Culture & Arts

As always, the legendary Forbidden Broadway franchise at the Davenport Theater is a satiric love letter to Broadway musicals. Writer/creator Gerard Alessandrini is The Great White Way's ultimate critic -- and he pierces its pretensions with rapier wit. Or in the show's words: "Lyrics perverted to put producers through hell."

This year, he deliciously spoofs Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Aladdin, among other targets. This isn't camp; it's a masterwork of clever commentary on New York's greatest cultural institution, staged at lightning speed.

Forbidden Broadway Comes Out Swinging! pays homage to the very institution it savages. Only a passionate theater lover could pen such a smart, insightful score, and Alessandrini shares his thoughts about the show's longevity.

You've been zinging Broadway for 32 years. It's a fantastic way to vent. What's the secret to its long success?

I think the secret is that it renews itself all time -- keeping it fresh and always topically funny.

What's new in the current show?

This rendition has more new numbers than ever before! We spoof Matilda, Rocky, The Bridges Of Madison County, the live network TV version of The Sound of Music with Carrie Underwood, Bullets Over Broadway, Idina Menzel in Frozen, as well as the new revivals of Pippin, Les Miserable and Cabaret.

The best part about FB is that you go after sacred cows -- Sondheim, Lupone, Peters, etc. What's been the general reception among the actors and writers?

Most are very generous and love to come and enjoy the show. They are good sports -- at least to our faces! Who knows what they think when they are at home. Most all the writers have come. I believe we have been kinder to writers than various stars. Of course, legendary stars like Carol Channing have been very kind to us!

What do you think about the staggering trend of movies into musicals?

I can see how it happened because people recognize a film name. And they like the idea of seeing it done on stage live before them. After all, people know what they like, and they like what they know. But it's all really silly because they are such different mediums. And if a film is beloved, a stage show version can look ridiculous and ultimately disappoint its fans.

Do you have a favorite season of Forbidden Broadway?

I really loved the one in the 1980s when both La Cage Aux Folles and Sunday In The Park were on Broadway. I also loved the 1995-96 season with Rent, The King and I and Julie Andrews in Victor/Victoria. Most recently, I loved the 2012 season with Book Of Mormon.

Has the reception abroad been similar to New York or audiences get less of the infra digs?

Yes! In London, they love the show as much if not more than here in New York. We are going there this June for our fifth time. I have to make alterations to the running order and change a few references, but you'd be surprised how almost everybody everywhere loves Broadway musicals! They even loved Forbidden Broadway in Tokyo and Singapore.

The final song, the chilling "Tomorrow Belongs To Me" about corporate ascendance, is this the future of Broadway?

Right now, we like to joke it is in the corporate era, but the fun thing about Broadway: It's always full of surprises. So who knows? It's just thrilling to wait and see what's new and what's fabulous.

Photo: Carol Rosegg

Jarrod Spector a is making quite a name for himself on Broadway by playing music icons. First, he played a record 1,500 performances as Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys, and this year, he's nominated for a Best Featured Actor in a Musical Tony for his role as songwriting legend Barry Mann in the Carole King musical Beautiful. But there's more to the Philadelphia native than capably stepping into the mighty big shoes of mighty big musicians in mighty big productions. To single out one: he has cut two of his own albums (A Little Help From My Friends: Minor Fall, Major Lift) that capture his truly spectacular range as a vocalist. At the Hyatt Time Square in Manhattan, Spector filmed an A-Sides session, discussing his Beautiful Broadway run, his own music, and everything in-between. He also weighed in on a Don King/Carole King collaboration (yes, you read that right) and performed a classic Animals song from the show. Watch the vids below (filmed by (shootmepeter.com), and catch some Spector fever. This guy's a star.

* A-Sides' Tony spotlight coverage wraps up this coming week with Rocky star Andy Karl!

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About A-Sides Music

Jon Chattman's "A-Sides Music" series was established in August 2011 and usually features artists (established or not) from all genres performing a track, and discussing what it means to them. This informal series focuses on the artist making art in a low-threatening, extremely informal (sometimes humorous) way. No bells, no whistles -- just the music performed in a random, low-key setting followed by an unrehearsed chat. In an industry where everything often gets overblown and over manufactured, I'm hoping this is refreshing. Artists have included: fun, Rob Zombie, Pharrell Williams, Courtney Love, American Authors, Imagine Dragons, Gary Clark Jr., and more! A-Sides theme written and performed by Blondfire.

At first we can't name the protagonist in Richard Greenberg's "Night and Her Stars," directed with pitch perfect precision by Matt Anderson for The Garage Theatre In Collision With Alive Theatre. It could be Dan Enright (Robert Edward) and Martin Freedman (Joe Howells). They're co-producers of the real life "Twenty One," a late-50s quiz show. It could be either of the show's two best-known contestants. Herbert Stempel (Anthony Galleran) is churlish, savant if not idiotic, and an aspiring actor. Charles Van Doren (Sumner Leveque) is a Columbia professor, scion of a fabled literary family. For various reasons, each in itself fascinating, the four conspire to rig the show.

But no, the protagonist for the show is the medium itself of live TV. Enright says as much at the beginning. He decides that TV, then its baby years, needs a hero. The problem is, TV, unlike live theatre and cinema, doesn't promote, much less attract, heroes. Nor does it provide a script, literary or otherwise. We see contestants as they sweat, stammer, fidget...and fail. Network executives, advertisers and the public want telegenic, charismatic winners. Enright feeds Sempel with the scripted answers. Soon, ratings level off. Enright replaces him with the more palpable Van Doren. (FYI: if you've ever wondered the difference between a nerd and a geek, look no further than Galleran's Stempel and Leveque's Van Doren). That requires another rigging. This time Stempel had to lose so that Van Doren can win.

The story, though, is not about the rigging, the cover up, the investigations and indictments. It's about how TV, small-screen, black and white, peopled with just plain folk and not trained actors, can not be a heroic medium without some kind of doctoring. One could argue that, in the past 60 years, only the TV monitor size, color enhancement, and resolution have changed.

The thing's well staged. It presents three simultaneous points of view. There's the boozy and conniving back stage office drama. There's the polished live TV show. And, projected on the Theatre's floor, is the video projection of what we see on TV. The video projection makes contestants even more pale, wan, and nervous than they really are.

The performances are grand. You can almost hear Anderson tell the cast to keep it real. The story features some lulus of characters. Any one of them could have been played to comic effect. But the story, if it's meant to be believed, can't be played funny. It has to be played for keeps. It's only when we how serious these characters are that we can laugh at the absurdity of the whole enterprise. Making contestants of a live TV quiz show seem heroic? It's like putting lipstick on a pig. That, incidentally, provides a nice arc from late 50s quiz shows to, oh, I don't know, reality shows like "Keeping up with the Kardashians."

And so, in perfect synch, the ensemble effort rocks. Julian's Barry fronts an outlandishly, adorably, and extravagantly clueless host. Galleran's Herbert smolders on the verge of going postal. Leveque's All American know-it-all Van Doren suffers an existential crisis. Because he's a Van Doren, it would be a Nietzsche one, not a Reader's Digest one. And Edward's Enright is smarmy, Teflonesque, and Machiavellian.

There's another hint that the production's about the medium of TV. A chastened Van Doren goes home to visit his Homeric father Mark (Stephen Alkus). They wonder what life was like before TV. The show ends, sweetly if not a little sadly, with the two of them outside, not in front of a miniature, black and white screen. The father teaches the son the names of the trees on his property.

Performances are 8pm, Thursday through Saturday. The show runs until June 28. Tickets are $15 - $18. The Theatre is located at 251 E. Seventh Street, Long Beach, 90802. For more information call (562) 433-8337 or visit thegaragetheatre.org.

William Inge is a dark chronicler of small-town Midwest lives. The roles of alcohol and sexual impropriety are familiar threads in his work -- a striking contrast to the white-picket fence world of assumed propriety.

He wrote his four masterpieces -- Picnic, Bus Stop, Splendor in the Grass and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs -- in the 1950s. All demand a certain kind of acting; performers who can spin their emotions on a dime.

One of his last, and least heralded plays, A Loss of Roses, now off-Broadway at the Theatre at St. Clement's, is a stronger work than credited at its 1959 debut. Roses is remembered mostly for securing Warren Beatty a Tony nomination for his single Broadway role, which closed after 25 performances.

But the play is solid, and the Peccadillo Theater Company has rightly revived it.

A Loss of Roses is an intimate story. Kenny Baird (Ben Kahre) is a
21-year-old with a job at a filling station; his widowed mother Helen (Deborah Hedwall) is a nurse. They both have jobs during the Depression, no small victory. It's the 1930s, outside Kansas City.

Kenny refuses to leave home; he feels somewhat responsible for his mother's well-being. She, in turn, wishes he was more independent, worried about his drinking and penchant for trashy girls. Kenny acts, in part, like a pseudo-husband; filling in for the father who died when he was young.

Into their lives comes Lila (Jean Lichty), a pretty, out-of-work actress whose past hints at misery and abuse. Helen, who helped Lila escape her family home in Oklahoma, now welcomes her as a guest. But like Blanche DuBois, Lichty's sensuality and appeal aren't her salvation.

However, her presence, like the mysterious stranger in Picnic, is a catalyst to shake up the Baird household.

Troubled families, sexual frustration, inchoate yearnings are an Inge specialty -- and those elements are a potent mix in Roses. Harry Feiner's sets and lighting are spot-on, as is Marianne Custer's costume design. The acting is a bit more problematic. Hedwall is excellent as Helen, combining a no-nonsense approach to life with real empathy, while Kahre and Lichty's push/pull attraction is heartfelt.

But the two are strangely restrained at times, and some of the most meaningful moments aren't as fiercely emotional as the script suggests. Still, Inge's least-known work deserves attention. It's a stark reminder that the pathos of everyday life is just beneath a casual smile. Scratch the surface in Inge's world and the darkness appears.

