Culture & Arts

Consider what you know about Downtown Baltimore. It might stem from TV and movies, or other folklore -- some of it factual, other aspects not entirely accurate. The truth of it is that Baltimore has endured a slow, but steady transformation over many decades, and it's as good a time as any to question the cultural depiction of the Charm City.

Baltimore Heritage offers more than a simple walking tour of the city's historical sites and attractive sights. On a tour I attended recently, I discovered everything from prominent old architecture to modern stories about redevelopment and urban renewal. Here are five reasons to make the trek:

1. History impacts industry

The Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 might seem like it happened a while ago, but if you pay close enough attention, you'll see its lasting impact and impression all over the place. New industry and opportunity followed the tragedy, with engineers flocking to the area to help rebuild.

2. Baltimore is a city in transition.

With the rejuvenation over past years of the downtown area, as more people choose to live there rather than in the surrounding areas, Baltimore feels alive in a more significant way. As you make your way through the city streets, there's more than buildings to look at and pay attention to; take heed of the diversity of the locals, some in business suits, others leaving local diners. Nearly every block provides a strong sense of community and evolution.

3. Monuments stand proud.

Amid daily activity, it's easy to neglect what's standing right in front of you. Baltimore is no stranger to monuments and memorials, as they sit in the heart of the city, yet unless you stop and think about what they represent and why they're there, you might miss the significance. Did you know Baltimore has its own Washington Monument? The story about why it's there, and why it preceded the more famous one, is fascinating. And the Battle Monument that salutes all soldiers will leave you feeling more patriotic than you expected.

4. It's not only what's up.

As you head from area to area, you'll hear about more than the places you're seeing. The decision of where to situate a site, or more simply a building, took lots of thought and foresight. And the choice of the material used on the sidewalks below you have great importance as well. You'll learn about urban planning and where inspiration can be found. It'll change the way you look at a city, beyond Baltimore.

5. People's legacies live on.

No city would be thriving or much less alive today without the financial and steadfast commitment of some benefactors. Mary Garrett was one of those people who did more than fund education and fight for women's rights -- she has paved the way for many thousands, if not more, to have a better future. I exited inspired by her steadfast commitment to help women in her community at a time when few would have. Appreciate how far we've come in just a few generations.

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"Painting - more than eating or breathing for me"

Daily life in Qushtapa refugee camp, in Erbil governorate, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I) is never easy. But Syrian father of four, Islam Muhammad Botanee, uses painting as a way of expressing his individuality as well as depicting the experiences and challenges of what it is like to be a refugee.

Islam Muhammad Botanee is a self-taught painter. His images are haunting, often dark and painful.

While he continues to look for daily work to feed his family, he is also a man driven by his need to paint every day, if he can.

"Through my painting, I want to express that I am alive here; I'm an active person, I am still doing something ", he said. "I can relax when I paint; it is more than eating or breathing for me.

Islam Muhammad Botanee

The 45 year-old father of four, who left Malkiaa, in Hassakeh governorate, Syria, three years ago, is finding refugee life difficult. Back home, he worked as a carpenter and had his own shop. But he complains that there is no market for hand crafted furniture in Erbil, with most of it imported from Turkey, and he can only find casual construction work or temporary work, for example as a camp monitor during a recent garbage clean-up.

Painting is his way of dealing with all the pressures.

Islam paints in a small shelter next to his family's tent in the camp, as the smells of his oil paints are quite strong. The first public exhibition of his paintings was at a UNHCR-supported event marking International Women's Day. And Islam was excited to show his work to the public.

Many of Islam's works have as their theme violence against women and children. One refers to Yazidi women who were sold in slave markets by extremist groups. Another highlights domestic violence in the camp.

women sold at slave markets

Another group of paintings have as their subject attempts by refugees to make the risky journey by sea to Europe, paying illegal smugglers money to try to start another life.

"I like to use painting to show how difficult life is for refugees. I want to show the challenges that refugees face inside the camp", said the artist. "I'm also trying to do something to change's peoples minds in this camp community, like tackling gender-based violence, illegal immigration and other problems facing the community."

Elderly woman left on her own, after her family left for Europe

His dream is to be known more widely and to formally study painting somewhere in Europe. His artistic hero is Picasso.

A fire at Qushtapa camp which resulted in the deaths of two adults and two children.

"I would love to be a famous painter", he mused. "But, in any case, I cannot stop painting; I have no choice. I have to paint ."

The artist's materials

Photos: UNHCR/Caroline Gluck

Follow UNHCR Iraq on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/UNHCRinIraq & Twitter @UNHCRIraq

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Today, more than ever before, people are being encouraged to pursue their artistic dreams. With a wealth of digital tools at their fingertips, it has become infinitely easier to self-publish one's writing, voice one's opinions in the blogosphere, become a YouTube personality who earns income from advertising, or even audition via Skype.

While many must cling to their day jobs for financial security, others resolutely concentrate on their creativity and prioritize whatever form of self expression drives their ambition. Some enter reality television talent competitions; others work with business incubator programs to bring their ideas to market.

Jeff Bercovici's article entitled Obamacare: The Gazillion-Dollar Startup Machine describes how part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has become a powerful engine of creativity in the healthcare field.

Rebecca Frech wrote movingly about her child's secret productivity as an aspiring writer in My Son, The Pseudonym.

But what about those who genuinely lack talent? Some choose to live out their ambitions through their children; others find ways to enable talented artists to further their careers. While audiences tend to seek out superstars, they are quick to ignore the person in the background whose ardor for music, painting, writing, or dance eclipses the possibility that they could ever be known for their talent in an art form they love.

Societal taboos often keep some people from fulfilling their artistic dreams.

In severely repressive cultures, it may be illegal for a woman to dance, sing, act, or play a musical instrument in public.

Some cultures enforce strict gender roles that require a woman to stay home, raise a family, and let her husband take the credit for his wife's ideas.

Some women discover that, although they willingly devoted years of their lives to taking care of their children, once faced with an empty nest they no longer have the ambition or skill necessary to pursue their artistic goals.

Two recent productions focused on women who failed to toe the patriarchal line, thus causing their husbands grave embarrassment by trying to live out their dreams through their children or risking the destruction of their marriages. Both stories take place nearly a century ago, when the mere idea of women being carefree individuals free to explore and develop their talent might have been scorned as sheer lunacy. Thankfully, things have changed for the better.

* * * * * * * * * *

First produced by the York Theatre in November 2004, Souvenir moved to Broadway the following year with Judy Kaye recreating her acclaimed portrayal of Florence Foster Jenkins. Later this year, an American film adaptation of the story starring Meryl Streep as Mme. Foster Jenkins will be released in theatres.

In what can truly be described as an embarrassment of riches, a French film written and directed by Xavier Giannoli (with Marcia Romano as co-author) has been released ahead of the Streep vehicle. Played less for comedy than for pathos, Marguerite deftly captures the infatuation and delusional behavior of a rich woman who, though besotted with art, has no talent.

Catherine Frot stars in Marguerite

The film begins near Marguerite Dumont's castle outside of Paris, where music lovers gather every year to raise money for a good cause in a social environment. When a nervous Marguerite (Catherine Frot) appears to sing the Queen of the Night's aria ("Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen") from Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute, most of the guests stifle their laughter out of respect for a woman who has been so generous with her wealth.

Lucien (Sylvain Dieuaide) and his friend Kyrill (Aubert Fenoy) are
fascinated with Marguerite's singing in a scene from Marguerite

Among those who take Marguerite seriously, however, are:

Lucien Beaumont (Sylvain Dieuaide), a young journalist who is eager to write about Marguerite Dumont.

Kyrill Von Priest (Aubert Fenoy), Lucien's friend who is a pretentious dilettante.

Hazel (Christa Theret), a young soprano who has been hired to sing for the guests during Marguerite's event.

Madelbos (Denis Mpunga), Marguerite's overprotective African servant and accompanist.

Madelbos (Denis Mpunga) accompanies his employer
(Catherine Frot) in a scene from Marguerite

It's easy to accept Marguerite's wide-eyed naiveté when one considers that she married her husband, Georges (André Marcon), for his title and he didn't hesitate to marry her for her wealth. As a result, most of their social circle consists of his business associates and their wives. Whenever Marguerite aims to sing in public, Georges's car mysteriously breaks down, forcing him to miss her moment of musical glory.

To no one's surprise, a woman who has lived within such a bubble of wealth easily succumbs to flattery. When Lucien and Kyrill take her out on a nighttime romp through Paris, the trio end up at an operatic performance starring a bloated, fading tenor whose post-performance attention goes straight to Marguerite's head.

Atos Pezzini (Michael Fau) is an aging operatic tenor who
attempts to coach the talentless protagonist of Marguerite

Easily convinced that she needs coaching if she is going to sing a public recital, Marguerite agrees to let the overbearing Atos Pezzini (Michel Fau) become her musical mentor. With the help of his friends -- Sophia Leboutte as the bearded lady (Félicité La Barbue) who eventually agrees to marry Marguerite's servant, Madelbos, and Théo Cholbi as Pezzini's toy boy, Diego, the tenor tries to whip the tone-deaf woman into musical shape.

Catherine Frot stars in Marguerite

As one might expect, the financially-strapped Pezzini sees Marguerite as a heaven-sent meal ticket. To her credit, Marguerite is happy to help finance her friends. And thus, a story in which enabling forces run in both directions leads to a shocking turn of events during the deluded Countess's public debut. While the crisis may bring back her husband's love, a physician's misguided advice ensures that Marguerite will never sing again. Here's the trailer:

* * * * * * * * * *

Marguerite's lifestyle rests on a foundation of financial security, a resplendent mansion, doting servants, and an indulgent husband who allows her to be a dilettante. By contrast, Rose Hovick has no financial security and a burning passion to see her eldest daughter become a vaudeville star. While the title of Gypsy: A Musical Fable refers to Gypsy Rose Lee (the awkward introvert turned world-famous ecdysiast), the driving force in the legendary musical created by Arthur Laurents, Jule Styne, and Stephen Sondheim is that most monstrous of all stage mothers, Mama Rose.

Lynda DiVito as Mama Rose in Gypsy: A Musical Fable

Contra Costa Music Theatre recently presented Gypsy at the Lesher Center for the Arts in a production directed and choreographed by Jennifer Perry. It's hard to believe that this musical (which premiered on May 21, 1959 as a vehicle for Ethel Merman) is now 57 years old.

