Truth in the Background

With a little extra time on my hands, I've done some extra web surfing. Way down the rabbit hole, I came upon a photo essay about dancers practicing at home. This picture in particular caught my eye and my mood:

Respect my existence or expect my resistance.

Photo credit: Franck Fife/AFP

Outside the Box

In some ways, yes, I know this is a giant advertisement. But that doesn't stop it from being very, very interesting.

What better way to highlight the power and accuracy of your temperature control system than to create something that completely depends on it? You can't send someone a free sample of your cooled air, but this project gives them a memorable visual representation.

Perhaps most interesting to me is the example of how commerce and the arts can support one another instead of being trapped in the either/or mindset.

Brave and creative thinking, on display.

Art by Osmosis

I was fortunate enough to visit artist Jim Draper in his studio recently and the whole experience was so visually rich, I think I'm going to let the pictures do most of the talking.

I walked away thinking that if I spent enough time in that room, I might become a painter myself! Even with my lack of aptitude, I felt incredibly inspired.

What I am not showing is the amazing mind map of the concepts, contrasts and connections behind his next exhibition, which is coming into bloom -- almost literally -- next year.

Feast of Flowers will be a heaven-on-earth celebration of Florida through the intersections of painting, ecology, history and myth. What could be cooler?

There will be lots of ways to explore the exhibit (e-book, app, etc.), even for folks who aren't able to get to Jacksonville.

Who knows? The art osmosis thing might work that way, too.

Happy Halloween!

The Death Star

Check out this link for more about Noel Dickover (the creator of this gem)

and other jack o'lantern virtuosi! 

Have a happy and safe All Hallows / Samhain / Halloween!  

I Love My Home, But

There's always a catch, isn't there?

In the course of doing yard work, I discovered I am living in the middle of palmetto bug heaven. The backyard is full of them, and some of them are grandmas and grandpas, judging from their size. This being Florida, it's not that big a deal.  If only they would stay outside, all would be well.

Recently I've had enough stragglers in the house that I decided it was time for the Bug Man. The Bug Man did a thorough inspection and confirmed that yep, I have some access points.  No surprise there.

He also found that a mouse or rat has been in my AC closet. Surprise!  I won't be opening that door again anytime soon.

He also found that there are active termites in my bathroom window frame.  Surprise!  Now I know what that black dust was on the bathroom counter.

Fortunately, the landlord has been very receptive.  Soon the Bug Man will be implementing his plan for creating a line of defense around my home.  Meanwhile, I am hoping and praying there is no tent in my future.

(photo credit)

On the other hand, maybe Christo would be interested.  It's a smaller scale than he is used to, perhaps, but he's got the wrapping thing down. Maybe he could use it to say something about the economy.

 

(photo credit)

Help Wanted: Artist with a Clue

I hope you can hear the sincerity in my voice here.

I am guiding a student publicity committee at work, related to the environmental justice conference planned for the fall. In case you don't know, environmental justice is the intersection of civil rights and environmental law, aimed at righting the wrongs resulting from NIMBY* policies that disproportionately place things like hazardous waste sites in low-income neighborhoods, usually the neighborhoods of people of color.

On a deeper level, environmental injustice results when "we" (those with the power) treat "them" (people with less power) the same way we treat land, plants, and animals: like objects to be used for our own self-centered purposes, rather than as fellow citizens of our glorious planet.

So what's the problem? The publicity committee has been charged with coming up with the artwork for the marketing materials. We have neither the time nor the budget to commission a pro to draw, paint or photograph something specifically for us. We have been scouring the internet for artwork that says "environment," "justice" and "diversity," all in one eloquent visual package.

There doesn't seem to be anything out there that we really like. Like environmental justice itself, this artwork is easier described than accomplished.

We are even considering having our own photo shoot to try and come up with something, since it seems that no one else has captured this particular image in a way that we like. We have been brainstorming ways to show people of different races working together to create environmental justice. Two hands of different skin tones carrying a bucket together? Handprints in various colors, in the shape of a scales of justice? Ribbons in different skin tones tied around a tree?

See what I mean? It isn't easy to say all that in one picture. Maybe a photo montage would be better?

So I ask you: Got any photos or collages you want to send me? Feel the urge to draw something this weekend? Want to describe your idea in words and leave it up to us to figure out how to take that exact picture? If so, please shoot me an e-mail or leave a comment, and you'll hear back from me promptly.

Publication with a credit (not to mention my eternal gratitude) could be yours!

*NIMBY = Not In My BackYard

The Play's the Thing

(Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet, photographed by James Lafayette)

I went to see Hamlet last night, and was it ever good! I hadn't seen it performed before, although I have read the play numerous times in various classes. My friend didn't know it at all, but she also enjoyed it. That's certainly one test of a good performance: we both "got" all the key points and had a great time.

Hamlet was appropriately melancholy and madcap, though perhaps a little whiny from time to time. Polonius was a colossal boob, Osric was an over-the-top fop, Ophelia was lovely and tragic, Rosencranz and Guildenstern were as interchangeable as ever, Horatio was everyone's ideal best friend, Claudius and Gertrude were cloyingly sweet on each other, and the gravediggers were hilariously witty. Good stuff, and thoroughly satisfying.

The rest of the audience was into it, too. Proof positive of that came in the final swordfight scene, Hamlet vs. Laertes. In short, in case you need a refresher, although it's supposed to be a contest, not a fight to the death, Laertes arranges not only to have an unbated blade but to dip the end in deadly poison, so it's clear he's going to kill Hamlet, one way of the other.