Photo: Michael Portantiere

April Nordbee, a 29-year-old mother of two who lives in Swedborg Falls, Wisconsin, has found her life completely changed over the past two years, all as the result of a lucky keystroke error she made during a Google search that caused her to discover the life and work of artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). Nordbee's subsequent transformation from an LVN into a nationally recognized conceptual artist has both shocked and electrified the rust belt town of 35,000 where she grew up. "April certainly has shaken us up," says Roger Ballens, the town's mayor, "but she has also put us on the map and given the local economy a real shot in the arm."

"I was doing a search for duck stamp," Nordbee explains, "and I had just typed the 'c' in duck on my computer when my 4-year-old Kevin slammed his T-Rex onto the keyboard to get my attention and BOOM up comes Marcel Duchamp on Wikipedia. After putting Kevin on his Elmo chair for a time out, I started to read about Duchamp -- Why not? I thought -- and when I saw the picture of his bottle rack I literally got goose bumps. It was like Duchamp was speaking to me personally, telling me 'Anything can be art and anyone can be an artist.'"

It was the first time Nordbee had ever heard of Duchamp -- a revolutionary modern artist who is considered the grandfather of Conceptualism -- but her interest in art wasn't anything new. Always good at drawing, a colored pencil sketch she made of a unicorn in 8th grade had earned her a second prize ribbon at a local fair, and Nordbee says that she would have either attended beauty school or art school had she not become pregnant with Cody, her oldest boy, who arrived just after high school graduation.

The years that followed graduation weren't easy ones: April and her sweetheart-turned-husband Ed had to move in with his parents while Ed learned welding at a local trade school. After baby Kevin arrived a few years later April was able to get her nursing degree by attending night classes, and the couple had been able to move to their own apartment just before Ed was laid off. "Things had just started looking up for us when Ed lost his job," Nordbee recalls, "and we didn't want to fall back on our parents again. If I hadn't discovered Marcel I don't know what we would have done."

On the day that I accidentally googled Duchamp Ed was out earning some cash doing landscaping work. My head was just literally swimming thinking about Duchamp and I wanted to find a way that Ed could share in my excitement when he came home. I called my mother, who came and took the boys to her place for a sleepover, and then I got busy quickly. I put some chicken in the crockpot, turned Kevin's tricycle upside down in front of the fireplace and lit the fire.

When Ed came home he found me buck naked sitting at a chessboard with the wheel of Kevin's tricycle spinning gently behind me. I handed him a joint and said to him: 'I need to tell you all about the work of Marcel Duchamp.' I had been thinking about how to explain Duchamp to him, but he got it right away. He knows that all the manufacturing is going to China and when I told him being an artist means just signing things and becoming famous he was right on board with it. After I made a pledge to him -- 'neither of us will ever have a real job again'-- we made love on the floor next to the chessboard. It was the most beautiful night of our lives.

The next day Nordbee quit her job at a local manor care facility and had an image of Duchamp tattooed on her left arm. The bold tattoo, which showed Duchamp behind his famous "Bicycle Wheel" was her way of letting her family and friends know that she was a new person now: an artist who was re-making her life to reflect the art and ideas of a dead Frenchman they had never heard of.

Two weeks later Nordbee entered her first readymade -- simply titled 'Blender' -- in the annual juried show of the Swedborg Falls Art League. Although her piece was rejected by the exhibition committee Nordbee signed the work 'A. Nordbee' with a black sharpie and made free margaritas in it outside the local Kiwanis Hall during the opening night of the art league show, drawing quite a crowd. She also handed out over 200 postcards -- purchased earlier in the day at a local Christian bookstore -- each featuring a printed image of Jesus. Nordbee had altered each card by adding a touch of lipstick to Christ's lips with a red pastel and penciling the words 'He's got a hot ass' on the card's lower edge. When a brief story about Nordbee and the altered Jesus cards appeared in the Milwaukee Patch the next day, the blog went viral and comments had to be disabled.

"When Pastor Raines called the next day he was very angry about the Christ card," Nordbee reflects.

I stayed calm and told him that I still loved Jesus, but that Duchamp had shown me that you aren't going to get any attention for your work if you don't take a shot at some famous person or symbol or at least sex them up a bit. Besides, I know for a fact that his church was totally packed when he did a sermon about my piece the following Sunday: he actually e-mailed me to say thank you.

As a result of the Patch story, Nordbee also began to hear from a lot of out-of-towners, including a curator from the Milwaukee Art Museum and another from the Dia Art Foundation in New York. "I didn't know what a curator was at first, but I got that sorted out pretty quickly" Nordbee states. "They were very, very interested in me and the curator from the Dia told me that I was as a woman artist re-doing a man's art career I was a really big deal and that I could get grants."

A month later she was in the news again with a large-scale event called 'In Advance of Corporate Downsizing' that took place at an abandoned air conditioner plant. "Duchamp understood that artists and viewers are both participants in whatever the art is," Nordbee comments.

So I knew I had to go all out to show everyone a good time. My sister and I made an installation by hanging all the old broken equipment and tools we could find from the ceiling with wires, and then I signed all the urinals in the men's room. Ed had the genius idea to attach one of them to a beer keg so that if you flushed you could fill up a beer stein: you should have seen the line for that!

"In Advance" opened at 5AM on November 23, 2012 -- Black Friday -- and was billed as a "performance, concert and alternative to shopping at WalMart." A long queue of visitors, mostly young people and a lot of out-of-towners, snaked past the enlarged photos of Duchamp that had been bolted to the plant's fence, paying ten bucks each to gawk at the hanging tools. As the day wore on there was an ear-splitting concert by a local garage band who had christened themselves "Woman Ray," and a also a growing potluck of casseroles, brownies and tossed salads brought by well-wishers and served on paper plates. April and Ed Nordbee spent most of the day sitting behind a folding table playing chess on the plant's loading dock, selling Duchamp t-shirts, and taking it all in. "People were bringing me their blenders to sign -- I charged them five dollars for that -- and I also signed a few coffee grinders and some Tupperware."

By the New Year Nordbee had received enough attention and national press that her new public image had been secured: April Nordbee is now a brand, and also the subject of at least a dozen PhD theses in progress. "Apparently, I am the first female outsider/conceptualist to come out of this region, " Nordbee states with pride. "My timing was perfect." After her February, 2013 appearance on the Ellen DeGeneres show Nordbee signed a contract with a major gallery: her first show of readymades and signed found objects will open in New York this July. She also has licensing deals with Martha Stewart for a line of signature blenders and stainless steel backyard grills.

Although April Nordbee is now being heralded as a role model and an American success story, not everyone in Swedborg Falls is pleased. Crystal Anne Nordbee, the artist's opinionated 78-year-old paternal grandmother spoke her mind to reporter for USA Today:

April doesn't call me anymore and I don't call her. Ever since she discovered that lazy-ass artist Duchamp April has become very greedy and self-involved. My late husband and I worked hard for everything we had -- we built this house with our own hands -- and I have no interest in so-called art by people who take no pride in what they put their name on. This country doesn't need greedy artists and overpaid CEOs who sell us over-priced worthless crap made by underpaid people in factories overseas. America needs doers and makers right now, not takers.

Author's Note: This piece is fiction intended as a commentary and social satire. April Nordbee, Swedborg Falls and its citizens are not real. Marcel Duchamp, on the other hand, was a very real and tremendously influential cultural figure.

My fair readers -- it is a week before the Tony Awards. What does that mean? It's time for The Drama Desk Awards. There are a good amount of awards that honor theater, but the Drama Desk is certainly the largest award to honor both off-Broadway and Broadway. It's our version of the Golden Globes. I wish people sat at tables. Sadly, they do not. Also, I'm upset John Ellison Conlee did not receive a nomination for his performance in The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence, for which he recently won an Obie. This all said, please watch the live stream on Theatermania. Other than the Tony Awards, this is the one big theater award show you can watch from the comfort of your own home. Do that. Support.

What else is on my mind today?

M&M's. I have written a lot about eating in the theater. Starting in 2007 with this Times story and continuing on as more and more theaters began to allow/even encourage seat snacks. But I don't think I've ever been quite as distracted by this trend as I was Wednesday night. On Wednesday, I completed my Tony season by seeing, All The Way. First, let me say, I had previously written about how excited I was to see such a huge cast in a straight play on Broadway. The show didn't disappoint. I am not an American history person at all. I can maybe name a dozen presidents, if that. But I found the play very engrossing and well directed by Bill Rauch; it is about more than Bryan Cranston's (future Tony-winning) performance. I was so glad I went. However my enjoyment was threatened at the start of the second act when everyone around me seemed to be eating M&M's. The noise created by the bag wrinkling and the snack pouring, coupled with clanking ice (because you need your beverage with your M&Ms), created more noise than the actors on the stage. Theater owners -- I beg of you -- stop selling M&M's. I know I'll never win on the snack front in general, but, please, think about the noise created by the snacks that you do sell. A Snickers bar, for example, is chocolate, and a lot less noisy than M&M's. Ice cream is common in the West End and at some regional theaters, including Yale Rep.. People love ice cream, and it is quiet. Jordan Roth, I'll promote a related campaign for you. (I'm only picking Mr. Roth because he is an identifiable head of an organization that owns many Broadway theaters, not because I believe Jujamcyn Theaters are particularly bad on this front. I swear.)

I am not a cabaret person. There are a whole host of differences between Adam Feldman and me (actually I'm sure no one would think of us in the same sentence even) and this is one of them. I read Adam's cabaret reviews, the only cabaret reviews I read. Every once and a while if he loves a show and it is still playing, or it is coming back, I'll go. There are also occasions where I love the performer so much I attend. Mostly though, I like my theater-style shows to have strong librettos. Therefore I'm not a huge Broadway concert person either, as those have even less book than cabaret shows. Nevertheless, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for certain benefits and other concerts. Each time I have attended Broadway by the Year, I have found it interesting. I really wanted to go see the May 12 installment, but I missed it. Over half of the next installment will be songs from shows I have seen, but I still might head over to Town Hall on June 23. I encourage my readers who are just getting into musical theater to buy a ticket -- $55 for orchestra -- and attend. Other journalists (not me) talk about how the Broadway musical is dead, but I think you'll realize that there have been some pretty good songs created in the last 24 years.