Gypsy tells the story of a woman with minimal talent who is so intoxicated by the rush of show business that she will do anything in order to make sure her daughters keep performing. Whether stealing a gold plaque honoring her father's long years of employment -- or the dining utensils from a Chinese restaurant -- Rose was stalking vaudeville's impresarios long before the concept of a "tiger mother" gained popularity in Asian American families. Keenly aware of her own limitations ("I was born too soon and started too late -- if I coulda been, I woulda been"), she refuses to take "no" for an answer.

Lynda DiVito (Mama Rose) and Michael Patrick Gaffney
(Herbie) in a scene from Gypsy: A Musical Fable

No matter how many revivals and regional productions Gypsy has received, the show still packs an emotional wallop as it gains dramatic momentum with the power of a runaway freight train. Jule Styne's memorable score (which includes such classics as "Some People," "Everything's Coming Up Roses," "Together, Wherever We Go," "You Gotta Get A Gimmick" and "Rose's Turn") remains incredibly fresh.

Certain musicals (Gypsy, Follies, She Loves Me) have developed a cult following, and rightly so. Gypsy is so magnificently crafted that any chance to see it performed onstage demands attention. My main reason for checking out CCMT's production was to see Lynda DiVito's take on Mama Rose. DiVito (who has appeared in numerous East Bay productions) has always impressed me as a solid actress with a powerful belt in her voice.

Jarusha Ariel (Louise), Lynda DiVito (Rose), and Michael Patrick
Gaffney (Herbie) in a scene from CCMT's production of Gypsy

Although her portrayal of Rose was a little sweeter and less frantic than some others, DiVito had no problem nailing Jule Styne's songs to the back wall of the 785-seat Hofmann Theatre. Her Rose received strong support from Michael Patrick Gaffney's Herbie, Katie Bartemeo's June, and Jason Rehklau's Tulsa. As the three strippers, Ali Lane shone as Tessie Tura with Amanda Maxwell sassily strutting her stuff as Mazeppa and Diella Wottrich acting appropriately ditsy as Electra.

Under Kevin Roland's musical direction, the opening night performance of CCMT's Gypsy suffered several glitches in the orchestra pit. The real challenge, however, was the rare case of a key actor coping with a sudden setback. Because the woman playing the adult Louise (Jarusha Ariel) had apparently run into some vocal difficulties during rehearsals, a decision was made to have someone else "voice" the role while Ms. Ariel performed onstage. The substitution worked exceptionally well and Ariel got through the evening like a pro.

2016-05-15-1463334669-4913954-louisegypsyjarushaariel.jpg

Jerusha Ariel as Gypsy Rose Lee in Gypsy: A Musical Fable

In the late 1970s, I experienced something similar while attending the Seattle Opera's production of the RING cycle. This was prior to the advent of Supertitles, when the Seattle Opera staged Richard Wagner's 19-hour tetralogy one week with the original German text and the following week using Andrew Porter's acclaimed English translation.

At the performance of Die Walkure during the English cycle, it was announced that the tenor singing the role of Siegmund had lost his voice after going for a swim. Because the tenor who had sung Siegmund during the German cycle was still in town, he was able to "voice" the role from the orchestra pit while the tenor originally scheduled to sing Siegmund in the English cycle "acted" the role onstage. The end result? The tenor from the German cycle sang the role in German while everyone else onstage performed Die Walkure in English!

2016-05-15-1463334959-3026997-roselyndaDiVitolouisegypsyjarushaariel.jpg

Lynda DiVito (Mama Rose) and Jerusha Ariel
(Louise) in a scene from Gypsy: A Musical Fable

Special mention should be made of the flexible set designed by Kelly James Tighe and the excellent sound design for this production by Some More Sound.

To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape

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The invitation reads "Desert chic sun protection and appropriate footwear for navigating uneven and sandy terrain recommended." The suggestion appears to have been heeded as there are no stiletto heels in sight as guests are delivered by shuttle to the site of Ugo Rondinone's Seven Magic Mountains public art installation. A large tent has been erected for the grand opening event and parasols offer mobile shade for the five-minute walk to the installation site.

Armed with thirst-quenching libations, we navigate the natural path through the barbed bushes and spiky yuccas. A sign warns of the possible presence of venomous snakes and I hope we are all making enough noise to ensure any lurking reptiles keep their distance. The brightly colored towers of boulders that have been intriguing travelers on the nearby Interstate are eye-poppingly vibrant up close.

Five years in the making, the Seven Magic Mountains public art project is a partnership between New York's Art Production Fund and the Nevada Museum of Art. David Walker, the museum's executive director introduces the artist and quips "Only Ugo Rondinone would add fluorescent colors to land art right?" In turn, Rondinone speaks of his fascination with the beauty of both the natural environment of the desert and the artificial city of Las Vegas it envelops. He describes Seven Magic Mountains as "an artwork of thresholds and crossings". The towers are situated on the southern threshold of Las Vegas near Jean Dry Lake, where Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint-Phalle exploded sculptures in 1962, and Michael Heizer began working on land art projects in 1968.

As the magic hour of twilight arrives, even the clouds are painted with vibrant orange. This is when I notice the ARIA Fine Catering team with trays bearing a carved fruit homage to the Rondinone towers. The skewered prawns that had covered them have all been devoured by appreciative guests and it's time to return to the city. Respecting the desert principle of visitors leaving no trace, all signs of our presence will be erased. From the window of the bus as darkness encroaches, the towers continue to glow as they recede in the distance.

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"When I was very young, I sold my work just to make a living," but as the artist Arman got older - he died in 2005 at the age of 76 - he wished he still had some of the art that was pivotal to the development of his career. So, when his 1960 assemblage of French gas masks in a wooden box, entitled "Home Sweet Home II," came up at auction at Sotheby's in London in 2000, he was one of the bidders and ended up paying $326,530 for a work he had sold 45 years before for $6,000. Selling low and buying high is no formula for success, but the French-born artist, who had homes in both Manhattan and Paris, has done well in his career, and anyway this wasn't about money. "I have no works left from 1960," he said. "I wanted a good example for my legacy."
The customary picture of the art world has artists entering the market to sell work, not to buy it, but a number of artists have actively or sporadically sought out their own artwork at galleries and auction houses. These well-known and wealthy artists represent a small but interesting segment of the art market, generally looking for their early work, jockeying with other collectors for it. Their reasons are many: Some want certain pieces back for their own collections; some wish they had never sold a particular work in the first place; some look to deal in their own work, just as any gallery owner might; some try to protect their markets by purchasing pieces that might not get sold or could be sold for a career-damagingly low amount of money.
It was that last concern that led British artist Damien Hirst and, before him, Alex Katz to buy back numerous works from collector Charles Saatchi, who had bought their work in quantity and later made known his desire to dispose of it. "I wanted them back, and it was a good use of capital," Alex Katz said of the 21 pieces he purchased for an undisclosed sum. "Some of those works have since sold" to other collectors. For his part, Hirst paid a reported 12-15 million pounds sterling for 12 works, which he reacquired through his London-based art gallery White Cube. Hirst and Katz had both learned from the experience of Italian neo-expressionist painter Sandro Chia, whose work had been bought in the early 1980s and later sold en masse by Saatchi one day in 1986, depressing prices and dimming the artist's prestige in the art market. "It was the first time that works of art were treated as stocks that were dumped," said Manhattan art dealer Nohra Haime, who currently exhibits Chia's paintings. "The public related to these works in the same way, thinking that they must be worth dumping." (After that experience, Chia began buying back his own work, and "now his market is doing much better as a result," Haime said.)
Chia's work was sold by Saatchi back to the dealers, Angela Westwater in Manhattan and Bruno Bischofberger in Zurich, Switzerland, from whom he had originally purchased it, but it was Saatchi's publicly stated intention of getting rid of the artworks that led to the artist's embarrassment. The embarrassment may be even greater when artwork is put up for sale at auction and doesn't find buyers or doesn't fetch a good price. Then, everyone may find out, and "it feels like a blemish, a vulnerability in the artist's market," said Sique Spence, director of New York's Nancy Hoffman Gallery. The gallery keeps a look-out for works by the artists it represents that come up for public sale, and "we would bid on it, unless we were going against a collector we know. We might get the work back at a reduced price, or we might be able to bid it up a little bit," in order that the selling price go higher than it would have otherwise.
At times, artists may similarly look to protect their markets. After a work of his had been bought-in at auction several years ago, the artist Brice Marden went the next day to the auction house and purchased it. Sometimes, artists may even look to play the market, by buying their own works on the secondary market when the prices are low, then looking to sell them for more later. "In some auctions in Europe, I see my works are selling at a low price," Arman said. "I'll buy it and sell it myself, make more money." The same thought was expressed by painter Don Eddy who had once authorized his dealer to purchase one of his works up at auction for him. "If I can get it at a reasonable price and then turn a profit on it, why not?" he said. "Why should someone else make the profit and not me?"
Over the past few years, Eddy has been building a collection of his work through purchases and an occasional swap of something new for something old. "There are some paintings I wish I had never sold," he said.
A very slow-paced, highly detail-conscious painter, Eddy only has produced a handful of paintings per year, which all have sold, but "my family doesn't have any of my work," he said. "I want my family to have some work in my estate," which led him to start buying back his own paintings from time to time. Perhaps, the most active artist in the art market is Jasper Johns, who is thought to own more of his work than any other artist or his stature. Some of those pieces he bought back through long-time dealer Leo Castelli, including a watercolor and collage design for a stage set in Paris in 1961. This work was given to a florist in Paris who used it as a model to create a large flower target for a performance by Johns, David Tudor, Robert Rauschenberg, Niki de Saint Phalle, and Jean Tinguely. The drawing became available for sale at the Castelli gallery in 1966 and Johns bought it. According to the gallery's current owner, Barbara Castelli, the work is currently in the artist's personal collection. Another piece that Johns bought back he clearly disliked. "It was a work that Johns gave to someone who later wanted to sell it," she said. "Johns bought it and destroyed it. He didn't want it in the market."
Dealers regularly alert the artists they represent to previously sold works that are coming back onto the market, sometimes arranging sales or just putting the artist in touch with the collector. Carroll Janis, a private art dealer in New York City, stated that he had acted as a go-between in helping artists Robert Rauschenberg and Tom Wesselmann reaquire their own early work from collectors looking to sell, and Manhattan gallery owner Louis K. Meisel said that "every time a painting comes back, I call the artist, asking, 'Do you want to participate in the purchase, or trade me another work for this one?'" There is no price break for being the artist, but Meisel claimed that "most people, knowing the artist wants it back, will be a little bit gentler." Among the artists for whom he claimed to have helped buy back works are Audrey Flack, Mel Ramos and Theodoros Stamos.
As a presence in the art market, fine artists don't cast a long shadow. As wealthy as some may have become, most still cannot compete with the auction world's high rollers. Chuck Close bought a half dozen drawings from Meisel, his early dealer, paying in "the middle six figures," Meisel claimed. "After his illness, he couldn't do that intensely Photo Realist type of work anymore," and Close wanted some of those early pieces back. He will have to settle for drawings. "Chuck couldn't buy back any of his major stuff," Meisel said. "It's just too expensive."

