artistic thoughts

Paul Huet (1804-1869)

2008-01-03T16:15:00.000-05:00

Renoir - Les Baigneuses

2008-01-02T16:40:00.000-05:00

When you get so large that your perfumey pink flesh hovers in animated rungs around your body and you are now a living buoy, please call me.

Delacroix, The Lion Hunt

2008-01-02T16:36:00.000-05:00

There is a study of this painting in the Orsay, I can't find a good image of it online, but the finished one is almost as intense.

Ok wait, here is the study:

I like it better, it is more roiling and in flux. Hurts are easier to imagine here.

L'Asperge

2008-01-02T16:15:00.000-05:00

Ok seriously this was my favorite painting in the Musee D'Orsay. I will post more but...is it just me or is the history of every painting contained in the inflamed tip of this vegetable and the countertop it rests on?

Christmas Retardation

2007-12-24T21:12:00.000-05:00

Really have a great Christmas if it is your thing. Enjoy the the atmosphere of selfish consumption and lackluster party planning. Allow yourself to ingest rapid amounts of curdled blood and sink your teeth into the flesh of people's arms who mean nothing to you. Please drool. Please excrete foamy mal-digested pointilist liquid tableaux into your toilet. Take a picture of it and send it to me. Send it via fax or regular mail it doesn't matter.

More Blart

2007-12-21T09:30:00.000-05:00

Felix Vallatton, The Church of Souain, 1917

Angela Dufresne, Me and Bruce Lee and another famous yet un-nameable man on the shore in front of an unmade building by Frank Lloyd Wright called the Donahue Triptych, 2004

Mark Bradford, Scorched Earth, 2006

Pleasant dying arches to find your lack of way in.

Tato, Pousette-Dart & Hartung

2007-12-08T11:03:00.000-05:00

"Wols" or Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze (1913-1951)

2007-12-07T19:46:00.000-05:00

Jean Fautrier (1898-1964)

2007-12-06T08:31:00.000-05:00

French artist Jean Fautrier fought in WW I, like many artists of that time. His paintings anticipated the emergence of Art Informel, the European counterpart to Abstract Expressionism. They are dark and ominous, smeared and hazy. Here are two paintings of glaciers from 1926:

From 1934 to 1939 Fautrier stopped painting, became a ski instructor and ran a jazz nightclub in the French Alps.

Later, when he returned to Paris during WW II, he worked in a studio that was near a wooded area where the Nazis executed their prisoners. At night he could hear the screaming victims. In response he created the "Otage" (Hostage) series, which includes sculpture as well as paintings. The paintings feature thickly applied paint and plaster and crudely articulated scribble-like gestures to evoke primitive heads with bumps and holes instead of features, chunks of flesh with bloody gashes.

After the war, he turned to more everyday objects, depicting them in a confectionary palette of pastel hues - but they are painted in the same style as the Otages. The strange and somewhat problematic fusion of kitsch and the horrors of war is interesting to me. As his friend Francis Ponge wrote, Fautrier combines "brilliant discomfort and rage in a smooth bouquet."

There is a great article by David Ebony on Fautrier (Art in America, September 2003). You should read that.

Peveril Castle

2007-12-04T21:49:00.000-05:00

It's up a steep steep incline in the town of Castleton in Derbyshire, England. My grandmother is 4 feet tall & lives nearby. When I go to visit I hike in the peaks and valleys and woods. It is the fairy territory, it is magical and hurts me in the kidneys, it is part of me like a fun virus. Fun virus, come to me and stay.

Samuel Palmer, Otto Dix, Jean Fautrier, Asger Jorn

2007-12-03T12:05:00.000-05:00

Everyday Stains

2007-05-14T18:38:00.000-05:00

A stain is nothing to be ashamed of. You can embrace the discoloration. As long as the smell factor is kept in check. There has been an obliteration but there is hope for the sessions to re-convene.

I am tired and full of mystery and portent. Super tired.

Herve Sings

2007-05-12T21:03:00.001-05:00

It's not ok, I know. I did it anyway. Make sure you stay tuned until the symmetrical morph comes. Stay tuned.

Hi

2007-05-12T06:48:00.000-05:00

I am in hiding, incognito, preparing to go on the lam. I am going to cut all my hair off like Helen Slater in The Legend of Billie Jean. I am on a fake rampage wherein I will steal gum and sleep on a tuffet when I am not yelling (FB I admit it I am a yeller too) or wielding sticks in the wind.