I never thought Broadway 4D would ever actually happen. I am shocked that they even filmed one number. But a very small part of me held out hope that it would because I was looking forward to being inside the Times Square Theater. Maybe, now that it is in the news again, someone will take it over. Mr. Roth? Disney? It seems like it could be a good The Hunchback of Notre Dame location.

This is the final week to see Carly Rae Jepsen and Fran Drescher together in Cinderella. They have the oddest performing schedule I've ever seen and sadly there is no great video to show you of them (just this one acting scene), but I thought they were really entertaining together. Jepsen sings and acts the part well. If you haven't seen the show, now is a good time to go.

Judy Chicago

Bronze Flowering Head

2013

Patinated bronze, lacquer and flame worked glass on acrylic base, 15” x 16” x 16”

Photo © Donald Woodman

www.judychicago.com

www.davidrichardgallery.com

www.donaldwoodman.com

Part of the exhibition “Heads Up” at David Richard Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, June 14 – July 26, 2014

For image reproduction of Judy Chicago’s works, please visit www.artres.com

When six-year-old William Louis-Dreyfus saw a blind beggar in tinted glasses waving a tin cup on a Paris street, he emptied his pockets of coins for the man. William's wealthy grandmother looked on with disapproval. "You don't know if he was really blind," she scolded. "Even then, it struck me as the most extraordinary thing for someone to say," recalls Louis-Dreyfus. He then quotes the French writer Andre Gide, "God show his contempt for money by the quality of the people he bestows it on." Ironically, God blessed 81-year-old Louis-Dreyfus with a knack for making money -- lots of it -- in the high risk field of commodities trading, and he has spent a lifetime defying Gide's corollary.

But first, let's talk about Louis-Dreyfus's driving preoccupation, his love for art. William's father Pierre Louis-Dreyfus was one of the leading Jewish officers in the French resistance and a ball turret gunner in DeGalle's air war against the Nazis. Prior to escaping with his mother to Spain, William made bearable the smothering Nazi occupation of Vichy France with an addiction to the Louvre where he developed his discriminating eye. And so, when, as a young Wall Street trader in 1965, he earned a hefty bonus William blew the wad on eight Kandinsky watercolors. He had noticed, Max Ernst's paintings were achieving extraordinary values. "I reasoned that while Ernst was a good artist, Wassily Kandinsky was a master." Louis-Dreyfus wagered that intrinsic value would ultimately trump fickle public sentiment in the marketplace. "I bet that cream would rise."

As Louis-Dreyfus's commodities wagers paid off in spades, his art collection expanded. It now includes over 3,000 extraordinary pieces -- all chosen for their intrinsic value by his discerning tastes and stored in a warehouse/gallery he purchased near his home in Mount Kisco, New York.

Louis-Dreyfus's enthusiasms are eclectic spanning two continents and running from primitive scribblings to ultra-modern sculpture. Their common thread, in Louis-Dreyfus's words, is that every piece must have "substance." He looks for art that is "considered thoughtful and worked," the product of genius and intellect as well as intense, genuine, consuming labor. The collection includes 150 playful primitives by Alabama artist Bill Traylor, a former slave, whose legacy is an elegant menagerie of vibrant animals etched between the ages 80 and 83 with crayons donated by a young white college student who stumbled across Traylor on a Montgomery sidewalk and recognized his genius; James Castle, a deaf Idaho farm boy, who never learned to read or sign and whose favorite medium was soot and spittle applied with a tree branch; the oils and complex wood and metal constructions of Thornton Dial, an African American artist from North Carolina.

These three -- all are on their way to recognition as American masters -- were self-taught outsiders who, like Louis-Dreyfus, defied convention. Art mavens characterize Louis-Dreyfus's extraordinary ensemble as a "contrarian collection." The assemblage reflects his contempt for the trendy appetites that heap rapidly shifting value upon phantasmagoria. With this enigmatic smile, the gnomish Louis-Dreyfus dispenses wisdom with soft spoken charm and Yoda-like certainty. Warhol, he observes with good natured conviction is "a joke."

In addition to Dial, Traylor and Castle, Louis-Dreyfus was an early collector of now popular works including George Boorujy's giant colored ink animals. Catherine Murphy's pencil drawings and oils and Kurt Knobelsdorf's representational paintings and the works of collagist Sam Szafran and contemporary artist Alberto Giacometti. He noticed Eleanor Ray when she was still a student at the New York Studio School and began collecting her tiny 3x5 representations and landscapes. This year New Yorker critic Jerry Saltz singled out Ray's show as the one not to miss in 2014.

Louis-Dreyfus has established artists like pop artist Claes Oldenburg and pop contemporary sculptor and realist Red Grooms both of whom he has collected since the 1960s. "I will buy anything by Red Grooms," he says. He arrives early, looks for substance and content and, when he likes an artist, he goes in depth and supports them. Louis-Dreyfus's daughter, Emmy-winning actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and her husband, former SNL comic, writer and director, Brad Hall have produced an extraordinary film about the Louis-Dreyfus collection. As the documentary shows, the art and poetry loving financier doesn't just collect art, he collects artists. "He is the classic patron," says Boorujy. "His early support allowed me to keep producing my work." He cultivated the friendship and supported the work of a legion of American artists many of whom are now recognized among the greatest of their generation. His favorite place seems to be in the company of artists. He corresponds with them, visits their studios, engages them in riveting debates on philosophy, poetry, politics, and, of course, art. The movie puts this adorable, eclectic, and opinionated father and his enchanting relationship with his artists and famous and very funny daughter all on display.

The director, Hall, constructed the film, Generosity of Eye, around William Louis-Dreyfus's recent decision to sell his treasure trove to donate the proceeds to the projects of visionary African American educator Geoffrey Canada, the founder of the immensely successful Harlem Children's Zone. (You can view the film and glimpse some of the outstanding pieces in the Louis-Dreyfus collection here.) Canada's success with inner city education are the subject of the award-winning documentary Waiting for Superman. Louis-Dreyfus learned about Canada from a 60 Minutes segment and in subsequent conversations during a Wyoming fly fishing trip with Tom Brokaw, a Canada supporter. Canada's school educates the once forgotten children of Central Harlem, one of America's most blighted neighborhoods, nurturing their values and ambitions from kindergarten to college admission. This year, nearly 400 of Canada's kids were admitted to college defying the 60 percent dropout rates in surrounding communities. "The only permanent remedy for poverty" says Canada, "is education."

The sale of his art bonanza will be a boon for discerning collectors. Louis-Dreyfus says that parting with any of these masterpieces break his heart. However, he reasons, the masterpieces that Canada is crafting will ultimately be more valuable to the world and more enduring. "I'm a patriotic American," explains Louis-Dreyfus of his decision to give away his life's work. William Louis-Dreyfus has had a quiet lifelong devotion to African American education. "I love this country and if you truly love something, you want to erase her blemishes, and one of our country's darkest blemishes is the legacy of slavery -- which are still with us."

Clark Hulings was an American master painter who was said to be able to describe air itself with paint. Surviving, even thriving, as a realist painter throughout the second half of the 20th century was no easy feat but Hulings had the talent and dedication, and, thanks to a successful career in illustration, he had the financial resources to pursue fine art painting full time, and to become one of the true greats of 20th century representational painting. His work continues to reach new audiences through books of his work and through the Clark Hulings Fund for burgeoning visual artists, which I will come back to.

The Lonely Man by Clark Hulings, oil

Hulings lived in Santa Fe New Mexico but was fond of traveling. He had a way of capturing something that transcends region or culture. He painted the calm beauty of a Sunday afternoon, whether in a Mexican market, a Tuscan landscape, or in the rolling Irish hills. His work was international in scope as he saw compassion and self-respect among people everywhere. Hulings was an optimist and it paid off for him. In urban alleyways he envisioned sunlit corridors of family activity. Among rustic farmers he discovered people whose lives were synchronized with the cycles of the seasons and the animals they care for.

Irish Peat Man by Clark Hulings, oil

His art training began as a teenager with Sigismund Ivanowsky and the famed draftsman George Bridgman and continued at The Art Students League with Frank Reilly. He held a degree in physics from Haverford College, Pa., but, following his passion, he pursued a career as a portraitist in Louisiana, followed by freelance illustration in New York, notably paperback book covers, during the 1950s.

Cover illustrations by Clark Hulings

Even then it is easy to see his talent for composition and as one absorbs his work, especially his market and village scenes for which he is famous, the technical proficiency his work displays, his excellent craftsmanship, lifts his work out of mere social commentary or ordinary landscape painting into a higher realm, something both real and spiritually uplifting. He had something of the same quality I admire in Andrew Wyeth's work. His work feels timeless. Many of his paintings have figures, working, going about their day but he could also imply the figure, much like Wyeth could do.

He would paint clothes lines, even though his gallery director told him that nobody wants that in their living room. In his own defense, he says in his book, "Clothes lines symbolize the twin virtues of cleanliness and industry. I like the clothesline because, like a tarpaulin, it makes very useful compositional foil. A line of clothes is like a light in the window. It says somebody is home."

Louisiana Cabin by Clark Hulings, oil

Southwest Art Magazine wrote of Hulings work, "His mastery of drawing, design, texture, gesture and atmosphere is unsurpassed. He paints street scenes, portraits, still lifes, animals, landscapes and nudes with equal panache. No one does as many things as well." I have yet to see anyone render snow the way Hulings could do it.

Woodbearers of Chimayo by Clark Hulings, oil

Bay at Faro by Clark Hulings, oil

It seemed he could paint anything masterfully! This is what drew me to his work, which I spotted for the first time while in Santa Fe when I was there on a trip with my Mom. She later bought his book and sent it to me in Sweden and I continually refer to it to see how a master works with light. In preparing this article I reread it and highly recommend it! I was so impressed with his work that on a subsequent trip to Santa Fe I went and met with Clark and his wife Mary at their home. He shared several stories with me about his travels and about finding the right scenes to paint, sometimes hunting for days, circling an area looking for the right compositions, the right light. In his book, A Gallery of Paintings, he shares some of these stories with us, but to be able to sit and hear him tell them himself was a special honor.

