Culture & Arts

We had been impressed by the work of the Cuban artist Roberto Fabelo in Havana, both out in public in the Plaza Vieja and in the Museo de Bellas Artes, so we were keen to attend the opening of his solo show at the Museum of Latin American Art in Long Beach. The show was curated by Juan Delgado Calzadilla, who had generously hosted our tour group in his apartment overlooking the Malecón, and both artist and curator were on hand to greet us at the opening. Here's Fabelo's rendering of that same Malecón, the famous esplanade along Havana's sea front:

Roberto Fabelo (Cuba, b. 1951)
Malecón Barroco / Baroque Seafront, 2012
Oil on canvas
64 x 114 in.
Courtesy of the artist

"Malecón Barroco" -- translated as "Baroque Seafront" -- is in many ways illustrative of Fabelo's baroque vision, though not in its grisaille color effects. The crowding of the canvas with naked, buxom female forms, the carnival masks, in this case mostly marine in reference, the ornate busy-ness of the composition -- and, too, the darker side of the baroque vision, the spikes, fork tines and hooks, the satanic tails and barbs that contrast the exuberant celebration of lively sensuality with the adumbration of sinfulness, damnation, and death. There's both Peter Paul Rubens in this image, and Hieronymus Bosch.

More frequently, though, Fabelo's paintings are ablaze with color. Here in "Contemplation of the Pearl"...

Roberto Fabelo (Cuba, b. 1951)
Contemplación de la perla en el muro del malecón /
Contemplation of the Pearl on the Seafront Mural, 2012
Oil on canvas
66 ¾ x 89 ½ in.
Courtesy of the artist

... set, similarly, on a sea wall, the women are depicted in an array of improbable, glowing color, their bodies full, sensual, and presented with clear sexual invitation -- though adorned, again, with angel wings, fish spines or feathers. Accompanied by what appears to be a single male figure -- the artist, perhaps? -- they contemplate the pearl of perfection that looms, Magritte-like, before them on an oyster shell. Their quasi-religious adoration of this object is disturbed not only by the enormous bug that encroaches upon their space from the left side of the canvas, but by the incongruous rubber tire in the foreground, the heavy nail that violently pieces the wall, and the effusions, seemingly from their bodies, that ooze down the wall onto the sidewalk.

The bird mask worn by the woman to the right is a familiar theme in Fabelo's work. We find them everywhere, both in the paintings and the exquisitely executed drawings on printed book pages...

Roberto Fabelo (Cuba, b. 1951)
Al techo del seno / At the Top of the Breast, 2013
Mixed media on paper
6 ½ x 9 ¾ in.
Courtesy of the artist

... in which the artist explores a myriad of ideas and images in poetic detail. (The drawings are displayed in the exhibition in a special installation in the center of the gallery, inviting visitors to examine them with the kind of close attention they require.) And he's intrigued not only by bird masks, but the birds themselves, presented anthropomorphically in relation to the human figures that populate the paintings. Bird-as-human and human-as-bird are often indistinguishable. In Fabelo's work, they literally ride each other, as though in a constant struggle for dominance. With all their beauty -- and the artist does not stint on this -- and with their omnipresent, always aggressive beaks and beady eyes, the presence of the birds conveys a hint of the cruelty and hunger for self-gratification inherent in the human psyche. (In this context, we note also the spectacle of naked women trussed, skewered and ready for roasting on kabob sticks.)

And I see Fabelo's work essentially as an exploration of that psyche, the life of the human mind and its persistent struggle between its light side and its dark. The intimacy and the passion his work exude -- along with the unambiguously autobiographical revelations that pop up surprisingly in the drawings here and there -- suggests that it is the artist's own inner desires and demons he explores. That the paintings speak so compellingly to us as viewers suggests that we all share his obsessions at some deep level of the mind: we recognize ourselves in them. Paradoxically, we use masks to both reveal and hide aspects of our true nature: to hide them, obviously, for fear of what others might see and how they might judge us if they really knew; and to reveal, because we also nurture the perverse compulsion to be known by others for who we are.

Fabelo models this work for us with passion and unsparing honesty. And it is "work." Without seeming in any way labored, both paintings and drawings reveal the intensity of physical labor and attention that went into their creation. The infinite complexity of their composition and the intricate, untiring exploration of their motif and themes are witness to a critical, highly conscious mind at work, even as it delves so boldly into the underworld of the unconscious. There's an authenticity that glows through all the surrealistic conceit in Fabelo's work, disarming potential accusations of cynicism or misogyny. Behind it all we might hear the haunted--haunting--voice of the 19th century French poet, Charles Baudelaire, in the final line of the poem that introduces his reader to Les Fleurs du mal: "Hypocrite lecteur, mon semblable, mon frère..." Fabelo makes us complicit in both his nightmare and his dream.

Note: Couturier Gallery in Los Angeles will be hosting a Roberto Fabelo exhibition September 13 through October 18 this year.

As the King of Siam once said: "Is a puzzlement!" Bloggers, filmmakers, and arts administrators are all faced with the challenge of capturing people's attention. Depending on their respective budgets and the nature of the project they are promoting, various approaches can be pursued.

An arts organization that has a substantial marketing budget and a long relationship with various vendors of advertising space (banner ads, bus placards, show cards, etc.) can project a unified image across many platforms in order to attract audiences to a new play or film. Meanwhile, its publicists can try to place puff pieces and interviews in local media in anticipation of an opening night or important premiere. A skilled use of social media (including blast emails) can often work wonders.

For an independent filmmaker, the ability to have one's work screened at major film festivals may be critical to finding a distributor. Without any kind of online bump from a trailer that goes viral, a film can go straight to DVD or on-line streaming with little media attention or public awareness.

If a film is being produced by a major studio like Disney, Pixar, or is picked up by a reliable distribution company, it can garner lots of media attention through celebrity buzz and advance screenings for critics.

With today's entertainment media drowning in tsunamis of superlatives, one encounters a fine line between praising a project's strong points and overselling it with a vengeance. Those who write press releases can lay on the hype pretty heavily. Bloggers and journalists can fall into a trap of routinely labeling everything they see as "awesome" or succumbing to the temptation to hail a particular project as "the event of the century" (since we're only in 2014, there are still 86 years to go before we reach 2100).

Will thorough media saturation get ticket buyers excited to the point of ejaculation? Or does the old truism that "less is more" work better? Two Bay area premieres recently brought the question of hype into surprising focus. One flew under the radar while the other was hyped as if the circus was coming to town! Though they were delivering very different experiences from different continents and cultures, both projects clocked in at 70 minutes in length. Therein lies a curious reference point.

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In 2011, when the San Francisco International Film Festival screened a film by Amit Dutta entitled Nainsukh, there was little background material available for reviewers. Dutta's film was focused on the work of the 18th century Indian artist, Nainsukh of Guler, who specialized in painting miniatures. Instead of offering an academic lecture about the artist and his work, the filmmaker attempted to reenact many of the moments captured by Nainsukh in his art.

By doing so, Dutta let viewers imagine what was in Nainsukh's mind as he conceived each painting. As I wrote in my review:

"The one drawback to Nainsukh is that it takes about 30 minutes before viewers catch on to how the action in the film is aimed to reproduce some of the artist's miniature paintings. Once a viewer hooks into the symmetry in the film's structure, all that's required is to sit back and enjoy the film's visual splendor. Dutta's film has little dialogue. Instead, it is often accompanied by a cacophony of bird calls and mooing cows. And yet, the amplified sounds of nature only enrich the experience of seeing Nainsukh's art come to life. The film is so visually rich and acoustically stimulating that its beauty can often take the viewer's breath away."

Dutta returned to the 2014 San Francisco International Film Festival with The Seventh Walk, which concentrates on India's acclaimed contemporary landscape painter, Paramjit Singh. As with Nainsukh, the first half hour of the film is filled with a symphony of bird calls that could thrill any bird watcher or member of the Audubon Society. Dutta's camera wanders through a forest in the Kangra Valley in Northern India's province of Himachal Pradesh, occasionally focusing on a miniature house, a mountainous landscape, or a strangely levitating rock that has been picked from the bed of a local stream.

The Boat (a painting by Indian artist, Paramjit Singh)

The camera eventually finds its way inside Singh's home where it finds the artist at a work table. It also follows him as he wanders through the nearby woods to sit at the foot of a tree while listening to the sounds of nature and absorbing the patterns of tree leaves, moss, and lichens scattered all around him. At times, Dutta follows a young woman as she wanders down forest paths, eventually arriving at the artist's home.

A landscape painting by Indian artist, Paramjit Singh

If you watch the following clip between the 19:30 and 53:50 marks, you'll be treated to a 40-minute session with Paramjit Singh as he narrates a wide-ranging slide show of his work that captures his early fascination with surrealism and moves on to a fascination with the colors to be found in nature. Some of his preliminary black-and white sketches (which were drawn in little more than an hour) offer astonishing previews of the color renderings that Singh subsequently produced.

With cinematography by Savita Singh and production design by Saugata Mandal, it would be a huge mistake to think of Dutta's film as merely a visual meditation on the art of nature and the nature of art. The musical score by Mohi Baha'ud-din Dagar and accompanying sound design by Mandar Kamalapurkar create an intensely seductive soundscape that is every bit as lush and rewarding as the visual treats aimed at a viewer's eyes. Here's the trailer.

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Some people claim to have a sixth sense. For LGBT folk, this phenomenon is often described as gaydar. For some critics, it is a growing awareness of whether or not a performance will live up to its publicity.

Like many critics, I often check my watch during a show to see how things are progressing. It's not a good omen if a performance (or a film) has failed to "grab me" by the time 30 minutes have elapsed. If the entire event is only supposed to last 70 minutes and I'm not feeling any sense of involvement by the 30-minute mark, it's a sure sign that there's trouble in River City.

I can still remember a cold night at the Santa Fe Opera (perhaps the 1986 American premiere of Aulis Sallinen's execrable The King Goes Forth to France) when, 10 minutes into the performance, I turned to a friend and sighed "This one's going to be a pretentious piece of shit." It doesn't make a critic happy to arrive at such a conclusion so early in the evening. And I will admit that my 10-minute snap judgment that night in Santa Fe arrived much faster than it usually takes me to accept the fact that a performance has nowhere to go but up.

Nonhlanhla Kheswa (Matilda) and Ivanno Jeremiah
(Philemon) in The Suit
(Photo by Pascal Victor/ArtComArt)

First published in 1963, Can Themba's short story, The Suit, is the intimate tale of a failing marriage in South Africa's Sofiatown (a black ghetto five miles northwest of Johannesburg which was evacuated in 1954 so that the area could be razed and replaced with an urban renewal project aimed at housing whites in a society ruled by apartheid).

In 1994, The Suit was adapted for the stage by Mothobi Mutloatse and Barney Simon and received its premiere from Johannesburg's Market Theatre. In 1999, Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne presented their French adaptation in Paris (which they then toured internationally). In April 2012, they reworked the piece into an English version with music direction by Franck Krawczyk. Following its Paris engagement, The Suit was launched on another international tour and was recently hosted by the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.