I am visiting the parents this weekend and these are the things I think of. UF is in California, the bum. Why I didn't go is right now a mystery to me. I could have gone to a puppet show video festival thing in Joshua Tree where our video is being shown. But I didn't. I could have called the Capt'n to say ahoy.

Did you know that my life is verging on extreme pointlessness? Just curious. Does anyone else feel the same? I know this is a droning repetitive message but there it is. At least my nephew is super cute.

Fat Cat Sat Hat with Bip Bipadotta

2007-05-10T03:17:00.011-05:00

Leonard Nimoy Sings About Bilbo Baggins

2007-05-02T13:43:00.001-05:00

He forehead dances with girls in sweatshirts.

Muppet Show - Drum Battle Buddy Rich Vs Animal

2007-05-02T08:30:00.001-05:00

Stop Smiling

2007-04-26T13:03:00.000-05:00

UF and I made a video. This is it. Sharing is caring even if you don't like what is being shared with you. True.

Danger

2007-04-12T07:47:00.000-05:00

Things to beware of today:

Rashes

Plumber's Butt

Spilled Juice

There are more, but this is just a start. A friendly warning for your day. You can never be too careful is my motto, although I am rarely careful at all, more careless if anything but whatever. What you see is what you get. Trust your gut. In point of fact it's all you can do get through the day because at the end of the day, it's anyone's game. Speaking of games, it's more important to play than be a winner. Winning isn't everything. Keep your eye on the prize, it's waiting for you at the end of the rainbow as you know. Just follow your heart and you will find yourself in the bottom of a well with full knowledge that your future is bright just as the world comes to an end.

From my heart to yours in cuddles.

Love,

MM

John Martin

2007-04-06T22:25:00.000-05:00

He is an old batty painter too. It is good to be old and dead and visionary. Right? Fire in the sky and caverns beneath the earth - this is where they bake the famous tofu loaf.

Love,

Troubled

Joseph Wright of Derby

2007-04-06T07:26:00.000-05:00

Cave at Evening, 1774

Into the cave I am travelling in order to expand and contract into a better person. Suckiness is banished as are foul utterances, except if they are said in jest. Today I write the press release announcing my exciting involvement with orthotic devices. Expect to read about my new form of ambulation which includes four different kinds of canes. A special kind of blister results but it is no match for the spunk I experience when I move around on these canes.

Why

2007-04-05T08:49:00.000-05:00

I want to post a video and both Google and Youtube tell me that my blog login information is not correct. Yet it is the login name and password I use every time. Why am I the only person who can't post videos. I hate computers. I hate the internet, I hate everything, I hate the arts, I hate every person and every item that I can see and even those items I can't see. Puke. You may say I am over-reacting but I say no. This is the appropriate reaction. My fortune is mucky like your shoe-bottom after you stepped in dog poo.

Insult Poem

2007-03-22T08:38:00.000-05:00

"This poem is by Archilochos, the first Western lyric poet and a contemporary of Homer. What's remarkable about him, especially for a lyric poet, is that he was a mercenary soldier by trade. Practically everything of his that survives is a fragment, but this one seems to be complete. One of the big genres for Greek lyric poetry was the insult poem, much like a Rap tirade."

Thanks Stephen Ellis for sending the poem & info! I love this genre. I am going to embrace it, I feel it might be a good one for me.

Swept overboard, unconscious in the breakers,
strangled with seaweed, may you wake up in a gelid
surf, your teeth, already cracked into the shingle,
now set rattling by the wind, while facedown,
helpless as a poisoned cur, on all fours you puke
brine reeking of dead fish. May those you meet,
barbarians as ugly as their souls are hateful
treat you to the moldy wooden bread of slaves
And may you, with your split teeth sunk in that,
smile, then, the way you did when speaking as my friend.

Jael: Creatress of Spaces in Which to Wonder and Ponder

2007-03-18T10:48:00.000-05:00

Jael is a science fiction and fantasy artist/illustrator. According to her website she is considered to be one of the foremost female artists of today. I believe she is visiting us from a future that includes much in the way of colored fog. Please visit www.jael.net to see more wonderment.

Lions on the Wind

2007-03-11T12:37:00.000-05:00

The attitude and position of the lion is available to all yet there is no possibility that the lion will come into your temporal lobe and guide you towards the fruition of faith in man if you will not think of the jumping jack, anti-microbial spray, cost-reduction techniques and neutral pants suits. The lion is yours for free, long live the lion. Please call me if you need more advice. I am available 24-7 to share inspiring notions.