Covered Pool, Istanbul, Turkey by Clark Hulings, watercolor

He won many awards over his 60-plus years as a professional painter. He debuted in New York in 1965 and had solo shows at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City, OK, the Museum of the Southwest in Midland, TX, Nedra Matteucci Galleries in Santa Fe, NM, Morris & Whiteside Galleries, Hilton Head, SC, and in 2011 the Forbes Galleries in New York mounted a show of his work which spanned every decade of his career. Clark Hulnings passed away in 2011 but his work is still with us and the legacy of his work, his gentle nature and generosity continues, in part, through the newly created Clark Hulings Fund.

Noonday, Andalucia by Clark Hulings, oil

Elizabeth Hulings Diamond is the Director of the Clark Hulings Fund which gave out its first awards in 2013. The ultimate goal of The Fund is to build a stronger community among visual artists, and make it so we can help each other create fantastic work and share it with the world, while also earning a living! The Clark Hulings Fund is accepting applications for thier 2014 grants beginning Sep 1. You will find this and other information at clarkhulings.com.

Man From Spain by Clark Hulings, oil

The recently updated website offers other help for artists as well with business content for artists, Outside the Studio, a weekly round-up of visual arts information including news, exhibitions and opportunities. There are also resources for artists which is continually updated. It is also important to say that they are a nonprofit organization and happily accept donations so that they may continue to provide assistance to up and coming professional artists. That is something worth contributing to.

Brown Mule by Clark Hulings, oil

All images courtesy of the Clark Hulings Fund.

A well-traveled Tony Karman, President and Director of EXPO CHICAGO, recently returned from visiting Galleries in Berlin, Paris, Milan, Madrid, London, Amsterdam, Vienna, Mexico City, Basel, Canada and Brussels. On his American itinerary were the leading contemporary galleries and museums in Houston, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and other important art spaces in his hometown of Chicago. While these other American cities rewarded far less air mileage than his out-of-country forays these American Galleries offered hi-calibre Modern and Contemporary works of ART to deck the Exhibition and Selling Halls of Chicago's Navy Pier come this September 18-21. He arrived home with a trunkful of Global and ground-breaking galleries. Seventeen countries will be represented at the 2014 EXPO which attracted over 30,000 buyers and visitors in 2013.Projections for this September may prove larger as EXPO delivered on its promise to be an ART FAIR, Gallery for new Artists, and integrate cutting edge Film and VIDEO and new media works alongside IN/SITU, EXPO's Space for large-scale installations and site-specific and performative works by select international artists. Karman simultaneously created partnerships with the city's leading visual arts organizations and institutions for special exhibitions on and off the show floor.

Karman stood out in a soft summer drizzle this week on the terrace of the Ian Schrager owned PUBLIC Hotel , one of the hip hotels partnering with EXPO CHICAGO, to share the good news for Chicago's International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art with EXPO friends and supporters."We are very proud to announce this exceptional list of exhibitors that have been selected to represent our third edition" an exuberant Karman proffered. The 2014 Selection Committee included Isabella Bortolozzi of her eponymous gallery in Berlin, Chris D'Amelio of David Zwirner of London/ New York and other International gallerists and American Exhibitors including Chicago's Rhona Hoffman of the gallery of the same name.

Lisson Gallery of London, Milan and New York will be exhibiting for the first time in Chicago, where the idea of the GRAND ART FAIR ,it can be fair to say, had its American origin and attracted the ART World from around the Globe. Lisson is a perennial favorite at Art Basel in Switzerland and will be showing from its wide array of Conceptual and Minimal Artists, whose panoply includes Marina Abromovic, Sol LeWitt, Anish Kapoor , as well as sculptor Tony Cragg and Donald Judd alongside others from its stable.

2014 EXPO CHICAGO includes the return of MASSIMO DE CARLO of Milan and London , another Gallery whose eye-popping exhibitions incite Collectors to jump on a jet to see one-man shows by Chris Burden, Liv Xiaodong, Josh Smith and Max Bill. Elizabeth Dee Gallery of New York is new to Chicago this year having been singled out for praise by FRIEZE Director Amanda Sharp at the recent FRIEZE New York 2014 on Randall's Island.

Other new additions to the highly selective but globalcentric inclusion of creative and newsworthy gallerists are Whitestone of Tokyo and Meesen De Clercq of Brussels. One of Chicago's renown Art Dealers known as much for its shows as its generations of building substantial collections for its loyal clients, Richard Gray Gallery will maintain its position as an original Gallery Anchor while Marlborough Gallery, now of London, Madrid, Monaco, Barcelona as well as New York will appear anew as will New York's Salon 94.

Director Karman and his EXPO CHICAGO team have also partnered with Mayor Rahm Emanuel to highlight the vast cultural opportunities that Chicago has to offer Collectors, Dealers, ART Enthusiasts and Tourists by opening more opportunities for the Fair goers through CHOOSE CHICAGO and DCASE, Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events as well as utilizing The Arts Club of Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago ( The MAGRITTE Show will be on Exhibition during the Fair and specially accessible to EXPO attendees) while the MCA ---Museum of Contemporary Art--- will host the opening VERNISSAGE Evening with an Evening dedicated to David Bowie-----ART and MUSIC go hand in hand , don't you know---- as well as the free Riccardo MUTI Concert in MILLENIUM PARK for the newly established "ART AFTER HOURS" program featuring Chicago's Symphony Orchestra and its renown maestro.

Tony Karman boards another plane tomorrow, this time to Toronto as the guest of former U.S. Ambassador to Canada ,the Honorable David and Julie Jacobson, to attend a dinner at the home of collectors Joe and Sandy Rotman to personally extend the invitation to EXPO/CHICAGO to the Toronto Collectors and enthusiasts as well as strengthen the warm bond between the two cities. Throughout his miles of travels commensurate with a secretary of state Tony Karman has far exceeded his job description of Director and President of EXPO CHICAGO. Karman has emerged as Chicago's well-traveled and well-spoken ARTS AMBASSADOR putting EXPO CHICAGO firmly on the ground as a Global ART EXPOSITION.

Dexter Payne's new CD, Pra Vocè ("For You"), delights listeners with the swing-powered sounds of Brazilian choro and baião. But the Colorado clarinetist's sound started with a more Manhattan muse: Clarabell the Clown, from Howdy-Doody.

"He played clarinet by ear," Payne explains. "He stuck the clarinet in his ear, and someone in the band played beautiful clarinet."

Clarabell's joke went over Payne's head as a pre-schooler; but the music spoke to his soul. And gave Payne his first life goal: to play his Dad's old clarinet.

It took a while. When his family moved from New York to Colorado, Payne's father asked the kids to sing folk songs in the car to counter their altitude sickness. Dexter's family sang the melodies. But he thought melody was kid's stuff.

"I kind of got bored with it," Payne says.

To amuse himself, he worked out the harmonies on a harmonica his grandmother had given him. Then, he noticed his ukulele's chord-master, a small box that created chords by compressing the uke's strings at the push of a button.

I could do that by hand, Dexter deduced. So, he did.

But all he wanted was that old clarinet. Until he got his hands on it, in third grade.

"Someone had sat on it," he guesses, "because it was crooked. To that, I attribute my desire to play the saxophone."

If you're noticing a pattern of Dexter Payne traveling from Point A to Point B along a more interesting, curved road, you may be right.

The saxophone-playing Payne was inducted a new Dixieland band by his school's athletic coach. The coach didn't know music, but he had access to "these little books" for his prodigies. Under his direction, Payne played his first gig, at age 11. The event: The Gates Rubber Company Ladies' Auxiliary Luncheon.

His next career step occurred during a performance of a Broadway musical in high school. The score was well-orchestrated. The band was well-rehearsed. But on show night, their well-prepared performance was upended.

"The singer forgot the lyrics and jumped ahead four verses," Payne recalls. "The (conductor's) baton fell on the stand."

Payne had his Aha! moment in the pause between that dropped baton and potential chaos. It was a bit of a Buddhist Be-Here-Now-meets-Broadway thing.

"Just in a flash, I knew where she (the singer) was," Payne says. "I started playing along where she was and the others joined in."

In that moment, Payne the performer was born.

He made it through a year of college, before a professor advised him to hit the road. He became a swing musician, a country-blues musician and part of the 1970s Boulder, Colorado music scene.

(On a side note, music and movie fans? 1970s Boulder sounds perfect for a period music movie, if anyone's interested. Rocky Mountain. World-class musicians. Elephant bell-bottom jeans? Just a thought.).

"The Boulder music scene in 1970 was just crazy. Steven Stills lived in Gold Hill," a one-road, former mining town above the city. "Within a year, I got a job in a local music store called The Music Store and learned to fix horns," Payne says.

He also met his musical and romantic partner, singer Judy Roderick.

His life was on track. Which means? It was time for another curve.

In 1974, a band Payne went on a "one-way tour" with a band that dissolved after a gig in Montana.

"I'll stay the winter," Payne thought. He stayed for 18 years.

Life in Montana was affordable and arts-friendly. He could be a musician without holding down a day job. And he was making money touring.

Payne and Roderick's western swing band, The Big Sky Mudflaps, played on The Today Show and A Prairie Home Companion.

The band was a mix of professional musicians and dedicated amateurs. That mix lent it a passionate energy, Payne believes.

"I was totally engaged," Payne says.

The Big Sky Mudflaps still exist today. "Once a Mudflap, always a Mudflap," Payne says. Although these days, he's an honorary member.

Payne returned to Boulder after a tragic life curve: Roderick had died from complications of diabetes in 1992.

He joined a touring trio with an old friend, Don (BBQ Bob) DeBacker on guitar and a drummer named Troubled Tom for three years. But the drummer's name wasn't the only troubled thing about that band.

"Things started going south, figuratively," Payne says. "And things kept coming up that made me think about heading south, literally. I was 39 years old before I ever left the country."

He joined a movie crew for a project in Mexico. When the movie didn't materialize, he kept moving.

Ensenada. Amazonia...

