling them out in the middle of a critique isn't exactly helpful. It's noise. Beautiful, stirring, wondrous, even moving noise, that has nothing to do with anything except getting your woo-woo on.

("No more flow!" says the Un-) It is the plight of being both artist and teacher. The part of me that really gets this stuff doesn't exactly communicate with the part of me that is floating around in the ether being all Rumi and Gita and Socrates and Buddha.

Ugh.
"When did I become so sophomoric?" says the brain

"Quiet You!" the soul replies "I am an artist Damnit!"

past deeds unforgotten

I had a really nice day today, I had great meetings with my professors, I got a lot of painting done, I got to leave early and come home to see the family before everyone was exhausted, on the drive home I watched a country sunset complete with barns and haystacks, and when I stopped to pick up a pound of coffee for J., the market had free cubes of Wisconsin cheddar cheese out for sample. Yum.

The thing I think about the most though, is this weird little moment I had this morning before I drove out to school. I was teaching class this morning when a students asked about the grade they had received on their last test. I opened up my grade book and started to look up their grade when suddenly I realized that the projector had inadvertently been turned on and that my entire grade book was being projected IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE F***ING CLASS. Oops.

I thought about it for a while after class, thinking about what had happened and about my own actions, ultimately, about my own culpability. I mean, potentially if could be bad. A disgruntled student could easily seize on this opportunity and raise a stink, but the truth is, the very instant I realized what was happening, I reacted, I corrected the problem and went on. Problem solved.

The whole incident lasted no more that a few seconds. Again, accidents happen. Sometimes accidents happen with very serious consequences. I don’t feel this is the case. Still, if someone ultimately complains, I am more than happy to admit I made a mistake. After all, what else can you do? I take responsibility because I am in charge. I realized there was a problem and I corrected it. You would think that might be the end of it.

Still, I continue to go over the sequence of events in my mind. At what point did the projector go on? At what point did I become aware of it? I realize now that I am not so much bothered by the fact of what happened as I am disturbed by the idea of it. It is painful to think about. It is like watching some horrible sitcom character make a social faux pas and feel yourself absolutely cringing knowing that what they are about to do is so horribly wrong and you are left there feeling completely powerless to stop it.

I can see the reel starting. The characters are set. The sequence of events unfolds. Nothing I can do will change the past. The past, after all is just the past. I remind myself of this over and over. No amount of thinking about it is going to change what happens. I tell myself, "Take responsibility and move on." Yet somehow, the dial on my inner television is broken. It only receives one channel: The channel of incalculable human error. Pitifully, I watch myself enjoy the madness of reliving my blunders.

Perhaps some part of me wonders whether if I think about it long enough, hard enough, I can actually undo these actions, or perhaps it is the anticipation of my own stupidity that keeps me glued to the screen of my inner mind. Regardless, as I say before, I keep reminding myself that the past is just the past. Actually that is one of the nicest things about the past. Honestly, let us all just hope it stays there.

a little Byron in the morning

Can tyrants but by tyrants conquer'd be,
And Freedom find no champion and no child
Such as Columbia saw arise when she
Sprung forth a Pallas, arm'd and undefiled?
Or must such minds be nourish'd in the wild, 860
Deep in the unpruned forest, 'midst the roar
Of cataracts, where nursing Nature smiled
On infant Washington? Has Earth no more
Such seeds within her breast, or Europe no such shore?

From Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Dress-up

I got home last night and Pete twirled up to me and said in unbroken English, "I'm a princess!"



Her Sister was a Princess Too!