Ouro Preto: A Colonial City's Lessons

April 15, 2014, 12:43 pm

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Ouro Preto's Santa Efigenia Church


ON THE SECOND day of my Brazilian art collector tour we visited Ouro Preto, a Brazilian colonial town nestled in a mountainous region in the center of the state of Minas Gerais, 423 miles northeast of the city of São Paulo.

The discovery of gold in the 18th century led to Ouro Preto's becoming the focus of a gold rush, as Europeans flocked there to pan for gold in the nearby streams -- and eventually this to the development of extensive mining in the area's mountains. At its peak, Ouro Preto boasted a population of 100,000, making it then the most populous city in South America. Successive generations built charming homes on winding cobble-stone streets, a spacious town square and numerous Baroque churches and four chapels. The town was declared a UNESCO World Monument site in 1980.





A highlight of the visit to the Church of São Francisco (St. Francis), which features a magnificent painted ceiling by Manuel da Costa Ataíde. As I viewed the ceiling painting I was powerfully struck by the colonial influence has informed some of Brazil's greatest artists. And in particular I recalled the visit the day before to Inhotim's Adriana Verajão pavilion and MAM-São Paulo's stunning Verajão retrospective last year. Verajão's work employs multiple colonial references -- from the sensual intimacy of Portuguese tiles to the bravura splendor of church murals -- and a visit to Ouro Preto taught me not just about the colonial references but also informed the politics of her work. As I walked the streets and learned the history I learned how churches were segregated by race: black, mulatto and white. And I learned of the slave history that is embedded in the region's mining. All this gave an historical insight to the blood-like, bodily oozing found in the painted interstices of some of Verajão's paintings.

In and of itself, Ouro Preto is a stunning 18th-century town and well worth repeated visits. It is also a living history that illuminates important contemporary art-making practices.




Interior of the church of St. Francis of Assisi, the most famous of Ouro Preto's churches and one of the most magnificent pieces of Minas Gerais Baroque; the wooden ceiling displays a beautiful painting by Manuel da Costa Ataíde.

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Lee Ranaldo's Lost Highways at Galerie Jan Dhaese

April 15, 2014, 12:48 pm

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Lee Ranaldo, Iowa, marker on paper, 9x12", 2013. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Jan Dhaese.


Lee Ranaldo's exhibition, Lost Highways at Galerie Jan Dhaese, in Gent, Belgium, includes works that are described by Ranaldo as quick sketches, and they appear diaristic and meditative -- uniformity exists as they were all created from the vantage point of a tour van's front seat, while traversing with his band, The Dust, for the past few years. Sketches of highway curves and iconographic landscapes offer a sense of duration with a repetition of imagery; we are faced with restlessness and stimulus together at once (on equal terms), evoking a feeling quite similar to glimpsing newness and sameness on a highway. We also feel the pull of destination. Ranaldo's sketches rely upon experience and personal reaction to landscape, movement and space; the sketches employ a systematic means of capturing elements of reality, while eliminating itinerary. Ranaldo's awareness of his surroundings and manner of drawing with graceful ambiguity leaves the highways nameless, without an absolute sense of night or day, leading to an openness of horizons, hills, and tree-lines, followed by a fast moving disappearance of vantage point.


Lee Ranaldo, Valencia 112913, marker & watercolor on paper, 9x12", 2013. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Jan Dhaese.


The inspiration for Ranaldo's Lost Highway series first developed in the late 70s, stemming from an interest in capturing moving landscapes from the perspective of a car window, and this was sustained over decades touring as Sonic Youth cofounder, guitarist and vocalist. Reflecting on the influence of time-cycles and travel, Ranaldo writes, "How does one draw a moving landscape? It's like trying to draw a rushing river. My first responses were gestural, skeins of lines following the horizon, the curve of the road and the shapes of the trees, continuously overlaid upon itself, forming a kinetic image. Over time certain iconographic images developed, certain curves in the road, views through breaks in the trees that were seen over and over again, no matter where one was traveling. The road, like the river, is ever changing and ever the same."

Ranaldo's works evoke a kind of meditation that remain personal, conveying a human experience of passing time, not filtered through any sensibility outside of that sense of movement and moment.


Lee Ranaldo, To Sao Paulo, marker on paper, 9x12", 2013. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Jan Dhaese.

10 Terms You Need to Know to Understand Poetry

April 15, 2014, 1:33 pm

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Poetry is meant to inspire readers and listeners, to connect them more deeply to themselves even as it links them more fully to others. But many people feel put off by the terms of poetry, its odd vocabulary, its notorious difficulty. They may like or even love individual poems--they often seek them for ritual occasions, like weddings and funerals--but they nonetheless feel that poetry itself isn't for them. They've been dispirited by their memories of school. I've always believed, however, that poetry goes well beyond the classroom and speaks to a wide variety of people in all kinds of circumstances. It delivers us to ourselves and helps us to live our lives. The terms of poetry--some simple, some complicated, some ancient, some new--should bring us closer to what we're hearing, enlarging our experience of it, enabling us to describe what we're reading, to feel and think with greater precision.

I've spent more than a decade putting together A Poet's Glossary, a book of familiar and unfamiliar terms, a compendium of discoveries that has befriended me. The devices work the magic in poetry, and a glossary gives names to those devices. It unpacks them. It is meant to be useful, enjoyable, enlightening, something to keep at hand. Its ultimate purpose is to deepen the reader's initiation into the mysteries.

Here then are 10 key terms that can enlarge your understanding of poetry:

rhythm: The word rhythm comes from the Greek word rhythmos, "measured motion," which in turn derives from a Greek verb meaning "to flow." Rhythm is sound in motion. It is related to the pulse, the heartbeat, the way we breathe. It rises and falls. It takes us into ourselves; it takes us out of ourselves. Rhythm is the combination in English of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates a feeling of fixity and flux, of surprise and inevitability. Rhythm creates a pattern of yearning and expectation, of recurrence and change. It is repetition with a difference.

line: A unit of meaning, a measure of attention. The line is a way of framing poetry. All verse is measured by lines. The poetic line immediately announces its difference from everyday speech and prose. An autonomous line makes sense on its own, even if it is a fragment. It is end-stopped and completes a thought. The first line in Keats's "Endymion" is end-stopped: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever." By contrast, an enjambed line carries the meaning over from one line to the next, as in the next four lines of Keats's poem: "Its loveliness increases; it will never / Pass into nothingness, but still will keep / A bower quiet for us, and a sleep / Full of sweet dreams..." Whether end-stopped or enjambed, however, the line in a poem moves horizontally, but the rhythm and sense also drive it vertically, and the meaning continues to accrue.

iambic pentameter: A five-stress, roughly 10 syllable line. This fundamental line, established by Chaucer (1340?-1400) for English poetry, was energized when English attained a condition of relative stability in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It might be the traditional formal line closest to the form of our speech and thus has been especially favored by dramatists ever since Christopher Marlowe, whose play Tamburlaine (1587) inaugurated the greatest Elizabethan drama, and William Shakespeare, who used it with astonishing virtuosity and freedom. John Milton showed how supple and dignified the pentameter line could be in Paradise Lost (1667): "Of man's first disobedience, and the fall / Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste / Brought death into the world, and all our woe, / With loss of Eden, till one greater Man / Restore us, and regain the blissful seat, / Sing, Heav'nly Muse..."

stanza:The natural unit of the lyric: a group or sequence of lines arranged in a pattern. A stanzaic pattern is traditionally defined by the meter and rhyme scheme, considered repeatable throughout a work. A stanzaic poem uses white space to create temporal and visual pauses. The word stanza means "room" in Italian -- "a station," "a stopping place" -- and each stanza in a poem is like a room in a house, a lyric dwelling place. Each stanza has an identity, a structural place in the whole. As the line is a single unit of meaning, so the stanza comprises a larger rhythmic and thematic sequence. It is a basic division comparable to the paragraph in prose, but more discontinuous, more insistent as a separate melodic and rhetorical unit. In written poems stanzas are separated by white space, and this division on the printed page gives the poem a particular visual reality.

metaphor: A figure of speech in which one thing is described in terms of another -- as when Walt Whitman characterizes the grass as "the beautiful uncut hair of graves." The term metaphor derives from the Greek metaphora, which means "carrying from one place to another," and a metaphor transfers the connotations of one thing (or idea) to another. It says A equals B ("Life is a dream"). It is a transfer of energies, a mode of energetic relation, of interpenetration, a matter of identity and difference, a collision, or collusion, in the identification of unlike things. Metaphor operates by condensation and compression. It works by a process of interaction and draws attention to the categories of language by crossing them. Readers actively participate in making meaning through metaphor, in thinking through the conjoining -- the relation -- of unlike things.

simile: The explicit comparison of one thing to another, using the word as or like -- as when Robert Burns writes: "My love is like a red, red rose / That's newly sprung in June: / My love is like the melodie / That's sweetly play'd in tune." The essence of simile is likeness and unlikeness, urging a comparison of two different things. A good simile depends on a kind of heterogeneity between the elements being compared. Similes are comparable to metaphors, but the difference between them is not merely grammatical. It is a difference in significance. Metaphor asserts an identity, but simile is a form of analogical thinking. The simile asserts a likeness between unlike things, but also draws attention to their differences. When Shakespeare asks, "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" (Sonnet 18, 1609), he is drawing attention to the artificial process of figuration.

sonnet:The fourteen-line rhyming poem was invented in southern Italy around 1235 or so. The word sonnet derives from the Italian sonetto, meaning "a little sound" or "a little song," but the stateliness of the form belies the modesty of the word's derivation. Something about the spaciousness and brevity of the form seems to suit the contours of rhetorical argument, especially when the subject is erotic love. The two main types of sonnet form in English are the English, or Shakespearean sonnet (so-called because Shakespeare was its greatest practitioner), which consists of three quatrains and a couplet usually rhyming abab, cdcd, efef, gg, and the Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet (so-called because Petrarch was its greatest practitioner), which consists of an octave (eight lines rhyming abbaabba) and a sestet (six lines rhyming cdecde). The volta, or "turn," refers to the rhetorical division and shift between the opening eight lines and the concluding six.

epigram: From the Greek epigramma, "to write upon." An epigram is a short, witty poem or pointed saying. In Hellenistic Greece (third century B.C.E.), the epigram developed from an inscription carved in a stone monument or onto an object, such as a vase, into a literary genre in its own right. The Greek Anthology is filled with more than fifteen hundred epigrams of all sorts, including pungent lyrics on the pleasures of wine, women, boys, and song. The epigram has no particular form, though it often employs a rhymed couplet or quatrain, which can stand alone or serve as part of a longer work. Here is Alexander Pope's "Epigram from the French" (1732): "Sir, I admit your general rule, / That every poet is a fool: / But you yourself may serve to show it, / That every fool is not a poet."

rhyme: The OED defines rhyme as "Agreement in the terminal sounds of two or more words or metrical lines, such that (in English prosody) the last stressed vowel and any sounds following it are the same, while the sound or sounds preceding it are different." Rhyme foregrounds the sounds of words as words. It is mnemonic: "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. / Red sky in morning, sailor's warning." Rhyme involves the inner correspondence of end sounds in words or in lines of verse. W. N. Ewer writes in "The Chosen People" (1924): "How odd / Of God / To choose / The Jews." This exemplifies exact rhyme, since the initial sounds are different, but all succeeding sounds are identical. It is called near rhyme when the final consonants are identical but the preceding vowels or consonants differ, as when W. B. Yeats rhymes houses and faces at the opening of "Easter, 1916."

poem: A made thing, a verbal construct, an event in language. In ancient Greek, the word poiesis means "making." The medieval and Renaissance poets used the word makers, as in "courtly makers," as a precise equivalent for poets, hence William Dunbar's "Lament for the Makers" (1508). The word poem came into English in the sixteenth century and has been with us ever since to denote a form of fabrication, a verbal composition, a humanly created thing of art.