His original plan was to leave the States for a few months.

"But two and half years later, I was halfway through the trip," Payne says.

Street musician. Musician on a live band for a local TV show...

The musical pieces were coming together.

Payne discovered The Brazilian musical form called chorinho while playing on the street in Brazil. The word translates as, "little lament," in English. The style, born in Rio de Janeiro, had parallels in New Orleans Jazz, he notes.

Chorinho was the southern hemisphere's version of Dixieland and bluegrass. And clarinet played a large role in it.

"Oh, yeh!" Payne remembers saying.

In chorinho, "the harmony is kind of implied on the melody," he explains. The music's mix of European harmonies and African rhythms appealed to him as well.

You can picture a winding river of sound connecting Payne's childhood harmonica harmony searches through his high school musical Aha!, western swing and jazz to his current interest in chorinho.

But to enjoy his new disc, all you have to do is listen.

All the tracks on Pra Vocé but one are traditional tunes, played by the Dexter Payne Quartet + 1. The CD's original track, "No Wolf at the Door", was co-written by Payne and the late Brazilian multi-instrumentalist and composer Gaudencio Thiago de Mello.

Watch Dexter Payne talking about the bad-ass nature of beauty in music here.

Listen to a cut from Pra Vocé here.

Charles James: Beyond Fashion is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art through August 10, 2014. Special events will take place at the exhibit 6/12, 6/22, 7/18, and 7/26.

Before architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe defined high-rise Modernism for the 20th century with his design for Seagram's headquarters on Park Avenue, decades before that, Mies organized exhibits. In 1927 Mies and his collaborator Lilly Reich directed Wiessenhofsiedlung, a major exhibit sponsored by German industry, which included 21 houses and apartment buildings constructed in only five months. But before even that, Mies organized and contributed to exhibits with painters, sculptors, and other artists -- from presentations at the Salon d'Automne in Paris to the architecture-focused Zehrner-Ring collective that formed itself in Mies' office in 1924. Mies organized the architectural component of the first Novemburgruppe exhibitions in Berlin in 1919.

Exhibitions were crucial to early presentations of architectural Modernism, before material technology could catch up to the ideas at play (Beatrice Colomina has great books and lectures on this). Yet, the history of Mies' involvement in the Novemburgruppe and the Zehner-Ring is vastly overshadowed by his later accomplishments in building -- not to mention his invention of the dictum Less is More. According even to Wikipedia, the Zehner-Ring collective headquartered at Mies' office from 1924 to 1926 didn't produce any "results worth mentioning." Considering that Mies designed the Barcelona Pavillion only five years after the founding of Zehrner-Ring, one should probably do very well as an architect to have some results not worth mentioning.

Judging by the limited architectural press devoted to the Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) genre-busting exhibition design for Charles James: Beyond Fashion at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, one might almost suspect that DS+R, too, has produced something "not worth mentioning." Inaugurating the Anna Wintour Costume Center, this retrospective of British-American couturier Charles James features exhibit designers DS+R as very visible collaborators. Working with exhibition curators Harold Koda and Jan Glier Reeder, DS+R has seamlessly integrated a number of their own long-held research interests -- in visual technologies, robotics, x-rays and fabric studies -- into the presentation of James' extensive body of work.

Perhaps we are so accustomed to hearing architect's present their designs as inspired by clothing -- whether the drape of a veil in Abu Dhabi or the flair of a skirt in Prague -- that we do not consider the intersection of architectural output and costuming to be newsworthy. The two modes of design have been related for sometime. What is amazing about the DSR work on the Charles James exhibit, however, is something closer to the fundamentals of (architectural) design -- drawings and execution, sequencing, analysis of materiality and the presentation of both methods and effects.

image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro

image courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro

The exhibit is full of animations, drawings that sequence the cutting of the fabric through various stages of draping, connecting, and structuring to form Charles James' haute couture gowns. In front of the clothing artifact, DS+R presents the process of assembly from flat pattern to the complete form of the garment on the body. The work is an amazing feat of sequencing and drafting, with rigorous material analysis and even virtual physics engines at work in the digital modelling. According to curators Koda and Reeder, James' fascination with complex cut and seaming led to the creation of key design elements that he updated throughout his career: "wrap-over trousers, figure-eight skirts, body-hugging sheaths, ribbon capes and dresses, spiral-cut garments, and poufs." DS+R's copious digital drawings animate this catalog of operations -- staging each operation virtually with a robotic moving guide to correlate the virtual presentation to each detail of the physical garment.

At a time when the fields of architecture and construction are both being reconfigured by integration of technologies -- from new methods of environmental analysis to robotic fabrication and the belated market adoption of decades-old techniques like pre-fab -- this experimental architectural work outside the production of buildings carries significant potential. In ten or 20 years we may be looking at construction documents on building sites in a series of mechanisms much closer to the apparatus at work in the Charles James exhibit than the printed roll or even flat screen that is used now. (The fact that the word "blueprint" continues to be used by laymen to reference architectural construction documents -- more than 150 years after the invention of cyanotype printing and decades after the typical architecture office moved on from those toxic smelling prints -- speaks to both architecture's conflicted relationship to technology in design and the field's inability to share its language with a wide public).

From x-rays to robotic scope arms, DS+R's design of the Charles James exhibit is a masterpiece of visual apparati. Seeing here becomes making. The exhibition visualizes logic and materials, processes of assembly -- fundamental tasks of architectural production. The mechanical robot arms that project their scope sites onto the dresses continue two of DS+R's longstanding obsessions: displaced or delayed vision and robots as subjective objects. The lineage of this robotic avatar object for DS+R hearkens back to the robot drill in their 2003 Whitney retrospective, which drilled holes through the gallery walls, until hardly any partition or categories of work remained. Another precedent is the robot pet DS+R designed for an EyeBeam headquarters in Chelsea. In that unbuilt project, the robot technology operates as a kind of artificial intelligence object, a pet for a building, an extraneous object as subject. In the instance of the Beyond Fashion exhibition, the robot arm projects a light that focuses and synchronizes with the video display that explicates the garments. With the light resembling something like a rifle scope, this apparatus channels conventions of video-gaming and tactical interfaces to pull the viewer into the mental processes of gathering data and making associations across disparate forms of information.

Considering that DS+R began their practice as D+S almost 35 years ago, this moment in their career would locate the firm on a Miesian practice equivalent at somewhere around the Farnsworth House years (1912+35=1947). Not even Lakeshore Drive yet! A decade before the Seagram Building! A quick look at any architectural great reminds us that the arc of architectural invention is long. Mies, like DS+R, depended heavily on media to inspire his projective speculations on the potential of glass planes -- media from magazines to x-rays. The mechanisms of DS+R's exhibition design for Charles James: Beyond Fashion continue the firm's ongoing experiments, pulling animated technology into the very charged place of physical material meeting processes of ideation and speculation -- or what DS+R has consistently referred to as "reflection about looking."

"My daughter is a freshman at art school this year. She has chosen painting as her major. How does an artist in a classical medium like painting choose electives that will make them relevant in a digital world? What types of courses should she choose to make herself more marketable? What types of internships help guide a successful career for a painter in a high tech world?"

To be relevant as an artist today, your daughter will first need to achieve an awareness and comprehension of the contemporary art world. If she can take art history courses that focus on contemporary art, this will be highly influential to her development as an artist. In art school, I didn't take the initiative to study contemporary art. At the time, I dismissed all contemporary art based on just a few pieces I disliked. I was very ignorant, and I didn't take the time to thoughtfully study and seek out contemporary art I liked. The consequence was that it took me many years after graduation to develop a sense of the contemporary art world. When I started working professionally, I quickly realized how important it was to not work in a vacuum. To create a context for my artwork, I had to acknowledge and understand the art being produced today, regardless of whether I liked it or not.

The digital world we live in has created a common misconception that incorporating digital media into your artwork is imperative to be relevant as an artist today. Actually, there are many contemporary artists out there working in traditional, hands-on processes who are very successful. Taking courses that teach specific software is only important if these techniques are integral to the making of the artwork. The one exception might be Photoshop, which is necessary for producing high quality images of artwork. One of my colleagues used to say that as artists, "we live and die by our photographs." The majority of the time, one's artwork is not seen in person and the importance of having strong photographic documentation of the artwork is absolutely essential.

The area where digital media is crucial is in the marketing of the artwork. In my opinion, these are skills that can be primarily addressed after art school is over. Most art schools don't offer courses on marketing, and even if they did, each artist's path is so artist-specific that a marketing plan really has to be custom tailored to their needs. While she is still in art school, it would be best for your daughter to choose courses that she has a genuine interest in, and that will contribute to her studio practice. Some students invest too much energy worrying about the future, to the point that they compromise their art school experience by enrolling in electives that they dislike, but that they think will help them professionally. For example, a lot of students think that it's necessary to take a web design course in order to prepare for the professional world. On the contrary, there are numerous options today for making a website that don't require any previous expertise. For an artist who simply wants to have their own website, learning how to build a website from scratch is just not mandatory anymore.

In the fine arts, the options for internships would be to work at a gallery or museum, or to work as an assistant for a professional artist. Being in a gallery or museum context would provide a glimpse into how these venues function, as well as an understanding of the details in the process that are frequently not discussed at art school. One of my students who interned at a museum said she couldn't believe how much work went into simply framing and handling the artwork, as well as the complexities of the relationships between the artist and the museum staff. By experiencing this first hand, the student became fully aware of what is required of an artist in terms of preparing the artwork for a professional exhibition. Research the galleries and museums that you are considering, find out what kind of programming they offer, and what types of artists they have shown in the past. Depending on the mission of the organization, the experience at the internship will vary tremendously. A mainstream commercial gallery operates very differently than a small regional museum.

Getting a position working with a professional artist is much more elusive. These positions usually are not advertised and are found through personal connections. Additionally, the professional artist has to produce a high enough volume of work that they need assistants and also have the financial resources to support an internship. I actually don't recommend this route; many of my former students and peers have worked as assistants for professional artists and the majority of them ended up doing mindless labor for very little money. One of my peers from graduate school worked at Jeff Koons' studio after graduating and he found the experience demoralizing and extremely dull. I once visited him at the studio, and it was literally room after room of art school graduates toiling away at tedious tasks that had been assigned to them.

