Sunday, August 20, 2023
Actor Dennis Hopper, On Art
Monday, February 6, 2023
SINSYRIASLY YOURS...
Most recent feature article of my piece "SiNSYRIASLY YOURS..."
I'll never forget seeing my first set of Domino pieces laid out on the floor of my home when I was little and watching the stacked pieces knock against each other to fall in sequence. I don't ever recall learning the rules of the game but came to learn it by observing political events.
The Viet Nam War began while I was in grammar school and the term Domino Theory crept into common usage in the vernacular. The nightly news fed us a steady stream of our images on our black and white TV of exhausted soldiers and helicopters and damaged lives. On the home front I saw the war affect us at home as my father worried about my brother getting drafted to fight in a war that he knew well from the horrors of after having survived World War 2 which included the Siege of Warsaw when the Nazis invaded.
I lived on the cusps of the new American Reality of peace and stability and the emigre life of wartime refugees. Fortunately for me the war in Viet Nam ending before I reached drafting age and the memories could subside as well as any interest in politics. At that time the current of war shifted out of Southeast Asia to where it burned more brightly in the Middle East and what became news fodder was the conflict in Israel and Egypt and Palestine. Time Magazine was filled weekly with accounts of terrorist bus bombers and a rather pervasive guerrilla warfare which we really associated with Viet Nam although its precedent was well set with the O.S.S. and the early C.I.A.
By 1959 some 900,000 European refugees had been absorbed by west European countries. In addition, 461,000 had been accepted by the USA, and a further 523,000 by other countries. But many 'hard-core' refugees still remained in camps. At that point the United Nations launched an ambitious effort to resolve the refugee problem once and for all.
World Refugee Year, in 1959-1960, was designed as a 'clear the camps' drive. It achieved some significant results - at any rate in Europe. By the end of 1960, for the first time since before World War Two, all the refugee camps of Europe were closed.
But the global refugee problem was far from solved. In Africa and Asia millions of fugitives from persecution, hunger, and natural disasters continued to scramble for secure homes. Europe, hitherto mainly an exporter of refugees, henceforth became a net importer. Today the United Nations estimates that over 17 million asylum seekers, refugees and stateless people are seeking homes worldwide.
At this time I won't delve into the key players in the creation of this world picture.
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
THE LAST DAY OF THE "SPEAK TO ME ONLY WITH THINE EYES"
Those who visited were looking about for a place to deposit donations for my work which would have been incredible even though they had already paid me beyond measure with their engagement.
My purpose as an artist is to engage with others in a way that creates a paradigm shift and helps others challenge their viewpoints in a way that benefits their lives and mankind
There is an incredible power to this piece and it has given me the strength to create other pieces.
Peace.
Zen
Saturday, May 16, 2015
SECOND DAY AT SELF/ VENICE ART HOUSE
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Opening night at SELF
VENEZIA, ITALY
SPEAK TO ME ONLY WITH THINE EYES
Opening night was at Palazzo Z'anardi
The palace was beautiful, the coolness of the marble was welcome as the day was hot and wearing all black on a hot night can be stifling if I'm wanting to have my attention fully on all the people I'm to interact with.
Attention to details are important. Last minute preparation required making a new headdress for the show. Fortunately this version was even better than my last. I had taken some precautions by bringing extra materials with me and taken "just in case items" in the even of a mishap. Extra tape, Gaff tape, sewing materials, glue, cardboard to cut on top of, etc... I could not foresee however that an overzealous application of Gorilla glue I brought along would bubble out of the seams as it cured. Two hours of cutting bevels and careful measuring were saved by shaving the frothy thick glue off by shaving with a razor and painting the pasty yellow residue with a last minute application of Mascara which was the only black paint to be found. I felt like I was in an art Survivor Episode and so glad for my field improvising capabilities developed over the years and also by observing how others learn to make do in other countries.
This is such an old and beautiful city I can not but help feel spirits still hanging around their beloved Venice. The other night I would have sworn I felt one above me when I went to bed. They are welcome to me. I feel very at home here, I know I've lived here before. I felt it the instant we got off the train and looked at the buildings across the Grand Canal. My skin at the back of my neck tingled and I could feel myself thinking "you are home". You wouldn't think it by the way I get lost walking around here. GPS is nice but there's nothing like stopping to ask a hundred times for directions and interacting with people. I think that's nice and it develops a very fine sense of knowing when someone doesn't know what they are talking about yet they still offer you directions which would take you not only on a thirty minute detour but in the exact opposite direction of where you need to go. This is another side effect of SPEAK TO ME ONLY WITH THINE EYES.
At this point in my work I know there's very little I need to do to prepare for performing other than clear my head and be open to anyone. I don't really want to call what I wear a costume as it's much more than that. In some way it's a metaphor for body or nothing or furniture as some people treat it that way. I have a profound appreciation for the Burqa now. I can sense that now in these robes and head dress, to some I don't exist. I have in common what the homeless feel and women and the unseen or not looked at. Being a "normal" human is really no different, We are all active inside our heads and the level of interaction we have with others can be some what determined by others and mostly by ourselves, it is our responsibility as always if we wish to be and interact with the world.
Although people will come up to me most of the night or me to them and they have what ever what they have on and their hair and makeup looks however, what I remember through the night and for days and months after is their eyes. Yet something more than that remains with me. I am connected now.
They have communicated their things to me and I have listened and communicated back in the thought world and whether I have understood or duplicated exactly what has come across or not it stays there. I feel blessed to have seen so many shiny eyes in a night. they are so beautiful. As my Italian language skills are abysmal even with 4 years of Latin under my belt, wordless communication is beautiful, all I need is the eyes.
In the course of the evening I interacted with some children. There was a little girl there with my friend Andrea. He told me at the end of the night that she said "I looked at him and communicated to him with my brain." I loved that.
When I think of what I want to communicate to others, I suppose I could communicate things like, "I'm here for you" or "Thank you for visiting" or "You have incredible eyes" but most often I'm thinking "We are stardust and the galaxy or universe is so big and You are it with me and perhaps if we all see that the world would be better.".
Most often what I'm getting from others is that words are not necessary in the totality of things. If I were to position myself out in space someplace and see how big the universe really is and how small our planet really is , there is nothing but awe and we are connected by that with our eyes.
Really it is amazing, if you look at a rock or a building and you think of how small that is in comparison to the sun or Ceres or Orion's Belt. It shows to me how small and insignificant daily words are, though we need them or think we do. So here we are with this small insignificant rock yet someone picks it up to throw at a building or another human.
I could say that Venice for all its history is the most incredible place in the world, the city of Masks, to do this piece but in truth I feel the same when looking into someone's eyes here as I do in some abandoned building in a run down part of St Louis. The eyes and people I interact with there and here leave me the same, blessed to have had the experience and resolved to continue this piece as it is important and I can see it has impacted others there and here and anywhere I perform it.
Tomorrow I start street performance.
Monday, May 4, 2015
Speak to Me Only with Thine Eyes
Sunday, January 24, 2010
I don't wear red
I was raised to be unfond of communists and in fact there was time when I thought in basic idea it was theoretically equivalent to applied Christianity.... and then I became educated. Che, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler: all mass murderers, cold heartless killers using political agendas as covers for their malicious psychotic intents. The writers who espoused these philosophies, the same. Social Progressivism, Social engineering, Eugenics, whatever the cloak, the content the same.
My parents raised me not to wear red. I used the think it was odd. Now I understand and wish I could kiss their head and hands to have raised me this way-I don't wear red.