Ivanno Jeremiah (Philemon) and Nonhlanhla Kheswa (Matilda) in
The Suit (Photo by Pascal Victor/ArtComArt)

In Themba's story, Philemon (Ivanno Jeremiah) is a male secretary who is devoted to his job as well as to his beautiful wife, Matilda (Nonhlanhla Kheswa). Each morning he prepares her breakfast and serves it to her in bed before he leaves for work.

One day, after Philemon's friend, Maphikela (Jordan Barbour), informs him that Matilda has been having an affair with a young man, Philemon rushes home just in time to see the young man flee through the bedroom window clad only in his underwear. Philemon decides to punish his guilty wife by insisting that the young man's suit (which he was forced to leave behind) be treated as an honored guest in their home at all times -- or else he will kill her.

Later, after Matilda joins the local Anglican Mission's cultural club, the beauty of her singing voice draws attention. When she invites some of her new friends to come to her home, Philemon brings out the suit and proceeds to humiliate his wife in front of her guests.

Ivanno Jeremiah (Philemon) and Nonhlanhla Kheswa (Matilda) in
The Suit (Photo by Pascal Victor/ArtComArt)

What surprised me about The Suit was that I found it far more interesting from a musical rather than a dramatic standpoint. Perhaps that was because one of the first musical numbers performed by Nonhlanhla Kheswa was "Feeling Good" (from the 1964 Anthony Newley-Leslie Bricusse musical The Roar of the Greasepaint -- The Smell of the Crowd). In an interview with Marie-Hélène Estienne, she explains that:

"In the first version we used taped [South African] music. It was an interesting emotional experiment. Then we saw that you could put this story with Schubert. his "Standchen" fits so well. Also, I'd been to Chile with Franck Krawczyk, where we listened to the music of Violeta Parra and Victor Jara, famous singers before Pinochet. Their music is so concerned with poverty and the struggle of people to survive, and we wanted to take The Suit to many poor countries, so we thought it could be really interesting to mix that with Schubert. So that's we did. It's Schubert and South African and Chilean music. When you suddenly open the story to Schubert's Death and the Maiden, you say something that you can't with words. The music is carrying it in a language that we hear with our hearts."

Despite a handsome skeletal set designed by Oria Puppo and a trio of gifted musicians (Arthur Astier on guitar, Mark Kavuma on trumpet, and Mark Christine doubling on piano and accordion), I was severely underwhelmed by The Suit. I had no criticism of the fine acting by Ivanno Jeremiah, Nonhlanhla Kheswa, and Jordan Barbour (who acted as narrator and took on numerous small roles). In fact, I was quite charmed by the sweet beauty of Kheswa's soprano which, thankfully, was not distorted by any amplification.

Nonhlanhla Kheswa as Matilda in The Suit
(Photo by Pascal Victor/ArtComArt)

However, there was no escaping the sad realization that The Suit is a very fragile drama that had been so severely hyped that it could barely live up to its publicity.

To read more of George Heymont go to My Cultural Landscape

Tucked between the ever-shifting tectonic plates of New York’s bustling urban landscape on the Upper East Side, Casa de Costa is an oasis of calm: a moment in the city’s history, frozen in time. A small courtyard leads into the former carriage house’s eccentric jumble of intimately small rooms. It feels part architectural archive, part mausoleum, with a fire flickering away downstairs.

It’s a brand new location for Jason Costa’s gallery, and a suitably voyeuristic space for "The Dark Parade," an exhibition of assemblages by renowned American artist David Armstrong –- showing another side of an artist already famed for his photography. Running until late June, this display of beautiful, darkly funny and sometimes disturbing sculptures was pulled from the ephemera of David’s rich and colorful life by the gallery’s creative director, Josh McNey. They are the legacy of David’s beloved former home on Jefferson Avenue, Brooklyn.

When I spoke with David several weeks after the opening of "The Dark Parade," it’s clear that his relationship with what he has made is a tense one –- an exposed nerve-ending of doubt over the "legibility," to him, of these private creations now that they have been transposed to a public space. “They made no sense to me anymore,” he tells me at one point.

It’s a fascinating insight into a man whose sense of self is so inextricably tied to his art. But this bristling tension between private and public –- the vulnerability of self-display –- is arguably what gives the exhibition such an electric charge. In some ways, David’s current ambivalence towards these complex pieces adds yet another texture to what makes them so compelling.

casa

Casa de Costa on New York’s Upper East Side. Courtesy of Casa de Costa.

The title of the exhibition is from a line in Emily Dickinson’s poem "There’s been a Death in the Opposite House." "Parade" is about a procession of death, but there is also a sense of being "paraded" in front of people. Were you trying to achieve that dual meaning in the work?

Exactly. That’s actually so interesting, because of what I’ve started feeling. That work very specifically came out of my house on Jefferson Avenue. It was an outgrowth of that house and time spent there. And as haphazard as the pieces in the exhibition might seem, as I made them, they were not. Originally they were boxes that were quite specific, about particular people, or poetry boxes, or boxes of people that had died. They were just my own. One that’s in the show, I made as a decoration for a Christmas party. It was stuff from my house and it was fun to put it on the armature of a lamp.

People would see them over the years –- close friends –- and say, "This is so divine, you should show it." And I would say, "Well, you’re seeing it now." I’m a very secretive, mega control queen; and the fact that they weren’t nailed down, that they could move, made all the difference in the world, with so many of them. Part of it was in my mind that they could keep changing. In my mind they were finished, but I felt that I could still play around them again. I guess this whole thought process has brought me to the point that I’m at now.

One of the things I loved about the exhibition was that things felt almost too full –- there wasn’t enough space.

I did like that; it was my intention. I kind of do that with everything. And I really believe in things that happen when you’re not conscious of them. You get a certain facility with it, where you know how to use your tools. And then there comes a point – in a photo shoot, generally – where you do get lost in the taking of the pictures. And suddenly you’re looking at them and you see what’s happening. But when you deal with objects, ephemera, junk, it’s different. Those were very much worked on and they were redone. Things were taken out or added, but they always ended up over-full. They were over-ripe, like they’d gone bad.

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David Armstrong, The Dark Parade (installation view). Courtesy of Casa de Costa.

A lot of the items that are part of the exhibition are the things –- the ephemera –- that you accumulated in your years at 615 Jefferson Avenue. Is there a tipping point when a house owns you, rather than the other way around?

Yeah, absolutely. And I’d said that so many times. The woman who owned it before me was murdered in that house. And also there were things –- permits, the registration number –- which involve these recurring four numbers, which happened to be my birthday, which is the same thing here with my new zip-code. It wasn’t like it was a ghost or a spirit, but as I said to people: "This house has mortgaged me. I’m never going to get out." Not that I wanted to –- I loved being there –- but I felt that very much.

I got that house because I realized, at 45, that I’d lived in something like 39 apartments since was 15. I really thought maybe I should settle down. But concurrently, in something like the first month I was there, someone called from Paris and asked if I wanted to do a fashion story. So that whole odyssey started, which was not about settling down. Although, the shoots I did do there, I did all over the house.

The other thing is that, usually, when you move every year or two, it’s a chance to edit your belongings– which I did not have for 15 years. And when you own a house, it’s not just your stuff but everyone you know who moves wants to store like ten boxes with you. So my entire life was there. There were things that I’d hadn’t seen since I was 14 years old.

I know "The Dark Parade" pieces are an artifice in the sense that they’re arranged to look un-arranged, but –- as you say –- these things do belong to you. You’re anatomized around that house, aren’t you?

Right, and some of them are very personal. They resonate to me, but how could they to anyone else? How would they know the hand thing is a portrait of my friend Boyd? Which it very much was. A lot of things that were his – jewelry or things that he gave to me – are part of it.

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David Armstrong, Boyd, 2010. Courtesy of Casa de Costa.

Is it possible they resonate with others because of how they’re assembled? The biography might not be there for everyone, but that sense of loss is.

You know, it’s funny. It’s still something that I won’t stop doing at all, as part of my décor or whatever. But it’s one of those things, that I’ve moved to the country since I made these, moving away from Brooklyn, so I wonder if it’s something I’ll pursue now. I think I’ll probably create them very privately, for myself.

I was re-reading the Dickinson poem and wondering which of the people going into that death house you’d be.

I’m obsessed with Emily Dickinson, who I read all the time. I think I used that expression when Jason and Josh were leaving my house. Emily Dickinson’s obsession with death intrigued me. Especially as she grew older, it was obscene, her interest in what the exact details were of the deathbed.

But that’s very like your work in "The Dark Parade." What is both macabre, sometimes, and also darkly funny, is the density of detail.

Yeah, right. I’m amazed that actually anyone saw that.

Many pieces are inside bell-jars, as if the work exists at the point of death while also being a sad, frozen moment. Were you aiming for that?

Yeah, absolutely. But I made the first one in 2006 or 2009, and in the interim the bell-jar became the must-have in every boutique window. At which point I thought, "OK, no more bell-jars." But, yes, it was very much the idea of things enclosed or encapsulated. It’s the idea of a treasure box that is almost fetishistic.

The reason I raised the poem again was that I felt that the "the minister going stiffly in and he owned all the mourners now and the little boys besides" could be analogous to you as an artist here.

Manuel Segade’s intro to my book, 615 Jefferson Ave., was extremely accurate, about me having this secret, private encyclopedia of everything and never having taken any of it for granted, and being able to pull it up. I never would have thought of that myself. It’s like my own little encyclopedia of what I consider beautiful.

Does "The Dark Parade" mark a period point in your life?

Yeah, I think so. I did so much other work at Jefferson Ave., but the great work of art from that whole period was that house. And so much change happened in 2013, particularly at the end: I sold two houses, my doctor with who I had a relationship of 15 years, closed his practice... A ton of stuff happened last year that is still reverberating. That has felt like a punctuation mark.

I kept trying to go outside of photography but at the same time I realize that’s what I’m most close to. Why keep trying to go outside that? I have this repeated loss of faith in the whole notion of photography but then I always come back. It’s what I know most about and what I can do the best.

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David Armstrong, The Dark Parade (installation view). Courtesy of Casa de Costa.

It’s an important part of your work –- whether it’s the photography or the assemblages –- that you can see yourself in it?

Oh, absolutely. It’s an outgrowth of doing fashion work. That had its moments, for sure, but the endless confrontational photography, and the sheer volume you have to do in fashion, made me start thinking, "I’ve got to do something else." What I’m thinking about now is not the way I was taught, which is to show something to its best effect. A lot of times, I feel like disguising it.

Could you ever imagine the pieces in "The Dark Parade" in some chic, white-cube gallery?

I don’t know. Here’s the odd thing. I’m kind of a maximalist in most ways, but taking them out of the crowd of my mind might work.

But given what you’ve said, the new Casa feels perfect for an exhibition so interested in mutability. It’s a building that could easily have been lost in New York’s ever-changing landscape.

Totally. I totally agree. I’ve never seen anything like it in New York, ever. It’s a place I would have loved to have lived in myself, and seen what came out of that.