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"Could you bring in your article?" said a "graveyard woman," whose gruffness perhaps masked her "soulful mama" status, terminology used by Bob Dylan in "From a Buick 6," one of his early tunes.

The graveyard woman smiled from behind a desk. "Bob would like to read it."

This was many years ago.

True to the code of Dylanologists or Bobby acolytes, I will not reveal the circumstances of our meeting, nor will I reveal where or when.

What I will reveal is that Bob Dylan is an extraordinarily modest man, with a soulfulness beyond that of any junkyard angel and with a rare generosity of spirit.

But before I return to my encounters with Bob Dylan, let me back up for some perspective.

He has been called the voice of a generation, but it may be more accurate to dub Bob Dylan, who turns 75 on May 24, as a voice, if not the voice, of the generations.

We should never limit Dylan, whose voice, always evolving, cannot be pinned down, and whose songs have a timelessness to them.

When I say that Dylan's oeuvre is timeless, I say this not because his new album, "Fallen Angels," which will be released on May 20, conjures the golden era of standards, and, like his last album, features ballads originally sung by Frank Sinatra, hailed at one time as the Voice.

Nor do I deem Dylan to be timeless because "Fallen Angels" marks his 37th studio album, which happens to be the same number of plays written by Shakespeare, the one and only Bard.

No, Bob Dylan's music is timeless because it resonates with an inevitability that one hears only in the prose or poetry of the best writers.

But that inevitability can take time to appreciate.

Years ago, in the summer of 1998, between my first and second psychotic breaks, my then-girlfriend, Barbara, now my wife, took me to a concert in Anaheim, a double-bill of Bob Dylan and Paul Simon.

The odd truth was that while Simon deferred all evening to Bobby, I was much more familiar with Simon's music then, and I liked it better too.

Of course, I was not well in 1998. Clinical depression, let alone depression of an acute psychotic variety, can strip people of their ability to enjoy many things, even things they might ordinarily love.

But I did not love Dylan's work at the time. In fact, his performance that summer evening at the Pond, otherwise a hockey arena, was not exactly helpful to the uninitiated.

Dylan, as can be his wont at concerts, seemed to mumble his words. He certainly did not enunciate them the way that Simon enunciated lyrics. And based on what I perceived to be the erratic or desultory fashion with which Bob played the guitar that night, I wondered why Paul Simon was deferring at all to the voice of a generation.

And yet, like the gravitational pull, Bobby had his own inevitability, and it was beginning to tug at me.

Months later, in the spring of 1999, I started to recuperate from my second psychotic break. At that time, Barbara, who, like Bobby's heroine in "She Belongs to Me," "never stumbles, she's got no place to fall," put on a Dylan record at her condominium. She did so somewhat tentatively.

I cannot recall if that was the occasion that Barbara played one of Bobby's tunes that referenced Muhammad Ali, a hero to many who grew up in the sixties or seventies. Whatever tune Barbara played that spring day, I found to my surprise that I liked it.

Still, neither I, nor Dylan was quite within the other's grasp.

I remained a bit skeptical of Bobby, not because I had any reason not to like him; I remained skeptical because depression often makes even agreeable people a tad cantankerous.

It is also true that Bob Dylan's music rewards repeated listening. He is, as one might say, an acquired taste. He is not, nor has he ever been a candied-assed, pop song writer, whose morsels can be digested the first time you hear them.

Dylan has always stood apart. To paraphrase Bob, he has never followed leaders.

But that is true not just because he broke ground in fusing folk and rock music.

Nor is it simply due to his lyrics, which often reach a celestial realm, what I have termed the vernacular sublime.

More than anything else, what started to draw me years ago to Dylan and what continues to draw me to his music is the wryness of his voice, which is so far removed from that of other singers, let alone the singers of the early sixties, such as the doo-wop groups.

Bob Dylan has always had more than a degree of irony, wit and whimsy to his lyrics, and his voice is not beautiful in a traditional sense; the nasally twang we heard in the early sixties has become much more raspy and gravelly.

But over the decades, Bob's voice has always been unique, possessed of an unusual beauty despite its seeming hideousness.

It wasn't until after my psychotic breaks in the late 1990s, when I listened to a mix of his early albums on my drives with Barbara up to the Bay Area, that I truly began to appreciate Dylan's humor, his melodies, his bemused whine.

He was exacting his pull when I joined an outfit that, unbeknownst to me, was owned by the Bobster himself.

It was more than a year later that Dylan's colleague, the erstwhile graveyard woman or soulful mama, asked me to bring in an article I had written.

"Bob would like to read it," she said from behind her desk.

This was before the Internet was as prevalent as it is today, and Bob wanted to read the paper version of the story.

I told his colleague that I would bring it in the next day, which I did.

The next day, as I walked over to a water fountain to have a drink, a spindly wraith in gray sweats, so spindly that he looked almost malnourished, like a Holocaust survivor, slinked over from a private alcove.

Since I had turned my face to the faucet, Bob Dylan had to tilt his body at an angle. As he did so, he extended his hand, and, with a beam on his face, hailed me in that gravelly voice of his. He called me by my nickname, known to those at his establishment.

While I swallowed the water and looked up, I gripped Bob's hand and shook it.

He congratulated me on the article, told me he liked it.

We discussed the origin of my nickname and other aspects of my article.

Dylan, who of course changed his name years ago, at least partly in homage to Dylan Thomas, liked the fact that my nickname was not a posturing one. It was much more neutral with a historical pedigree that Bob could appreciate.

It goes without saying that very few writers or non-writers, for that matter, ever offer the kind of praise Bob offered me on that day.

I will always remember his kindness and warmth, the way his eyes leaped and the deep timbre of his voice.

This had not been our first, nor was it our last exchange.

I had praised Bob the year before when he won the Oscar for best song for "Things Have Changed," from the film, Wonder Boys.

I had also talked with him about his album, "Love And Theft," which had been reviewed in L.A. Weekly, the paper for which I was working at the time.

I told him he had gotten a good review.

"I'll have to check it out," said Bob.

Hearkening back to his early days in Greenwich Village, he then said, in a phrase that might have recalled the Beats, that he had heard that a "heavy writer" from "the Voice" had reviewed "Love And Theft."

While the late Norman Mailer, another literary icon, touted himself as the heavyweight champ of writers, Bob Dylan, in spite of his spindly frame, remains the heaviest writer around. His work, like an electro-magnetic field, generates a force that is as inevitable and potent as a Muhammad Ali punch.

What makes Bob Dylan heavy is not just his output, which is prolific; and not just his influence, which is outsize.

What makes Bob Dylan such a heavy writer is his modesty, even humility, as well as his wisdom and good humor.

I will always be grateful to my wife, Barbara, for so many reasons, including her stroke of genius in introducing me to Dylan's music.

It is perfectly fitting that Barbara, who, as Dylan would say, "gives me everything and more," and I got married on May 26, 2001, only two days after Bob's 60th birthday, although we were unaware of that at the time.

I serenaded Barbara at our wedding, not with "From a Buick 6" but with "She Belongs to Me," also one of Dylan's early tunes; and she sparkled, as she always does, even if she did not actually wear an Egyptian ring.

As for Bobby, I will always be grateful to him too.

He took the time to care about and praise a young writer, who was just a few years removed from the psychiatric ward.

All these years later, as Barbara and I celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary, I would like to wish a happy birthday to the voice of the generations.

Happy # 75, Bob!

No one may ever match Shakespeare, but you, Bob, are the champ. I won't limit you to any weight class. You have graced and enriched our lives for 50 years and more, and your voice will reverberate over the ages, for eternity.

That is the heaviest compliment of all.

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The shame of acceptance around asking artists to work for free

Sainsbury's made a big error last week. The supermarket put out an ad asking for an artist to volunteer their skills to refurbish and upgrade their new canteen in London's Camden Town store.

The ad copy ran like this: "Sainsbury's is giving you the one opportunity to build your career and build your reputation. Your work will contribute to our success. Share your gift. Leave your mark by doing what you love and do best."

It was written without a hint of shame that an artist should work for free to get exposure. The underpinning message from this big supermarket is that we would rather not pay you but will give you space to get seen so maybe someone else will pay you at some future time. The lucky artist who gets this commission would be able to leave their mark and do what they love, but not get paid. This is from a company with an annual £26b turnover.

What does this say about how we value art in our culture? At a time when art and creative studies are facing cuts from education and are being dropped from school timetables, it's time for us to start understanding what art means in our culture and establishing more respect for the artistic process. We need to put money where our mouth is in regard to supporting art and artists. We have got really good at spending money on endless manufactured products, but when it comes to spending on art and artists there seems to be cultural block and an assumption that artists can and should work for free.

Photographers I know are regularly being asked to shoot for free -- it's a regular pattern. It's something seen to be done for love but not for money and how do you gently tell someone you do expect to be paid for the work that you do even if it is "artistic". Writers have the same conversations. It's regular practice for magazines to ask freelance writers to do full page features for free to get their words read and their name exposed. New writers coming through will never make a living if this continues and the craft of writing is set back to the status of "not a proper job". Most of the excellent writers I know have to supplement their regular writing work with other paid jobs. With the explosion of bloggers and thousands of platforms and content spaces to fill, it gets harder and only the top percentile of good writers can earn a living this way. Philip Pullman resigned from his post as patron of the Oxford Literary festival pointing out that at most of the book festivals the only people who don't get paid are the authors themselves. It is the authors that people come to see and yet they are asked to do it for free with "exposure" as the return.

My friend Fin Dac is a highly-regarded international urban artist. His work appears regularly on the front cover of art magazines and pops up in prestigious locations all over the world.

He was recently contacted by a powerful hotel chain in New York and asked to do an urban art piece for this new multi-million pound hotel. The art project planned is for the outside of the new building. The only snag is that in this multi-million project, there is no financial support for the art project appearing at the center.