While taking these combined initiatives will contribute to your daughter's preparation for the professional world, these concerns should largely stay on the back-burner until graduation. The principal responsibility she should have in art school is to savor this opportunity to concentrate solely on the creation of her art within the context of a vibrant artistic community.

Ask the Art Professor is an advice column for visual artists. Submit your questions to clara(at)claralieu.com

In the year following the release of Jimi Hendrix's third masterpiece album, Electric Ladyland, it was apparent that the band with which he had skyrocketed to fame, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, had ceased to exist. Feeling creatively stifled by the box stardom had put him in, as well as restlessly exploring new sounds and ideas, he and the band which had been assembled for him, had understandably grown apart. The relationship between Hendrix and bassist, Noel Redding was particularly strained, with marathon recording sessions and endless retakes causing so much strife as to finally break the trio asunder. Mitch Mitchell, the heavily jazz influenced power drummer, was also feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the new directions Hendrix was moving in. Gypsies, Sun and Rainbows, the next, and short-lived incarnation of Jimi's band, headlined the Woodstock Music Festival. As the biggest star in popular music, the caravanserai that accompanied Hendrix onstage was quite different than what the thousands in attendance had seen with him before. The new lineup dwarfed the previous power trio with members including Hendrix's army pal, the bassist, Billy Cox, and shaman/percussionist, Juma Sultan, bringing an entirely new look and sound to the Experience. Forty-five years later, as if returning to the scene of the time, BOLD AS LOVE, a startlingly authentic Hendrix tribute band graced the stage at New York's legendary West Village watering hole and performance venue, Café Wha?, conjuring the spirit of the Experience, past, by playing one of the venues at which Jimi made his earliest U.S. appearances. On this night, the past was present, as Billy Cox and Juma were onstage as well, bringing full circle the music, the fans and a strange kind of excitement whereby, even though it had "been done before", one didn't quite know what to expect.

Café Wha? is in something of a time warp. Located on MacDougal Street, just north of Bleeker, it's one of those places, on one of those streets, that people too young to truly reminisce envision as what The Village used to be. No longer a smoke filled bar, it is, none the less, simply adorned, with touches of tie-dye inspired paint hiding on the walls, and simple wood tables economically crammed into the subterranean venue. It is, put succinctly, a far cry from the art directed places Manhattan is now known for. Standing near the coat check, this writer overheard a group of women in their mid twenties who'd wandered in aimlessly, debating if they should stay for the show. When informed that this night would include, not only the tribute band, but two of Hendrix's original contributors, their response was disbelief (as if a writer would misinform someone!), but they looked around and saw the anxious, already seated crowd, and decided to stay. The four of them, admittedly Hendrix fans, positioned themselves at a booth near the back of the room, as there weren't many options left. Drinks and wings ordered, they waited, along with the rest of the room.

An hour earlier, the members of Bold As Love, guitarist, Eddi Lambert, bassist, Brett Jolly, and drummer, James Jaxon relaxed at another bar just up the street. They were met and joined there by Billy Cox and his wife and manager, Brenda. Lambert, the lifelong Hendrix disciple, sat and shook Cox's hand with the restless enthusiasm of a teenager. He had wanted to meet Cox for as long as he could remember, and there they were. For his part, Cox was as gracious and down-to-earth as one could imagine a legendary figure to be. He regaled Eddi and the rest sitting at the tables with stories of Hendrix and his family, his artistic process, and his goals before his short life ended. It was, to say the least, enthralling.

Meanwhile, back at Café Wha?, Juma Sultan stood and waited at the side of the building, considering the spray-painted, purple hued likeness of Hendrix painted on its side. Sultan, tall and thin with angular features, was draped in a waxed cotton duster with a wide brimmed hat, looking every bit the gunslinger percussionist providing the thundering congas during his appearance at Woodstock. As Shakespeare once wrote, "past is prologue."

It should be noted that this particular show was, in itself, a one-off. Bold As Love doesn't regularly tour with Cox and Sultan, but, as everyone was in town at the same time, and with the elders' approval of the tribute band's fealty to legacy, they would join together for the evening, playing the first of the tribute band's two sets together. The night, split in two parts, was spectacular. BOLD AS LOVE, as "openers", admitted a nervousness at having the keepers of the flame sitting just feet in front of them. None the less, they attacked their set with muscle, obviously letting the enormity of the night sink in. As a Hendrix tribute band, they had the effect of recreating songs and feelings the audience has had for years, while injecting their own banter and crowd interaction. it was as if watching your exceptionally talented friends playing songs from one of your favorite artists. It felt like an intimate party where everyone attending was family. The benefit and draw of a show like this is, if the band is good, a good time will be had. This band is good. After ripping through about eight favorites, such as the expected "Purple Haze" and Foxey Lady", and including album cuts Hendrix rarely played live, such as "Third Stone From The Sun", the band was joined onstage by Cox and Sultan. At this point, this writer, the four young women, and the rest of the crowd in attendance had our wigs collectively blown back. There's no other way one can imagine witnessing an early Hendrix concert, in a small room, with a small crowd, than by being present that night. In absence of Hendrix, himself, the next best thing is catch this band on another night.

Bold As Love will be performing a complete "Band of Gypsys" set at Café Wha? on June 2nd, and will be appearing at Musikfest in Bethlehem, PA on June 12th.

It's not always easy to find a quick pick-me-up at the movies. The standard multiplex now offers a pre-show featuring 15-20 minutes of loud (and frequently overproduced) promotional pieces. What if you want something more substantial than a glorified commercial to tickle your fancy? What if you're craving something more satisfying than a severely overpriced bucket of popcorn?

The answer can usually be found at a film festival where, depending on the size and scope of the festival (and the taste of its programmers), there may be several offerings that feature short films made by budding filmmakers. The 2014 San Francisco International Film Festival featured seven programs (average length 80 minutes) offering 65 short films grouped in clusters ranging from animated films to "fun for the family" attractions; from experimental shorts to shorts created by young filmmakers.

These shorts ranged from fanciful to educational; from mini-documentaries to impressive displays of imagination. As a writer who is often frustrated by encountering the improper use of homophones (as well as the bigoted opinions of homophobes) in published articles, I got a genuine kick out of Cameron Haffner's two-minute short entitled Affect vs. Effect.

With the San Francisco Silent Film Festival having moved from mid-July to late May, Silent, A Short Film (by Brandon Oldenburg and Limbert Fabian) had an inescapable charm.

For an added treat, click here and scroll down the page to watch a short film in which the creative team at Moonbot Studios discusses how Dolby technology allows artists and animators to be even more creative with their use of sound.

Anyone who has been confronted by a horde of eager Girl Scouts and their mothers during cookie season will take cynical delight in Natasha Lasky's delightful Cookie Wars which, in barely six minutes, does a splendid job of redefining capitalism.

While more and more of the shorts shown at festivals can be found on YouTube and Vimeo, sometimes only a brief trailer or teaser is available online. Two of my favorite shorts from the 2014 San Francisco International Film Festival were not only impressive for their writing and animation work, but for their musical scores as well. In Yulia Aronova's deliciously sweet My Mom Is An Airplane, a little boy basks in his mother's ability to do anything and everything with a grand sense of style.

Finally, the Oscar-winning directors (Brandon Oldenburg and William Joyce) who created The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore have come out with a new 12-minute gem from Moonbot Studios that explains how a group of oppressed factory workers stuck in a drab, monochromatic world ruled by numbers use their imaginations to create the alphabet, color, and jellybeans! An obvious homage to Fritz Lang's spectacular 1927 silent film, Metropolis, you won't want to miss The Numberlys!

To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape

People assume that if they've heard of you, you must be raking it in.

The theory goes something like this: If you work for yourself and make things that other people buy, your income magically skyrockets past what an average corporate job would pay.

Many times, readers or people asking for website design quotes have told me, "Oh, but I'm not rich like you."

To which I look around my normal house (outside the city, where it's cheaper) that I rent and my VW Golf that's a few years old and think, "Wait a minute, I'm not rich like me either!"

I also look around at the other folks that make things on their own on the web, and with a few exceptions, they're not rich either. They do well, sure, but it's not 34-bedroom mansions & Cristal every night.

Our views get skewed because our interest is also skewed. We are more interested or likely to read about the blogger who made six figures with ads or the writer who made $60,000 on their launch day. These stories are interesting because they are not the norm.

It's not as exciting to read about the person who makes an extra $10,000 a year writing books on the side or the person who brings in an extra couple hundreds bucks a months with their product. Or the person that makes enough off their creative pursuits to live a normal life. That's not as sexy, even though it's the average.

If you're new to the game of blogging or online business or putting your art onto the Internet, I'm doing you a solid by telling you this without the typical industry BS: there are A LOT of people out here trying to sell you the illusion of riches.

Put up a website, master conversions and BAM, your bank account will turn into an ever-skyrocketing balance.

Right?

Except, it rarely works that way, even if you do what you do well, and build a following.

As far as income goes, I can't complain -- I've worked for myself a long time and have some semblance, as much as one can, of a steady income.

I also squirrel money away, like, well... a squirrel.

I make enough to enjoy a comfortable life, and I don't take that for granted--ever. More than half of my income comes from the web design work I do, which is why web design work comes before anything else (like writing or making new and fun creations).

I consider web design my "day job" even though I work for myself. And as much as I enjoy it, I'm not 100 percent the boss of me, since I answer to my clients.

Writing, making, playing with digital products online is more like a side gig. Sure, they bring in money, but not enough to survive on.

Let's look at the life of one book (it could be any self-produced product, though).

Say you sell it for $5 (the average price of my books). If you sell 10,000 copies, the simple math is $50,000! That's good damn money for one book. But, let's say it's sold on Amazon, so that instantly becomes $35,000 if you are in the 70 percent royalty bracket (otherwise it's 35 percent or $17,500).