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David Armstrong, The Dark Parade (installation view)

Tom Wicker is a freelance arts writer and editor, based in the UK. He writes regularly for publications such as as Time Out London, The Daily Telegraph and Gay Times. He has also written for The Guardian and online world affairs magazine openDemocracy. He can be reached at wicker.tom@googlemail.com.

Title: 50°18'57'' x 5°22'20''
Material: 3D print in Titanium
Year: 2014

50°18'57'' x 5°22'20'' is the first photograph that has been converted from 2D to 3D. It is a 360° x 180° panoramic photograph of a landscape that has been translated into depth. In principle, it is a 3D scan of the surrounding landscape that has been 3D printed in titanium. It is printed by Melotte Digital Manufacturing and exhibited at ‘The Rockshow’ in Genk, Belgium.

The Rockshow
Emile Van Doren Museum
Genk / Belgium
21/06/2014 – 05/10/2014
Group exhibition
www.uniehasseltgenk.be
www.melotte.be

The mandolinist-composer Vivian Li thrives between bluegrass and classical music. No two genres are more hard-set in their ways, but Li and her Pickled Campers apply heat to tradition and the walls come tumbling down; the result is Li's promising debut, Growing in the Cracks.

Li's music was performed for the first time at Carnegie Hall last January. On record, her sound is country-fried or it is cosmopolitan. "Fiddle McGriddle," "Grit," "Lasagna Sky," and "Golden Apple" are down-home ditties, tongue-twisters for fretting fingers; they sound rural and proud of it. By contrast, "Moses," "The Next Tune," "Moth in a Dustpan," and "Trickster" -- using patterns and simultaneity to kaleidoscope through jitters, ennui, and awe -- seem addressed to, or at least from, the big city dweller.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Li came to the U.S. eight years ago to study economics at Cornell University. The dismal science held little appeal for her. During her sophomore year, after composing a theme and variations that drew notice from the music faculty, Li turned her attention to music full-time. She played piano with the university chamber and wind ensembles, and in her senior year, produced a seven-movement composition based on "The Singing Bone" -- full of fratricide and vengeance from the grave, the Grimm's fairytale bears uncanny resemblance to the murder ballads on heavy rotation in America's high-country south. Which goes some way toward explaining Li's heterodoxy come graduate school: "When I was at Mannes [College The New School for Music], I was the weird person playing mandolin while everyone else was talking about Stockhausen."

In Li's music, one hears the strain and pluck of Bill Monroe, and the melancholy cool of Brad Mehldau's Largo. Her group splits the difference between chamber ensemble and jug band. The roster includes Zach Brock (violin), Todd Grunder (bass), Chris Komer -- a French and alto hornist who blows past decoration, toward perfect pathos -- Ross Martin (guitar), and Darren Ziller (flute).

Li has clearly learned her lessons from the genre-bending mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile. (She is a student of Thile's fellow traveler, the guitarist Michael Daves). At its best, Growing in the Cracks recalls the splendor of 2011's Goat Rodeo Sessions with Thile, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Stuart Duncan. But comparison is a disservice to Li's composing, which finds intelligent life in the cracks between genres many say have been preserved to death. Li's music isn't "old timey," "traditional," or "classical." It's new.

Plenty of composer debuts aim for heady interpretations. Li shoots straight for the heart. "It's about how you feel," she says, "not what it means."

Margot Fonteyn was a simple dancer. She wanted urgently to live up to the expectations of others, placing no limit on how hard she would work to do that. In 1935, just 16, she danced her first leading role in The Sleeping Beauty. By four years later, in 1939, she had also danced the leads in Giselle, and Swan Lake in such a way that earned her the title of Prima Ballerina. Over the next decade, which included WWII and much disarray and interruption of public performances, she had become a household name worldwide, having achieved unprecedented fame. Fonteyn had only danced in classical ballets, nothing more. The way she danced had, in just 14 short years, earned fame that reached far beyond those who attended. In 1949 she took New York by storm as Aurora, and by 1959 had earned the title Prima Ballerina Assoluta du Monde, a distinction only a small handful of artists has ever achieved.

Retirement is expected of ballerinas at age 40, but she hesitated as it didn't feel right to her. This hesitation proved to be an inspiration, for in 1961 Rudolf Nureyev defected and, starting in 1962, they danced together for the next 17 years until she was 60. She then stayed on stage in non-dance roles until the age of 67. From early in her career she turned her efforts to education, having served as President of the Royal Academy of Dance, and in the final 23 years of her life became Chancellor of Durham University, and founder of the Margot Fonteyn Academy of Ballet, and its Academy Method of teaching dancers, thus forming a detailed educational program for dancers of the 21st century and beyond. She presented various publications and programs to the world, all by the time she died in 1991, only 72 years old. To this day she is remembered and revered. Why? What is so extraordinary about this woman?

Ludden Looking at Fonteyn in Swan Lake

Having met her in 1967 when I was 15, our lives became forever entwined, and I grew to understand the answer to those questions. And the answer speaks to us all today; an answer found in the basic fact of her fame.

For Fonteyn fame was earned, not manufactured. In today's world, most orchestrate or purchase their own fame, yet falter when they lack extraordinary character. Fonteyn had this extraordinary character. It was in every cell of her body, every area of her life, and every moment of her existence. She was loyal to an astonishing degree, and resolute to do her very best. She did not take fame as an opportunity, but as a grave responsibility. She knew what she represented, and the power fame allowed her. And, until her very last breaths, she concerned herself with what she might do for others.

When I set out to write about Margot I wanted to preserve the story of my close relationship with Fonteyn privately for my children and family, and allow them to "know" her. I hoped they would reap the same benefits as I had. When I realized that all people might benefit, the memoir became a book. Margot's family gave me the idea at her funeral in London when they said it was my duty to write 'the' book about her. It was clear that much would be written by those who mainly knew her public or professional life. Such books would record facts of her public works, and the rest would be conjecture. The family wanted people to know her as a human being, as a person, and as a friend. For all of her greatness on stage, it was in private that she shown most brightly.

My Margot Book Cover

This led to my recent work My Margot. The writing is done and the book is now published. The long road of editing and fact checking is now complete. I learned from the solitary focus writing a book requires that earned fame, and the artistry that earns it, is a true delimiter to which manufactured fame cannot compare. True artistry is a hard fought achievement, and must have serious talent as its base. In addition to talent and developed artistry, Margot Fonteyn had personal integrity and humility. And in Fonteyn this was authentic. This is why she will serve as an inspiration forever.

Purchased notoriety, manufactured fame, orchestrated sensation, calculated risk and manipulated public opinion hold no authenticity. The authentic is too quiet to be heard above the din, and humility only makes it more silent. But with Fonteyn, her authenticity continually leads by example, even now.

Fonteyn made an art form of fame. She approached each person as the most important and interesting person alive, showing us how to behave, and to notables what great purpose fame has, should they embrace the responsibility that comes with the opportunity. Fonteyn believed that in each of us resided something authentic, and it is to that authenticity we must turn our most concerted efforts. This unique perspective illuminates what is truly important.

In the end, Fonteyn's magic and majesty endures because she is wholly authentic, and humble. Loyal to her friends, her art form, and the public that fine art serves. We need only be sincere, and work hard to provide the best we can. And this is why she will always be relevant, and will always amaze us.

Ken Ludden's ballet books are published by Fonteyn Academy Press through Lulu.com. All proceeds from sales go to The Margot Fonteyn Academy of Ballet, a non-profit organization. Visit Fonteyn Academy on Facebook.

Photo Credits: Ludden in Studio - (c)MFAB 2006; Ludden and Fonteyn portrait (c)MFAB 2014 (enlargement donated to MFAB by Lincoln Center Library from "Fonteyn in America Exhibition," courtesy Joy Brown) My Margot book cover design (c)Loron Lavoie 2014, Photo: (c)Hilda Hookham 1975, gift to Ludden from Dame Margot Fonteyn

The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven) - 30 May, iPad drawing printed on four sheets of paper, mounted on four sheets of Dibond, 96 x 72 in. (244 x 183 cm) framed, Edition of 10

David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring | From photographic collages to facsimile drawings, and offset printing with a copier machine to renderings made on a computer, David Hockney has enjoyed a lifelong fascination with using new technology to make pictures. Earlier experimentations were limited to the confines in which the machines were housed. Landscapes were sketched en plein air, and translated onto a computer screen upon return to the studio. This process changed in 2010 when Hockney acquired his first iPad. The portable device, together with a drawing application (or app), provided Hockney with the accessibility to draw at his leisure in any location, without the need of additional materials and supplies. With this newfound tool, all color and mark making effects imaginable were at his fingertips, and quite literally so. The iPad and app enabled the artist to create his subjects with the touch of his index finger and without restriction. "It's all drawing," said Hockney. "It's a new medium for drawing, the iPad, it's like an endless sheet of paper."

David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring opens July 9 at L.A. Louver, Venice

Driving L.A. | Driving L.A., a group exhibition of photographs by sixteen artists represented by Craig Krull Gallery will, of course, include pictures made while driving, but it will also explore our lifestyles and built environments as they have taken shape on the streets of L.A. in the form of billboards, dingbats, car washes, drive-ins, freeways and maps-to-the-stars'-homes. But the driving culture of L.A. also includes those stationary cars on Hollywood studio sound stages with a film of passing scenery running behind them. It also includes an imagined L.A., as exemplified by Tim Bradley's staged photo of a model he created of an El Camino with the giant framework of a church under construction on its bed. It is a haunting combination of our peripatetic lives and our often bizarre history of cults and pop-up religions.

Driving L.A opens July 12 at Craig Krull Gallery

Genevieve Chua: Cicadas Cicadas | A site-specific installation that draws from the unique life cycle of periodical cicadas to explore larger notions of potentiality and the idea of a grand escape.

Chua's multimedia practice explores the fear of the unknown, focusing in particular on projections of things that remain unseen. Through an unfurling narrative, the artist constructs alternate realities, which present open-ended questions. In Cicadas Cicadas, Chua uses paintings, objects and sound to create a figuration of the insect and its environment. After disappearing underground for years, cicadas are driven to emerge in great force, and it is this dormancy and eventual uprising that manifests in Chua's installation.

Genevieve Chua: Cicadas Cicadas opens July 12 at GUSFORD | Los Angeles

Jess Black: Timely Disorder | Defying convention through his process, Black creates paintings based upon a singular feeling in any given moment - unapologetic, and without regard to what is commonplace or deemed "popular" in the contemporary market today. This organic process yields vastly non-uniform segments of work - idiosyncratic and bold in composition - which could easily appear as if they were created by different artists altogether. In the same way that our contemporary lives are constantly being uploaded, updated, reworked, and re-experienced, so too, does the artist and his work go through an uncertain process from conception to construction - until final culmination.

