Zen and the Art of Pencil Carving

Years ago I went with some friends to a Zen Buddist meditation group. We were in our early-thirties: bright-eyed, looking for inner peace and enlightenment while balancing ladder-climbing careers, hangovers and unhealthy relationships with the opposite gender. Basically your run-of-the-mill Atlanta artists-cum-career girls. This sounds like the beginning of a bad New York Times bestseller right?

Anywhoo- we went to the two hour meditation group shepherded by a boneless, sanguine hippy lady who looked like she could have been blown down by a slight breeze, but was also clearly as strong as a giant Redwood tree. She looked at about halfway through the meditation and I could practically see her thinking "Not Buddists".

In my experience there is a calm pond, quiet breeze sort of aura or air about those who practice Zen Buddism. I don't have it. Wish I did. I don't.

The Zen sand garden drives me nuts.
Moving a mountain of rice one piece at a time across a room. I'd go insane.

I'm working on it-trust me. But not there yet.

Where am I going with this? Patience. No, not you, me. I don't have an endless supply. My glass is half empty. But, a friend of mine sent me an article about an artist named Dalton Ghetti who makes sculptures out of pencils- specifically the lead of pencils. These things are teeny, itty-bitty, Borrower size sculptures that must take forever to create. They are an example of how in simplicity can be found perfection.

In an article from 2007 in the New York Times, Ghetti talks about a piece that he's working on in reaction to the 9/11 bombings. There will be a single rice-grain-sized teardrop for every soul claimed by the attacks. From a distance it will look like a giant tear, but up close you'll see its made of tiny little ones. He tries to carve one tear a day and expects the project to take about 10 years before it's completed.

That's patience.

He has carved the entire alphabet, letter by letter into the tip of a pencil (that project took two and a half years). There's a bust of Elvis, a heart in the center of a pencil, a boot, and a beautiful 24 link chain made out of a single pencil lead.

They're magnificent, and I just wanted to share them with you.
They make me want to work harder to find my inner Zen Buddist.
Or at least, if nothing else they've given me a new appreciation of the beauty that can be found inside something as simple as an everyday pencil.

Save the Words One Sentence at a Time

If I ever really worried that the bookish part of bookishredhead was fading with age I was disabused of that this morning when I was introduced to the Oxford English Dictionary's Save the Words website.

DELICOUS!!! And, what a fantastic idea. The premise of the site is to invite people to adopt and use an old word as much as possible so that it will boot out those silly, fakey words like "unfriend" and "staycation" that pop up so often these days.

Much like the old "Save a Child" tv commercials with Sally Struthers you can sponsor a word (BUT ITS FREE) by promising to use it at least once a day in a sentence. BONUS- if you like you can create and buy a tshirt with your adopted word on it for all to see and repeat.

Oh, how this appeals to the tamped-down literatti in me. It makes me want to run through my vepricose, senticous garden tussicating from all the pollen but still bravely singing the prasies of these long forgotten words. Save them. Save them all!

I think it might be difficult to find appropriate uses for words like avunculize and recineration, but I'll work on it.

Now if I could just find a use for this scandiscope.

Art With the Simplest of Elements

If you had told me that a woman making images with sand on a light table with some music in the background would practically bring me to tears (and did bring a large Ukranian audience to tears-not an easy task) I would have given you the crooked eyebrow and carried on with my day. But, it's true. Another interesting offshoot of "Britain's Got Talent" is "Ukraine's Got Talent- and quite remarklble talent it has.

Check out Kseniya Simonova's piece. Of course, it also doesn't hurt that she's stunning.

Rest Well Chacha Roux

Natacha, you will always be remembered. You lived your life so well.

Lunacy's Back...and she's fine.

Who Says Graffiti Can't Be Art?

For the last few years I've been watching the work of Blu. I know comparatively nothing about him/her, but the work is breathtaking and clearly quite time consuming. This isn't just your average spray can tagging on the wall-this is ART. Check out the latest piece called Big Bang Big Boom- a sort of evolution of life and what might happen to it.

http://vimeo.com/13085676

Life Advice from John Waters

John Waters (father of fantastic films like Pink Flamingo) has published a wonderful book called Role Models. Among many wonderful things between the covers are ten pieces of life advice. Life advice from John Waters, yes, on the surface it might seem unorthodox, but hey, this is a guy who's made a career out of being well..a freak. I place these at your feet for review. I particularly stand by #3.