Emerging Artist Spotlight: An Hoang, Painter

April 15, 2014, 2:19 pm

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An Hoang arrived in New York City in 2001 at the age of 23. Her first job was at an interior design firm on the Upper East Side, but the style desired by the clients didn't jibe with her sense of off-hand, wabi sabi elegance. She landed a job at Bill Maynes Gallery in Chelsea, where she was quickly promoted to Director. I got to know Hoang first in her role as an upbeat, calm, and organized arts administrator and eventually as a fellow painter.

At that time, my TriBeCa studio was large enough for Hoang to drop by and set up across the room. It was enjoyable for me to give her a few rudimentary tips and then watch her creativity take over. Hoang instinctively chose a limited palette that included a blue black. She constructed small paintings of windowsills and the view of the Hudson River in the background, compressing great distances. I could give her technique tips, but she already knew what she was doing in terms of composition and subject matter. She had a natural sense of restraint. I would sit at my far easel, too often in an aggravated state, and occasionally glancing up to soak in a bit of Hoang's seeming serenity.

Soon enough she got her own studio, and regularly had established artists she met in Chelsea stop by to give her criticism. By her late 20s she had developed into an accomplished painter.

Over the past decade I've been intrigued by what stays consistent and what changes in Hoang's work. Her direction has moved incrementally away from representation into pure abstraction. Her brushwork has loosened up and become more varied and her palette has expanded, but newer bright colors surface as zaps and bursts and then submerge back into her twilight sensibility. As her paintings have become more abstract, she's also jacked up their emotive quality.

Hoang's current show AS THE CROW FLIES at Halsey McKay Gallery (through April 30th) includes eight paintings that continue her exploration of chromatic greys that flicker between object and illusion. Think Clyfford Still interpreted by a very young Brice Marden or Luc Tuymans.

In Hoang's painting "Phantom" (2014), what feels like a hot pink Africa is smoldering beneath blue black smoke. In "On a Dark Night" (2013), there is a feeling of safety in the center of the color field - but it remains frustratingly out of your reach. In "Shadow" (2013), a Gustonesque large pale shape is being dragged into shadow against its will, even as a dark bar of paint assaults the shape at the top of the picture plane. These are just my personal responses to these paintings, which Hoang would likely accept with a gentle laugh. She's a kind person who tends to see the best in people, including their interpretations of her work.


Phantom (2014)


On a Dark Night (2013)


Shadow (2013)

No matter what I see or don't see, Hoang is chasing something only she can sense, and these paintings are by-products of that exploration. I look forward to seeing where her future exploration leads. In the meantime, don't take my words for it. Below, some words from the artist herself on her process, inspiration, and aspirations among other interesting things.

Interview with An Hoang:

What's the most indispensable item in your studio?
The most indispensable item in the studio is my window. My studio is located in an old telephone warehouse building in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Though many of the windows in the building have been replaced, the window in my studio is original to the building. It only opens a few inches, is full of cracks, holes and grime, but the mottled chicken wire glass diffuses the light in just the right way. You can't actually see out of it, but you can make out the color and forms of the buildings beyond the frame; an experience that is integral to my work.

What do you do when you're blocked?
When I feel stuck in the studio, I will either switch to a different scale of canvas or change to making drawings or works on paper. It changes the pace and helps to keep things moving.
I've also found that it can be helpful to travel and get out of my everyday environment and place myself in unfamiliar surroundings. This allows me to discover the familiar within these places, to see things in a new way.

How has travel influenced your work?
Two recent places that I have traveled to that have had an important impact on my work were Brazil and Alaska.

I was taken by the juxtaposition of the dense cities and favelas nestled within the rugged landscape of Brazil; the layers and colorful textures of the urban environment contrasted with the luscious tropical vegetation of the mountainous landscape. One of my favorite places to visit was Roberto Burle Marx's estate on the outskirts of Rio. Here, Burle Marx had over 100 acres of land where he planted various species he had discovered in the rainforest and would experiment to see what plants could thrive next to one another. As a visitor, you can now wander through the grounds of his personal landscape he created. In addition to being an ecologist, he was an accomplished landscape architect, painter and sculptor.

Alaska had an important impact on my work because the landscape is a striking contrast to my daily experience in the city. I had the opportunity to look out at the open sea, to hike on glaciers and quietly float along a fjord. To experience the landscape from those various perspectives was very valuable to my work; to be able to see the way the light reflects off the glacier; to hike into a glacial ice cave filled with electric blue light; to walk along the rocky terrain and to be able to see the way the recession of the glacier reveals the record of time on the surface of the land underneath.

What international art destination do you most want to visit?
I've never been to Spain and would love to go to the Reina Sofia Museum.

What work of art would you most like to own?
Bonnard's Dining Room on the Garden (Grande salle à manger sur le jardin), 1934-35.

Where are you finding ideas for your work these days?
I've always been interested in spatial conditions. While my work has evolved over the years, the early work engaged the familiarity of interior spaces- layering multiple perspectives within the same canvas so that there was a perspectival shifting of space. In more recent work, this interest in spatial relationships continued as I moved the viewer out of the interior and into the city. In that series of paintings the intimacy of an interior is fractured and juxtaposed with the anonymity of the city.

The work in my current show at Halsey McKay Gallery has developed in scale and continues to investigate spatial relationships with a perceptual shift that occurs as the viewer places themselves within the work. My exploration lies in representing contrasting experiences of nature and the urban environment to evoke the spirit and atmosphere of place. Working from memory, these experiences inform the paintings which become abstracted through the process of making.


Untitled (Memory III)
Visit www.anhoang.com to learn more about her work. Visit www.halseymckay.com to find information about the gallery and how to visit. All images courtesy An Hoang and Halsey McKay Gallery.

Online Artists Offer a Heartwarming Thank You to Hayao Miyazaki

April 15, 2014, 3:21 pm

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Hayao Miyazaki by Jackie W

Of all the animated films that have arrived in the United States from Japan, those produced by Studio Ghibli have been the most broadly accepted, with films like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away winning over the hearts of countless families.

To celebrate Studio Ghibli's founder, Hayao Miyazaki, California-based illustrator and graphic designer Jackie W. (@jmieldesigns on Twitter) invited her artist friends to contribute illustrations of their favorite Ghibli characters, which she then assembled into a beautiful poster and visual salute to Japan's equivalent of Walt Disney.

Illustrations are still being submitted to this collaboration, which will come to a close this month (you can track its progress on Twitter). The characters participants submit (which were first capped at 120 and have been expanded to 136) will ultimately be arranged by Jackie in chronological order, all the way up to Studio Ghibli's latest film, with a portrait of Miyazaki at the center.


Kiki by Jackie W

In addition to illustrating the portrait of Miyazaki, Jackie contributed an illustration of Kiki, the protagonist of Kiki's Delivery Service to this collaboration. "I feel like her sometimes," Jackie explains. "Going into the big world of trying to show you can do and be yourself while doing it. Also the message in the movie about overcoming your slump. I loved the movie as a kid, still love it till this day. It's my favorite film."

This collaborative ode to Hayao Miyazaki is not Jackie W.'s first collaborative endeavor online. Prior to this project, Jackie kicked off Art Jamz, a blog that invites followers to participate in two to three-month artistic prompts.



"The the reason behind the length is it will allow people to take their time developing their work," reasons Jackie.

This can be used as a stepping stone to create something bigger (like characters and creatures for a game, making your own book, zine, illustration prints, webcomic or graphic novel) or if you're fighting an art slump. I wanted to make a blog where folks can have fun with the prompts, meet other artists in a welcoming environment and also have them create their own projects. Participants can submit up to five pieces if they're on a roll. Once they submit, they would introduce themselves, describe their work and have link to their artblog/store/portfolio/webcomic/etc.

Art Jamz invites submissions of all styles and levels. The only submission requirement is that one have a site where one posts one's work (i.e. an art blog or online portfolio -- these are easy to set up on platforms like Tumblr and deviantART), making it the perfect inroad to the online art scene for those eager to get involved.

"Heaven & Earth" in our City of Angels

April 15, 2014, 4:13 pm

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The ancient world of pagan gods worshipped by Greeks and Romans is so, so far away; and still is so close. Need an example? What about the architecture of so many official buildings in Washington inspired by Greek and Roman temples?

And what would our Western culture be without the Italian Renaissance, so much inspired and informed by the rediscovery and infatuation with the art of ancient Greece and Rome?



The new exhibition, "Heaven & Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections", which just opened at the Getty Villa, presents rare and, in many cases, magnificent examples of Byzantium art from the 4th to 15th century. Among them are mosaics, frescoes, sculptures, icons, jewelry, and ceramics --all of them coming from various Greek museums and many of them never before shown in the United States.



In the 4th century A.D., Emperor Constantine the Great made a dramatic change by moving the capital of the Roman Empire a thousand miles east of Rome to the Greek city of Byzantium. He renamed it Constantinople (now Istanbul). And thus, the Christian Byzantium Empire was born to prosper and last for over a millennium.