Jess Black: Timely Disorder opens July 10 at the Gateway Gallery @ Cooper Design Space

Lisa Adams: In the Land of Entropic Beauty | The world of Lisa Adams is set in an environ that straddles the imaginary and apocalyptic, replete with thwarted nature and human-built forms constructed from unlikely sources. In the Land of Entropic Beauty expands the artists' vocabulary of imagery and of paint treatments, presenting a version of "beauty" that is conjured from an interior place, referencing the familiar so that the subjects retain a semblance of familiarity, yet are bolstered in mystery and uncertainty.

With an undercurrent of melancholy built upon a dichotomous palette of bright colors and black, the artist feels a palpable sense of a world going wrong in the hands of humans. In The Land of Entropic Beauty no one seems to be bothered by the decay and steady decline into obscurity.

Lisa Adams: In the Land of Entropic Beauty closes July 20 at CB1 Gallery

For the most comprehensive calendar of art events throughout Los Angeles go to Artweek.LA.

Daniel Sprick, Beijing Man, Oil on board, 20 x 16 inches

There is a well-known story about the painter Richard Diebenkorn that goes like this: One day in the early 1950s, when Diebenkorn was living and teaching in New Mexico, someone commented to him that he probably wasn't very good at realism. Stung into action, Diebenkorn tossed off a convincing portrait sketch of a nearby man and more than made his point: that he wasn't an abstract painter simply because he was incapable of traditional rendering. Diebenkorn was a complete painter, and he wasn't about to be let someone's assumptions about his limitations go unchallenged.

Daniel Sprick, whose work is now on view at the Denver Art Museum, has been creating paintings for more than a decade that make a similar point, but in reverse. Any assumptions you make about his limits are very likely going to be wrong too. Sprick is an almost absurdly talented realist who it would be easy to label as a "tight" painter: he can lasso paint into perfectly limned contours and burnish human features into glowing, baby-bottom smoothness. Sprick can also let the paint run free and tell him what to do: underneath his realism he leaves patches of vivid, freely brushed abstraction. He also paints the wildness of hair with anarchic verve.

Daniel Sprick, Tom T., Oil on board, 16 x 20 inches

Who is this guy who can handle the brush like Joan Mitchell -- or a Chinese literati painter -- in the morning, and then morph into Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres by dinner? This may not sound like a compliment, but Sprick's technique is so varied that it is almost schizophrenic.

Sprick is many painters in one, and there is something conceptual about his approach. The conceptual element is there in the fact that each painting displays what the artist Vincent Desiderio calls a "narrative of creation." In other words, Sprick's paintings are utterly clear about how they are made: when seen as a whole they represent -- among other things -- a rebuke to photo-realism, which looks tame compared to what he does. Looking over a Sprick painting is an experience in being both "wowed" by his sheer bravura skill while also appreciating the artist's ability to balance his intellect with his intuition. Sprick paints hard and feels deeply.

As if Sprick didn't have enough to offer just in terms of virtuosity, there is another element to his portraits that has to be praised. You might expect that someone with his self-confidence could be detached from his subjects: far from it. Sprick has the knack for seeing people's inner vitality -- maybe it is related to his knack for understanding abstract energies -- and even when his portraits achieve refinement his subjects never lose their mojo. Take a look at the people that Dan Sprick paints and you will notice that however varied they are on the surface they all have one thing in common in emotional terms: they are all wide open to being painted by Daniel Sprick. They love being part of his oeuvre even though much of his work isn't flattering in conventional terms and there is at least a hint of affectionate caricature in his strongest works.

Honestly, who wouldn't want Sprick to paint their portrait? The man is a living master. Like Diebenkorn he is more than up to the challenge of surprising you with his versatility.

Daniel Sprick, Self-Portrait, Oil on board, 24 x 18 inches

John Seed in Conversation with Daniel Sprick

Dan, tell me about why you chose "Fictions" as the title for your show in Denver.

If you see yourself showing up in a short story, you may recognize parts of yourself that are drawn accurately, parts that are grafted from another model, and other parts from vapor and dusk. these narratives may be vague, but they are fictions, which was observed by Timothy Standring, who chose the title.

When we paint, we internalize and filter all the raw data of existence through our sensibilities, experiences, abilities and shortcomings. We also mix in our habits, biases, preconceptions and aesthetic preferences. Then we stir it up with our natural emotional responses, and out comes -- lord knows what -- a variation on the initial experience. The end result is a kind of a daydreaming other world: a fictional world.

Daniel Sprick, Ketsia in Profile, Oil on canvas on board, 22 x 28 inches

Is it fair to say that your work combines a variety of ideas and approaches? I see realism, abstraction and also conceptualism.

There was an article in which you discussed that there are various art worlds with little overlap or awareness of each other: parallel universes without contact. But I keep hearing the term ''bridge'' between traditional academic work and contemporary art as applied to this show. Christoph Heinrich, the director of the Denver Art Museum, has a background as curator of modern and contemporary in Germany, yet he shows genuine enthusiasm about this work and indicates that it dovetails with his goals. I am humbled by this, and very, very grateful.

Daniel Sprick, Kenton, oil on board, 20 x 16 inches

How do you hope people will react to your work when they see it?

Curator Timothy Standring, who worked directly with me in Denver, said to a group after the reception that it is rare to have an opening in which people are actually looking at the paintings more than at each other. I heard reports of viewers moist in the eyes, and I noticed a bit of that myself. To connect on an emotional level is the most that an artist can hope for.

Conversely, it will always be a big ol' world with many valid points of view, and none of us can expect 100 percent acceptance. I am presently reeling from the most carefully thought out, intelligently written, long, bitter and vitriolic attack I've seen against any one since elementary schoolyard days. Though it stings, I am flattered by the amount of effort he put into it. So thank you, mister.

Daniel Sprick, Nova, oil on board, 20 x 16 inches

How can a skilled artist practicing realism today endow his/her work with a sense of contemporaneity?

An artist can internalize contemporary sensibilities, not so much by staying up to date on trends at Art Basel Miami, but by being true to him/herself and by indulging in the realm of the senses: observing and feeling, being influenced more by life itself than by the art world.

Daniel Sprick, Nicky, Oil on board, 30 x 24 inches

How do the different elements in your work compliment each other?

For years I've heard that the term ''de-skilling'' is being used in university art schools, apparently meaning that craft is believed to be an impediment to expression, and for sure: technical perfection as an end in itself can be lifeless. At the opposite end of the scale, if I am wildly expressive and full of emotion, in a language that no one recognizes, I am a man babbling in tongues out on the street. Then there is the art of no feeling and no craft either: supported by verbose and incomprehensible theories to keep investors buying into it.

Emotional expression can flourish when combined with highly practiced traditional academic skill. My taste leans toward understatement and subtlety. The works are not exactly accurate: they are embedded with errors due to my basic human shortcomings and also due to intentional exaggerations or caricature.

In the careful realism of my pieces there is also something in there that is a little bit wrong, but it may convey some interesting other world.

Daniel Sprick, Carmel, Oil on board, 20 x 20 inches

How do you see your work as fitting into the long lineage of postwar figuration?

Nathan Oliveira conveyed an otherworldliness and expressed powerful emotion with recognizable figures during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism: his work constituted a bridge. Lucien Freud is another bridge artist between worlds; so is F. Scott Hess. There is a sequence, a progression from 1950's to today. I think that what I am doing follows in that sequence.

It is possible to carefully craft artwork in the long tradition of realism while being expressive and relevant to our times. Realism was certainly not exhausted at the end of the nineteenth century.

All images ©Daniel Sprick

Daniel Sprick Portrait from APAIRUS COMPANY on Vimeo.

Daniel Sprick's Fictions: Recent Works
The Denver Art Museum
June 22, 2014 - November 2, 2014
Hamilton Building

Photo Credit: Doug Bailey

Last year Doug Bailey, a Southern California firefighter, put down his firefighting gloves and jacket one last time. Now, as a retired firefighter, Doug spends his days capturing breathtaking images. In this compelling interview, Doug shares the struggles and the poetic similarities of the two different careers.

HH. Describe the feeling when the alarm sets off at the firehouse.

DB: I was a firefighter for 25 years, first as a reserve and then full time. I prepared myself for any situation that may arise, but never knew what those situations may be. So when the alarm sounded my feeling was anticipation suffused with happiness. I knew that by the end of the day I will be deeply satisfied by having done something I was created to do. And always, there was a deeply rooted sense of joy.

Photo Credit: Doug Bailey

I was fortunate enough to have worked in a seaside location in Southern California, so what began as a small hobby of taking morning and evening surf photos and posting them to my social media friends, turned into a real passion. When I think about it, going to work at the fire station was a lot like going on a photo shoot. I have much the same feeling of joyful anticipation. You never know what you may find! There is also a similar sense of deep satisfaction. I believe knowing one's life purpose allows for the deep satisfaction in job or photo shoot.

HH: Are there any similarities between firefighting and photography?

DB: On first thought it would seem that the hurry, pressure, high stress critical choices and controlled efforts used in fighting fires has nothing to do with photography. But I am a strong believer that one's life is built much as a house. First the foundation, then the walls, next the roof, etc. So each life experience builds on what has gone before. So, do I use my fire experience when I take photos? Yes, in a thousand intangible ways. From sizing up a fire scene to sizing up a landscape scene. From quickly establishing an emergency strategy to quickly composing a photo before the light fades. The same hurried, but not rushed, feelings and skills emerge. And humility surfaces, knowing that few are so privileged as to make such a difference in other people's lives.

Photo Credit: Doug Bailey

Saving lives or property is deeply satisfying and humbles my spirit. But so does touching someone's life with a beautiful photo that reaches their soul. For instance, right now I am texting with a major hospital chain's bio ethicist. His job is to help families make life or death decisions about their loved ones. He watched my YouTube photo video "Journey" and wanted me to know how much it helped him after a hard day. He is forwarding the video to his Chief Operating Officer for evaluation in their work. Now, that is very cool, and humbling.

HH: What is it about landscapes versus portraits or fine art that you prefer?

Photo Credit: Doug Bailey

DB: I shoot landscapes for a couple of reasons. First, there is a certain feeling of adventure and discovery whenever I set off on a shoot. That very much attracts my attention. Next, there is the feeling of being lost in time and moment while composing a photo. My friend calls it the "Zen Moment" of photography. Time stops and I become lost in the scene, I could be there five minutes or five hours and that feeling of time suspension is always with me. Very relaxing. Third and most important, I believe we are made to enjoy and celebrate the beauty of creation. To capture and share just a bit of that beauty makes my life full, and to be in touch with the creative part of my being brings me close to my Creator. That is not to say I am above a great portrait session or fine art, I definitely have not finished growing yet!

HH: Which of your images is your favorite?

Photo Credit: Doug Bailey

DB: My first concept of photography was as a journey, and I was greatly inspired by Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken". You know, the one that begins "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both..." I had a definite choice to make when I left the fire service, and I chose photography as my life's pursuit and passion. Not exactly an easy road! So my development as a photographer has been very much like a journey. I have to say my favorite photo would be the original Lightfinder signature self portrait where I am standing on a misty hilltop with my hiking staff and hat and watching the rising sun. That photo is my touchstone, the one that will always point me back to myself if I wander too far afield.