The fight staging was excellently done. Hamlet and Laertes mixed it up a bit in classic fencing style, and then closed to grapple each other. During that contact, Hamlet grabbed Laertes's blade, whereupon Laertes pulled the blade out, giving Hamlet the equivalent of the world's worst paper cut, right across his palm. Even discounting the poison, it looked like it hurt like hell. I couldn't help myself: I winced and let out a huge gasp of shock and sympathy . . . and so did every person in the audience. Clearly, at that point we had all forgotten it was a play.

Things I'm Glad I Didn't Say

"That guy Karsh sure looks a lot like Hemingway."

After hearing a radio sketch featuring this character:

"I don't get it. Why do they call him Guy No-R?"

(photos from stcatharines.kijiji.ca and amazon.com, respectively)

Revisiting a Murder

This past weekend I attended a reading of Aeschylus's Agamemnon. You remember Agamemnon, don't you? Couldn't sail to Troy without sacrificing his daughter Iphegenia so the gods would provide wind. Came back victorious after 20 years, with the prophet Cassandra as his war prize, only to be stabbed in his bath by his wife, Clytemnestra, who'd had 20 years to brood about Iphegenia and plot against Agamemnon with her lover, Aegisthus, who had his own good reasons to lie in wait for Agamemnon's return.

Yeah, that Agamemnon.

I'd read it a number of times over the years, but had never seen it performed. This was a semi-performance, with no set, minimal costuming, and scripts in the actors' hands. But it was really, really good.

I'd forgotten a lot about it. For one thing, it's extremely talky. Lots of exposition at the outset, NOTHING happening, then it kind of blows up at the end.

Even so, all the action occurs off-stage. We just get to hear Clytemnestra gloat about how she stabbed the defenseless Agamemnon and the blood gushed out everywhere. Whether he deserved it is somewhat open to debate.

For another thing, the chorus (supposedly ordinary citizens of the kingdom) is really, really slow on the uptake. They spend a lot of time refusing to believe what's going on, even though by the time things start happening, we ALL know the story.

Here's a greatly reduced sample of how it goes:

Clytemnestra: I'm going to go into the palace and stab the murderer of my daughter, and his little slave girl, too. (Goes inside.)

Chorus: Gee, what could be happening in there? We hope it's nothing bad.

Clytemnestra (returning, covered in blood): Okay, that's done! They got what they deserved, both of them, and I enjoyed it.

Also, people haven't changed very much. The watchman who has the first speech is good and tired of waiting to see the signal fires that mean Agamemnon is arriving home at last. He just can't wait to get off work, you know?

At this production, they did a wonderful job with the minimal costuming. All wore black, and then after the murder, Clytemnestra appeared in a startlingly red dress. But even when she was wearing black, she wore garnet earrings and a garnet necklace, so the whole time she was lying about what a faithful wife she's been for 20 years, the theater lights were making little flashes of blood red around her face. It was a stroke of genius to create that.

Somehow they brought out very clearly the contrast between the women: the princess Cassandra, now enslaved, whose curse is to speak the truth in prophecy, but never to be believed, and the queen Clytemnestra, who lies and plots but is always believed. At the end, Cassandra goes to her death knowing full well what awaits her inside the palace. Afterwards, Clytemnestra speaks, in triumph, about how she and her lover will continue to rule benevolently over a peaceful, prosperous kingdom. She thinks she's telling the truth, that good times are at hand.

Of course, we know better. Revenge requires revenge, and Clytemnestra's son Orestes will come home to repay his father's murder.

That's the next one.

Washington 1: The National Gallery

C.S. and I went to Washington, D.C. over the Labor Day weekend and had a fantastic time. Everyone else must have stayed home or gone to the beach for a cookout, because we practically had the place to ourselves.

We missed way more than we saw--D.C. is like that!--but we still saw enough to require multiple postings.

One of the highlights was the National Gallery. I could have spent a week there, maybe two. We only had a few hours, which is blasphemy for any museum that has more than one room, much less a fabulous place like the Nat. Even in our limited time, man, did we see some great art!

We saw these glowy masterpieces:

Vermeer's A Lady Writing (c. 1665)

Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance (c. 1664)

We saw these emotive wonders:

Van Gogh's La Mousme (1888)

Van Gogh's Self-Portrait (1889)

We saw this little gem (it's really tiny, and it has the most lovely details):

van Eyck's The Annunciation (c. 1434/1436)

And we saw these (I could've looked at the Sargents all day long, except there was something else fabulous just around the corner):

Sargent's Nonchaloir (Repose) (1911)

Rembrandt's Self-Portrait (1659)

Monet's The Japanese Footbridge (1899)

This has long been one of my favorites:

Monet's Banks of the Seine, Vetheuil (1880)

But oddly enough, this was the one that really captured my attention in person. You can really see what Manet is doing for painting here: The flat pieces of the composition versus traditionally rounded, shaded three-dimensional pieces, the textures, the perspective, the colors, the subtlety, the solidity of it . . . . Just great stuff, and basically life-size, too. I'm no painter, but as the saying goes, I know what I like.

Manet's The Dead Toreador (1864)

It didn't do anything for C.S., though. He was much more taken by this one:

Bellows' Both Members of This Club (1909)

All awe-inspiring, mind-expanding stuff. I can hardly wait to go back when I have more time, although I'm not sure anything but a lifetime of visits would do it justice.