This exhibition at the Getty Villa illustrates in a very convincing way how the world of ancient pagan gods was tempered and adopted for the needs of the Christian church. One example of this is the great, 1st century, marble head of Aphrodite. Her beautiful face, being 2,000 years old, has expected signs of wear and tear. But look closely, and you will see the sign of the cross roughly chiseled into her forehead and nose. It is obvious that it was done by a devout Christian believer, probably in an attempt to baptize Aphrodite into Mary, mother of God?

Rather dramatically designed and installed, this exhibition, with its dense display of shimmering gold leaf icons, convincingly conveys the particular atmosphere of a Greek Orthodox Church.



Among the highlights of the exhibition is the gorgeous 15th century icon with a Nativity scene. It is both highly stylized and, at the same time, full of realistic details. I am staring at the densely crowded composition, at a resting Mary, at animals in the stable watching baby Jesus, and then at a chorus of angels above, and all of this evokes for me the spirit and sound of a magnificently staged and performed Italian opera.



And here is another, equally dazzling gold leaf icon --this one from the 14th century, depicting the Crucifixion. Compared to the crowded Nativity scene, the composition of the Crucifixion is almost minimalistic. Somehow, it evokes for me the spiritual silence of John Cage's famous 1952 composition, 4'33", and the minimalism of precise movement of Merce Cunningham's choreography.



I have to admit that this "Heaven and Earth" exhibition stirred up for me a lot of memories of growing up in Russia, where my Russian Orthodox nanny would take me for walks that often included stops at a church. She would pray there while I played around. The museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as many Russian monasteries and churches, have a number of splendid Byzantium icons and artifacts similar to those on display at the Getty Villa.



It may surprise you to learn that, in the 10th century, Vladimir the Great, the Russian prince, the ruler of Kievan Rus, sent envoys to various neighboring countries in search of new religions to replace the existing Slavic paganism. When his envoys returned to Russia, Prince Vladimir had the chance to compare Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism, none of which particularly appealed to him. Instead, he zeroed in on Orthodox Christianity. His choice shouldn't be a surprise, considering that, when his emissaries travelled to Constantinople, they were welcomed with a "red carpet" treatment full of festivals and celebrations of beautiful rituals of the Byzantium church. Obviously, his emissaries were impressed. And thus, Christianity became the official religion of Kievan Rus.


P.S. If you want to learn about Edward's Fine Art of Art Collecting Classes, please visit his website here. You can also read The New York Times article about his classes here.


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Edward Goldman is an art critic and the host of Art Talk, a program on art and culture for NPR affiliate KCRW 89.9 FM. To listen to the complete show and hear Edward's charming Russian accent, click here.

First Nighter: Hollywood Expat Soderbergh Stages "The Library"

April 15, 2014, 8:21 pm

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It's close to a year since Steven Soderbergh announced he'd be quitting movies. Now he surfaces at the Public Theater as director of The Library, from a script by his frequent collaborator Scott Z. Burns. In light of Soderbergh's radical decision and also in light of the story he's telling on a stage, it's a fascinating transition.

The engrossing action involves the aftermath of a Columbine-like school massacre and specifically the fate of several students seeking shelter in the fictional Golden Valley High School library. The most prominent of them for Burns's purpose is 16-year-old sophomore Caitlin Gabriel (Chloe Grace Moretz), who is shot by Marshall Bauer, the marauding student, just before he's heard asking someone where other students are hiding.

According to Ryan Mayes (Daryl Sabara), who was in the library waiting for his brother, Caitlin is the one who informs Bauer that others are in the nearby audio-visual closet--whereupon the assailant opens the closet door and kills everyone inside, including Mr. Curtis, a teacher.

Ryan's account is believed by investigating detective (Tamara Tunie) as well as by Caitlin's parents Nolan (Michael O'Keefe) and Elizabeth (Jennifer Westfeldt). Ryan is definitely believed by Dawn Sheridan (Lili Taylor), the mother of the deceased Joy Sheridan, who becomes the other likely suspect who might have responded to Marshall before he shot her.

What The Library concerns is Caitlin's continuing determination to clear her name even as it increasingly becomes besmirched. Soderbergh and Burns are interested in examining one of the effects that can result after horrifying incidents of this nature. How hysteria--sometimes called "massteria"--catches up a saddened community intrigues them.

As Burns writes it, The three Gabriels are ostracized, a situation made worse when Dawn Sheridan publishes a book called Teach My Heart to Fly that reaches the seven slot on the New York Times Book Review. In it she claims Joy would forgive Caitlin for her transgression were she able, but since Caitlin is aware of her own innocence in the matter, she wants to hear none of this sanctimony.

As The Library proceeds, the audience understands that Caitlin is telling the truth. She's correct when she identifies the girl who'd been praying before answering Marshall as Joy. Whether and how she's cleared of suspicion won't be divulged here to avoid spoiling the intermissionless 90-minuter's mounting suspense.

Given the nature of the enterprise, there's no mistaking that Soderbergh and Burns are taken by the power of intentional and unintentional lies and the concept of recovered memory. (Remember Soderbergh made his name on the low-budget sex, lies and videotape.) The men are disturbed by the means often employed when agitated crowds need answers to questions not easily or quickly answered and grab at whatever even slightly credible is offered them in the moment's heat.

Such occurrences are commonplace, which is part of the continuing frustration of social behavior. The manner in which Soderbergh and Burns recount the story has its own fascination, however--especially in regard to Soderbergh's exiting Hollywood with such trumpeting fanfare.

Absorbed initially, the play gives the impression that Soderbergh is making as strong an anti-cinematic statement as he possibly can. The Library takes place in a theatrical limbo designed by Riccardo Hernandez. He want to evoke a library through the use of four tables, some chairs and little else. The color of the set is morgue-neutral so that lighting designer David Lander can wash other shocking solid colors on it. As actors enter and leave between scenes, blinding white light prevails. Whenever Marshall is reported as having fired a fatal shot, a long vertical red flash hits the center of the upstage wall.

As if to say "So much for you, Tinseltown, I've abandoned you for the stage," Soderbergh is ostensibly resorting to no filmic conceits. He pushes them aside. They're in his past. He's deliberately, unmistakably dealing in everything theatrical.

Or is he?

Maybe not so thoroughly. As the Library sequences follow one another with the cast members having finished speaking their lines and then walking into the wings, they do so after rarely raising their voices. The admirable young Moretz as Caitlin maintains an insistent tone--that's when she isn't lying on a supposed gurney recovering from her complicated wounds. O'Keefe and Westfeldt maintain their puzzled, worried demeanors. Tunie keeps a detective's professional attitude. Sabara stays within the expressions of the harried adolescent he's presenting. They and colleagues perform as if they're participants in a dramatic replay.

That's to say, there's a consistent level reached and sustained. Over the course of the play, that consistency increasingly suggests something familiar. What is it? What is it?

Ah-hah, here's what it is. It's the level at which people speak in a documentary where they're recollecting a past event in tranquility--or in whatever strain of tranquility they can muster. Where once they were in the thick of it, they're now remembering with a modicum of calm. It's the tone in which people speak when they know the camera is watching them in close-up and they want to register how reasonable they are.

Soderbergh has said as much in a recent New Yorker interview when he told Hilton Als that "it [is] his job to bring close-ups to the work. Extending his arm as though touching something we couldn't see, he said, 'That's what I have to do, make the audience feel they're looking at someone that closely, but on the stage.' So with The Library--absorbing as it is--Soderbergh may have left Hollywood behind, but he hasn't entirely abandoned the craft of filmmaking.

Hugo França: From Forest to Furniture (Video)

April 17, 2014, 8:11 am

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Brazilian artist Hugo França began his professional life as an industrial engineer in São Paulo, before making the decision to quit his job at a computer company and move into the jungles of northeast Brazil. For 15 years he lived and worked alongside indigenous tribes, learning their generations-old woodworking techniques and traditions.



Today, from his beautiful atelier in São Paulo and a workshop in Trancoso, Bahia, his furniture, made solely from reclaimed wood and usually from the Pequi tree, celebrates both natural material and form. His self-coined "furniture sculpture" can be seen in exhibitions globally from Design Miami Basel to ArtRio.



Originally using disused canoes, França has adopted sustainable methods of collecting materials to work with. Rather than attempting to find shapes that fit his designs, he uses existing natural forms as the first stage of the design process. Here, the raw material of the Pequi tree is somewhere in between a ready-made object and a block of stone to be chipped away at.



His work could quite easily be mistaken for art alone, however beneath the beauty lies genuine functionality. Going against the sculptural grain, França's designs encourage interactivity - in other words, the pieces are to be touched, sat upon or curled up in.

Text by Tilly Sleven for Crane.tv

For more cultural news follow Crane.tv on Twitter or find us on Facebook or Instagram

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Broccoli City Festival: 8 Artists on the Rise Set to Perform

April 17, 2014, 8:28 am

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As I continue my quest in tapping into my Third Metric and still finding time to twerk, this weekend I am leaving NYC and taking my talents to the Broccoli City Festival in Washington D.C. This day-long event will feature a host of wellness activities that people of all ages can participate in. I personally can't think of a better way to spend Earth Day 2014 than at a festival named after one of my favorite veggies in the heart of the nation's capital.

I took some time to truly understand the mission of the Broccoli City Organic Lifestyle Group and fell in love with their dedication to building healthy multicultural communities. Using music as a connector, they have conceptualized the festival to effectively relay their message of environmental wellness, while impacting the lives of music lovers that come from communities disproportionately affected by environmental indignity. The vision has grown so much that a Los Angeles date was added this year for the first time.

The music gawds have sent forth an awesome lineup of artists for this year's festival that I am thrilled to hear live. Know before you go! Check out these 8 artists on the rise that will be performing at the Broccoli City Festival.

1. SANGO



2. JMSN



3. JOJO



4. JOE KAY



5. DIZZY WRIGHT



6. KELELA



7. GOLD LINK



8. CHUCK INGLISH



For more information visit the official festival site.

Image : Broccoli City Facebook Page

How Maxfield Parrish's Dream Garden Mural Was Saved for Philadelphia

April 17, 2014, 10:56 am

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Recently, I gave a talk at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts on the history of Philadelphia's famous mural, Dream Garden, located in the lobby of the Curtis Building on Washington Square. The story is a fascinating one.

The story begins with a man named Edward Bok. In 1887, Bok became an advertising manager at Scribner's Magazine. Two years later he was at the Curtis Building on Philadelphia's Washington Square as editor of the Ladies' Home Journal. Bok transformed the magazine from a fluffy woman's magazine into a best-selling publication that campaigned for women's suffrage, pacifism, and the protection of the environment.