HH: You're known as the "Lightfinder." What is your thought process when analyzing light?

Photo Credit: Doug Bailey

DB: It is the light, always the light, that first attracts my eye. Everything flows from finding that sweet light, and I have had the good fortune to find more than my share of that pure, beautiful light. So I look for light crossing in front of my lens and try to shoot a close into the sun as I can. In my mind I think of it as sailing close to the wind.

Photo Credit: Doug Bailey

I need to say here that another important and tangible component to my personal style is my love of music composition. One of my earliest childhood memories is that of looking at the family piano and wanting to create music just by placing my fingers on the keyboard. At the age of twelve I began to study music seriously, first as a classical pianist and then as a composer and singer/songwriter. I have never stopped. I find a natural connection between composing music and composing a photo. I look for the light, subject, lines, and harmony in every photo I take. Since I love a simple, uncomplicated composition with a pure melody and sweet harmonies, I see that translating into my photo style, which is why I came up with the term "Lyrical Photographer" So, the light begins the composition, the lines and melody, lyrics and harmony completes. That is the essence of "Lightfinder."

HH: Where have your images been, or will be, on display.

Photo Credit: Doug Bailey

DB:
June-July 2012, San Diego County Fair
June-July 2013, San Diego County Fair
November 2013: Metalography Gallery, Temecula California
December 2013: Calumet Photo San Diego
June 2014, Temecula Art Festival
June-July 2014, San Diego County Fair

Forthcoming
March 2015, City of Temecula Featured artist in the Old Merc Theater.

Youtube video Journey

Photo Credit: Doug Bailey

Thank you, Doug for sharing your wisdom and images!

I know, I was supposed to be following along with the theme, the argument, if you will: how the shocking intensity of Van Gogh's work opened up a path for the Post-Impressionists, the brilliant Fauves, the Blaue Reiter and so on. But the theme was presented with such flawless persuasiveness in the superb installation of From Van Gogh to Kandinsky: Expressionism in Germany and France that the historical perspective just seemed to speak for itself. It required no work on my part. Instead...

... I found myself simply feasting on paint, glorious paint. With maybe a bit of nostalgia on my part. After all, paint went through a rocky period in the last three decades of the 20th century. I'm glad to see its reputation restored, but for a while, after the premature announcement of its death, its pulse was barely detectable in the welter of new media. But this exhibition takes you back to a time when exuberance with the medium was all the vogue, and the battle was on to see who could outdo the last painter in outrageousness of palette and boldness of expressive brushwork.

I love this stuff. I can't imagine anyone walking through the galleries at LACMA, looking at these paintings without a sense of sheer elation. Vincent's passion celebrated the physicality of his medium...

... and those who followed--and learned from his example--obviously delighted in the use of brush or palette knife in the application of color to canvas. It's all there, in front of you, in the pictures on these walls. Stop for long enough to examine any one of them, and you can actually see the process as it happens...

... following along with the artist's eye and arm between the object--abstraction didn't come along until later, with Kandinsky--and the surface of the canvas. It's the action that engages us, and the passionate spirit of investigation that motivates it.

So, yes, the show is informative in its historical sweep. Yes, its aesthetic argument is eminently persuasive. And yes, you'll come away with a more complete understanding of the shift from representational to abstract painting in the late 19th and early 20th century. And I think, too, you'll come away saddened, as I was, by the last little explanatory label on the wall, describing in one short paragraph how all this exuberance was brought to a dead halt in 1914, with the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the start of World War I--the moment at which, for understandable reasons, Expressionism took on a suddenly darker tone. Amongst so many others, Franz Marc was lost to us...

His work suggests a slogan for all times: Make art, not war!

(Alan Cumming as the Em-Cee in Cabaret, courtesy Polk and Company.)

I went to see Alan Cumming in Cabaret at the Roundabout Theater Company's venture at Studio 54 last night [July 3; Michelle Williams was unfortunately absent for this performance]. Cumming was spectacular--as ever. He is one of the real divas of our era, and it always makes me wonder why we have no male term for "diva" since the other divas of this era are also very much men, and I don't mean simply Neal Patrick Harris, but also Hugh Jackman and of course Mandy Patinkin, and I could even include Justin Vivian Bond, who bridges both genders. Frankly, I'd love to see Cumming and Patinkin in one show: pure stratospheric testosterone-powered overdrive. The most beautiful thing about Allan Cumming is that though he has huge egoism, that is, as an artist, he is very invested in himself, he's without an ounce of hammyness. Inside he's a self-effacing Scotsman with still enough self to go around the vast spaces of Studio 54, plus Yankee Stadium if necessary.

What seeing Cabaret always does is bring me back to Christopher Isherwood. After all I am a writer, and for decades Isherwood, like many of his fellow English writers (J. R. Ackerley, V. S. Pritchett--why do they always have to have two initials for a first name?) was really a writer's writer. Isherwood, or "Chris" as his long-time, pre-gay-marriage companion, Don Bachardy called him, was no household name. Unless your household happened to be headed by two extremely close, unrelated guys who might be taken as brothers on overseas trips.

As a kid-writer in my early twenties, I was crazy about Isherwood. I was lucky that his books started to become available in mass-market paperbacks when I was still in my late teens, so I got to read A Single Man, and the Berlin novels from which Cabaret was taken in that easy-to-find format, as well as my favorite of all Isherwood creations, Prater Violet which might still be called one of the most deliciously evocative and romantic short novels in the English language. Isherwood haunted me, like he did many young gay writers. I still remember whole passages from his books, and I wanted like hell to be able to write like he did: exquisitely detached, wry, with that crisp, English, upper-middle-class, self-deflecting humor that made people of a "certain sort" gravitate to you, and made others, well, disappear.

(Of course I realized I was a Southern, Jewish gay writer who came from close to "white-trash" poverty, and this was just not going to happen.)

I was lucky to be able to read Isherwood in mass-market paper, because for decades in the U.S., it was hard to get his books. There was something a little too "lavender" about them, and they were often either not published here or quickly went out of print. You had to go over to London to find small volumes of them brought out by even smaller presses there. Chris never made much money from his writing, until he hit the jackpot with A Single Man, which did well in paperback, and also later with the royalties from Cabaret. For years he worked in Hollywood somewhat as a screenplay writer, actually more as a story writer. What people don't realize is that in the Golden Age of Hollywood, from the 1930s until into the 1970s, studios paid real money for a story, that is, an extended "treatment" of an idea that they could then farm out to in-house writers who wrote dialogue. You see this happening at the beginning of Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, when Joe Gillis, played fantastically by William Holden, is trying to sell a story through his agent who's obliviously playing golf. Isherwood did not do well in Hollywood, but he could keep himself kicking around by co-writing stories, contributing to dialogue, teaching, and being charming.

He was good at that, as I learned later from reading his journals, the first volume of which (Christopher Isherwood: Diaries, Volume One, 1939-1960, edited by Katherine Bucknell) may be the best thing he ever wrote.

In the second volume (Christopher Isherwood, The Sixties, 1960-1969, also edited by Bucknell) Isherwood revealed his huge disappointment in Cabaret as it appeared on Broadway--"It sounds Jewish beyond all belief and I now have scarcely any desire to see it." He hated the movie taken from Johnny Van Druten's (as Isherwood called him) play "I Am a Camera," the original dramatization of the Berlin novels, calling it "a truly shocking and disgraceful mess. . . . everything is awful--except for Julie [Harris], who was misdirected." "I Am a Camera" came out in 1951, at a point where any queerness had to be shoved hard under the moth-eaten Berlin-cum-Nazi-polka rug, but the play did connect Isherwood for life to the superb actress Julie Harris who became one of his closest friends and who inhabited "Sally Bowles," Isherwood's greatest single literary creation aside from himself, very closely to how Isherwood imagined her as a real woman. Because although "Sally Bowles" had been modeled on a real, miserably untalented English chanteuse he'd met in 1930's Berlin named Jean Ross, she was very much put together and confected by Isherwood out of himself--another "lost" Englishman desperate to push himself out of his own inhibitions. (In fact, Isherwood concocted her name from his friend Paul Bowles, the American composer/novelist living in Tangiers and very queer husband of writer Jane Bowles).

So Cabaret in the past always took me back to Isherwood, except for last night, when sitting up in the cheaper bleachers at Studio 54, I realized something: what keeps bringing people back to Cabaret, and to Isherwood's Berlin, is that we're young in it.

Isherwood always had this boyish youngness in him even as he approached his eighties. And life is not so much a "cabaret, old chum," as much as that inside all of us is a place where we suddenly realize it's a show. And we're either in it, looking at it, or desperate to be included in it. And the show itself is real. Or, as Isherwood said in his first volume of journals, "Write, live what happens: Life is too sacred for invention--though we may lie about it sometimes, to heighten it." (The itals are mine here, Chris.)

We've all had that Cabaret moment someplace, and it stays inside us. Sometimes it was at a club, a bar, or even at a particular beach--Isherwood was crazy about beaches and lived in Santa Monica, where he met Don at the local gay beach--and I have that same feeling. Beaches are theatre, just as much as bars or night clubs, or anyplace else where you see life suddenly as a spectacle, one that won't go on forever--the curtain will come down; but you'll always keep the high points with you.

And that will keep you young, no matter how old you are.

Thank you, Chris, for writing those Berlin novels, and John Kander and Fred Ebb for turning Johnny Van Druten's play "I Am A Camera" into Cabaret, and of course Alan Cumming as the M.C. of the KitKat Club for being shot straight out of a cannon every performance directly at us. And making us all feel so . . . fabulously young again.

Perry Brass's latest book is Carnal Sacraments, A Historical Novel of the Future, Second Edition. He has published 17 books, including the ever-popular The Manly Art of Seduction, and can be reached through his website www.perrybrass.com and followed on Twitter and Facebook.

Risk is not risk if failure is not a possibility.
Failure is not failure if there is no pain.

We don't just live in good times, we live in beta times, where it seems everybody, at least aspirationally, is a risk-taker, an innovator, a creative, a maker. As an architect -- one who designs -- I, too, am one of these folks.

The romance of risk has huge currency today. But excellence is hard to come by, because...excellence is hard to come by. It is profoundly not business-as-usual. Achieving it is not a no-brainer. It is deeply a brainer.

In the last few years, we have become much more mindful of creativity culture in our own studio and even more so during our work with The Keck Institute for Space Studies at California Institute of Technology. This organization is the embodiment of creativity ethos. It is a scientific creativity think tank whose mission is to explore space in revolutionary new ways. Our work was to breathe that spirit into architecture to create a place of desire that would trump the anxiety of the tension-filled, week long mission-driven creativity sessions.

Our directive was to design a new home for the Keck Institute for Space Studies to define a sense of place, production, and purpose for the academic think tank.