The mailing list to support that costs $1,200/year and hosting would be $400. Copy-editing cost you $1,000. Editing was another $4,000 and artwork $500. Now, we're down to $27,900.

This assumes you don't need a professional website for the book or your brand. This also doesn't include corporate tax (15 percent-plus in Canada, since we're socialist bastards), which brings the total to $23,715.

If it takes you about 12 months to do a decent job on a book, that's more than $6,000 below the poverty line in Canada (currently sitting around $30,000).

In the above scenario, that book is considered a best seller. 10,000 people is nothing to shake a stick at (even if you're into shaking sticks).

And yet, it didn't earn you enough to keep yourself afloat for a year, especially if you have dependents or live in a city where the cost of living is high (I'm looking at you, Vancouver Island!).

I'm being overly simplistic with the numbers, but they aren't far off from real scenarios. Sure, most authors make a bit of money writing for other people, if they're lucky, but most paid articles run $200/1000 words.

Even fewer get paid speaking gigs, which thankfully, jump into the $1,000s. But again, not many authors even hit the 10,000 book sales mark. Given that there are something like 12 million books on Kindle, the percentage of them that are best sellers is no doubt less than 0.1 percent.

You also have to factor in the sheer volume of work it takes to put out and sell into the best seller range. The work before launch, the work daily to cultivate and engage with an audience, the work required to pump out the necessary "content marketing" for your brand as often as possible too. It's almost a full-time job to make less than minimum wage while having an audience bigger than what most creators dream of.

Yes, there are exceptions -- called exceptions for a reason -- where some very smart folks can make 5 or 6 figures on a single launch day. The thing about exceptions though, is that they're not the rule/average/typical scenario.

Sounds bleak, right? So why bother?

The biggest reason, at least for me, is that it's enjoyable. I love writing books, and would do it even if only a handful of people bought them. I've found a way to produce and promote them that fits with me and my personal style. I still have a day job to pay my rent, buy my plant-based groceries and put diesel in my little car.

The second reason is that I've found creativity thrives on limitations. Since I refuse to use my web design income to fund my books, I'm left with a small budget to make things happen. So I get creative. I trade, beg, borrow, steal (OK, not the last one).

I get off on finding new and interesting ways to promote or get things done that cost little to no money. I also get creative with my time, since I don't have a lot of it to spend on my side projects. So I create daily practices to get into the flow of writing quicker. I group similar tasks together to get them done faster and I say no to a lot of other things (like TV and a massive social life) so I can spend time creating.

Another thing to consider is that you can keep making money off of books or products as you put newer ones out. Every time I release a new book, my back catalog has a sales spike. So over time, as more art is created, more money is made. It's certainly not quick (if you're producing one book a year), but I'm in this for the long game, the life game, not the quick-wins-at-all costs game.

I also enjoy the diversification of both income and creativity. Money-wise, if my web design business suddenly dried up, I'd at least have some income from books and courses to keep me going. If my writing income dried up, at least I've got web design. If I don't pump out a book a year, I still get paid to write articles.

Tying this back into a conversation about money, being creative has never paid well (in terms of money).

Record labels keep their artists in debt to them, book publishers pay little-to-nothing in terms royalties, and so on and so on, since the dawn of time. Business people take advantage of the fact that artists care more about sharing their work than making money.

A lot of people find it horrible that artists are taken advantage of like this, time and time again. But really, it doesn't matter.

Creatives thrive on limitations and pain can make art better (although certainly, it's not required). Even with the gatekeepers removed from the mix, where artists can now connect directly with their audiences, there are still costs involved and not a whole lot of money to be made. Now there's faster and cheaper entry but much more noise to cut through.

Being a touring musician for years, I was under no illusion that writing books or making things for audiences to consume would net me any riches.

I made enough in a band to keep touring and pay for recording new albums, but that was it. Same goes for writing -- most of the money I make gets funneled back into writing more. Not because it has to, but because that's where I want it to go. It's not a lot, but it's enough for me to keep going with it.

There are so many people out there offering to teach you how to be "rich like me." They might mean well, and even if they're being honest about their riches, they're an exception to the rule.

I would absolutely love to live in a world where art is valued and paid for at the level of Fortune 500 executives, but we don't live in that world - at least, not yet. And that's ok, for the most part, because we can make a decent enough living (even if our art is a side project) and support ourselves and our art, and then (not to sound trite or overly motivational...) we'll become rich in lots of other ways.

I'm not saying I don't like money or even that artists should be so noble that money doesn't matter, because that's not true.

Get paid for your art, and the more you can get paid for it, the more power to you. As long as the way money is coming in lines up with your values then by all means "sell out," as often as possible. Making money from your art is awesome and rewarding.

Art rarely makes artists lots of money. Yet we do it anyway.

Most of us have little to no choice in the matter, because we feel we're called to create, regardless of the outcome or income. And even if you "make it," it's still a long and hard road to actually see those riches. But we'll keep aiming for it.

For me, I'm not trying to figure out the next book that'll net me millions of dollars. I'm looking for the next book that'll connect with an audience, who'll in turn pay me enough so I can write more books. Anything left is a bonus.

Paul Jarvis is a writer and designer. He's the author of, most recently, The Good Creative. Learn more about his work at pjrvs.com.

Following the recent news on Andy Warhol's newly discovered Amiga experiments last month, Eric Shiner, the director of The Andy Warhol Museum said

Warhol saw no limits to his art practice. These computer generated images underscore his spirit of experimentation and his willingness to embrace new media - qualities which, in many ways, defined his practice from the early 1960s onwards.

To garner a better understanding about Andy Warhol and his use of technology we reached out to Matt Wrbican, chief archivist at The Andy Warhol Museum to get insights on Andy Warhol's experimentation with new media.

Lilia Ziamou: What emerging technologies of his era did Andy Warhol use?

Matt Wrbican: While not an "emerging" technology per se, Warhol was fascinated with motion pictures at an early age. He acquired cameras and projectors as early as age 8 and a room in the basement of the family home was converted into a darkroom for his use. While in college, he was exposed to state-of-art technologies and techniques of that era, such as photograms (the use of light blockers with photographic enlargers and processors). His 1947 Christmas card held by the museum was made by this process. The Warhol has receipts from the 1950s for Warhol's purchase of an audio tape deck, although there is no evidence whether he used it or how. At that time, his mother used it to record herself reading stories. There are also receipts for the purchase of television sets as early as 1954. Warhol was hired by a New York City television station to create weather graphics in the mid-50s, but none of the art survived. He was hired by CBS to make title cards for drama shows, e.g. Studio One and The Secret Storm, which the museum has a photograph of one of these in its collection. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Warhol began using Polaroid cameras. By the middle of that decade he was producing home video, being selected to test early versions of Norelco portable video recorders. Although that equipment had to be returned, Warhol acquired his own Sony Portapack in 1970s, and numerous reels produced using that technology are in the collection. In the late-1970s, he used the short-lived Polavision movie system, which was meant to compete with video.

Lilia Ziamou: How did Warhol become aware of emerging technologies and what motivated the use of these technologies?

Matt Wrbican: Through all of the involvement mentioned above, it is clear Warhol was always looking for ways to make production of his work easier. He also always wanted to be seen as being contemporary. Through technology, the two coincided. His Exploding Plastic Inevitable became an apex moment in embracing and using technology, with its combining of film, slides, light and sounds in a total multi-media and multi-sensory experience.

Lilia Ziamou: How did innovations in the field of photography contribute to the development of his work?

Matt Wrbican: As seen by his early use in the 1970s of the Minox camera, a tiny 35mm device that was one of the first "pocket cameras," Warhol loved the portability that was possible without the need to lug around heavy equipment. With this, and other point-and-shoot cameras followed, he shot thousands of images, often at nightclubs and with celebrity friends, who granted him access that they would not allow for the paparazzi. I have no doubt that if Warhol was alive today he would have his own line of smart phones.

Lilia Ziamou: How did innovations in personal computing contribute to the development of his work?

Matt Wrbican: After his early experimenting with Amiga, Warhol really lost interest in using computers, primarily out of frustration with their limitations at the time, e.g. poor resolution and limited color. However, twenty years earlier, Warhol was a member of a group that went by the acronym EAT (Experiments in Art & Technology); they combined fields of art and engineering sciences. Warhol's Silver Clouds was a product of that involvement.

Lilia Ziamou: Can you briefly describe the Time Capsules? What are some of the interesting findings that provide us insights into Andy Warhol's thinking about emerging technologies?

Matt Wrbican: Warhol was a collector of everything and did not like to let things go. He was a hoarder and packrat. Most of the Time Capsules contain paper, including very fragile thermofaxes of some of his mid-1960s images such as Flowers, and the Watson Powell portrait. Other technology-related paper documents in the Time Capsules are brochures for then-state-of-the-art office equipment such as photocopiers, and also industry magazines that document the emerging cable-TV technology and long obsolete formats such as LaserDisc, which Warhol was greatly interested in as a way to distribute his film and video work. Some contained AA batteries, which are now corroded, but the museum is in the process of documenting and properly disposing them. A few Time Capsules contained 35mm negatives and contact sheets, but one in particular, #577, holds over 600 8x10 prints made from 35mm films, along with the negatives and contact sheets for these images.

The impending doom of bookstores and libraries is a hot topic these days. For me, a bookseller, the issue is even hotter. Sometimes it feels as though I am surrounded by a modern-day Greek chorus lamenting the demise of my industry. Even Terry Deary, author of the beloved Horrible Histories series for children, has sounded the death knell. Libraries are "irrelevant," he said recently. "They give nothing back, whereas bookshops are selling the book, and the author and the publisher get paid, which is as it should be."

Terry Deary may know his history, but on this subject, he is dead wrong. His statements reflect a woeful misunderstanding of the support libraries and bookstores provide not only to the book industry, but to society at large. Unfortunately, Deary is not alone in his ignorance. Even the book-loving community, which has argued at length for the enduring relevance of libraries and bookstores as bastions of knowledge and creativity, has neglected one glaring reason that these institutions must survive -- illiteracy.