Because Bok believed that good art should find a place in public buildings, he asked Cyrus Curtis of Curtis Publishing if he would include a mural in what was then the new Curtis building.

Bok wasn't thinking of the lobby, at least not yet, but of the large public dining room on the building's top floor. He hired Fred Maxfield Parrish to paint a series of seventeen panels between the windows there.

The five year long project resulted in panels depicting a series of gardens with youths and maidens frolicking in colorful costumes.

Bok then turned his attention to a large blank white wall in the lobby of the Curtis Building. The wall measured over one thousand square feet. The space seemed to call for a mural, much the same way that many outdoor spaces today call to Jane Golden and the Mural Arts Project. Bok wanted to find another artist, and rather than re-employ Parrish, which would have been the logical thing to do, he looked elsewhere, as if trying to find someone better. He traveled to London and visited with English artist Edwin A. Abbey. Although Abbey was working on a project for the capitol building in Harrisburg, the two men struck a deal. Abbey was given the okay to paint anything he wanted to paint for the Curtis Center. Abbey's idea was a theme based on "The Grove of Academe," with Plato and his disciples lounging around in philosophical ecstasy.

Bok returned to America, but the very day that Abbey started the project in London, he fell over dead, as if cursed by a competing artist's voodoo spell.

Bok then went on a talent scout hunt and found a Wilmington artist named Howard Pyle. Pyle was a good choice because he also happened to know a lot about Plato. But the hoped for connection never came about because when Bok tried to telephone the artist at his Wilmington home, he was told that Pyle had just died an hour earlier while traveling in Italy.

Sometimes life is like that, unpredictable, cruel and only sometimes fair.

When a third artist, Boutet de Monvel, a famous decorative master, agreed to do the project, Bok invited Monvel to Philadelphia to inspect the space at the Curtis building but almost immediately after arrangements were made, Monvel died in Paris.

Now it was time for Bok, who was beginning to feel cursed, to take stock. He started to think collectively. He asked six of the leading mural artists in the county to submit a full color mural proposal on any subject of their choosing. The six anonymous submissions were then submitted and analyzed by a panel of judges. But this time the curse manifested itself in the form of six blatant rejections.

He then remembered a glass mosaic curtain by Louis C. Tiffany he'd once seen in Mexico City's Municipal Theatre. He recalled the look of favrile glass set in cement and how that produced a marvelous luminosity. Bok contacted Tiffany and got him to agree to a partnership but they still needed an artist to provide the preliminary sketch.

Bok went back to Parrish and asked him to come up with a sketch for Tiffany despite the fact that Parrish had never worked with glass or mosaics. Parrish's preliminary drawing was approved.

Six months of planning and thirty skilled artisans and over one million pieces of glass later, Dream Garden was given a New York exhibition where it was viewed by over seven thousand people. Art critics at the time were thrilled: they said the mural went way beyond the limited expression of a painted canvass.

It took six months for the mural to be disassembled in New York and then reassembled in Philadelphia.

Parrish was born in 1870 in Maryland into a family of Quaker physicians. He went to Haverford College but then transferred to PAFA in 1892. In 1894, he got his first commission to paint the Old King Cole mural in the new Mask and Whig Club. After that, success came to him easily. Once he became a seasoned artist he called himself "a mechanic who loved to paint."

His first magazine cover illustration commission was in 1895, and from then on it was a roller coaster ride.

A passion for gardening caused Parrish to insist that a reflecting pool be placed in front of Dream Garden when it was installed in the Curtis Center. His idolization of youth in Italianate landscape settings seemed to reflect aspects of his romantic life.

He had two love affairs of note, both with much younger women, while maintaining his status of a married man. Sue Lewin was a 16 year old farm girl when Parrish and his wife employed her to look after their two children. Parrish was 32 or 33 at the time, an age difference that in today's world would almost certainly catapult his name into a scandalous Philly.com breaking news headline. Lewin became Parrish's model, but she was no random castaway. A journalist once asked Lewin if there was something to her association with the artist and she said, "I'll have you know that Mr. Parrish has never seen my bare knee." Sometimes political white lies are necessary, because the exact opposite of this proved to be true when, sometime after both their deaths, workers in Parrish's Plainfield, New Hampshire home found revealing photos Parrish had taken of Lewin. Lewin remained with Parrish until his 90th birthday when she asked him to marry her. When he refused to do that, Lewin went off and married somebody else.

Another love, Nancy Roelker, was just 21 years old when she met the 66 year old Parrish in 1936. Parrish's letters to Roelker survive, but Parrish destroyed Nancy's letters to him, fearing a scandal.

In the early 20th century almost every home in America had a Maxfield Parrish print. Parrish's work saturated the market. He was Andy Warhol before there was an Andy Warhol. He did covers for Life, Collier's, and Harper's Weekly Magazines, posters and ads for Hires Root Beer and General Electric. He was commissioned to do murals for office buildings and hotels. In a way, his work--canvasses depicting eternal blue skies--reflected the Age of Innocence, although his popularity began to decline in the 1930s. And it really sunk after WW II.

In the beginning of the 20th century he was as popular as Van Gogh is today. After WW II, American art began to be noticed on the world stage, and Parrish became known as mainly an illustrator, banished by art critics to second fiddle status. Norman Rockwell, who once had a sustained artistic legacy and even a museum near Washington Square, suffered a similar fate--Rockwell, in fact, considered Parrish to be an artistic mentor.

Until the summer of 1998, Dream Garden rested comfortably in the lobby of the Curtis Building, attracting tens of thousands of visitors who would view it without fanfare and then shuffle off to view Independence Hall or the Liberty Bell. It was just one more nice Philly attraction. Dream Garden was still attracting visitors despite the fact that Parrish's artistic reputation had been demoted by those art scholar squirrels. Dream Garden in the 40s, 50s, and beyond was pretty much taken for granted in a city already filled with a lot of art.

In the late 1990s before the proposed sale of the mural was announced in the press, I worked in the Curtis Building and can say that many people who worked there at that time knew next to nothing about Dream Garden. The Dream Garden lobby was mostly regarded as a pretty walk-through area where one might only occasionally glance at the body contours of a blue mosaic nymph or naughty satyr. There were no adoring crowds, no multiple clicks of cameras. Before the 1998-Steve Wynn controversy Dream Garden was another "taken- for- granted Philly treasure," another addition to a list that ranged from historic houses to personalities.

Dream Garden moved to center stage in July of 1998 when it was announced that an anonymous buyer wanted to remove it from the lobby of the Curtis Building. This was breaking news, and attracted considerably more attention than what passes as breaking news today. The impending sale was the result of the actions of Elizabeth C. Merriam, of Wynnewood, wife of real estate developer John W. Merriam, an early Gerry Lenfest-like figure who gave millions to area institutions like the University of Pennsylvania, University of the Arts, PAFA and Bryn Mawr College. Mr. and Mrs. Merriam lived in a Victorian mansion worth upwards of 119 million called 'Maybrook,' Mr. Merriam, who died in 1994, left a will specifying the sale. Later, Elizabeth would tell the press, "All I wanted to do was carry out his [Mr. Merriam's} intentions."

When a friend who worked with me in the Curtis Building suggested that we do something about the sale, we tried to decide what that something would be. We were sitting in a café near the Warwick Hotel and came up with the idea of a 1960s style protest with hand made placards. We would walk back and forth on the sidewalk in front of the Curtis Building from noon to 1 p.m. every Monday, Wednesday and Friday until the crisis was resolved.

The next day we bought flagpoles and duct tape, printed flyers and designed the protest signs. Our first day of protest was to be July 27. We told some people about the demonstration but not too many because we didn't want to be talked out of it. Several people we told spoke up and told us, "It's a done deal. The situation is hopeless."

In some ways it seemed like a ludicrous idea; two people do not a demonstration make. Or do they? On the afternoon of the first protest, we were driven to the site by a friend, who did not stick around to see what would happen. As I wrote in 'Coming together to keep a 'Dream' alive,' for The Inquirer, "...Our two person protest attracted immediate attention. Cars honked; tourists in horse-drawn carriages asked for fliers; Curtis Center office workers, couples, artists, students, kids of bicycles, elderly couples, parking meter attendants and others told us how shocked they were at the sale."

Many asked what they could do. We told them to come to the protests on Wednesday or Friday. By the end of the first protest, scores of people had promised to come Wednesday with friends. During that first two-person protest, we attracted the attention of Inquirer photographer Peter Tobia. The next day the picture of the demo appeared on page one of The Inquirer.

I'd given Tobia my phone number as the contact number for the Arts Defense League, the name we decided to call our group. That Tuesday, July 28th was a watershed moment. My phone did not stop ringing. Many callers were from outside the city, and nearly every caller wanted to know what they could do to help.

The second protest attracted nearly 70 people, plus a large chunk of the news media and the city's civil disobedience squad. People helped with the petitions and promised to bring more friends to Friday's demonstration. Suddenly the idea of keeping Dream Garden in the city seemed a very real possibility. We expected over 200 at Friday's demonstration, but then Mayor Rendell suddenly announced at a news conference that Steve Wynn had backed out of the deal. Dream Garden would not be broken up into pieces or sections and shipped to a casino.

We collected almost 700 signatures during that 3-day span. My friend and I were shuffled in and out of TV studios--Fox News, Channel 48, NBC 10, Channel 6 and 35. It was through the roof even if there was no WHYY or Marty Moss Coane. A few television interviews were conducted in front of my apartment on Pine Street, and with each broadcast more people wanted to help solidify the Arts Defense League. There were other art works in the city that needed saving, we felt. Some of the people who joined us envisioned a new organization along the lines of the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia with a Board of Directors, a President, Secretary and Treasurer. They asked to be given something to do while taking it upon themselves to write politicians and city agencies as ADL representatives. Get your photo and phone number published on page one of The Inquirer as the co-founder of a new organization, and see how quickly people flock to you with their own ideas about how the organization should be run. What was once so manageable--a simple two-person consensus--was slowly morphing into a large committee where dissenting views always threaten to hamper progress or bring about schism.

A reporter from People Magazine telephoned me one night at my job in the Curtis Center, and said he wanted to interview me for the magazine. This created an exciting opportunity but in the end proved to be a disaster, because his wish to interview only me made it necessary for me to tell him that my friend and I were in this together. So while he did eventually interview both of us in an Old City restaurant, when I told my friend about the initial request of a single interview this set off a chain reaction of suspicion and distrust that in the end got this marvelous opportunity---a full feature in People --canned.

As a result of the protest and the mayor's action, on July 29, 1998 the Historical Commission notified the Merriam estate its intention to designate Dream Garden as a historic object under the City of Philadelphia's historic Preservation ordinance.