1. “If someone is racist and really cute, could you still have sex with him? I have to admit the answer is yes. I have. You just change the subject or shout, ‘La la la la la la la,’ covering your ears when he speaks nonsense. If all else fails, stick something in his mouth to shut him up.”

2. “You should never just read for ‘enjoyment.’ Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior; or better yet, your own. Pick ‘hard books.’ Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for God’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say, ‘I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.’ Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of ‘literature’? That means fiction, too, stupid.”

3. “If you’re not sure you could love your children, please don’t have them, because they might grow up and kill us.”

4. “[F]or all the neurotics who may have felt a little blue one day and were unfairly diagnosed and overly medicated before they could even try to talk out their problems, I have some advice. It’s appropriate to be depressed sometimes. Who wants to be ‘even’ day after day? If you just killed three people in a DWI accident, you should feel bad. If your whole family molested you in a giant basket on Easter morning, you have a right to be grumpy every once in a while. But feeling down can make you feel up if you’re the creative type. The emotional damage may have already been done to you, but stop whining. Use your insanity to get ahead.”

5. “Everybody knows you need young blood in your house. The way to build a great [art] collection is not to have a lot of money and buy established artists; it’s to go to all the galleries once a month and find a brand-new artist you like in a gallery whose stable seems to be up your alley. Go back to the artist’s second show and buy something for around $5,000. It really means a lot to the artist at this stage of the game, and even though you should never buy art just so you can later sell it for a profit, it does perk up looking through the auction results when you see your gamble go sky-high once in a while.”

6. “Parents should understand that their young kids are not like them and need to have the privacy to fantasize both their good and bad desires. What you may find shocking about the perverse behavior of your child may not even be remembered by your offspring later in life. But what you may pooh-pooh as their silly young fears can be more debilitating to your children than you will ever imagine.”

7. “Everybody has his or her ‘love map,’ as the late, great, sadly discredited Baltimore sexologist John Money once called our predetermined sexual types. And we can never really change our love maps, but we can learn to see them coming. A healthy neurotic knows his type can and probably will bring emotional trouble combined with a powerful sexual wallop. But we can see, through effective therapy, that we have a choice. Yes, our love maps may be bad for us, but WOW! I won’t find this kind of sex in a healthy relationship. So is it worth it? If it is, yes, you are fucked-up, but as long as you choose it, you are also neurotically happy.”

8. “Nobody has to meet Tennessee Williams; all you have to do is reread his work. Listening to what he has to say could save your life, too.”

9. “I’m a fascist about my work habits and I expect you to be, too. Never have a spontaneous moment in your life again. If you’re going to have a hangover, it should be scheduled on your calendar months in advance. Rigid enjoyment of planning can get you high. Militant time-management will enable you to ignore how maladjusted you would be if you had the time to notice it in the first place. Discipline is not anal compulsion; it’s a lifestyle that breeds power.”

10. “You don’t need fashion designers when you are young. Have faith in your own bad taste. Buy the cheapest thing in your local thrift shop — the clothes that are freshly out of style with even the hippest people a few years older than you. Get on the fashion nerves of your peers, not your parents — that is the key to fashion leadership. Ill-fitting is always stylish. But be more creative — wear your clothes inside out, backward, upside down. Throw bleach in a load of colored laundry. Follow the exact opposite of the dry cleaning instructions inside the clothes that cost the most in your thrift shop. Don’t wear jewelry — stick Band-Aids on your wrists or make a necklace out of them. Wear Scotch tape on the side of your face like a bad face-life attempt. Mismatch your shoes. Best yet, do as Mink Stole used to do: go to the thrift store the day after Halloween, when the children’s trick-or-treat costumes are on sale, buy one, and wear it as your uniform of defiance.”

The Lovely Laura Marling

I don't imagine that this little blog of mine is a cornerstone of cultural information- that it's highbrow and full of things that most normal Philistine's would never dane to contemplate. It's just my chatter about things I find interesting. I don't even know if anyone reads this blog.

So, from time to time I reserve the right to be silly and fluffy and twee. Today I'm going to talk about a show I saw last night. Laura Marling. Good GOD almighty what a talented woman. I admit it- I have a soft spot in my heart for folk music and using real instruments. I'm a sucker for an acoustic guitar backed up by a cello. Throw a banjo in there every once in a while and you've got me at hello. Last year I stumbled upon Laura Marling while reading a music blog. She had done some work with a few other British bands that I like and I immediately enjoyed her work.