Here's a copy of the pitch sent by the hotel group to a number of well known artists:

"I am the Marketing Director, not an art curator. I love the energy and spirit of street art, and happened to have this vision and idea of creating a bridge between the energy and spirit of street artists and the hotel. I don't get paid by running this art project at the hotel, FYI. But I value this project a lot more than money. I am certain that our guests and local New Yorkers in this neighborhood would appreciate the bridge of celebrating the energy and spirit of street art/artists."

The offer for the artists taking part in the project is to be exposed to the A-list clientele, art collectors and media.

That's nice. So these highly talented artists (and the hotel would only allow the best ones) could spend a great deal of time and creativity as well as materials and paints to create a massive art piece for the hotel to get "great exposure" but without an appropriate share -- or in most cases any share at all -- of the significant investment being spent on the project. When the artist contacted them to clarify this, they didn't reply.

It's time we call for proper payment of artists, writers and musicians. We have to value artistry in our culture or we are poor in mind and spirit.

Most importantly, we will have missed the point of the magic of human creativity. The value of art in society is bigger than all of us and has a much greater impact on our health, wellbeing, society and education than we give credit. To imagine a world without art, is to imagine a body without a heart.

Art and culture illuminates who we are and powers up our emotional world, teaching us compassion and tolerance. A life without art isn't living.

Let's hope this whack ad from Sainsbury's will get the debate under the spotlight for increased respect and payment for our artists. It's a conversation we need to be having.

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Currently up in New York City is an exhibition at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay & Lesbian Art titled "The 1970s: The Blossoming of a Queer Enlightenment." After visiting, I was disappointed, even irritated because it primarily contained two things: photographs of famous queers or famous queer locations (i.e. images of Harvey Milk and portraits by Mapplethorpe; documents of Stonewall and the piers), or drawings and paintings of nudity and erotica. To be clear, many of these works are beautiful in their own right; some I have admired for years. This is not a critique of the artworks themselves, but of the curatorial decision making. Exclusively displaying these two types of works essentially reduces the experience down to two basic feelings of nostalgia and titillation. The documentary photographs operate as pinned butterflies of activism and the homosex depictions as blunt symbols of sexual liberty.

Whose queer is this? Indeed, we are different because of our experiences and it's probably true that these experiences of "difference" are frequently sexual in nature. And there's no denying that the 1970s (a decade I can of course only know from the distance of history) were a period of sexual liberation which is proudly touted. Yet, despite all of this, the show still feels like a reduction of queerness in a museum of art dedicated to just that. The show feels more like a local history museum of a generalized sexual experience than an historical survey of how queerness blossomed in art.

As far as alternatives, there are of course the obvious, canonical examples of artists from the period that were also gay men: Warhol, Rauschenberg, Johns (the latter two were famously lovers). But they don't have to be famous (noted: famous art is expensive to collect and exhibit), or gay males either. In fact - how exciting a show of lesser known, forgotten, or undiscovered queer artists from a generation past would be!

Beyond the sexual liberation in the 1970s, there was also the distinctly queer brand of counter-culture: a newfound opposition to marriage, monogamy, having children and other vestiges of heteronormativity. On the one hand you had the rise of punk, which was certainly not devoid of queers, and on the other was a new public advocacy for queer sexuality from the voices of people like Gore Vidal. What's more, the voice of feminism was louder in the 1970s than ever before, providing an early platform for lesbian activism.

And what about artworks with nods to pop culture? Notably absent are any signs of influence from the 70s icons that were to become the dogma of our culture: Bette Midler, Grace Jones, Freddy Mercury, Joan Crawford, Divine, David Bowie -- or virtually anyone else who became relevantly queer the moment their poster was pasted on the bedroom wall of a queer teen. These figures, who may not have been queer themselves, had the fashion, the attitude, or the story of struggle that resonated with a queer audience. Sometimes symbols of struggle are a better representation of queerness than queer sex itself.

An exhibition of note which successfully embodied the complexity of identity was the 1994 Black Male show at the Whitney Museum. In part because it was open to a plurality of identity -- curator Thelma Golden took the black male identity as subject with a flexible, yet nuanced rubric for its rule over what was included. The show didn't simply include works by black men (works by both black women as well as white men were included) or simply figurative imagery of the black male. It was a fuller, more considered approach to identity. An identity isn't singular or static, it is complicated and fluid, and the representations must be as well.

This is the first exhibition I have attended at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, and in discussing this with friends who have attended previous shows, several have noted that this problem is nothing new at the museum. "It's just the way it is." While I have no intentions of launching an attack on this particular museum, I am compelled to speak out against the apathy and complacency which permit limited scopes of history.

If queer is in the eye of the beholder, as Vince Aletti has noted, then the beholding constituency needs a voice.

"The 1970s: The Blossoming of a Queer Enlightenment" is on view until July 3rd at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, 26 Wooster Street.

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Still from Jessica Kantor's Ashes

In this post, I'll look at Jessica Kantor's lovely 360° video work Ashes. Situating it within the context of early silent film and dance, I'll examine the role that gesture plays in the emerging narrative language of VR.

The Passion of Joan of Arc

Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 silent masterpiece The Passion of Joan of Arc offers an instructive place to begin. Dreyer's film, which combines minimal sets and costuming with an exuberant use of close ups, brilliantly demonstrated that facial gesture, which humans can read from infancy, can be an incredibly powerful and nuanced language for storytelling. Such a language is not only "universal," it harnesses the most basic of our bodily memories, that of a mother's face looming large over her child, and all the emotional connection that this memory musters. The actors' faces transmit complex information forcefully, but they do so in a way that is not easy to quantify or standardize.

Facebook's "Reactions"

Although it may be coincidental, it is certainly not surprising that Facebook adopted "reactions" around the same time as Oculus Rift released a consumer version of its VR headset. Rather, it points to the fact that as our lives become more and more virtual, whether online or via a head mounted display (HMD), how we express ourselves and how we "read" each other is changing.

Acting as simple visual "codes, these frozen, exaggerated facial expressions standardize and render legible nuanced, complex states of mind. The goal is not to transmit the subtleties and range of interior states, as it is in Dreyer's film. Rather, in the same way that the "pinch" and "swipe" gestures of touch screens serve to efficiently transmit commands, the reactions serve "to share your reaction to a post in a quick and easy way," according to the FB press release.

Given that our ability to read another person's body language has evolved over millions of years and includes complex audio, visual, olfactory and other signals, it is impractical to expect that machines, even highly intelligent ones, will be able to fully decode or encode what we ourselves take as second nature. As our emotions and interactions are modified and translated into machine-readable, quantifiable, and writable forms, it is likely that we shall see a further codification and simplification of facial and bodily gesture. As Lakoff and Johnson suggest in their important book Metaphors We Live By, our earliest ways of conceiving of the world are through structural metaphors which reference our bodily orientation in space such as up/down and back/front. Thus, as long as we remain embodied, the emerging language of virtuality will reflect and experiment with translating this most primal of languages.

Jessica Kantor's lyrical Ashes, shown at The Tribeca Film Festival, is one recent example of a work that uses gesture and movement as a form of narrativity. Kantor not only smartly and directly references early silent cinema, she also utilizes dance, the quintessential gestural medium. In Ashes, she experiments with time and space, the virtual and the real, stitching multiple scenes in the round, thereby creating an emotionally fluid narrative. On the left, she shows a pair of lovers horsing around, playing together in the sand. In the center, the woman, having gone to get her hat, returns to find her beloved dead, his body washed ashore. On the right, the woman returns a year later to spread her dead lover's ashes. Depending on which scene one views first, the emotional tenor varies. Throughout, Kantor deftly creates and sustains a dialogue between the "real" and "virtual. In Ashes, time moves normally (forward) through the logic of the plot, as well as backwards-- the man at one point seeming to return to life and a seagull walking backwards, a magical reversal that the medium of video makes possible. However, despite the coexistence of multiple times and spaces in the film, the many footprints in the sand reminds the viewer that these virtual bodies still leave traces behind. In the real world, tragedy is not so easily evaded.

Kantor's use of exaggerated, repeated movements and emotional expressionism brings to mind Pina Bausch's dance theater. Unsurprisingly, before turning to film, Kantor was a dancer, and she does credit Bausch's work for informing this piece.

The intention was always to tell a story through movement. Before we even started rehearsing, I spent time with the dancers, showing them some other VR and watched a ton of Pina Bausch's work. As we rehearsed we took the same music but interpreted it with each of these stories separately. It was a combination of Amy and Vance (the dancers) getting to know each other, the music and the story. The dance was their improv in the moment to tell a story that was organically coming from within. Part of what inspired me so about Pina Bausch is how all of her work is based on emotion and storytelling. I found this quote from her that really sums it up: 'I'm not interested in how people move, but what moves them.' Jessica Kantor

Facebook's emphasis on the efficiency and legibility is certainly in keeping with the decreased attention span and multi-tasking that accompanies our use of digital technology (see MIT's sociometric badges for an almost Orwellian version). The reactions, also, perhaps inadvertently, resonate with earlier conceptualizations of the human body as efficient machine. Just as Frederick Taylor, father of "Taylorism," attempted to improve the efficiency of human interaction with factory machines at the beginning of the last century, Facebook provides a way to standardize, quantify, and extract the complex the emotional states and preferences of potential consumers through social media. Mocking and subverting Taylor's "scientific" labor practice, silent film stars Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin used the language of gesture to invoke the memory of bodily freedom, to play with the intrinsic limits of the body, and to undermine the move to make bodies into machines.

Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times

Interestingly, Kantor mentions that the less than optimal technical quality of much current head mounted display technology brought to mind these silent films.

Wanting to tell a story, I just couldn't stop thinking of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. The way they tackled some of the first stories in film, felt like a fun approach to try and tell a story in this new medium. Also, it worked out nicely that since the quality of playback in HMD still isn't on par with what we're use to seeing the old timey look ended up feeling very organic to the early days of VR. Jessica Kantor

This is not simply nostalgia. As Celeste Olalquiaga suggests in her book The Artificial Kingdom, "repetition is not nostalgic fixation on recovering a past, it is a pulsating preoccupation with a present far to complex to handle on a single register." As we move into viewing the world and living our lives virtually, gesture and dance offer artists like Jessica Kantor powerful ways not only to harness the expressive power of the body, but also to reveal and subvert attempts to regulate and standardize our virtual selves.

this is the second in my series on VR

If you are going to the Electronic Literature Organization Conference in June, please join me for my talk on "Narrativity in VR"

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CineKink NYC ran from March 1-6 here in New York at Anthology Film Archives. It's the only film festival I know of that programs films that could be considered unabashedly "sex-positive" or "kinky." On a single night you can catch a cute, animated short, which can be followed by a gut-wrenching documentary on the lives of sex workers. CineKink director Lisa Vandever and her team curate a vast array of films that usually make most festival directors uncomfortable. I speak from experience having had my last film rejected by almost every festival except for a brave few. CineKink welcomed me with open legs in 2015.