The Merriam estate appealed the historic designation, and so began three years of very costly litigation. In 2001, the Pew Charitable Trusts agreed to provide 3.5 million for purchase of the mural, as three of the 4 beneficiaries of the Merriam estate transferred their respective interests to PAFA.

PAFA then agreed to keep Dream Garden in the city, promising to use its "best efforts" to keep it in its site in the Curtis Building.

Until 2001, our group attended numerous hearings and testified at Historical Commission meetings, although as time went on-- and as heavier organizations with a board of directors weighed in--references to the Coalition for Philadelphia Art seemed to diminish. CPA eventually folded, a victim of the passage of time. Today, of course, I'm less than amused when I read references to that early grassroots effort to safeguard Dream Garden. I'm thinking about minimalist references to our efforts like--petition gatherers, a group of demonstrators or even time-warp phrases like, "the public also protested the sale of Dream Garden."

It is important to remember that the public did not also oppose the sale of Dream Garden, but that they were the first to protest the sale, and as such, were the ones to draw in the... politicians, who came later.

[Preservation Tips & Tools] More Preservation Organizations You Should Know

April 17, 2014, 11:59 am

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Written by Sarah Heffern


The historic preservation program at University of Mary Washington (formerly Mary Washington College) in Fredericksburg, Va., is a member of the National Council for Preservation Education.


If there's one thing we've learned working at the National Trust for Historic Preservation, it's that the key element to saving places is partnerships. So when we set out earlier this year to create a list of preservation organizations, we knew we would have more to include.

Today's list, then, is a follow-up -- additional groups that can be key to getting preservation work done. And we're sure there are still more, so feel free to mention additional partners in the comments.

American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA): The trade association for organizations involved in cultural resources management work, ACRA works with government agencies at all levels (local, state, and federal), as well as nonprofits and companies. They provide education, advocacy, and resources such as salary surveys and regulatory information.

Archaeological Conservancy: The conservancy is "the only national non-profit organization dedicated to acquiring and preserving the best of our nation's remaining archaeological sites." How, exactly, does this relate to preservation? Many of the Native American sites preservationists strive to save have a strong archaeological element, making them natural partners for these projects.

National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE, or "Nic-Pee"): If you're part of an academic program -- either as a student or a teacher -- focused on historic preservation, chances are good that you're already aware of NCPE. It has been instrumental in developing and improving preservation programs at more than 50 colleges and universities. NCPE also helps to fund PreserveNet, one of the biggest preservation job websites out there (though we're also fans of HistPres and, of course, our own Career Center).

National Council on Public History (NCPH): While the NCPH is not directly involved in preservation, its goals of fostering "public engagement with the past" and "building community among historians, expanding professional skills and tools, fostering critical reflection on historical practice, and publicly advocating for history and historians" makes them ideal partners. After all, most preservationists want to save buildings in order to connect people more closely with history!


In September, members of the International National Trusts Organisation's executive committee will walk from La Coruna to Santiago de Compostela along the Pilgrims' Way to raise money for the organization.

On the international preservation front, keep these key players in mind: U.S. National Committee of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (US/ICOMOS), International National Trusts Organisation (INTO), the World Monuments Fund (WMF), and Society of Architectural Historians (SAH). These nonprofit organizations focus on elevating building conservation (as historic preservation is known through much of the world) through research, education, collaboration, and capacity-building.

Association for Preservation Technology International (APT): Another great international organization to know about is APT, which promotes the "application of traditional and contemporary technology appropriate to conservation of the built environment." Their chapters, of which there are many in the U.S., offer a wide variety of trainings and publications, ideal for anyone looking to be involved in hands-on preservation work.

And then we have many resource type-specific groups for preservationists to call on. Just to scratch the surface: DOCOMOMO-US (Modernism), the Society for Industrial Archaeology (industrial sites, structures, and technology), and League of Historic American Theatres (historic theaters, of course).

Not sure if the type of place you're trying to save has a group? Chances are it does, so give Google a try before getting started.

Now it's your turn: Tell us what other organizations you find essential to helping you save places.

A Night Out With Irvine Welsh

April 17, 2014, 12:00 pm

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The acclaimed author of Trainspotting, Filth and Skagboys takes us out on the tiles in New York City. Amid the carnage, he has a ton to tell us about books, movies and why you need to have done drugs to write about them.

It's 1 am, we've been kicked out of the Jesus and Mary Chain show and Irving Place is choked with drunks, scalpers and other "after-dark" types. A wild-haired Russian "action painter," an associate of Pussy Riot, is shoving something into my hands, jabbering excitedly. It turns out to be a few ounces of pungent weed. I glance around and Scotland's favorite literary son is deep in conversation with another Russian, eliciting laughter even though I'm sure the guy can't understand a word of his Leith brogue. Welcome to his world, kiddies. When you're out on the pish with Irvine Welsh, things just...happen.

Welsh is one of those rare writers that people outside of literary circles recognize--a status earned off the back of his writing. For most writers in a non-reading world, it takes something else--usually scandal--to endow this kind of cultural profile. James Frey versus Oprah. Will Self, busted shooting smack on the Prime Minister's plane. Hell, Salman Rushdie had to get fatwa'd.

Irvine was in town not only to pimp Skagboys--the long anticipated prequel to Welsh's 1993 novel-slash-cultural phenomenon, Trainspotting--but to promote Filth, the latest film adaptation of his work. I ask him how Filth compared to his other book-to-film experiences. "Every one I've done has been a pain to get made," he sighs. I express surprise, considering Trainspotting's runaway success. Aren't people tripping over themselves to rush the rest of his canon to the big screen? He seems amused by my naivety.

"It usually takes about five years," says Welsh. "With Filth I lost five years because of a contractual dispute. A lot of directors want to do their own screenplay, and if you've got a director who's a fucking shit writer... I mean, some of the screenplays we saw, you couldn't get any acting talent in based on them--it just wouldn't be done. Then I met this guy, Jon [S. Baird, Filth's director]. He came back with a screenplay and it was excellent."

While Welsh's books spill over with extreme sex, violence and drug use, his private life remains resolutely private. Despite having written arguably the defining heroin novel, he never felt the need to adopt the whole "junkie writer" persona. However, it's no secret that Welsh has history with heroin. For fans, this is a part of his myth: If tonight is anything to go by, it seems that whenever Irvine is recognized, people are determined to get him fucked up.

At our first bar, a group of lit students spot him and nervously approach with a glass of Scotch, like devotees of some Catholic saint laying an offering. Once he determines that they at least had the sense to order a good Scotch, Welsh drinks it straight, and spends a while graciously chatting and listening.

Later, the Russians stick with us for the rest of the night, rolling joint after joint, which we happily smoke. Welsh confirms that he did indeed use heroin--but as a former user myself, I already knew, I tell him: Trainspotting is so obviously the voice of experience talking, not some surface-skimming drug tourist's travelogue.

"Aye well..." Irvine concurs, "writing about drugs is like that though, isn't it? You can just tell when someone is writing about drugs and they've never really done them. It screams out at you. That's something where I believe you have to have been there to really get it, y'know?"

A literary superstar in Europe, the "poet laureate of the chemical generation" remains a harder sell here in the US. His uncompromisingly Scottish narrative voice and his fascination with what some call "the underclass," mean that in aspirational America, he remains a writer for those in the know.

"America's always quite a difficult market," Irvine says when I broach this. "It's very, very conservative. Complete contrast with places like Italy and Spain, where they're a lot more receptive to stuff that's way out there." Still, in hip urban centers like NYC, Welsh is fêted--as evidenced by the capacity crowd that arrived to hear him read from Skagboys.

Irvine laughs at these differing perceptions: "It's the same with the films. We did The Acid House: a small kind of low-budget movie, ...had a loyal audience, did well on DVD. It was too grungy to be a proper cinematic experience. Usually you're always compromising. But with The Acid House they just went for it and it was a really ballsy thing to do."


"It was a cult thing everywhere," Irvine continues, "...except Australia, where it was a fucking smash. This happened nowhere else in the world, but in Australia it went mental. It's bizarre. When I do book tours everywhere else, it's all about Trainspotting, you know? But in Australia it's like [he adopts a passable Aussie accent] 'The Acid House, mate--great film!'"

Read the full version of this interview at Substance.com.

Congrats, Graduates: Now Go Out There and Redefine Success

April 17, 2014, 12:10 pm

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We're coming up on one of my favorite times of the year: that time, just after spring breaks out but before summer begins, in which thousands of college graduates are released into the world. And as they go forth we give them advice, lots of advice. The advice varies, sometimes conflicts, but the general idea is: Here is what you need to know in order to succeed in the world. I've given a few of these speeches myself. Indeed, Thrive grew out of a commencement speech I gave last year at Smith College.

This year my book tour is taking me to a lot of colleges, and my first piece of advice is to start by defining success for yourself -- by being clear about what you want, what you value and what you are about. But before we can do that, we need to clear away the noise of the world to be able to truly listen to ourselves. And to do that, we need to abandon, or at least mitigate, some of the worst practices of the adult world that students are already mired in: burnout, sleep deprivation, stress and anxiety. And from that place of greater wisdom and perspective, graduates will be infinitely more effective at all the things they want to master: overcoming fears, taking risks, improving confidence, networking effectively, getting the job they want, getting a higher salary, etc.

This is all the more important because this generation is starting out their adult lives burdened with multiple deficits. To take the most obvious one, the total amount of student loan debt is now $1.2 trillion (greater than the total amount of credit card debt).

Graduating with this kind of burden would be overwhelming even if today's graduates were entering a robust job market, but of course they are not. Indeed, the effective unemployment rate (which factors in those who have given up looking for jobs) for those aged 18 to 29 is nearly 16 percent. For African Americans in that age bracket, it's nearly 24 percent.

It's no wonder that 14 percent of 24- to 34-year-olds are still living with their parents. It's not just because they can't find a job; half of those living with Mom and Dad are employed full-time.

Of course, thriving is about more than just financial and professional success. And there are few signposts for those in college encouraging a culture of well-being and taking care of our human capital.

Among those 18 to 29 years old, nearly half don't get the amount of sleep they need. We know that lack of sleep increases stress, but then stress also makes it hard to sleep. And according to the Journal of Adolescent Health, stress keeps 68 percent of students up at night.

"I sleep only three hours a night, and I can't keep doing it," a student told me at the Harvard School of Public Health last week. "And you are telling me something I had known all along: that it is OK to sleep, that it is OK to give time for the little things in life."