The Keck Institute for Space Studies brings together top-notch scientists, engineers and others from disparate, often clashing, intellectual and professional cultures/silos that normally don't or can't interact; then it psychologically breaks them down and opens them up to allow them to invent and create in awesome and powerful ways together. Professor Tom Prince (Director and former Chief Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory) and Managing Director Michele Judd are quintessential out-of-this-world thinkers who describe themselves as "managers and orchestrators of creative tension."

A robust sense of groundedness is achieved in the design for the new 4,400-square-foot facility at with seamless indoor-outdoor thinking, schmoozing, being, hyper-functional working space. Massive natural light, the sounds of birds and students, the smell of buds, the oak trees and their shadows, fresh air -- the grounding essence of place -- conspire together to nurture creative fireworks.

Architecture and organizational mission conspire to create a place that is a catalyst to encourage affinity amongst individuals. Affinity to the purpose is created by the affinity to the environment. Architecturally, an association to the existing structure and the existing outdoor landscape is always present and experienced with the new structure.

How did we, and do we, continue to achieve the goal of embracing creative tension? We pay attention to ourselves so that we can go beyond the romance of risk to learn what really works, what hurts, and how we can bring out that creative spark in ourselves and our clients, be they bona fide "creatives" or not. We are attentive to friction and frisson, to silence and the sound of work, to body language, to the creative loss of non-participation and opacity, and to the pleasures of dissonance en route to synthesis.

How do we make it safe to speak and be rejected; as teacher, and as leader of my practice, I look for the loving attack-- a fierce, respectful critique that cuts to the chase -- with a smile, when possible. As an architect friend of mine says, the critic is to be "supporter and saboteur" simultaneously.

People don't easily go to places of discomfort because places of discomfort are uncomfortable. This reality check is quick buzzkill for wannabe creatives. I hate going there, and yet, when finally there -- on virtually every project -- I briefly smile in my pain, knowing that I am positioned to dig deeper and (hopefully) go to new places to achieve excellent outcomes.

We pursue excellence and innovate only in those endeavors when it hurts not to be excellent; when that hurt is even greater than the pain of creation. The challenge for each of us (teacher, parent, leader, professional, human being) and those we love (students, children, colleagues, clients, our communities) is to find, harness, and draw out the creative spark that animates us...and ignite it--necessarily embracing it both its gore and joyous glory.

Michael Lehrer: Risk Conference at Taubman College from Taubman College on Vimeo.

Michael Lehrer Lecturing on asterRISK
University of Michigan School of Architecture
RISK Conference, 2012

Nerdrumklanen, a new exhibition of paintings and prints from the members of the Nerdrum School is opening this weekend at Raugland Atelier in Norway. Because the Nerdrum clan represents a philosophy, a way of life, it echos out from the realm of painting and into other areas, like Wildlings descending the wall, there are fans of Nerdrum everywhere. In addition to painters and sculptors, actors, philosophers and musicians also understand that this is a paradigm shift, more than a movement which I have, in the past, erroneously referred to it as in attempts to understand and explain it. It is an alternative way of viewing cultural aesthetics, to the more established modern perspectives that we see around us today. A new paradigm.

Self Portrait as a Baby by Odd Nerdrum

Nerdrum's ongoing tax case in the Nowegian court, which is more of a performance piece than an example of justice, can seem to be all one hears about when it comes to Nerdrum, but behind all of it is the work. We must remember to return to the work, and spend time with it for therein lies the power of painting.

Empty Bed by Anne Herrero

Odd Nerdrum has been taking in students for many decades and now, more than ever, the importance of his his contribution is becoming increasingly apparent. Every time I return to visit with Nerdrum I have the pleasure of meeting diverse and interesting talent. Among the 21 painters who will be exhibiting in Nerdrumklanen are Odd Nerdrum, Jan-Ove Tuv, Turid Spildo, Helene Knoop, Nanne Nyander, Monika Helgesen and myself. Ode S. Nerdrum and Myndin Nerdrum will be making their debut with work in the show.

Compassion by Nanne Nyander

There are many things that make the Nerdrum Clan so appealing to the public and collector's alike. It is in the work as well in the lives of the painters themselves that is so interesting. These painters are dedicated to living full heroic lives and are dedicated to expressing themselves with paint in grand fashion. Brilliance attracts brilliance.

Trinity by Helene Knoop

When one imagines a group of artists gathered together around the fireplace in Paris drinking wine and talking expressively after a full day of painting, when one sees a group of friends huddled together gazing out across toward the open sea from the rocks after a swim, when one imagines a group of creative individuals feeding off of each other, pushing each other to develop in positive ways, each of them working toward the same lofty goal of painting a masterwork, then one need only to look to the Nerdrum Clan to find the real thing.

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Portrait of the Painter Luke Hillestad by Turid Spildo

The potential of the painters who subscribe to this fresh human aesthetic can easily be seen. The Nerdrum School, a book published in late 2013, showcases the work that is being produced today from this tribe of individuals. In addition to the Nerdrumklanen exhibition currently in Norway, Holdfast has put together the Effigy and Exile exhibition in Minneapolis which is further testament to Nerdrum's growing influence. But Nerdrum's influence, as I said, spills out into the world and people from many walks of life can relate to it and understand it.

Paul C. by Kjetil Jul

Kristofer Hivju is a Norwegian film actor, producer and writer. He starred as Jonas in the Thing and is Tormund Giantsbane in the HBO series Game of Thrones. Giantsbane is a renowned leader and raider among the Free Folk. In real life Hivju is a member of the Nerdrum Clan.

He recently wrote an article on behalf of Odd Nerdrum which appeared in the daily Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet and which expressed a dignified and potentially profitable resolution to what has been described as the Nerdrum Affair. Here are some of the things he says in the article which you can google translate from the original Norwegian if you wish to read more of what Hivju says about the case and about Nerdrum himself.

"Personally, I'm proud of Odd Nerdrum. As proud as I am of Henrik Ibsen, Edvard Munch and Knut Hamsun. And I say this not because I am his friend, but because I am a human being. Whether you want it or not, Odd Nerdrum is a giant in historical context. He is among the greatest painters. Let's meet in a hundred years and see who was right.

Barbaric by Cody LeVon

So instead of chasing him down further, it would be more appropriate to build a large museum where Norwegians and millions of tourists from all corners of the world could take part in his wonderful works.

This trial has already become world history. Because Odd Nerdrum's world history.

Let's end the witch hunt on Nerdrum in a worthy manner, so our grandchildren will not have to be ashamed on our behalf."

That sounds like a brilliant way to resolve this tragic drama.

Clearing by Gunnar Haslund

Meanwhile, let us return to the paintings, the reason for it all, and spend time with them.

Her Outlook by Brandon Kralik

The exhibition NERDRUMKLANEN features 21 painters who have participated in the Nerdrum School and will be open to the public from July 5 until July 27, 2014 at Raugland Atelier in Norway.

Participating in the exhibition, in addition to those I have already mentioned are Kaja Norum, Gunnar Hasland, Kjetil Jul, Trine Mikkelsen, Rikke Knudsen, Anette Stahl, Cody LeVon, Anne Herrero, Kristine Johnsen, Monika Helgesen, Roberto CaLo, Kjaersti Aandahl and Ian Reynolds.

The Nerdum School, with Essay's by Jan Ove Tuv, Richard T. Scott and others is available at Amazon.

Self Portrait in Sunlight by Ian Reynolds

Self Portrait by Monika Helgesen

You're at the theater. You're sitting in your seat, paying attention to what's going on in front of you. If the play is any good, you've completely forgotten that you're sitting in a theater. You are absorbed in the new world unfolding in front of you. The theater has cast a spell over you.

Then, suddenly, the actor on stage turns to the audience and begins speaking directly to you. He's no longer pretending to be an actor. The spell is abruptly broken. You become aware of your surroundings: the hardness of your seat, the harsh lights on the stage, the odor emanating from the person next to you. You become alert to how the director and the actors have conspired to manipulate you. Or, at least, this was how audiences originally reacted when plays began to deploy such tactics.

In theater parlance, the actor has broken the fourth wall. This is the invisible wall that runs across the front of the stage, which everyone in the theater pretends doesn't exist. The fourth wall is essential to our willed suspension of disbelief. Yes, yes, we know that they're actors. But for a brief period of time, they pretend and we pretend and the drama floats in the air on the updraft of this make-believe.

Our relationship with the government is similar. We vote. We pay taxes. We serve on juries. For most us, that's our relationship with government. Otherwise, we sit in the audience of our living room and watch as the political drama -- the occasional tragedy, the inevitable comedy -- unspools before us on the nightly news or in the articles in the newspaper. A fourth wall separates us from our representative democracy. If we don't break the law or start working for government, the wall remains in place.

Edward Snowden -- and a variety of other whistleblowers -- exposed a different reality. The government has been breaking the fourth wall on a consistent basis when it puts us all under surveillance. We thought that the NSA and the CIA were only focused on external targets. We thought there was a wall that protected U.S. citizens. We were wrong.

The shock of government surveillance is comparable to the surprise that accompanies the breaking of the fourth wall in the theater. The German playwright Bertolt Brecht frequently used this "alienation effect" to jolt his audiences from their complacency. He called attention to the devices of the theater in order to expose how plays covertly play with the emotions of audiences. Originally, this breaking of the fourth wall was profoundly shocking to audiences. But Brecht's techniques have been absorbed into the theater mainstream (and TV as well, as Frank Underwood's asides to the camera demonstrate in House of Cards). It takes more to shock us in the theater these days.

Edward Snowden is the Bertolt Brecht of the surveillance age. He has pulled back the curtain to reveal the manipulations of our national security complex. In so doing, he has shocked many Americans out of their complacency. He has also revealed that what we thought might have been an exception (like Watergate or Cointelpro) has now become routine.

In my new play, Interrogation, I've tried to bring Edward Snowden and Bertolt Brecht together on the stage. Interrogation is a cautionary tale about this new world of surveillance cameras and GPS locators and omnipresent social media. It's set in Washington, DC. And it's being performed in Washington -- at the Capital Fringe Festival this month beginning on Thursday.

It all sounds pretty grim. Edward Snowden is not exactly a stand-up comedian, and the NSA is not SNL.

But Interrogation is a comedy. Well, a dark comedy. Think of it as Dr. Strangelove for the Snowden era: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the NSA.

Oh, and we're also offering door prizes. Even Brecht would have approved of that -- just as long as I tell you about it beforehand.

Created with support from Curatorial Intern Sapira Cheuk

This edition of On Seeing Online mines the realms of artifice and archive. More than a fun alliteration, these ideas represent polarities of Internet experience. Growing out of our first round of submissions, the title sums up much of what happens online -- we search and seek and file, and we question (if we're thinking) what is real and fabricated, the lines between them blurring more each day. Yet in the midst of ever-expanding technical capacities for artifice, it is surprising -- and gratifying -- how much of online art is still, in many respects, genuine.

Curatorial intern Sapira Cheuk provided organizational support and also broadened our reach with her post on the California Arts Council, to which many of you responded. With the wealth of submissions for this round, we decided to take a broad approach, including artists across the spectrum from pure archive to wild artifice and everything in between. We hope you will enjoy it!