I didn't make it to as many screenings as I would have liked to because I usually take on too many things. I take great pains to constantly remind my readers that blogging is not journalism, but I digress.

What I have to say here is a bit more of a reflection on sex in its contemporary media environment. While I was making the documentary Back Issues: The Hustler Magazine Story, I was working with a studio that had to answer to corporate overlords. While they could see my point that's it was impossible to talk about the "dirtiest" magazine of it's time while not showing female genitalia, they knew they couldn't get it on TV that way. In the end I acquiesced to their justified prudence with the intention of distributing the film to as many outlets as possible in order to expand the audience.

Which brings me to my point about the importance of CineKink.

While I positively love some of the movies they show, and simultaneously dislike others, what keeps me returning to CineKink is that sex positive films have a home here. It's a platform for artists and filmmakers who need to articulate on a libidinal level regardless of the market pressures. Its strange there aren't many places for these artists to go other than "underground." I don't understand why that is. Maybe sex is something film culture needs to get over? It's necessary to mention that the Hays Code regarding decency in the movies died off over 70 years ago.

It's interesting that you see sex scenes in mainstream movies all the time, but a line of "tastefulness" is always drawn. Who creates that line? Does the market create that line? And, if so --why? Deep down most people want to fuck each other, it's just impolite to express it. Art seems like the safest place to transgress. CineKink shines a light into the corners that the mainstream market tries to darken. I've seen the crowds show up. There's an audience. If there weren't an audience -- CineKink would not have lasted a decade and a half.

Perhaps its lofty to think that CineKink is a small Darwinian step towards creating a more enlightened society that will accept consensual sex in cinema as easily as it accepts eating in restaurants.

Let's be real -- having sexual adventures and watching people fuck is exciting. I'd like to see a society aimed at liberation rather than repression. The 1960's sexual revolution wasn't a complete failure, it just didn't follow through on its promise. It took our ambivalent generation to truly not care what people do. Perhaps the next sexual revolution could be one of perpetual ambivalence towards traditional value systems. There's a time for romance and there's a time for lust. CineKink continues to blur the line by embracing and inciting desire.

still from Appointment With My Master dir. Erika Lust

*thank you Super-agent Jessy Caruana for looking at drafts.

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There are Broadway shows with intense music and choreography, at which in-your-face performances (American Psycho) or electric recreations of history (Hamilton, Shuffle Along) grab our attention -- and nominations.

All well-deserved.

But sometimes, there is a quiet, more intimate contender that merits attention. That category is owned by Bright Star, a Broadway bluegrass musical at the Cort Theater, headed by a Tony-worthy Carmen Cusack.

The brainchild of Steve Martin and Edie Brickell, the quirky, semi-Southern Gothic Bright Star captures two moments in time -- 1923, 1945-46 -- when the American South was caught between provincial values and post-war possibility.

There are two stories here -- and both are poignant.

The first begins in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina in 1923. Alice Murphy (Carmen Cusack, adept at playing a sassy teenager and a 40something career women) falls for local boy Jimmy Ray (Paul Alexander Nolan). But their passion doesn't lead to a happy ending.

Fast-forward to postwar 1946. Billy Cane (A.J. Shively), still in uniform, longs to be a writer like Hemingway and dreams of being published in a prestigious Southern literary journal. His childhood friend Margo (Hannah Elless) is encouraging and a little smitten. Billy keeps his eyes on the prize: Moving to Asheville to become a professional writer.

The simplicity of folksy Bright Star is in the economy of Walter Bobbie's direction and Eugene Lee's set design. The songs push a redemptive theme and the supporting cast, Dee Hoty, Stephen Bogardus, Michael Mulheren, Jeff Blumenkrantz, Emily Padgett, are sound.

And while the musicians, including a standout fiddler, are only partially seen, their music is notable. The second act opens with "Sun's Gonna Shine," promoting a resilient spirit. Even for those who aren't bluegrass fans, the score is a winner. Bright Star is a traditional musical with a dark edge. No bells and whistles, just heart and soul.

Conversely, the French troupe Le Clan des Songes has brought a work of theatrical magic to New York. CITÉ, at the 42nd Street Studio, is part of New Victory Theater's spring lineup.

Recommended for ages 3-5, with a running time of 35 minutes, it is inspired by the contemporary art of New York-based painter Evsa Model.

The sun bops from window to window during the day; nighttime has its own sensibility. There is an urban melody here that both children and adults will enjoy.

Think of a symphony of non-conceptual art -- shapes, colors, shadow and light. Animation meets original music by Laurent Rochelle in a novel way.

CITÉ is whimsical and existential all at the same time. The monochromatic colors are sharp and deep, while the abstract imagery is entertaining and clever.

Photo: Nick Stokes

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On Saturday, May 14th, 2016, Whyte's Irish Art and Collectibles of Dublin held a sale called "The Eclectic Collector." Among the lots was a sketch of a nude woman by Constance Markievicz. The drawing came onto the public market back in 2004, directly from Markievicz's family home, Lissadell House, and sold once again in 2007.

"Nude Study of a Young Woman," by Constance Markievicz, via Whyte's

Markievicz is much in the news this year, during the centenary of the Easter Rising. Born in London as Constance Gore-Booth, she lived for much of her girlhood and young womanhood at Lissadell, in County Sligo, Ireland. There she and her sister Eva spent time with Jack and W.B. Yeats when they all were young; Con and Eva are the subjects of one of W.B's best-known, if also barbed, elegies, "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz."

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Constance (left) and Eva Gore-Booth in 1895.

Her life as an artist, before she became a notable political and revolutionary figure, is worth summarizing here. She wanted to study art, but, as a woman, was obliged to leave Ireland and return to London to do so. In 1892, she began studies at the Slade School, and also took classes in Paris at Académie Julian. While in Paris, she met Count Casimir Markievicz; they were married and moved to Ireland in 1901.

A member of the Irish Citizen Army by the early nineteen-teens, Markievicz was a leader of the Easter Rising of April 24-29, 1916. A lieutenant, she was arrested after the Rising, tried for "causing disaffection among the civilian population of His Majesty" and sentenced to death -- but given life in prison instead, because she was a woman. After being moved to Royal Holloway Prison in London for a time, Markievicz was released, returned to Ireland, and was elected repeatedly to political office (including becoming the first woman elected to England's House of Commons -- a seat she would not, as a Sinn Fein member, take). She died in 1927 and was given a hero's -- or heroine's -- funeral. In this year, commemorations of the Rising have included a major conference centering on Markiewicz at Lissadell, and she and her husband are the subject of a new biography by Lauren Arrington, Revolutionary Lives.

As I look again at the sketch in the Whyte's catalogue, it seems to me that Markievicz -- or, as she likely was at the time of its execution, Con Gore-Booth -- has used herself as a model. After all, well-born young ladies in the 1890s, even those in art school, were not permitted to have access to nude models. This was true even in comparatively progressive Paris. Without nude models and the training in drawing and painting them, many women turned to landscape painting -- as, indeed, Markiewicz did upon her return to Dublin after 1901.

The profile of the sketch shows her prominent nose and slight overbite, and the hair is styled as hers was while it was long. I think that some fortunate, or sharp-eyed, buyer on Saturday must have recognized Markiewicz, and paid -- to my mind -- a modest sum for what is likely a self-portrait of the artist as a young woman.

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Any young artist would give his eye-tooth to have a piece of work exhibited at a major gallery in New York. Let alone two. Let alone three! But that's exactly what happened to Nick Farhi, a young artist I've been following for a while. Last week, you could see his work at the Leila Heller Gallery, the NADA Show, and the Ethan Cohen Gallery simultaneously. Impressive to say the least. But not as impressive as Farhi's work.

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I first became aware of Farhi through his deeply moving "drum skin" paintings. In this series he makes his canvas out of a drum skin, that is, the white material that makes up the top of the instrument, complete with the manufacturing mark along with the vestiges of drumstick strikes -- the markings, usually created by the musician beating the hell out of the instrument, seem to represent the rhythm, the energy, and the passion of the player. Looking at these circular structures on a wall, the loudest sound in the orchestra is only a distant memory, the rhythms floating somewhere in the past; now the worn scuffs imbue peace and tranquility, an Agnes Martin for the Millennium, windows of human life and expression.

For three decades the Leila Heller Gallery has been identifying and cultivating the careers of artists who leave a lasting impact on contemporary art and culture. Her latest show, "Shrines to Speed, Art and the Automobile: From the Minimal To the Postmodern," features lots of cars, of course, but mostly destroyed cars, car crashes, tire skids, all rather violent. I'm surprised the late Los Angeles artist Carlos Almaraz who specialized in fiery collisions wasn't included. However, in the show were Andy Warhol, John Chamberlain, Richard Prince, John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, Robert Raushenberg, plus Nick Farhi. Among the flattened car (Ron Arad), the tower of destroyed painted chromed stainless steel (Chamberlain), and the muddy tire tracks (Raushenberg), Farhi's work Green Flag, 2016 (Oil on Cotton 30x24in.) stood out by seamlessly combining all the elements of the show into one beautiful image, a checkerboard of racing stripes. Deep green cubes alternate with traditional black but there is a subtle undulation in the work; as my eye went down the painting, the slight shifts in the geometry, gently hinted at the power of NASCAR, representing the power and speed of the car itself and the unbridled energy of the possibility of destruction from an out-of-control accident. But then it all seemed calm. Again, I was reminded of Agnes Martin.

At this year's NADA, the New Art Dealers Alliance, which is always fun, I ran into Al Moran, founder of the OHWOW Galleries; Farhi used to sweep the floors at the New York location. I asked Moran about Farhi's career and trajectory. He said, without hesitation, "The sky's the limit."