It's a vicious cycle that has made millennials our most stressed demographic, according to the American Psychological Association. And nearly 40 percent of millennials reported their stress increasing in the year before this 2012 study. But only 17 percent said they get "a lot or a great deal" of help in dealing with their stress.

We hear a lot about the dangers of binge drinking on campus (and rightly so), but much less about the effects of stress and sleep deprivation among students -- including the connection between stress and binge drinking and depression. But the evidence is all too visible. Today 44 percent of American college students say they've had symptoms of depression. And a 2011 study from the American College Health Association found that around 30 percent felt "so depressed that it was difficult to function" at some point in the previous year.

And the trend line is going in the wrong direction. According to a study in the journal Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, the number of college students suffering from depression doubled between 1988 and 2003. Screening for Mental Health found that from 2005 to 2010, depression grew in 18- to 25-year-olds by 17 percent.

Even worse, the likelihood of suicidal thoughts tripled from 1988 to 2003. In fact, we lose more than 1,000 college students to suicide every year, making suicide the second leading cause of death among college students, after accidents (including car accidents and drug overdoses).

These numbers reflect a wider, and very troubling, phenomenon in our culture. Since 1988 the use of antidepressants has gone up almost 400 percent, and they are now the most frequently taken drug by those 18 to 44 years old. More troubling is that between 1993 and 2005 the use of prescription stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall went up 93 percent among college students, while the use of prescription opioids like Vicodin and Oxycontin jumped a staggering 343 percent.

As any parent knows, what our children see us do has a much bigger impact on them than what we tell them to do. So if the lesson we're teaching them by how we live is that burnout, stress and sleep deprivation are the highway to success -- consequences be damned -- it appears that our college students are dutifully, and dangerously, following in our footsteps.

The good news is that the changes we are seeing in our workplaces -- adopting meditation, yoga and other stress-reduction practices -- are also beginning to be introduced into college life. According to a 2013 study by Robert Youmans of George Mason University and Jared Ramsberg, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, the side-effect-free way to get better grades is to meditate. Testing a random grouping of students, they found that students who meditated before a lecture scored higher on a quiz afterward than those who didn't.

Youmans, a practicing Buddhist, makes it clear that other forms of quiet and contemplation are as effective as meditation. "Basically," he says, "becoming just a little bit more mindful about yourself and your place in the world might have a very important, practical benefit -- in this case, doing better in college."

A study by researchers at the University of California at Santa Barbara found that a two-week mindfulness training course boosted the working memory of students enough to translate into a 16-percent increase on the GRE (the standardized test required for most graduate schools). "We found reduced mind-wandering in every way we measured it and improved performance on both reading comprehension and working memory capacity," said professor Michael Mrazek. The researchers are now extending the studies to K-12 students.

In fact, Andrew Jones, a sociology teacher in the UK, wrote in The Guardian that studies have also found that meditation can lower the incidence of aggression in adolescents and children. Jones' own school has initiated quiet times during the day, which allow the students to meditate or simply reflect, and has even launched a lunchtime Zen club.

Back here at home, meditation resulted in higher English scores, higher attendance rates and higher rates of happiness in schools that introduced it in San Francisco, while in New Haven schools used meditation and yoga to reduce stress levels.

And there are an increasing number of organizations devoted to studying and implementing mindfulness programs. For example, MindUp, a program that's part of the Goldie Hawn Foundation, brings neuroscientists, education professionals and mindfulness experts together to help students "learn to self-regulate behavior and mindfully engage in focused concentration required for academic success." And a study at Johns Hopkins University found that the effects of meditation were actually about equal to those of antidepressants.

It's clear that we don't only need to change our workplace; we need to change how we prepare the next generation to enter that workplace. And thanks largely to research by our universities, we know what works. Now it's a matter of putting it into action.

Last week Nicholas Kristof wrote about Marina Keegan, whose first book, The Opposite of Loneliness, was recently published posthumously. Marina was tragically killed in a car crash days after graduating from Yale in 2012. In one of the essays in the book, she laments a transition she saw in her fellow students, from youthful idealism to an acceptance of "success"-driven practicality.

"Students here have passion," she wrote. "Passion for public service and education policy and painting and engineering and entrepreneurialism. Standing outside a freshman dorm, I couldn't find a single student aspiring to be a banker -- but at commencement this May, there's a 50 percent chance I'll be sitting next to one. This strikes me as incredibly sad."

There is nothing wrong with being a banker in itself; Keegan's point was that so many graduates choose professions based on the lure of jobs that fit our traditional notion of success. "Perhaps there won't be fancy popcorn at some other job," wrote Keegan, "but it's about time we started popping it for ourselves."

And for those who do create their own path, and for those who don't, my final bit of wisdom is that the one absolutely certain thing you can expect is that things won't turn out the way you expect. As John Lennon sang, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

I recently came across a remarkable and moving speech given last year by Kathleen Donegan, an English professor at Berkeley. She was tasked with talking about how female academics find life/work balance. She began by noting that when women talk about balance, they often use the practical language of accounting, even making to-do lists complete with charts and columns. "It's not that I don't live by lists and charts and calendars, because I do," she said. "But tonight I want to talk about what might happen if one loses confidence in the accounting and the balance sheets."

She then related a quotation by Eudora Welty that deeply impacted her and guided her desire to be a writer. "Writing fiction," said Welty, "has developed in me an abiding respect for the unknown in a human lifetime and a sense of where to look for the threads, how to follow, how to connect, to find in the thick of the tangle what clear line persists."

Donegan had charted a clear line for her own story, how she would have three children in graduate school and how they would be scheduled to fit into the timetable of her studies. It didn't work out that way. "In my experience, being willing -- or being forced -- to let go of the story you're following is what brings you closer to that line," she said. "One day after my son Leo was born, he died." She was forced to let go of her charts and calculations and connect with deeper truths.

The ability to accept life's inevitable twists and turns, losses, defeats and surprises plays a profound role in how resilient we are and how we thrive. And to harken back to freshman philosophy class, true happiness can only be found in our own attitudes and inner life, which the outside world cannot control or take away. This is not about indifference or resignation but, rather, a concept very much on the minds of young graduates: freedom. As one of the most famous Stoics, Seneca, said, "once we have driven away all that excites or affrights us, there ensues unbroken tranquility and enduring freedom." So as our new graduates go into this next phase in their lives, I hope they find the freedom to realize their own story in their own way.

The SCADpad: Affordable Housing Inserted Into Aging Parking Decks

April 17, 2014, 12:41 pm

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Ubiquitous, overbuilt and underutilized, urban parking decks are going the way of the dinosaur.

"About 50 percent are empty at all times," says Christian Sottile, dean of the school of building arts at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). "The rate of private auto use for commuting is dropping -- 99 of 100 urban areas have a reduced number of autos coming into the city."

Thus his assignment to 75 students in 12 programs at SCAD, along with 37 collaborating alumni:

First, meet the demands of a global return to the inner city, the largest since the Industrial Revolution. "The millennials, 18 to 35 years old, have an overwhelming desire to live right in the core," he says.



Then figure out how to maximize personal living space for an individual living unit -- with the theme of a micro-apartment.

And finally, develop an adaptive reuse strategy for a city's underused parking decks. "It's the trend of the last decade," he says. "There are 105 million parking spaces in America -- five for every car out there."



Their solution, in the form of three uber-cool SCADpads, was unveiled last week in a midtown Atlanta parking. Ironically, each has a breathtaking view of the downtown Atlanta skyline with its tall buildings by SOM, Philip Johnson and John Portman -- along with a permanently gridlocked I-75.

"Atlanta as a major metropolitan area is the place to showcase this question," he says. "There are six million people here, and the busiest airport in world. It's a great place to take back."

Besides, the millennials -- the designers of the SCADpad among them -- don't want cars. "They're a hassle -- one minute commuting is one minute wasted," he says. "They're looking for collaborative living environments, for ways to share resources, and they don't mind smaller spaces."

Indeed. Each SCADPad is 135 square feet, and designed to squeeze into a parking space. Each is designed to complement one of the three continents -- Europe, Asia and North America -- with SCAD campuses. And each is already in demand.



"A group of 12 students, three at a time, will live for a week and share their experiences with us," he says. "We had to have a lottery to decide who would be first."

At a cost ranging between $40,000 and $60,000, the SCADpads qualify as affordable housing. Moreover, the median rent for urban studio space is about five to eight times higher than rent for a parking space.

"It's a new kind of living arrangement for the next-generation dwellers in the city," he says. "We've cracked open a new discourse on adaptive reused, and a model for a new strategy."

Which means that, like the 19th century warehouse, the mid-century modern parking deck could be transformed soon into the trendiest loft space of the 21st century.

J. Michael Welton writes about architecture, art and design for national and international publications. He also edits and publishes a digital design magazine at www.architectsandartisans.com, where portions of this post first appeared.

Artist Resale Royalties Haven't Hindered Art Trade or Helped Artists in the U.K.