Illiteracy in the United States has been called a "hidden epidemic," one that exists beyond the awareness of even the most educated Americans. The statistics, once uncovered, are shocking. Conservative estimates place the number of functionally illiterate American adults at 30 million. That makes 30 million Americans who cannot cast a reasoned vote or understand a map. They cannot read the news or even make sense of the information on a prescription bottle. Literacy Partners, an organization that offers support to illiterate adults in New York City, estimates that these rates of low literacy cost the United States an annual $305 billion in "lost worker productivity, unemployment benefits, lost taxes, and crime," not to mention the costs associated with low health literacy. And yet the consequences are even graver for non-readers themselves. Adults who cannot read are often condemned to a life of poverty; 14.5% of illiterate Americans are jobless, and those who are employed earn at least $30,000 less per year than college graduates. Is it any surprise that 65% of incarcerated Americans can't read?

What has not been acknowledged in the persistent conversation about bookstores and libraries is that these institutions can and do play a key role in the fight against illiteracy. At the most basic level, they provide the materials necessary for children to learn to read in the first place. The chances that a child will drop out of high school quadruple if that child cannot read at grade level by about age 9 (this rate rises drastically among non-white populations), and yet many of the most vulnerable children lack access to books in the first place. As The New York Times reported in 2012, one middle school in the Bronx owned no books, only photocopies, before receiving a grant from the City of New York. Chillingly -- and unsurprisingly -- only 13% of their fourth graders were proficient readers at that time.

Local bookstores and libraries are crucial supplements to cash-strapped schools in such communities, and not only as providers of books themselves. Even a child who can read will have no incentive to hone their skills without a steady supply of compelling material. Librarians and booksellers are experts in children's literature; it is our job to get kids excited about reading. We are engaged daily in the delicate work of selecting the right book for individual children -- we handpick titles that will suit a growing reader both in terms of difficulty and interest.

Libraries in particular are also important resources for adults with low literacy skills. Less than 10% of illiterate Americans nationwide currently receive literacy support. In New York City, however, the percentage is higher, thanks in part to the efforts of the New York Public Library, which offers classes in adult literacy at numerous branches citywide. Bookstores, meanwhile, also assist these adults by providing literacy resources for their kids. Children of illiterate parents find themselves at a disadvantage in literacy education as early as age three -- one study showed that preschoolers whose parents read to them at home had vocabularies twice the size of those whose parents were unable to do so. Bookstores are an invaluable resource to these families -- for example, my store hosts free story time sessions for young children up to twice a week.

It is all the more surprising, then, that despite the important work book professionals do to combat illiteracy, the epidemic as a topic of concern is rarely discussed in the bookselling community. Ironically, illiteracy is poorly understood in the industry that it impacts the most. Recently a customer asked me where a donation of her used books would make the most difference. My colleagues and I were startled to realize that we didn't have a ready answer.

To be unaware of illiteracy is unacceptable. The fight against this epidemic is part of what makes literary professionals relevant. Bookstores and libraries are not merely arcane repositories of information that cater to a privileged few. Rather, they are vital centers of literacy that can and do empower Americans through reading.

Admittedly, libraries are more active in local fights against illiteracy than bookstores, which tend to survive in affluent, highly educated communities. However, illiteracy touches so many Americans that there is no excuse not to be involved. The great work that bookstores and libraries already do for those who love to read should be expanded to those who aren't so fortunate. Illiterate people live on the fringes of American society, unable to take part in or contribute to the generous offerings of our democracy. The rich network of American book professionals must be cognizant of this epidemic, or we run the risk of alienating ourselves in a society that desperately needs our support.

Let's prove Terry Deary wrong.

Rube Goldberg machines are awesome.

It's not just that they're indescribably cool or painstaking to make -- no, Rube Goldbergs are so captivating because they're animation that happens in the real world.

If you're not familiar, a Rube Goldberg Machine is any complicated contraption built from everyday objects arranged into a long chain-reaction to accomplish a simple goal. The winner of the 30th annual Rube Goldberg Collegiate competition in 2014 (yes, they've been competing for 30 years) zipped up a zipper. In 75 steps.

If you've ever stacked dominoes in a row, you've built a Rube Goldberg Machine. Welcome to the club, nerd.

The beauty of "Rubes" is that it doesn't matter what parts they're made of -- ping-pong balls and dominoes, or hammers and balloons -- or what they're goal is -- these machines captivate people by bringing everyday objects to life. Rube Goldberg machines are stop-motion animation in real-time, moving the action along like a story. But more on that later.

First, let's get to know these contraptions better by looking at their history.

It's no coincidence that the creator and namesake of the Rube Goldberg machine -- Reuben Lucius Goldberg (born 1883) -- was a famous cartoonist and animator.

Originally a trained engineer (he received his degree from Berkeley in 1904), Goldberg's passion for illustration led him to leave a promising career designing sewers for the City Hall to draw illustrations part-time while he swept the editorial floor at the San Francisco Chronicle. He made a whopping $8/week at his new career and never looked back.

Goldberg's imaginative illustrations "quickly ensnared the public's interest," and by 1915 his comics were the toast of the art world, earning him over $100,000 a year ($2.3 million today).

His work was syndicated in New York Dada (published by Marcel Duchamp), The Literary Digest, and he went on to found the National Cartoonists Society in 1946. Goldberg even received a Pulitzer for his animations. Shortly before his death in 1970, Goldberg's work was curated by the Smithsonian in an exhibit aptly titled "Do it the Hard Way."

In 1931, Rube Goldberg machines got so popular that Merriam-Webster adopted the word "Rube Goldberg" to mean "an adjective defined as accomplishing something simple through complicated means." Goldberg himself said the machines were:

"A symbol of man's capacity for exerting maximum effort to achieve minimal results." - Rube Goldberg

To understand how animation itself is a type of Rube Goldberg machine, let's examine the first feature length animated film ever created - Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, released on Feb 4, 1938.

Over 570 animators and water-color artists labored for nearly five years to compile two million sketches and paintings, though only 166,000 made the final film. Production soared over budget by $1.25 million (6x the original figure), and Hollywood insiders described the film as "Disney's Folly."

Talk about "maximum effort" for just an 83-minute cartoon. But that's the exactly the point.

Snow White isn't just a "cartoon," and far from the "folly" predicted by Hollywood professionals, Snow White became one of the most cherished films of all time. It single-handedly transformed "cartoons" - a medium widely discredited at the time -- into the respectable, lucrative creative field we recognize today. Five years of foolish toil resulted in a timeless tale.

Snow White's initial release earned $8.5 million at the box office making it the most successful movie ever. Fast forward to 2014 where Frozen became the first animated film to gross $1 billion. Rube Goldbergs -- as animation -- are alive and well.

But here's the wonderful thing about Rube Goldbergs and animation -- no one needs them. Not even a little bit.

People don't need a self-operating napkin anymore than they need quality animation for their product. Hundred of studios churn out cheap, cookie-cutter animation -- and they manage to eek out a profit. But the bottom-line was never a concern for Goldberg, or any of the great animators -- from Disney to Miyazaki -- and it's exactly that disregard for convention that makes Rube Goldbergs and quality animation so adored.

Every Rube Goldberg and every great animation is unique - hand-crafted to fit the situation - and their success depends solely on the skill and vision of the creator. Whether it's nailing a walk cycle or stacking 1,000 dominoes - each has their technical challenges, and when it's done well, a story inevitably emerges.

A story from a bunch of things crashing into each other? Absolutely.

Rube Goldbergs are packed with drama. Will the fan blow the book over? Why is that sledgehammer pointed at that T.V.? Will the glass shards fall on the scale and tip the bag of marbles? What if the marbles roll the wrong way?

It's been 100 years since Goldberg illustrated his first contraption - "Automatic Weight Reducing Machine," in 1914 and people are still coming back for more.

OK GO's music video for "This Too Shall Pass" features an astounding Rube Goldberg, and over 43 million people have flocked to see it.

Quality craftsmanship and imagination stand the test of time.

Jonathan Gottschall's book The Storytelling Animal talks about how people inherently crave storytelling, and we'll find it anywhere -- from dancing mice and fairy princesses to a cog rolling down a plank.

I love Rube Goldberg machines and animation, but maybe I'm just old-fashioned. I take pleasure in all the world's perfectly complicated contraptions because for all their bells and whistles, squiggly lines, and non-sequiturs, they do something so beautifully simple amidst the chaos.

They tell stories.

When I checked my Twitter feed last Wednesday, I was greeted with unsettling news. I read of Maya Angelou's death and instantly burst into tears.

To me, Maya was everyone's mother, grandmother, sister, and aunt. She had an amazing ability to win the hearts and minds of everyone she touched. Her greatest gift to the world was her soul signature -- her fearless heart and unwillingness to conform. She was the living embodiment of grace and courage -- smashing paradigms and not only expanding her own expression as an African-American woman, but also increasing everyone else's unique expression in the process.

Death puts one's life in perspective. The indelible impact of Maya Angelou transcended her written words. She was the nation's wise old soul, a poet to presidents, and a committed conscience for civil rights. She passionately defended women, advocated for free speech, and for the voice of younger generations to be heard. Her passion for humanity extended far beyond her physical form, and her resonant expression will now echo throughout history -- timeless and immortal.

We weep because our elder, our sage, our powerful divine feminine pillar is gone. We mourn because the hope, love, and possibility she represented are no longer embodied within her. In our times of despair or trouble, our collective hearts will take solace in her words and poetry of the past, even though we long to hear her shed light on our present.

There is deep grief when a cultural touchstone such as Maya Angelou passes on, but her death is not an ending. It is an invitation for us to embody the possibility of love, peace, and inspiration within. Her passing prompts us to pick up the mantle and be a guiding light for others and ourselves. Though her body is no more, our remembrance of her vibrant soul signature keeps her spirit alive inside us.

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you," she said. Maya's beautiful words are now our call to action -- a call to make our life as full as hers. After all, she inspired us to rise, to sing, and to stand in our own brave and startling truth. We are truly blessed to have known her through her presence, her love, and her work.

Do not suppress your untold story. Write it across the sky for the world to see.

I'm sure Maya would approve.

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