I went specifically to see the Rod Bianco Gallery exhibition of Farhi's latest. Bianco is based in Oslo but has garnished worldwide attention representing Bjarne Melgaard, the famous Norwegian artist based in New York. Almost every review I saw of NADA featured Grear Patterson's "716 Baseballs," also at the Bianco Gallery. I enjoyed the baseballs but I was dazzled by Farhi's monumental racing strip paintings. The smallish one at Heller gave no indication what the sequence would look like blown up. His three enormous paintings installed in a corner of the booth was an homage to speed/calm, Farhi's signature. Considerable larger than the one at the Heller Gallery, these pieces' modulating colors had bigger surfaces to command; there was an iridescence in them that danced across the paintings. Plus, the communication between these three paintings, a vertical dark blue and black one (108x51in.) the green (72x48in.) and my favorite, the shimmery yellow one, (also 72x48in) made for a combustible wall of energy, though one slowed down to embrace the artist's contemplative side..

"Some ideas can be seen as very simple'" said Farhi when I caught up with him at NADA, "but in actuality there's a much larger context at work. As with the drink stains or this new racing flag, these are things innately and infinitely in existence. I feel like celebrating those realities in continuing life as an artist, someone who engages with people every day. I feel that these are the secret languages."

Farhi appears at the Ethan Cohen Gallery as part of First We Take Manhattan, a show curated by Isaac Aden whose own work took over the top floor.

Downstairs houses one of the best "Wine Paintings," I'd ever seen. These Farhi paintings feature visceral mixtures of oil paint dripped in spots and blotches resembling the kinds of stains one fines on table clothes. The piece seems to be taking an ongoing survey of rare interactions in society. What happened to make those stains? Who were the diners? What were they saying, and to whom? It seems that Farhi's embrace of the unknown incudes a jovial spirit for the way we experience beauty in hardship.

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Of the piece, Vladislav Sludsky, the gallery manager said, "We all know the story of abstract expressionism and transcendencey and how to pass this universal, artistic, utilitarian message. But to put it on one canvas is extremely complicated and challenging. But what Farhi does is crop the pieces of this time and space moment of reality because that's his limitations as a human being and artist, but he does it truly and very sincerely." I felt rather proletarian after hearing Vald talk because I simply loved how the random stains seem to morph into a beating heart near the edge of a canvas; I thought of lovers spilling the wine as they talked about their future and suddenly an image emerged on their table.

Leo Fitzpatrick, co-director of the Marlborough Chelsea Gallery commenting back at the NADA show said, "My generation has come and had their moment. Now it's Nick's turn." Indeed.

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Marion Cotillard could not be more beautiful. In Nicole Garcia's From the Land of the Moon she plays a sensuous adolescent with furious sexual desires: longings so intense that she sweeps her voluminous breasts over her schoolteacher's desk to tempt him. At night "Gabrielle" licks words in a book that the teacher has written. At several points in the movie, she runs through fields and forests in delirious passion.

She is a very likable character, at least at first. We can empathize with her untoward desires and her frank expression of what she wants. What is particularly exciting is that the camera takes her point of view. When Gabrielle does--eventually--experience the passion of her dreams with a man she loves, the camera focuses on the flesh of the male, his chest, his hands, his caresses.

Yet Gabrielle, like previous heroines of great passion, is unorthodox for society, and is punished for her urges. Her punishment is marriage. The alternative is incarceration.

Even married, however, she is a beast in a cage.

It is a pleasure to watch this movie, mostly for the fascinating elliptical beauty of Marion Cotillard. As director Nicole Garcia told us in the press conference: "I picked Marion because her body speaks. She is the geography of this film: she is the Alps, the fields. I was looking for someone who can render sensuality and brutality." Marion commented that she identified with her character's need to "spread her wings in freedom."

Yet whatever innovative--and dare I say 'feminist'--twists on female desire Garcia achieved in the early scenes is nullified by the second half of the film. Here the rebellious Gabrielle "evolves". She becomes a woman. No longer is she the sexual wild wench consumed with her own desires. She goes from "nature" to 'ethics." While this movie is a step up from films and books that demonize female desire, it does not let that desire hold center stage for long.

Gabrielle is 'educated.'

"Yes, education is what happens," agreed co-scriptwriter Jacques Fieschi.

In taking this angle, the movie departs from the original novel on which the film is based. In Milena Agus' novel, desire remains painful. It is never tamed. Instead, what we have here is an update of The Taming of the Shrew, or--to cite the director's own (alarming) reference in the press conference ---The Story of O . The woman, she pointed out, is "educated in love."

We may be happy that Gabrielle finally grows up. It is a relief actually that she learns to embrace higher values than her own body. And throughout, Marion Cotillard gives a stunning performance. But it is a film that is sure to please more of a conventional audience--the kind for whom the Cinderella marriage to the prince is inherently a happy ending--than the critical spectator.

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This article originally appeared on Grryo.

I discovered photography around four years ago...or perhaps it is photography that found me.

It all started with some very severe sleep deprivation. Some might even say I was delirious at the time. I'd recently had my fourth baby, and to say he didn't like to sleep is an understatement. Not. A. Wink. It was sheer torture, day after day, month after month, and it seemed endless. But it was during this bleary-eyed haziness that I felt something explode inside of me. I remember it so clearly, almost tangibly (and believe me, I do not remember much from that time). Creativity started pouring out of me, like lava from a volcano. I began painting and making collages, almost manically. Silly little works to me, as I certainly did not perceive myself as an artist. Creating something - anything - gave the sleeplessness some worthy purpose.

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In Hiding

As a child I'd been very creative, enjoying reading, writing and painting. I longed to study fine art after high school, but my art teacher laughed at me and said I was more suited to studying psychology. I was mortified, deeply embarrassed. I'll never forget the humiliation. How could I have got it so wrong? How could I have dared to imagine that I could be an artist? I decided to study literature at University (I took some psychology classes too - ha!). I went on to work as a children's book editor, a job I loved. I thought I'd found my calling, helping others tell their stories, working behind the scenes.

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The Parting

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The Burial

All along, though, there were stories that I needed to tell too. On a whim during this sleep-deprived-but-creative phase, I found myself buying a used DSLR - a Canon 30D. Looking back now, I don't really know why I did this, but I can only guess it was another effort to save myself from the sinking ship I was on. I started researching like crazy, learning everything I could about photography. I enrolled in online courses, watched tutorial after tutorial till all hours of the night. I was utterly exhausted, but at the same time completely energised by this newfound obsession. Making images - expressing myself in a visual way - made me feel alive. It was like being reunited with a long-lost friend.

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Stronger Than She Looks

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Reunited

At first I was simply documenting our family life. I was happy just to be able to capture light, to produce an image that matched what I envisaged in my mind. But soon I began to get a niggling feeling that producing a "pretty picture" wasn't quite enough. There had to be something more. I started reading about contemplative photography as a way of producing more meaningful images. This mindful approach really struck a chord with me and I began to put some of its techniques into practice.

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Eye of the Heart

One day, about two years into my photography journey (and sleeping much better by now!), I made a startling discovery. I was browsing my Lightroom library, when it suddenly hit me. Images jumped out at me, like embers from a fire. I was shocked to see that what I was really photographing was not just my children - it was me. I could see my own childhood, my own pain, my own emotions in the images. I could see how my creativity had been buried beneath my insecurities and, dare I say it, shame. At first this revelation was somewhat disturbing. It was a bit like being given a new pair of glasses, looking in the mirror and suddenly seeing all the ugly imperfections that you never knew were there. I remember at one point thinking I might not be able to pick up a camera again - it was too painful to face myself in that way. I could hear that old storyline echoing in my mind - "you're not cut out for this". But despite myself, I started feeling incredible healing taking place.

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Finally Seen

Since that moment, I've looked at photography in a completely different way. I've stopped striving to "take" good photos; rather I feel excited to see what images I will be given. My images have taken on a new meaning. They continue to tell me stories about myself, revealing secrets I didn't even know I was keeping. Often it's in the little in-between moments, in the photos I would otherwise reject as "mistakes". Other times it's in the gems. Furthermore, an image may reveal something to me today, and months later it may reveal something new. It's almost as if each image has an endless number of stories in it.

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Roots

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Playing With Light

These days I photograph with a Canon 5D and an iPhone 6. Since joining Instagram a few months ago, I have been moved and inspired to find a whole community of people courageously sharing their stories with me. In the process, I have been encouraged to learn that others find meaning in my images too. This has been a most rewarding and humbling experience.

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Escape from the Cage

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Soar

Dorothea Lange once said, "A photographer's files are, in a sense, his autobiography", and I don't think she was necessarily referring to documentary photography, which was her genre. I think there are stories being revealed in all photographers' work. I encourage you to look more closely at yours. You never know what secrets you will find.

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Quiet

You can see more of Romina's work on Instagram and Flickr.

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Pearry Teo has made a name for himself not only as the first Singaporean director to break through in Hollywood, but also for his particular variation on horror cinema, which tends to present an unusual slant on rather well-trodden ground.

This is on full display with The Curse of Sleeping Beauty, a take on the classic fairy tale that has more to do with the demented aesthetics of Silent Hill than with Prince Charming or singing animals. In it, Thomas Kaiser (Ethan Peck, the grandson of the late and great Gregory) inherits an ancestral mansion that comes with a supernatural obligation: keeping the evil demons trapped inside at bay while attempting to awaken the mythological Briar Rose (India Eisley) from her centuries-long sleep.

Below, Teo elaborates on his creative process, what he considers to be the most important facet of horror, and the future planned television series that will continue the film's story.

(Please note that this interview has been edited for clarity and brevity both.)

What do you think is the most important element of horror, whether the medium is film or comics or what-have-you: the atmosphere? The pacing? The aesthetic?

I think, actually, the most important thing about horror is, really, the audience. I think introducing audiences - whether it be visuals, new monsters, whatever it is - I think it's all about the user experience, all about making them feel new things. I think that the allure of it, for me, is that - you know, you have that very safe, primal feeling, and I think the most important thing is to introduce them to it, and to introduce them to new types of fear, new types of dread that they've never felt before. To me, it's the audience - for sure.

I know you locked yourself up in a room for a month before preproduction started to nail the look of the movie. What was that process like?

Like, a day-to-day thing?

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Yeah.

I usually wake up at 5:00 in the morning, and I'll probably lay there and let my mind really, really wander. Oftentimes, it could even be some form of meditation or something, but I think, in the beginning of the day, when your mind is still fresh, it is time for you to really, really get to know yourself. I could do this for an hour, maybe two, until the sun starts to rise, [and then I] take a shower, and then I really sit there and start pouring through anything that's around me. It's about finding things that really connect with me, whether it's things I find online or things that are around me; sometimes, maybe, I'll go out, usually by myself - I think of it as, like, a date with yourself - and go to my favorite stores, look around, and see if there's anything new or if I connect with anything.