April 17, 2014, 1:18 pm

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"In general, I think resale royalties is a pretty good idea," said painter Chuck Close, who with other artists and artists' estates filed in 2011 a class-action lawsuit against Christie's and Sotheby's for failing to collect and distribute a 5 percent royalty payment for artwork sold on the secondary market, which was required by a 1977 California law. "I know some artists who were successful in the 1960s and '70s and have since fallen on hard times and could really use the money."
Mr. Close and the other litigants lost the lawsuit the following year when a U.S. District Court judge ruled the state law was in violation of the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Recently, New York City Democratic Congressman Jerrold Nadler, along with U.S. Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced their own artist resale royalty bill into Congress, the ART (American Royalties Too) Act. The legislation proposes a 5 percent royalty on secondary market sales of at least $5,000 and a 7 percent royalty on such sales of at least $10,000, applicable only to sales at auction houses that sold more than $1 million in artwork during the previous year. The amount of the royalty would be capped at $35,000, paid to a "visual artists' copyright collecting society"--most likely VAGA or the Artists' Rights Society--that would distribute the money to the artists or their heirs, minus what the bill calls "reasonable administrative expenses." Gallery and dealer sales are exempt from the resale royalty, as are private sales at auction houses, and the royalty would apply to the total sales price and not just to the profit that the seller had earned; auction house consignors would still be required to pay a royalty even if they lost money on the sale.
It is worth looking at the nations (most recently, in 2006, the U.K.) where artist resale royalties is the law of the land to see if the benefits are indeed high and the drawbacks actually dire.
"Sales have been as healthy as before the law came into effect," said Glenn Scott-Wright, the director of London's Victoria Miro Gallery. "Clients haven't indicated that they were unwilling to buy because of the royalty. In fact, there hasn't really been much discussion of the law." British auctioneers have reported similar results. Pilar Ordovas, the former head of Christie's contemporary art department in London and now a gallery owner, claimed that the auction house conducted a "study of comparative taxes in the United States, such as the New York City sales tax, which is pretty comparable to the artist resale royalty, which suggested that the impact would be pretty minimal." Her own experience is that the "the law hasn't really changed things. At most, it is a cost absorbed by the dealer."
The U.K.'s resale royalty law came into existence in two phases. The first, in 2006, provided royalties to living artists, and the second, in 2012, extended the law to the families and heirs of deceased artists. The British resale royalties law, which employs European standards of payment, sets a minimum sale price above which the resale royalty comes into play at 1,000 euros (820 pounds or $1,380), diminishing by a sliding scale to one quarter of one percent for profits exceeding 500,000.01 euros. The British law set the single maximum payment for any one sale is at 12,500 euros. According to the London-based Design and Copyright Society, an artists' licensing organization that has acted as the primary collecting agency for these royalties and takes a 15 percent commission (covering the cost of collection), approximately 3,360 artists have been paid royalties amounting to 34 million euros since 2006. Approximately three quarters of the resales were at auction houses.
In 2011, Jussi Pylkkänen, president of Christie's Europe, called the artists' resale rights "a matter of real concern. It will affect the modern art market, which is a key aspect of Christie's activities in London." Four years earlier, Anthony Browne, the executive director of the British Art Market Federation, claimed that the law "is expensive and complicated to administer, and it will shift buyers and sellers from the U.K., which has lost a considerable amount of global art market share in the past five years, to countries where there is no royalty to be paid," such as the United States.
And yet, Sarah Percy-Davis, the chief executive of the London-based Association of Art & Antiques Dealers, which has long protested the introduction of artist resale royalties as creating a burden on association members, stated that while "damage is difficult to measure, [c]ertainly, at the upper end of the market, damage has been negligible, and no one has been put off from buying or selling."
Even at the lower end of the market, damage appears to be more theoretical than actual. John Robertson, who until he retired recently ran a commercial art gallery in London for 43 years, said that "sorting out the administration of the law" involved a great deal of time if not money. "Most of my contemporary art transactions were at the level of 1,000 to 3,000 pounds," he said. "Paying 4 percent on that amount wasn't as much the problem as the time it would take to do everything the law requires," especially since he handled 400 to 500 sales at this price range per year. Still, almost all of his sales in contemporary art were at the primary, rather than the secondary, market, and almost none of those pieces were ever resold, to his knowledge.
Evidence that artist resale royalties have benefited artists who are in need has been scant. A 2010 report on artists' resale royalties, commissioned by the European Art Market Coalition, found that in continental Europe, 74 percent of all the royalties collected went to artists' heirs, 20 percent to the collecting agencies and only 6 percent to living artists. Critics claim the practice has largely benefited the heirs of already successful artists like Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Henri Matisse. Another study, conducted by the Intellectual Property Institute of the University of Southern California School of Law, found that "there is no evidence that [artist resale royalties] has diverted business away from the U.K., where the size of the art market has grown as fast, if not faster, than the art market in jurisdictions where [artist resale royalties] is not currently payable." However, the study also found that most payments to artists "are quite small and the median payment to artists based on auction house data is 256 pounds," adding that 80 percent of all payments have been to a relatively small number of top artists.
When their work is no longer admired and after most artists die, interest and prices generally diminish rapidly, and auction houses like Christie's and Sotheby's won't accept low rent consignments. Odds are, the principal beneficiaries of a U.S. artist resale royalties law will be established artists whose careers are thriving, more than those who have fallen on hard times. With a tax code that so already heavily favors the already well-to-do, are we ready to extend more largesse to a different class of wealthy, this time artists?

This article originally appeared in the April 2nd New York Observer.

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The Devil's Dictionary

April 17, 2014, 1:56 pm

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The name Joe Reza "Prime" should be a household name, one that everyone should recognize. Just as other artists associated with Los Angeles like Ed Ruscha, David Hockney or Larry Bell, who have contributed to the arts and culture of the region, the biggest difference being that Prime is actually from here. His story begins on the streets of the Pico Union district, an area historically recognized for its high density and crime, yet some outstanding artists have emerged from there. This has long been the case to some extent in the Latino community, the lack of social resources and the arts which have contributed to the marginalization of many of our people, has led to high levels of stylized creativity. Paradoxically, when dealing with the arts, some of the masters in any field never had proper training and took more chances because of a lack of resources and experimented with whatever was available, while many with education and schooling never had true experiences and often end up being artistic bureaucrats and teaching others how to be great. In his early years, Joe Reza was influenced by street gang cement carvings, cholo lettering, the Lowrider and QVO magazines, and the ecology of the streets. In these types of neighborhoods, if you walked out of your house on the way to a local elementary or junior high, chances are you would have seen several hit ups, placasos, or gang members loitering around by the time you arrived. The street gallery was dark, exhilarating, intriguing and edgy, one where survival was always at stake, and if you weren't a gang member, you didn't do gang writing.

When East Coast style graffiti hit Los Angeles via Subway Art, films and documentaries, Joe Reza was drawn to it at once. He used to spend all his time at Radiotron in McArthur Park, a youth center and alternative space founded by Carmelo Alvarez where breakdancing and graffiti flourished, but in 1985 was demolished to build a mall. There were protests and marches to save the space, but eventually it was defeated. During its tenure, the first graffiti crew in L.A. was founded there, the Los Angeles Bomb Squad and soon other crews followed suit. He took his name from a spray can, the primer color, dropped the R and became Prime. Shortly thereafter, with fellow colleagues Rick One/Crime, Geo, Risco, and Defer, they founded the K2S crew, Kill 2 Succeed, which today is hailed as the origin of Los Angeles style graffiti. In Steve Grody's book Graffiti L.A., several prominent graffiti writers from all over the county like AWR, MSK, WCA, and others have collectively agreed that K2S were the pioneers of the L.A. look, which has somewhat of an aggressive, monochromatic, and bold aesthetic, in direct opposition to other regions of the county that focused on brighter palates and rounded shapes. Prime and other members of his crew focused on block letters, sharp arrows and cuts, dark and solid tones, which was reflective of their community and more representational of Los Angeles as a whole, serving to debunk the myth of the glamorous boosterism of other peoples work.

In 1986 the first friendly graffiti battle at the infamous Belmont Tunnel brought K2S and WCA to the forefront of the scene and in direct opposition. The WCA members focused on New York-influenced style and imagery, while Prime executed a masterpiece with sharp cuts and arrows and a character never before rendered in this fashion, thus proving him victorious. Modestly, Prime will tell you today that during that period of his life, he didn't consider it art, and at that age he was already more advanced than the average graffiti writer, even by today's standards. Around the late 80s, his good friend Geo was murdered, and in 1989 Prime was shot at point blank range by two assailants in the arm, which scarred him from the armpit to the wrist. He lost all feeling in his hand and arm for about six months, which the lack of dexterity forced him to learn to write, draw, and paint with his left. After a few years of recovery and becoming ambidextrous by default, he learned how to switch off, specifically with a spray can since it is arduous to manage a nozzle. Just seeing him hold a writing tool in his right hand with a different grip as if ready to carve, then seeing him switch to his left is enough for any artist to feel intimidated by his presence.

Today, Prime is considered a master of technique, style, and typeface, and has exhibited with several prominent artists. His work has appeared and has been documented in several books, and he was a part of the Art in the Streets collaborative wall exhibition at MOCA in 2011. He designed the front cover for the Getty Black Book, and he is scheduled to collaborate at the Scratch exhibition at ESMoA along with Defer, Big Sleeps, Gajin Fujita, Cryprik, and Patrick Martinez. His work originates from a dark place, from the bleak and somber environment from which he was spawned, yet his progressive, bold, and forward thinking process has earned him a significant place in the Los Angeles art scene.


Photos courtesy of Joe Reza 2014

Glenn Miller: Now and Then

April 17, 2014, 2:05 pm

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On Sunday, April 13, the day before Passover, a man named Frazier Glenn Cross, known as Glenn Miller, is alleged to have shot and killed three people outside two Jewish facilities in Overland Park, Kansas.

Miller's apparent intent was to wreak violence upon the Jewish people as others have shamefully done here in the United States and in countries around the world in the past.

None of Mr. Miller's victims, however, was Jewish. The people who died were:

• Reat Griffin Underwood, 14, an Eagle Scout, and member of the United Methodist Church

• Reat's grandfather, Dr. William Lewis Corporon, a physician

• Terri LaManna, 53, a mother who worked at the Children's Hospital for the Visually Impaired

Mr. Miller was a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan in North Carolina. According to the New York Times, "for decades", he was, "one of the country's more prominent white supremacists, known for his antipathy toward Jews..."

This Glenn Miller's actions have brought great sadness to our nation. His name, however, brings to mind another Glenn Miller. That Glenn Miller's actions have brought great joy to the nation from the 1930s until today.

The Glenn Miller of whom we write was perhaps the greatest big band leader in the history of the United States. Born in Clarinda Iowa in 1904, Glenn became a professional musician playing the trombone.

He formed the Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1937. Before his death, in 1944, his orchestra had recorded numerous top 10 "swing" or "dance band" hits including: In the Mood, Moonlight Serenade, Chattanooga Choo-Choo, A String of Pearls, and I've Got a Gal in Kalamazoo.

When the country entered World War II at the age of 38 Glenn was too old for the draft. Nonetheless, "at the peak of his civilian career," he volunteered for the Navy but was not accepted. He petitioned and was accepted by the Army in August of 1942 joining as a Captain.

Captain Miller performed multiple tasks including morale building, modernizing military music, and raising millions of dollar in War Bond Drives. He was given the responsibility for forming the 50-member Army Air Force Band which was established at Yale University in March of 1943.

The Band originally performed stateside and on the weekly radio broadcast, I Sustain the Wings, hosted by Captain Miller. Miller arranged to take the band to England where it gave 800 performances and performed at more than 35 bases beginning in the summer of 1944.

On July 24, 1944, Miller was promoted to Major. On December 15 of that year, Major Miller was to fly from the United Kingdom to Paris France to entertain troops there.

His plane disappeared over the English Channel. To this date, no trace has been found of the plane, the crew, or Major Miller.

