PEARLS before swine

For those of you kids who don't know, I just got a show at COFFEHOUSE NW here in Portland....

I usually write off coffeeshop shows....perhaps a bit of snobbery, but I've seen to much bad and overpriced art in them...and also bought into the notion too much that valid art is only seen in galleries....But with my embarking upon finally trying to establish myself in the art community (upon arriving in NYC) I started to question even galleries as really "fertile" places to present work: The whole notion that this is the only acceptable model for artists....to slave away on work and then you get to hang it on four walls and wait for the fish to bite....and the people who visit tend to be artists or those who love them....just seems short of the mark somehow.
I don't want to trivialize or thumb my nose at other peoples' accomplishments, but it just seems a shame that alot of good art is hidden away from where it might play a more active role with the larger community.
I am, finding myself more interested in site specific work....or public art and I am excitied to see where this may lead in the future of my own personal work.
BUT, for now, I am working on this show. I saw this big wall, from the street on Burnside, and started thinking about implementing a large wall paper cut-out "mural" and this got me going, and a whole show has grown up around the idea....
I am thinking about ellaborating on a smaller piece (more on that later), and trying to come up with a cohesive theme...and have started thinking about fables and fairytales...both my own personal mythology, and the larger cultural one.

This morning I started thinking about that great PIETER BRUEGEL painting in which he depicted a whole slew of NETHERLAND PROVERBS (of the time), some of which are still in use to this day.....My dad had a reproduction of this painting in his office, and I used to stare at it all the time, trying to figure out what all these odd people were doing....it looks like a gaggle of nutters from the local looneybin have escaped and wrecked havoc upon some small unsuspecting hamlet....animals run wild...nothing is as it seems...and others simply seem to cower in the safety of their houses from this surreal onslaught

So I looked it up on WIKI...and they have a detailed explanation of what is going on in that painting...finally a small part of my perplexing youth has evaporated and I can breathe a sigh of relief....

CHECK IT HERE.....and stay tuned for more developements in this project and the show, sometime in SEPTEMBER....

happy as a KING

....alot of people don' know what a
SEKRIT SAP I can be.....

...I luv this song: I first heard it while watching
the awesome BBC Television production
of DENNIS POTTER'S "THE SINGING
DETECTIVE"......with the ever amazing
Michael Gambon.....

....there's a montage where the writer
remembers his sad childhood...a sunday after-
noon spent about his disfunctional family....with
all the tensions of parents who no longer know
how to be happy with one another...if ever they
did...

...I'd be whistling and it would just spring to my
lips...where ever I walked.....

I associate it with happier things though....
...walking in a park under an achingly blue sky....
or laying about with some one
you dig.......or floating in a hot tub of water...
a cold beer nearby...watching the sun beams
fluttering about the ceiling.....

THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU

the night before xmas....

....a number of years ago....back, when my older brother was still in art school..

...we had his then girlfriend staying over...most of the family had run off to midnight mass
that christmas eve (back when attendance was still somewhat "enforced")....maybe we were supposed to meet them all there, or we had all finally fallen out with the Catholic religion for good...but we stayed home...just the 3 of us I think.....

...our big old house was quiet...but pregnant with the excitement we still managed to conjure up for the holiday....and we were huddled 'round the television watching IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (a film I can STILL watch and never get sick of.....)....

....for some reason we flipped to the Los Angeles public t.v. station and this amazing little ditty of a film was on....we all held our breath in awe....the house totally still...the snow falling inside the t.v. set seemed to expand to include us there in it's wintery umbrella...huddled around it's glow....breathless....

PART ONE

PART TWO

twilight ride......

.........the Moon in a paling sky

a cheshire grin.

more fun stuff....

I luv pretty much any pop/rock outta the skandinavian countries....

ROYKSOPP is definately up there....

they also tend to have great accompanying vids....

here are a few....

HERE...

AND HERE.....

ALSO HERE.....

..........oh yah, and HERE

X it OFF the list.....

Sometimes I think about the point in history, If one had the where-with-all, when one could have read ALL THE ACTUAL PRINTED BOOKS IN EXISTENCE....(though when I think about it...this may have been even BEFORE Guttenburg invented the printing press in the 1400s...back when manuscripts were written out by HAND...by monks....)...

Granted you would have had to exert some sort of power, or otherwise have access to those books, ...been from some sort of priveledged class....(been able to read Latin etc.)...but it could have been DONE.

Nowadays, just the sheer magnitude of magazines published is enough to occupy one...assuming you wanted to read half the crap they contain....

We grew up around TONS of books....my Dad was constantly going to library sales and dusty old book stores...it pretty much cemented my love of the printed word....so that, even though I KNOW it is impossible to read all there is out there...I often seem like I am giving it a shot....sometimes I am reading 3 or four at a time...and I ALWAYS write down any recommendatons on a scrap of paper...

As if to start the new year on a good note...I FINALLY crossed one of those books off my list...that scrap of paper has been following me about for a couple of years (literally from the west coast to the east coast and back again....)..







It is called THE OUTER EDGES, BY CHARLES R. JACKSON....and my Dad told me I should read it a while ago...(It's the same author who wrote THE LOST WEEKEND that was made into a black and white film ages ago....)

It's about a really horrible murder and the way it effects everyone who comes into "contact" with the tragedy....If you have seen the lost weekend...or read any books written back in the 30s and 40s, they can come of a bit "melodramatic"....perhaps it is because the way people acted in movies back then or just the way people talked, period, by today's standards...Regardless, Charles Jackson not only makes his characters believable, but he really understands the motives behind peoples' actions....

.... Perhaps this is understandable, because on reading up a little on him, I discovered that Charles Jackson had had a bit of a hard life himself....a hardcore alcoholic (THE LOST WEEKEND is loosely veiled autobiography I think...), he ended up comitting suicide in the late 60s while only in his 50s....

They say "the sick oyster gives the pearl"...and while Mr. Jackson ain't around, this great book is...put it on your list if you have room...or not....see if I care......I am glad I finally got around to reading it.....sigh..............

I'm thinkin that, what with all the INTROSPECTON everybody be doin right now, that we need tunes to put us in the mood....

Here's a lil ARVO PART....(just as much for the cool archive footage this person spliced together to go with it...it really enhances something in the music...all that old yellowed, saturated color....like angels are watching all those sad confused human beings scurryng about...ala WINGS OF DESIRE...)


(OKAY, as an afterthought, had to throw in this one too....is a new favorite ARVO)