[Later on,] I usually try to take a nap - I know that sounds like I'm an old guy, which I am (I feel like an old guy, anyway) - and then the rest of the day is trying to integrate and trying to connect things for my scrapbook. By the end of the day, my head is just swarming with all kinds of things, so I'll try to sit down and maybe have some vodka to calm my head down a little bit, watch some movies that I'll get inspired by or have influenced me. And that repeats itself for about a month.

Sometimes I find new things to connect with; oftentimes I don't. And if I don't, I try not to stress about it - I just let it be and understand that it's just a process.

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What was your writing process like with Josh Nadler? Did it differ at all from your previous writing collaborations?

Not really. One of the hardest things was that we knew we had to write this entire script in about six weeks. That's a really fast turnaround; sometimes, you can have screenwriters writing scripts for two years. But, in this case, we had, like, six weeks to deliver it. And so we had to find a screenwriter that understood my process, understood my style, because the screenwriter that I used to work with on a regular basis was busy on another film. We finally found Josh, and he's a great guy.

The process was really simple: we discussed the story elements first, what the story really was about, and then I wrote the first draft of it - it was almost like a free-flow of thought. After I got everything out of my system, I handed it to Josh and went, "All right, why don't you start tweaking what you think needs tweaking - dialogue, story beats, and all that." And while he was doing that, focusing on the story, I went to focus on the visuals. I started crafting visuals, aesthetics, scenes - things I'd like to do with [the film]. And then it all comes together by the time the second or third draft comes along.

The ending is wide-open, and I hear that you're already in development on a television series. How far out do you have the story planned?

It's not about how far out - it's about stop thinking about it. [laughs] We have such a wealth of resources. We didn't want to go the Once upon a Time route; we wanted to try something that was a little bit more different. [We didn't want to say,] "Now we're going to bring in Snow White; now we're going to bring in this" - we didn't want to do the whole fairy tales thing. You've seen how we've introduced the jinn, the Arabic demons, into the picture [in Curse of Sleeping Beauty] - the thing the TV series really aims to introduce is demons and supernatural entities from many different cultures. TV always taps into witches and ghosts and vampires and werewolves, but there's a wealth of resources out there in this world; so many cultures do their own interpretations of things, their own mythology, their own folklore, and I believe The Curse of Sleeping Beauty is a great vehicle because of how exotic I wanted it to be, and the way I can amp out this exoticness is that, in every episode, we can introduce a new creature from a different folklore from a different part of the world.

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So, the TV show would be more of an anthology and less a direct continuation of the film?

That's the idea - I'd bring in more characters. If you notice in the movie, there was a very brief mention of 13 jinns. Well, obviously, you can tell there are 13 episodes [laughs], so each episode is actually a gatekeeper. Finding the gatekeeper will unlock not only the mystery of Sleeping Beauty, but will unlock a curse.

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty is out now in theaters. It arrives on iTunes and video-on-demand on May 17.

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The living room of Ernest Hemingway's casa.

I spent ten days in Havana, Cuba, from February 9, 2016 to February 19, 2016--roughly a month before President Obama made his historic trip. It was my first trip to Cuba, and I kept a close journal of my time there. I also wrote poetry there and I will include some of it in journal entries.

Sat. February 13, 2016. 8:38 AM

Beautiful morning; I slept really well.
Two kids we see at Cuba Libro often: Peter, a bilingual, bisexual poet and translator who rollerblades "professionally," that is, he makes videos of his rollerblading, and is into martial arts, especially jiujutsu--he got a 2nd degree black belt from North Korea, that in itself is a story; and his girlfriend, Julia, a doctor who works as a chef and tattoo artist. In Cuba, that is not unusual. Doctors make so little pay that they often quit medicine. All medical services are free (including plastic surgery)--though the waits at clinics are famous--so doctors are paid less than cab drivers. Cuba does not have a doctor shortage, since medical education is also free, but it does have a shortage of specialists. So medical specialists are forbidden to leave the country. How they keep up with progress in their fields is a mystery to me.

There is no advertising--commercial, private--in Cuba. No billboards with models selling looks or products you can't have. No ads in Cuban newspapers or magazines. Except for ads, or billboards, for the government, the Revolucion.

Hugh noticed that on Ash Wednesday, the day after we arrived, there were no ash crosses on any foreheads: in a formerly, almost all-Catholic country. We have seen a few nuns, and there are still working churches. The Pope was here Friday to meet the Prelate of the Russian Orthodox Church in a media-catching attempt at "rapprochement," and Hugh was sure he saw at least one priest at a big hotel in full Russian Orthodox "drag." But no one is talking about the Pope: not one cab driver or waiter. There are no pictures of him sold on the streets, no souvenirs of his visit. Hugh feels that the R.C. Church is rearing to make big-time come back here once U.S.-Cuban relations have been "normalized," i.e. we take back Cuba as a "trading partner." I'm sure that Christian fundamentalists, the Mormons, and other groups are as well.

We get approached often by friendly, talkative Cuban men who tell us how much they love the U.S.--one went rhapsodic about the Yankees and wants to "see Yankee Stadium before I die!"--and Americans. They want to know where we're from, and how we like Cuba; then they ask for a "CUC." [equal to $1 USD]. One old man asked if we were married back in the U.S. and if we had kids. Hugh told him, "We are married to each other." The man's face went still for a moment, then he said, "Cuba is beautiful, si?"

Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016. 10:15 A.M.

Valentines's Day is very importante in Cuba. Raul, our host at the casa, congratulated us at breakfast. "It is the day of lovers and friends."

There are posters up all over town about it, and every restaurant has a greeting for the festivities. It may be the second most important day after New Year's, except for anniversaries of events in the Revolucion.

Yesterday, after a leisurely breakfast, we arranged for a taxi driver to take us out to San Francisco, a town about an hour out of Havana, where the Casa and Museum Hemingway is. The car had no springs at all, the road mostly corrugated ruts, but the drive was interesting--very run-down, poor area, like one constant Cartier-Bresson photograph: people being their real selves every moment; outdoor markets; bus stops; schools; very scratchy-looking railroad stations for a country rail line; energetic kids and young people everywhere.

The view from the highest point at casa Hemingway.

Finally, we turn off the road, past a small farming settlement to the Hemingway "finca," or farm--a working farm he bought in the late 1930s. Probably cheaply. His house, which is actually closed to the public [except for certain high-paying tourists] but conversely "open" with large, view-capturing windows everywhere through which you can look in and take pictures, is on a beautiful high promontory. Views back to Havana, to the sea. Gleaming rivers nearby where he fished. Inside, herds of animal heads he shot: antelopes, cougar, buffalo. The rooms have been beautifully preserved, all of his personal articles--books, typewriters, boots, his World War I uniform, toiletry items like hair brushes, even toothbrushes and combs, even magazines he read or was featured in, like Life, are on display. There are pictures or formal portraits of him at various points in his life, and large, framed bullfight posters. The light, softly filtering through large trees and copious vines, is beautiful, like being in this nostalgic dream of a lost time, the 1940s through the end of the 1950s, when Ernest Hemingway was one of the world's most famous people. Ava Gardiner, Frank Sinatra, among other luminaries of the period, were house guests.

The author beguiled by the Hemingway mystique.

There is a short walk to a once-refreshing, deep pool--now drained; all dry concrete--with a cabana for changing, and an area under a classical portico for, I'm sure, snacks and drinks. Next to the pool is Hemingway's boat, the Pilar, up on supports, long out of any water. Down the hill, at the gift shop, filled with Che and Castro souvenirs, they sell miniatures of it.
The house is so moving, private, and yet not that isolated or isolating, really, that I had a private, tearful moment remembering how much I loved his work when I was young. I wrote this, my own souvenir of the place.

At Hemingway's "Farm"

How could Papa leave this? The
terrible sadness of it--this hairy-
chested macho display of animal
heads, and
Torero posters; the books; the paintings;
the tiled floors and reaches of windows
to catch the Cuban breeze. How could

he leave the blue-veined flowers,
growing on the veranda roof and
the palms outside stroking the face
of every cloud, and the intense perfect sky
clear as passionate youth, as tears,
as heart beak, as everything you wanted
to be in your own youth, your own
Hemingway
passage when you lived in Paris
and in Spain and Cuba in the leathery
lush potency of his books? At the
library.
And you wanted to be a friend of Lady Brett
and Jake Barnes and Nick Adams and the boys
who swarmed to you because you
understood death the way boys need to:
as a gift of life, a fantasy, a delirium, a
shot

pushed past orgasm and bullfighting
and trout fishing and drinking and
darkness, when you went down that alley
and saw Gary Cooper and raised
your arms
and would not let him go.

Feb 13, 2016
Hemingway "Finca"
San Francisco, Cuba.

[A few notes for non-Hemingway people: In stout middle age, the once dashing Ernest Hemingway became known as "Papa." Lady Brett and Jake Barnes are characters in his great novel of young Americans in Paris, The Sun Also Rises; "Nick Adams" was the protagonist of his series of short stories named after him. Hemingway left Cuba in 1960, and his "farm" was confiscated by Castro's government. H was very attached to Gary Cooper, and supposedly wrote For Whom the Bell Tolls with the intention that Cooper would star in the movie; he did. Hemingway committed suicide in Ketchum, ID, in 1961.]

The Pilar, with the graves of Hemingway's dogs in front of it.

Multiple award-winning author Perry Brass has published 19 books. His newest is The Manly Pursuit of Desire and Love, Your Guide to Life, Happiness, and Emotional and Sexual Fulfillment in a Closed-Down World which just won a Silver Ippy Medal for Best LGBT Non-Fiction, but was banned on Facebook as was his previous The Manly Art of Seduction. His thriller novel Carnal Sacraments, A Historical Novel of the Future Set in the Last Quarter of the 21st Century, has just been translated into Italian. He can be reached through his website, www.perrybrass.com.

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Wild Lupin, Oil on Linen, 79 x 57 inches

Artist Pat Mahony enjoys taking long walks that give her time to reflect and take in her surroundings. Over the past two years, while taking these strolls, Mahony has become tuned in to what she calls the "perfect chaos" of closely observed nature. It is this wild and unpredictable energy--the randomness of light and color seen at a particular moment in time--that has inspired her recent oil paintings. Capturing just the right balance of chaos and structure has been a challenge. "My goal," Mahony explains, "has been to somehow define the chaos of nature without losing the necessity of creating a cohesive painting that hopefully elicits an emotional response from the viewer.