At his daughter's request, a headstone for Glenn Miller has been placed in Arlington National Cemetery. A memorial on the Cemetery's Official Website begins as follows, "Remember Glenn Miller, the noted composer, arranger, trombonist, and Big Band leader? Major Alton Glenn Miller, U.S. Army Air Corps has been missing in action since Dec. 15, 1944. Miller was eligible for a memorial headstone in Arlington National Cemetery as a service member who died on active duty whose remains were not recoverable."

Glenn Miller died but his music has not. The beat goes on.

It has been sustained over the years through vehicles such as the award-winning 1954 movie, The Glenn Miller Story, featuring Jimmy Stewart in the title role and with a score and orchestral arrangements of Miller's greatest hits by Henry Mancini.

It continues today by the officially sanctioned Glenn Miller Orchestra formed in 1956 and playing "an average of 300 live dates a year all around the world." The orchestra's touring schedule for the remainder of this year include performances across the country.

We remember band leader and patriot Glenn Miller now because his story is an American one. It is reminds us of who and what we are at our best and the harmonious sounds and songs that bring us together.

We contrast it to the story of the other Glenn Miller (aka Frazier Glenn Cross) which unfortunately is an American one as well. It tells us what can happen when we are at our worst consumed by discordant fear and bigotry.

As Mr. Miller/Cross was being put into the back of the squad car, after he was arrested for the Overland Park killings, it is reported he shouted, "Heil Hitler!" Americans during World II understood the imperative of standing against and not dancing with Hitler.

The real Glenn Miller reminded us then and he reminds us now that whom we dance with and what music we dance to matters. We remember that at this sad time because it gives us the hope and spirit to carry on to create a more perfect union and to make America a better place for all. It puts us In the Mood.

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When I Die

April 17, 2014, 2:11 pm

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Yesterday I spent an hour in a rose garden. I photographed some of the most beautiful roses I had ever seen. It was breathtaking, and I was so grounded in the moment that I never noticed the passing of time. The roses were in all stages of their lives, from barely budding to dying on the vine. Each had its own majesty.

When I finished shooting, I felt light on my feet. Light in my body. Lifted up, in a way. And I remembered that this is a natural outcome. It always happens when I return to nature and when I start to create. Both things take me down the bliss trail.

When bedtime came, I was wide awake. I watched Tavis Smiley interview Roseanne Cash at 1 a.m. and got up to write a song. At 6:30, I woke up and wrote a poem. The poem is finished, the song is not. It seemed informed by the roses somehow, by all the dead petals lying on the ground, by the contrasting vibrancy of the tender buds. Life speaks to us in the wild. It has every answer we need. I wonder why I don't go there more often...

When I die

When I die
let them know I was ready to go
that I'd had enough fun
smelled enough roses
sailed enough seas.

Tell them I had no regrets
I laughed all the way
and could hardly wait
to slip through the veil
and see what was next

If they wonder what advice I left behind
say: add some silence to every day
sit alone in a quiet room
and feel the bliss of adoration

If they wonder did I believe in God
tell them every other week
and the rest of the time
I bowed down to Mystery.

Let them know I died saying thanks
and publish my papers that say what for.

When I die, bring out the guitars
the fiddles and harmonicas
Let the tears run down your ruby cheeks.

I've folded back in to Mind-at-Large
my flesh becoming words
that may find your lips in time.

Jan Phillips 2014

Hot Dogs Under Glass

April 17, 2014, 2:33 pm

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'7950 Santa Monica Boulevard' 16"x 35" oil on linen over panel
If you look at the set of hot dogs in the lower right, the top one is the freshest, the one below it has been on the rollers the longest, and the two on the bottom are somewhere in between. I also included some men's magazines behind the counter.

Nature Photographer James Balog Honored

April 17, 2014, 2:57 pm

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Photographer James Balog accepting the 2014 LEAF award from the Nicholas School for his "Lifetime Environmental Achievement in the Fine Arts."

 

The cameraman featured in the Oscar-nominated film Chasing Ice has captured a lot more than ice with his lens.

Artists -- they have extraordinary talent and power to reach deep down into people and challenge them to question their assumptions, to see the world in a new way, and perhaps even to change how they live. And with that opportunity, I would argue comes a responsibility. A responsibility to use those talents in a constructive way. Some artists accept, even embrace that responsibility choosing to make the environment a major theme of their work in the hopes of connecting people in an emotional, visceral way to our planet and its stewardship.

The Duke LEAF Award for Lifetime Environmental Achievement in the Fine Arts was established in 2009 to call attention to and honor that kind of artist, the kind of artist

“whose work has lifted the human spirit by conveying our profound spiritual and material connection to the Earth and thereby inspiring others to help forge a more sustainable future for all.”

LEAF Award Recipients
	2014: Photographer James Balog
	2013: Author Alexander McCall Smith
	2012: Writer/filmmaker John Sayles
	2011: Writer Barbara Kingsolver
	2010: Singer-songwriter Jackson Browne
	2009: Filmmaker Robert Redford
More on the LEAF

This past weekend we bestowed the 2014 LEAF on James Balog.

Balog the Leaper

Balog is one of many talented and accomplished nature photographers that bring the images of flora and fauna, ocean and mountain to me and my fellow arm-chair naturalists.

But I think Balog is unique.

By melding his artistic sensibilities with his knowledge as an earth scientist and his love of the outdoors borne of youthful years spent mountain climbing and camping, Balog has created a body of work that is singular, informative and profoundly moving.

During his visit, Balog related a story with a surprising turn of events, a turn that led him to find his life's work seemingly by accident and serendipity.

As a young man, the now-consummate photographer did not consider photography as a possible future profession. He saw himself as a scientist and more specifically as an earth scientist. However, after publishing his first scientific paper and beginning to contemplate life after earning a master of science degree in geography from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Balog decided that the life of a scientist wasn't for him after all. What then, he recalls asking himself? He knew he liked photography and being outdoors. And so, just like that, he became a nature photographer.

It was a leap to be sure and not an easy one. Balog relates that he had no formal education in photography and had to teach himself by trial and error how to master his craft.

But, at least in this case, talent won out and it wasn't long before his work began appearing in National Geographic, The New Yorker and Life magazine -- and being recognized for its excellence (e.g., First Prize, World Press Photo Contest (1986), International League of Conservation Photographers Inaugural Award (2009), PhotoMedia's Photography Person of the Year (2011)).

And it would appear that all that early training as a scientist was not for naught. In addition to the accolades from the worlds of journalism and photography, his work has also been recognized by the scientific community: for example, an Honorary Doctor of Science Degree from the University of Alberta and the American Geophysical Union Presidential Citation for Science and Society.

Ilulissat Isfjord, Greenland, 24 August 2007. From the Extreme Ice Survey. (Photograph by James Balog)

 

Balog the Ice Man

Balog is probably best known as the central figure in Chasing Ice, the award-winning documentary chronicling his work leading the Extreme Ice Survey -- a project that has provided the world a unique and dramatic visual record of the alarmingly rapid retreat of glacial ice due to global warming.

The film is stunning and moving in terms of the remarkable beauty of the images captured, the undeniable evidence it provides that our world's ice is disappearing as we dither about climate change, and the story it tells of Balog's dogged determination to bring what had probably seemed to many a quixotic dream to fruition.

Balog the Artist

Quite often when environmental photography comes to mind, we think of idyllic pictures of pristine environments -- the kind of images that the Hudson River School made famous using the medium of oil painting and that Ansel Adams captured on film. Beautiful and inspiring as they may be, this is not what Balog has aspired to capture in his work.

“The Old Man and The Ape” from Anima collection. (Photograph by James Balog)

 

Balog told me he wants his work to be about the collision between humanity and the rest of nature, a sentiment he accented by pumping his right fist into the palm of his other hand with a pop. Rather than pristine environments, Balog looks to produce images where the mark of humanity is at least implied if not obvious.

Of course the opposite of an idyllic scene a la Ansel Adams is one that depicts an environmental disaster -- birds unable to fly because of an oil spill, smog-choked cityscapes, dead fish along a polluted stream. Pictures that seek to shock in order to get people’s attention. But while such photographs do portray the collision between nature and humanity, they rarely characterize a Balog photograph.

I find that Balog's work carries a more nuanced message -- one that draws people into the picture, making them a part of the scene, rather then seeking to shock and recoil.

Louisiana, June 2010: Oil containment booms and oil from Deepwater Horizon explosion catastrophe, Barataria Bay" from the Tectonics-Natural and Human collection. (Photograph by James Balog)

 

For example, consider the photo above from his Tectonics-Natural and Human collection. It's a photograph of oiled wetland grasses following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The devastation from the oil is apparent, but I don't find it shocking -- for me it is oddly perplexing and intriguing. I have seen many, many photographs of the damage to wetlands from oil spills, but none like this one.

I find myself drawn in, trying to understand what it is I am seeing, in a sense becoming a part of the scene. Are those wetlands or is it the pate of a balding head covered in oil and muck? Is Balog trying to show us that we all get just a little bit oiled when our wetlands are decimated by an oil spill?

Florida Panther, from Endangered Wildlife: 1987-1997. (Photograph by James Balog)

Of course, if you're trying to engage people with a picture, photographs capturing animals as the subject can be quite effective.

And animals have certainly been the subject of many a Balog photograph. I think it's clear from these kinds of photos that Balog has a special fascination with our furry friends -- a fascination that appears to be mutual.

As illustrated in his Endangered Wildlife collection, there is something extraordinarily captivating and personal, almost intimate about his animal photographs. Each photograph in this series provides us with a deep face-to-face encounter with an animal whose existence on this planet is very much in question.

Balog takes his art and the environmental message it carries quite seriously, but he is not above using humor to carry that message home as he does in "The Old Man and the Ape." (See image above.)

“Portrait of Milla” from Anima collection. (Photograph by James Balog)

 

Balog Wanted the Lemur

Balog and his traveling companions -- wife Suzanne and younger daughter Emily -- made full use of their visit to Durham and Duke, checking out the sites in addition to attending the LEAF award festivities and meeting with students. While I thought Balog enjoyed the ceremony honoring him, it was pretty clear that the highlight of his trip was his tour of the Duke Lemur Center.

Grendel, an aye-aye. (Duke Lemur Center/David Haring)

 

He apparently especially bonded with one lemur -- I think it was an aye-aye like the one above. During his acceptance speech he thanked us for the award but said he wasn't leaving until he was also given a lemur. I'm pretty sure it was tongue and cheek since the very next day they headed off to the airport, Suzanne and Emily to Boulder and James headed to Pennsylvania to continue to spread the word about climate change, and no one has been reported missing at the Lemur Center … as far as I know.

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