I am officially a big fan. Big. Like how I feel about Andrew Bird. Walking into the club last night I realized she was standing about 2 feet away from me and I got jibbery and kerfoffled like a teenager. It's just that she has such a beautiful voice and her music is open and honest and REAL. I gobbled up the first album and have spent an embarassingly long time on You Tube tracking down odd little tracks (see below).

She's come out with her second album now, entitled "I Speak Because I Can" and it's leaps, bounds, mountains ahead of her first album which was damn impressive in itself. If you're a fan of poetic lyrics and striking vocals Laura Marling is the girl for you.

I was absolutely thrilled and stunned to see the announcement that she would be coming to East Atlanta's venue The Earl, and snapped up tickets immediately. One generally thinks that when they stumble on a little band that they can't possibly be the only one who knows about it, but from the size of the crowd last night I guess maybe that many people don't know about the 20 year old Hampshire, England girl. I am not generally one of those people who yells out from the crowd at a show, but last night asked for "The Wrote & the Writ" and she seemed surprised that anyone remembered it. Remebered it- hell, I tracked it down on ye olde Internet and had it in the CD player for several weeks. Her lack of acknowledgement in the U.S. clearly has more to do with a lack of PR rather than a lack of talent.

Don't say you haven't been told now. Don't walk, run and buy her music.

Here are some samples of her work:
From "I Speak Because I Can"
What He Wrote
I Speak Because I Can
Blackberry Stone

From "Alas I Cannot Swim"
My Manic and I
New Romantic
Alas I Cannot Swim

And, not on her albums but also favorites:
The Wrote & the Writ
Travel Light
Needle and the Damage Done

It was a no photography show, but I'm sorry- I snuck a photo. (see above)
Sorry Laura.

Oh. She doesn't do encores. But you won't care. You'll just be glad you were able to experience the music. Trust me.

Inside the Mind and Letters of Magritte

Clearly I need to win the lottery sooner than later. In a little less than a month Sotheby's in New York will be auctioning a series of over 40 letters and poscards from the Surrealist master Rene Magritte to Paul Colinet.

The correspondence forms an extraordinary record of the artist’s creative process in addition to revealing the literary and artistic influences on his work during the most productive period of his career. Complete with drawings and sketches, many of which are variations on the artist’s well-known canvases. The letters and postcards last appeared on the auction market at Sotheby’s London in 1987, where it was offered in a sale of artifacts from the artist’s studio consigned by his widow. No other significant group of Magritte letters has appeared on the market since.

In 1933, Magritte met the Belgian Surrealist poet Paul Colinet, and the two became close friends rapidly. At the time, Magritte’s personal connections with Surrealism were strained – he had left Paris in disgust and returned home to Brussels – although ironically his artwork remained clearly Surrealist in style. The collection of letters cover a wide range of topics – artistic, literary and surreal – and reveals a remarkable influence Colinet wielded on Magritte and his oeuvre.

In numerous letters Magritte discusses the question of appropriate titles for his paintings. Having acknowledged that Colinet has a rare talent for finding the most suitable title for his paintings, Magritte frequently asks his advice, with a sketch of the picture included. On the verso of an undated letter Magritte pens a landscape, a derivative no doubt of the artist’s iconic L’Empire des Lumières, and writes beneath it, “un titre plaese! (prononcer un ‘titre plisse’).” In another letter Magritte gives his definition of the art of painting, and in yet another, sets out to tackle the question “What does this picture represent?”

A peek inside the mind of the Surrealist genius is presented by a letter in which Magritte digressed on the significance of the number 9 and his prose becomes a bit surreal: “vous avez déjà remarqué que le chiffre 18 compose de 1 et de 8, soit 1 + 8 =9 . . . le chiffre 9, multiplié par lui-même donc 81, soit 8 = 1 = 9 . . .”

The correspondence with Colinet also reveals Magritte’s opinion of various works of literature, at one point expressing disgust with André Breton’s L’art magique and stating he cannot share Colinet’s enthusiasm for the work of Jorge Luis Borges. He goes on to note that he has just received books by Paul Morand, Joseph-Arthur, comte de Gobineau and Martin Heidegger.

*more information can be found at Art Daily