We begin with an exuberant image made exclusively for this exhibition by Spain-based @whateverlulu, a young artist that works online. Like many of his peers, @whateverlulu's projects -- as well, his sources of inspiration -- seamlessly span distinct fields including fashion, advertising, pop culture, design, and art. With grumbles about the messy complications inherent in the blurring of disciplines coming largely from earlier generations, it is refreshing to see an artist from such a generation playfully critique that grumble, ageism, and most anything in her path, with her wildly irreverent parody and pastiche. Terri Lloyd's "Pink Buddha Memes" take form in fabricated postcards, impromptu performance, and video. Lloyd's online profile also includes running a feminist art collective for women over forty, evidence of the collaboration the Internet affords many artists.

The next two works remind us of that poignancy and mourning, too, can hold court in the Wild West of the Internet. Emily Promise Allison, based in Canada, completed The Archivist, in 2013, a performance in which she entered the historic Charles Rennie Mackintosh library at the Glasgow School of Art dressed all in white, sought out the oldest books she could find, opened them and breathed in their scent -- inhaling history and time and memory. A document of that performance is included here. As we corresponded about this exhibition, news broke that a fire had sadly destroyed the historic space, adding a layer of urgency and commemoration to this compelling and original piece.

Memory, loss, and erasure pervade Navid Sinaki's series, "White Ash," a collection of photographs from friends, family, and flea markets that Sinaki physically marks or scratches, pointing to that which is gone but still remembered. Sinaki writes, "Growing up gay in Los Angeles, I was always struck by a particular absence. I came of age after the AIDS generation and the lineage that remained was patchy because of all the casualties." Each of Sinaki's affecting altered images acts as a simultaneously intimate and collective memorial.

We found many examples of the Internet as a space for artists from near or far to gather for collaboration, shared interest, discussion, or, in the case of the imaginative and ethereal Ministry of Clouds, based in Australia, to promote "the sublime beauty of the sky." The poetic potential of a digital realm dedicated to the ultimate in spaciousness, the sky, is endless. We included two works by Madeline Fountain and Alice McCormick.

In another work made for this exhibition, Robert Stanley provides an apt bridge from lyricism to document. This re-imagined poster for Stanley's own 2009 tacit performance, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, of John Cage's renowned 4'33", points doubly into the artist's past re-presentation of Cage and into vast digital space to locate a link to an earlier performance of Cage's iconic 1948 work, cleverly making use of the Internet's potential to revive and revisit. Noting that the Internet allows far more people access to this piece, Stanley commented that, "it excites me that many people online will get to think about nihilism in some art today, the denial of the pleasure of the medium itself."

In a playful approach to fictitious documentation, Helen Chung inserted her own readymade image, taken through a tube of packing material, into a previous version of "On Seeing," interjecting herself and her work in a manufactured archive, reified with its inclusion here.

Miles Hochhalter Lewis, also part of an online collective, The Metaphorical Association, draws on the massive archive of "stuff" online as inspiration and material; his digital compositions begin with material generated by search engines. Vancouver-based Natalie Reynolds repurposes her imagery by photographing her paintings and manipulating the collected results in colorful digital collages informed by loose narratives.

Mechelle De Craene-Gilford represents a democratizing shift in how we think about creativity, thanks to a multitude of miniature cameras in phones, ipads, and other devices. A teacher currently residing in Berkeley, California, De Craene-Gilford caught my attention with her bright cartoonish image of an otherwise everyday artifact (a clock on a donut shop) and her curiosity about, "how many generations had looked up at that clock."

I wonder, too, at the generations that will continue to engage with and on the Internet and how this will shift and change the landscape of art, visual language, creativity, contemporary culture, and who makes and accesses these. Who are the artists that we will remember centuries from now? Will their works be digital, analogue, ephemeral, social, or take some other form?

Please join the conversation on our On Seeing Facebook page.

Sergio de Arrola is a Spanish guerrilla artist and photographer who is uncomfortable with the moniker "artist." His work ranges from portraits taken in South America to a photo essay of American life shot while pedaling his bicycle from New York to Los Angeles in 48 days. Sergio's mission, it seems, is to depict the world in black, as well as striking color. These days, one of the Spaniard's most attention-grabbing projects involves "pasteup" large format printing and his "Banksy" style guerrilla street art displays. In the dead of night, Sergio and his team stealthily paste massive images all over Madrid. Glue, rollers and huge photos are the basic tools this photographer employs in his efforts to transform the various barrios of Spain's capital. I recently caught up with de Arrola to talk about art, large format printers, travel and run-ins with the Spanish authorities. He was also kind enough to give me permission to share his photos with the rest of the world here. Here's what he had to say.

What do you like about being an artist and photographer? What do you dislike about the artistic life?

Sergio de Arrola: I don't know if I consider myself an artist. I think I'm working on it. I work everyday trying to make coherent work that represents myself as a human being. I like art that involves emotions and real life. I like to talk with the people in my portraits. I love to relate to the emotions of the people that I portray in my work. I don't hate anything about art. I can hate some institutions or people that try to cheat and that don't try to make something serious.

You've worked in Barcelona and Madrid. Can you compare and contrast your art and life in both cities?

Barcelona is a really arty city. When I arrived there in 2004, it was even more so. The city was painted with colorful graffiti from artists from all around the world. Back then Madrid was the opposite. It was a very "political" city. Art was only in museums and "serious" institutions. Now the balance has changed. Barcelona is trying to be more "serious," and Madrid is becoming funkier. I really love the beach and the vibe of Barcelona, but I also enjoy living in a big city like Madrid, where you're more anonymous than in a little town.

Why did you create the Rolling Habits street project?

The main reason was because I wanted to share my photography with people in a direct way. Show them my work when they're working or just living life. I think people are more receptive when they're walking in the street compared to when they're walking around a museum. I enjoy this. I also like seeing my work in different formats. Normally when you take a photo, the context is closed, but when you paste it up on a wall, this changes. The image is given a new dimension because it's interfering with the environment. In the future, I hope I can paste photos up in other cities and countries.

Have you ever gotten into trouble with the police for pasting up large format photos around Madrid?

Sure! Sometimes we run around in the night to avoid contact with the police. If you're not doing anything too risky or prohibited, like crossing the highway or something like that, in the end it's only paper and glue -- and the glue is almost water. If the police catch you, you can just take the paper off the wall. It's always better if I don't talk with the police too much. The work is illegal, but at the same time it's kind of friendly. On the M-30 highway in Madrid, I once pasted up 30 portraits (two meters each) on the walls to the highway entrance. When the police caught us, they were very aggressive at first, but in the end, everybody was laughing and chilling out with five police cars and 10 cops, plus four of my friends. The police took some of my posters away as a "proof" to show to some "important" guy.

What is your favorite brand of large format printer?

My experience in printing is totally amateur. I'm not an expert. I have an HP5000. It's a large format plotter. You can print up to 1.5-meters wide, so it's perfect for big paste up projects.

What other projects are you working on now?

I have an "intervention" paste up on a 14-meter wall in Barcelona that I'm very excited about. It's gonna be massive! I'm also editing a book about a bicycle trip I made in the U.S. last year. I took lots of portraits and very nice images about the loneliness and the beauty of North America. I'm also thinking about my next big trip. I want to join a tour from Cairo to Cape Town. This time it's not gonna be alone, but the intention is the same. I'll take portraits and reflect on the reality of the places I visit.

This article was originally published in The Blot Magazine.

Staring at a blank page and not having the words flow the way they did last week, or even yesterday, is every writer's nightmare. Writer's block can feel paralyzing, especially with a deadline fast approaching, and it can often leave writers wondering if they should give up on their craft. Some would say it's a rite of passage. Others would argue it just takes shaking things up.

To help out, I tracked down willing writers of various genres who have faced the plague of writer's block, and who were willing to share their cures or tips for preventative maintenance.

Novelist: Hildie McQueen

Writer's Block, or "Where was I going with this" syndrome affects all authors at some point. While working on my latest book The Rancher, I became so frustrated. My poor hero, Grant Gentry, sat on his horse without a clear destination and I thought, well crud, nobody wants to read this boring crap. So I did what I normally do, I walked away from the story.

That is my secret. When you hit a brick wall, turn around and walk away. For me there's nothing like a drive down long country roads to clear the mind and get the story back on the right path. Sometimes I even invite the hero or heroine along.

It's amazing what drives in rural Georgia does to the characters in my head. They loosen up and start talking. Maybe it's the fresh air, or maybe they're afraid I'm going to kill them off?

Playwright: Everett Robert

As a playwright, the most important thing for me to write is dialogue. When I'm struggling to hear a character's voice, I'll often stop whatever I'm doing, turn off the music or noise and go to a coffee shop, walk around a college campus, or go to a retail store. I find that writer's block doesn't come from a lack of "ideas," but rather a lack of "voice." Listening to other voices helps me tune in my muse to the character voices I'm struggling to hear.

Novelist: Julie Benson

When I wrote Bet On a Cowboy I suffered from writer's block. The charismatic man I loved enough to give his own story clammed up on me. My heroine wouldn't share her internal conflict with me. I feared I'd miss my deadline for my first book written under contract. At a workshop I attended with Jayne Ann Krentz and Susan Elizabeth Phillips, they said to keep writing until the story makes sense. Trusting them, that's what I did. When I hit the major love scene on page 137, suddenly everything made sense. I knew the answer -- my heroine wanted children but didn't think she'd ever have a meaningful relationship. I added a scene at the beginning with her checking into having a child through artificial insemination. The rest of the book practically wrote itself from there. Now when writer's block hits I know that as long as I keep writing, eventually everything will make sense.

Fiction Writer: Daniel Sherrier

Exercise is a wonderful remedy for writer's block. Writing, obviously, is a sedentary activity, but being sedentary is how cobwebs form in your brain. That might help if you're writing about cobwebs, but otherwise, they'll just get you stuck. So, go out for a run, take a kickboxing class, or even just a brisk walk might do the trick. You'll come back to your work feeling energized, and you'll have done something your body needs anyway. Your entire self wins -- and your book does, too.

Ghostwriter and Novelist: Heather Hummel

As a ghostwriter, my clients often provide me with the basic concepts for their books, sometimes even an outline and some material. However, it's up to me to organize and write the rest of the material to complete their book for them. To do this, and to write my own novels, I've always had two effective muses that prevent writer's block.

One is cycling, as I have been known to write entire chapters in my head while pedaling on long bike rides. I see my laptop as the tool for putting the words down, but much of my writing actually formulates in my head while riding. (The trick is remembering them later when I go to type the words on my laptop.) For this reason, I tend to ride alone, so I can quiet my mind with only the whirl of tires on the pavement beneath me.

My other muse is photography. Because I'm also a land and seascape photographer, I find the cross-creative roles feed on one another. If I'm feeling stuck with a chapter, I load up my car with my camera gear and my two dogs (they make great assistants) and head out to spend time photographing Mother Nature. By the time I return home, I am always refreshed and ready to write again. Having the mix of visual and written careers keeps me motivated on both fronts.