I recently interviewed Pat to ask her about her recent paintings, which will be on view at the John Natsoulas Center for the Arts in Davis, beginning on May 18th.

John Seed Interviews Pat Mahony

Pat Mahony

Pat, tell me about your education and early career

I attended the University of California, Santa Barbara, and graduated with a BA with honors in 1973. Because of my financial circumstances I was unable to attend graduate school despite the encouragement of my professors. I worked in the financial field as a stockbroker, first full time and then part time until I could devote myself full time to my art.

At that point I took classes from several prominent artists here in Sacramento and finally with their help I was finally affiliated with the Artists' Contemporary Gallery. This was the premier gallery at the time in Sacramento and represented Wayne Thiebaud and Gregory Kondos among other luminaries. It was a huge break for me. This was in 1980. I had my first solo show at Sacramento City College in 1981.

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Purple Iris, Oil on canvas, 60 x 48 inches

What kind of work were you doing in the 80s?

Even though my background/degree in college was in printmaking and oil painting, I first started working in watercolors. I have always tended to paint what I know. I was living in an urban environment at the time so I painted architectural scenes. They were interpretations of building facades, focusing on shadows and windows in a grid-like fashion. I started getting national exposure in that medium and won awards in national watercolor competitions and appeared in many watercolor and artist magazines. I also caught the eye of Allan Stone, of the Allan Stone Gallery in New York, and he exhibited some of my work in group shows starting in 1987.

Red Sapling, Oil on canvas, 60 x 72 inches

How did your work change over time?

It was after that time that my husband and I moved to a rural location on the Sacramento River. The move caused me to shift my focus to the landscape. It was at this time that I decided to switch back to oil painting. I wanted to work in larger formats and have greater color fastness with the paint. Almost all of the work I did from 1988 to 2002 were my impressions of the River and the surrounding farmland. The landscapes were well received and many are in the permanent collections of corporate and public institutions.

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Spring Pear, Oil on linen, 48 x 36 inches

Tell me about how the imagery of your current show evolved.

In 2002 we moved to another part of town where my studio backs up to a nature preserve and the American River. The riparian habitat is very different here from the one along the Sacramento River. I have been greatly influenced again by my surroundings. The current show involves my observations over the last two years of walking in the forested area near my home.

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Japanese Maple, Oil on paper, 30 x 22 inches

Most of my previous landscapes were influenced by memories of nature and vistas were seen as a whole. In my walks over the past 2 years I began to notice the wild energy reflected in nature up close and began to observe what I would characterize as a perfect chaos. The harmony I always saw before was slowly being replaced by the sheer randomness of light and color given the particular day or time of year. My goal was to somehow define the chaos without losing the necessity of creating a cohesive painting that hopefully elicits an emotional response from the viewer.

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Spring Countryside, Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

What kinds of materials, media, sizes and ideas are you currently working with?

All of the paintings in the show are oils on canvas, linen, or paper. Many of the paintings are quite large, up to 7' x 7'. The idea with some of the large pieces is to bring the viewer into the tree canopy. In others I attempted to magnify the wild flora. In all of these cases my intent is to push the representational aspects of what I see to the edge of abstraction. Especially on the large pieces, I have tried to match the wildness of nature with a wild and physical application of paint.

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Yellow Leaves, Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

Where does your work seem to be going?

I find myself throwing paint at the canvas and/or using my hands to apply the medium in an effort to reflect what I am seeing and feeling in the subject matter. My work has always hovered between representation and abstraction but this is a new phase for me. I feel it is part of my evolution toward total abstraction. In this series I feel as if I were having a conversation with nature.

Pat Mahony/Bob Schlegel
May 18 - July 12, 2016
Opening Reception: Saturday, May 28th, 7 pm - 9 pm
John Natsoulas Gallery
521 1st Street, Davis CA 95616

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There is more to Money Monster than meets the eye. Yes it deals with the familiar in the guise of a television show hosted by one Lee Gates (George Clooney) with hot dancing chicks accompanying supposedly hot stock tips. The first clue that something is amiss takes place in the initial disquisition in which Lee is setting up the day's program in league with his producer Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts). The banter is interminable and you wonder if the show is ever going to go on the air. But that's actually the point and it's underscored by Jodie Foster's brilliant surrealist direction. Gates, Fenn and the others on the set are caught in a kind of time warp. It's a little like Bunuel's Exterminating Angel, where the movie's characters are trapped in room or one of those episodes of Twilight Zone where people become prisoners of fictitious worlds. The claustrophobia is also a metaphor for the self-imploding financial world that the movie itself portrays where algorithms generate high speed trades. It's a world that has very little to do with productivity and value and lots to do with a mixture of technologic overdrive and show biz. The human price of this kind of distorted value free universe is what the title of the film alludes to and these initial scenes in which one day's fateful segment is being readied for broadcast are a wonderful and ominous presaging of what's to come. The character at the center of the drama is Kyle Budwell (Jack O'Connell) who owes his provenance to Travis Bickle and host of other alienated figures who, as outliers and victims of forces over which they have little control, defend themselves with the creation of obsessional universes. Still, Budwell's sparks of truth pepper the sky, like shooting stars in the great beyond. Kyle's fate is as much a product of cinema history as it is of television news or the disreputable nature of the financial world (the final scene recalls Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless). Money Monster capitalizes on a certain suspense, but it's more like a soap opera than a cliffhanger and remarkably stolid and almost impassive in its depiction of its own version of flesh eating bacteria.

{This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture}

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I have been following 'Pink Martini' for a while now, since my boyfriend played an album for a summer night's barbecue at our home about 10 years ago. Our guests immediately responded, "Who are these guys? I love them. They're terrific!" Recently I saw the band at a venue in Long Island called the 'Landmark,' on Main Street in Port Washington, New York.

Is anything new? Well, with 'Pink Martini,' it is always an integrated fusing of the new and classic, the worldly and the world, the poignant and humorous; I could go on, but I am running out of pairings. They are only predictable in how great they invariably are every time. With charisma aplenty, this twenty-two year old, very solid band, puts out some great songs and what sets them apart is their original music as well as their utter integrity, making old international songs, fresh and crisp, more alive and divine through their boundless maestro's orchestrations. His name is Thomas Lauderdale and he is a phenomenal composer, musician and arranger. At one time he had aspirations of becoming the mayor of Portland, Oregon. And though I am sure he would have been an asset to Portland polemics (and has been for numerous political fundraisers as a performer), I am among many who are grateful he chose the fork in the road with the sign that said, 'MUSIC' instead of 'POLITICS.' They travel the globe sharing their plentiful treasure trove of new compositions and old melodies. These guys won't be touring forever, eventually they will settle down and return to Portland full time, as traveling regularly can get old and exhausting. It isn't ten, fifteen years ago when people made money from albums, which makes live performance a necessity, if you are going make a living in music.

As Thomas explained," The industry has totally changed, I'm not sure where things are headed. If we were to start this band today I'm not sure it would work." He puts his whole being into his efforts with absolute devotion and excitement when he rehearses as well as performs. For the first time 'Pink Martini' is working on an original score for a film, which will feature Isabelle Huppert as a singer making a comeback after working in a meat pie factory for years. According to Laura Hardin, their marketing manager, "They will have three French originals on the album (all sung by China), which Thomas wrote as a part of the soundtrack for the French/Belgian film 'Souvenir,' which will have a European debut this fall as well. 'Pink Martini' writes and performs the entire score for the film."

I have heard some of their latest tunes and as always I'm smitten.

When I asked Thomas how he feels about the music of now, he wistfully said "Americas lost the melody." No doubt 'Pink Martini's' oeuvre breaths energy into the musical wind, inspiring others to follow the melody of nonconformity.

The band went through a dramatic change a few years ago when singular songstress China Forbes lost her voice on the heels of a sold out four day run at the Kennedy Center and in an emergency Lauderdale asked mutual friend Storm Large to step in (and yes that is her real name). This was not an easy thing for her to do, as anyone can imagine the pressure to take another female vocalists spotlight might be misunderstood, but a frantic state of affairs requires friends to step up, hence she agreed to do it with the caveat that Thomas explain the circumstances before every performance, so the audience wouldn't throw tomatoes at her or think disparaging girl on girl hair pulling thoughts. Storm learned ten songs in five languages in four days. "Try to hold back vomiting and make everything look great," Storm chortles. The lady is a trooper with a beautiful vibe inside and out. Very different than China in her expression, she's Jessica Rabbit mixed with Judy Garland. An edgy chanteuse with kind of a serpent like expression, moving all over the stage, belting out tunes from far and wide. Some of my favorites are the wonderful new addition of a Turkish song "Askin Bahardi," Storm's interpretation of "I've Got You Under My Skin" is a trip through the deepest sorrow and desperation of desire, "Ne me quitte Pas" is fabulous, just to name a few.

The great thing is these two ladies are richly distinctive, there is no competition because the two cannot be compared. It worked out beautifully.

China Forbes is a classically trained, regal and totally rock-solid lead singer, she is still and luxuriates in her vocal emission. Listening to her is like a sumptuous hot bubble bath on a wickedly cold night; she makes you feel good and warm and happy. Her rounded tones express the elegance of a 1940s-50s songstress in an old movie, but laced with the training of a champion opera singer. Having trained myself, it is heavenly to listen to her golden voice sore. She is also a great songwriter and one of my very favorite songs is "Hey Eugene!." She wrote it after waiting for a call from a guy she met at a party who said he would, but didn't. Lucky for her admirers, because 'Hey Eugene!" is excellent fun and all too familiar to those of us who have sought a significant other.

It's an awful thing to suddenly find yourself in predicament where nothing is coming out of your mouth but desperation. China touchingly explains:"I was at a place in my life where something had to give, and it was my voice that broke. As the mother of a toddler I needed to stop touring and was unable to step off that carousel until I was forced into silence. My body literally stopped me because I could not stop myself. During that time of silence I reflected on work, relationships, motherhood, sanity, and how to find balance. Ever since that time off I have really stayed in a good place between high and low and I am grateful to have my voice back, my beloved job back and my happiness back."

Can we expect the same 'Pink Martini' we know and love for the next twenty years I asked China? "Yes and no. I hope we always maintain our original flavor, but so much has changed over twenty years and one never knows what Thomas Lauderdale will come up with next!"

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