If you have a favorite muse, please share them in the comments below.

The Metropolitan Opera, formed in 1880 and the standard bearer of the art form in the United States, is in negotiations with 15 unions whose contracts expire July 31. Some of these represent the stagehands, chorus and soloists and the orchestra -- the backbone of the organization.

Much has been written from the position of both sides of the arguments, in op-eds, full-page ads, and more. As a matter of disclosure I have sung leading roles at the Met since 1989 and am scheduled to be back this fall. My purpose is not to take sides but to share what it is like to work with the people there.

I have sung all over the world for 34 years. When people ask me where my favorite place to sing is, I always say the Met. When they ask why, I say because it is a family and because the standards are so high. One constant in a career is change -- change of language, weather, culture, colleagues...

The Met is one of the more high-pressure places to perform. It is a large space with a discerning audience. We soloists are only as good as our colleagues so when you have a world-class chorus, orchestra and crew, you tend to push yourself to meet that level. (When I say "crew" I include the wardrobe, dressers, makeup and wig departments as well as the stage managers and assistants.)

When singing at the Met, there is an efficiency of rehearsal time, magnitude of preparation, and there are high artistic standards.

When onstage, under pressure the stagehands are a source of comfort in that they are not only polite and respectful but also love to work there and love the art form. I trust them with my safety and although there have been mishaps through the years I think they are few considering that amount of rehearsals and performances that have occurred. In an opera, one is dealing with many factors. I made my Met debut in 1989 without a rehearsal on the set. That evening a crew member handed me a bent nail used to secure scenery, for good luck. I still have that nail. It meant so much to me.

Let me say a word about the stagehands. That moniker does not in the least explain their special skills. One needs only to look at a time-lapse video from the Met stage of the work they do. Not only is it dangerous, it is also specialized. Some guys are working on a catwalk way over the stage, others are physically lifting heavy pieces of scenery and others are putting down the ground cover or dance floor that goes over the bare floor, being sure that all wrinkles are out, that is is nailed down safely and ready for a performance or act. Props people assure that everything is either on the set or in the wings and is indeed in working order. Others adjust and focus the lighting fixtures and gels. I am not even mentioning the talented folks who build the scenic aspects of opera. That takes a whole other skill set. Making something to be seen and look real from afar takes a special skill. Some of these sets arrive in many, many semi-trucks. We are talking a lot of stuff. Crews will build them and take them down night after night rotating to the next opera in time for the rehearsal on stage the next morning.

The stage managers help assure that the rehearsals and performances on stage work like a well-oiled clock, but I always know that if I am in trouble, something is going haywire -- which it has for me in the past whether it be a costume issue or losing my voice -- these publicly unseen faces are a safety net. A stage manager has an eye on things at all times from many angles. If they see something out of the ordinary they are on it. Other assistants communicate and are seeing that the performers enter at the proper time.

Let me also say a word about wardrobe and costumers. These talented, calming people make sure the costume fits the singer, not the other way around. Somehow this equation has gotten a bit off track, I assume from the prevalence of more modern settings and therefore a more contemporary look to the costumes. However, as I said, to wear something for many hours under hot lights, be able to look like it is your own, move comfortably, and project a voice without a mic, the costume needs to fit the singer. And when it does, it is magic for us and one less thing to worry about. We can do our jobs much better when we are comfortable and are happy with how we appear. Same goes for the wigs and makeup. These aspects enhance our characters adding yet another dimension. The Met's staff in this area are top-rate. Dressers assure that we make quick changes, have our favorite robe and have water at hand.

The Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra are the best of the best. I saw a post that the opera chorus is harder to get into than Stanford. I bet the average reader has no idea just how much these people work during the season. They not only perform in the evening and presto they are done, but they have many rehearsals in preparation, including many early morning rehearsals that sometimes last until mid afternoon before turning around and performing at night. They may have to deal with one style, period of music, etc. in the morning and another at night.

And like all performers, one's job does not stop the minute one leaves the stage door. There is practicing to be done, and the constant challenge to maintain one's health because if any of them are ill they cannot do what they are called to do. Repetitive strain injury is quite a hazard when singing or playing as much as these artists and musicians do.

Much has been made in the press about what these folks earn. Let me just say that people choose to work in the non-profit arts for a living. They work hard for the money. There is no slouching. Truly. The irony is that because it is a non-profit for whom they work, they do not see any of the profits that one would see in popular music. They get little time off for weeks on end (Sundays used to be sacred and off-limits for rehearsal but apparently this is not longer the case.) There are seven performances a week for 8-9 months of not just one opera but 24 of them. Technical preparation and rehearsals begin in the summer. Sometimes there are performances on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's (an often, fun event backstage with potluck dinners and collection of Toys for Tots).

In reality these folks also have to pay bills and, in the case of a place like the Met, live in or near New York City -- not necessarily a cheap proposition. They are not doing it for the fame. They are not front and center like the soloists are and rarely get the individual accolades. Many times they are viewed as groups rather than individuals. If you have seen Twenty Feet from Stardom which is about back-up singers for popular music, you can get an idea of the dedication of anyone who believes in the power of music. The so-called "stars" at the Met cannot function without everyone.

Although I have not been at the Met since 2009, I am quite thrilled to be back for a family reunion of sorts and to make music with these incredible colleagues. I am an independent contractor and this year my fee is much lower than it used to be but that is fine. My career has been one of good fortune so I can afford to do this. The impasse between the management and the employees breaks my heart.

I have seen it written somewhere that many of us we would not think twice about paying a workman nicely to work on nights and weekends if needed but we come up short when we consider musicians and performers. Both are highly skilled and both are often union members. Something to think about. I understand that producing opera is expensive and that changes should be made to bring in an audience, to make it more affordable, to keep the art form alive.

My hope is that the general public, the audience and donors will think of all of the above. Mind you, I have not mentioned the ever-welcoming stage door staff, the security guards, box office and house staff, musical support staff, cafeteria workers, custodial crew, artist liaisons, PR, development... as I said, it is a family. At risk of sounding corny, I suppose it takes a highly specialized village to make the Metropolitan Opera work on all cylinders. New York has already lost one opera company. We do not need to lose another.

Here's the problem: Whadya do when you own the most elegant department store in the world, which happens also to be the second biggest tourist draw in Paris, and you're stuck with a non-descript 19th century building that you picked up when you bought out the competition department store and that used to house horses, said building occupying some of the most expensive real estate in the world? More the city sages warn you not to think of tearing it down. And yes it just happens to be at the center of the city's gay sex club zone.

But of course, you hire the world's most famous bad boy architect, Rem Koolhaas, and turn it a palace for contemporary art. Good for your image. Good for your brand. Good for people who, sometimes, are taken to be artists.

You organize the art project as Fondation Lafayette (cuts down on taxes) and appoint the family scion as its president.

Gallerie Lafayette started out in 1895 as small men's haberdashery a short trot from the Opera de Paris. Location. Location. Location. Within two decades it had become the most elegant place to shop en tout Paris, even constructing craftsmen's ateliers in the secondary properties it managed to buy on the cheap. Very early the family descendants gleaned the importance of marrying commerce and art. Interior decoration shifted from art nouveau to art deco to daring modernism and from time to time real artists were invited to display their work--sculpture, painting, plastic arts--amidst the gold, silver, silk and fur on tasteful display.

A bit more than two decades ago Gallerie Lafayette picked up the city's only "popular" (ie, affordably priced) department store, BHV, across the street from city hall and on the flank of the Marais district, one side of which remains Hassidic and the other side dedicated to the gay muscle class. No fools, GL opened Gallerie BHV Hommes dedicated to men with fat wallets who, thanks to hours spent heaving iron every week in the gym, have flocked to pay high prices for the sort of scant haberdashery that would have left the founders davening in embarrassment.

Still, the old iron-structured storage building down the street stood empty. Last week GL opened its doors to the usual clatch of Paris arts and real estate journalists. The prospects are promising, at least architecturally and commercially. When Rem Koolhaas and his team first took a look, they discovered just how limited were their options. First, they proposed retaining only one street-side wall. Not possible, snorted the city's deeply traditionalist architectural preservationists. The old stable and storage structure was vital to Parisian patrimoine. Only the shabby structure that had been installed within the building's U-shaped courtyard could be demolished.

Architect Rem Koolhaas

Koolhaas is famously cited (and he insists famously misunderstood) for an essay written years ago entitled Fuck Context, which argued that the gargantuan scale of today's megalopolises renders the tidy if elegant 19th century monotony of Parisian streets useless and absurd. But, he declared at the press gathering, "I am not a destroyer." Rather, he would embrace this chance to wrestle with France's famously rigid rule makers. (One of his assistants spoke in a quiet aside of the massive French codebook detailing exactly how fire escapes (all of which are inside Paris buildings) and smoke evacuators must be constructed, a codebook larger and heavier than anything in the rest of Europe.

Beyond safety constraints and the regulators' insistence that that all the old floors and stairs of the building's three walls be retained and renovated, Koolhaas's team still managed to devise a daring innovation. A four-story glass cube with floating hydraulic floors will rise up from the small courtyard, offering 49 variable levels to house a mélange of separate or vertically mixed "art installations." It may not become the world's largest contemporary art center, but it surely stands to become one of the most radically conceived.

What sort of "art" Fondation Lafayette's curators choose to install is of passing interest to the Koolhass team. Their aim was to take a banal and useless space and allow it to support whatever art may follow. A temporary and preliminary collection has been selected for this summer that some may find appealing.

One of the most engaging is a closely filmed documentary of two elegant hands taking apart an expensive watch made by Quartz. Group Lafayette owns the Quartz brand.

Another room contains a set of dirty brown molded chair seats lined up on the floor. It speaks of curves and folds.

In another small side room hardly larger than a closet, a blotchy green window has been fitted into a wall; we are advised that it was fabricated of melted Perrier bottles. It asks us to question the nature of truth.

The global art market may well touch $50 billion this year according to the latest report by the European Fine Art Foundation. Sales in France and Germany rose 13 percent last year and 25 percent in the US, tracking the steep gains in wealth accumulation among the very rich across the West. Last week, a British contemporary artist's famous rumpled bed, site of her closely remembered breakup with a lost lover, snared over 2.2 million pounds ($3.7 million) at auction. Contemporary art, like old masters, is about tourism and money. Gallerie Lafayette is a master of both. Fondation Lafayette's president holds a bachelor of business administration.

I woke up one morning and decided that I wanted a septum piercing. Just like that, with no hesitation or long-time thinking.* Sporting my big, fluffy curls, I knew this badass piece of jewelry would add to my unique sense of style.

After Lucky magazine market editor Laurel Pantin convinced me to go to J. Colby Smith of New York Adorned, I was even more excited to join the septum society.

Appointment booked? Check. Emotional support confirmed? Double-check.

I walked into the tattoo and piercing boutique just over a week ago experiencing a rush of emotions. But there was no turning back. Here's how it went down:

*I'd like to apologize to my mother for finding out about my septum piercing (among many things) via my beauty features here on HuffPost Style.

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