Archive - November, 2011

The Dow of Art: Why Art Still Matters in Our Market-Driven Society

November 30, 2011 in Images, News, Process, Words with 3 Comments

currency collage, money, boat

"Rub a Dub" by Mark Wagner (Photo courtesy smokeinmydreams.com)

Writer Nova Ren Suma has just published a new essay of mine over at “Distraction No. 99.”

Although the assigned topic was “inspiration,” my piece covers a range of subjects, from library book censorship to the financial stresses of being an artist. But the central theme concerns the value of imagination and creative exchange, and how these values are often in conflict with the marketplace.

Here is an excerpt from the essay:

“For many artists, money is a constant source of anxiety because most creative projects don’t make economic sense. As artists, we have chosen an alternative paradigm to the profit-oriented one. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be smart about the business-side of art making, only that money isn’t our primary motivator.

The concept of creating for its own sake remains a radical concept in our culture. This is one of the central rifts we see playing out now between Wall Street bankers and supporters of the Occupy movement. One camp places a higher value on profits, while the other a higher value on more elusive qualities like imagination, empathy, and justice.

Of course, if you have your money invested in the stock market, then you want your broker to be greedy with your money—you want to earn 6%, not 4% like everyone else. But when it comes to art, greed turns the best ideas sour. It isn’t hard to sniff out the difference between work that was created from a free, deep place, and a blatant commercial commodity.

You may be able sell the end product of art—the concert ticket, the photograph, the book—but the idea itself is free. Art is a gift. It is an elusive mystery that thrives only when it’s shared.

Being an artist is hard because we’re operating in a parallel universe—one that values imagination, creativity, and ideas more than money or status. But a true creative exchange—one in which art is given and accepted without obligation is a way of side-stepping the soul-crushing grimness of consumerism. I would go so far as to say that it’s an alternate way of being. It’s this free exchange between artist and audience that creates movement, provides pleasure, provokes change, and offers meaningful connection…

‘The artist who hopes to market work that is the realization of his gifts cannot begin with the market,’ [Lewis] Hyde explains. “He must create for himself that gift-sphere in which the work is made, and only when he knows the work to be the faithful realization of his gift should he turn to see if it has currency in that other economy. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.’”

You can read the entire article on Nova’s site, Distraction No. 99. There are also a number of guest posts from talented writers like Alexander Chee, Anna Evans, and Laurel Snyder.

Nova Ren Suma is the author of "Imaginary Girls" and "Dani Noir." She has an MFA in fiction from Columbia University and has been awarded fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Yaddo, and The MacDowell Colony. She grew up in small towns across the Hudson Valley and now lives in New York City.

Nova’s own contribution to the series is also a stand-out. She discusses rejection, the burning need to find her voice, and the long, difficult path to becoming a published writer:

“So how do you rise out of debilitating shyness to show that you are a person worthy of opinions, a person with a voice who has things to say? To show you are worth something. You are someone. How? In my case, you write.”

I particularly love Nova’s description of juggling writing with various day jobs:

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“Hugo” Author Brian Selznick Shares 20 Favorite Children’s Books with Gwarlingo

November 27, 2011 in Events, Images, Words with 11 Comments

An illustration from "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick

Martin Scorsese’s film adaptation of Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret is out in theaters today.

Selznick’s remarkable book won the 2008 Caldecott Medal (the first young adult novel to win the award for children’s book illustration), was a finalist for the National Book Award, and was chosen as the Best Illustrated Book of 2007 by The New York Times. Hugo is a unique hybrid–a picture book for older children, but also a graphic novel of sorts. The story is one of my personal favorites, and next to Goodnight Moon, it’s the book I’ve gifted most often to the young people in my life.

 

An Illustration from "Hugo" by Brian Selznick

The book’s main character, Hugo, is an orphan, a clock keeper, and thief, who lives an undercover life in the walls of a busy Paris train station. A cryptic drawing, a treasured notebook, a stolen key, a mechanical man, and a hidden message from Hugo’s dead father form the backbone of Selznick’s intricate mystery.

If you haven’t read The Invention of Hugo Cabret, you are in for a treat. Selznick’s book is nothing less than a masterpiece (and “masterpiece” is not a term I use lightly). Like the best classics of children’s literature, the book will appeal to readers of all ages. Younger readers will enjoy the characters, the mystery, and striking drawings, and adults will appreciate the author’s homage to cinema, most particularly the films of French filmmaker Georges Méliès and his groundbreaking 1902 silent film Le voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon).

A still from Georges Méliès's groundbreaking silent film "Le voyage dans la Lune" (A Trip to the Moon)

 

 

Scenes from "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick (Click to enlarge)

Brian Selznick (a first cousin, twice removed, of David O. Selznick and Myron Selznick), graduated from the Rhode Island School of Art and Design with the intention of becoming a set designer for the theater, but a job designing window displays at Eeyore’s Children’s Bookstore in New York City changed his mind. Working at the store became a crash course in children’s literature, and his first book, The Houdini Box, was published while working there.

Selznick’s career has come a long way since his job at the bookstore. In September, his latest book, Wonderstruck, was released, and today, Scorsese’s version of Hugo hits the big screen.

“I never expected anything like this,” Selznick told NJ.com. ”I feel like I’m in the rarest position to be able to say I have a movie that’s as good as the book. It’s good in different ways, or better. The movie might be better than my book. The fact that I inspired Martin Scorcese to make this incredibly personal and beautiful movie is one of the great thrills of my life. It’s very satisfying to create something yourself, but it’s as satisfying or more satisfying to inspire someone else to make something new.”

 

A drawing of the Museum of Natural History (from "Wonderstruck" by Brian Selznick)

If you’re a fan of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, you’ll also love Selznick’s latest project, Wonderstruck.

The novelty of Wonderstruck lies primarily in its structure. The story of Ben, a young boy who is struck deaf moments after discovering a clue to his father’s identity and travels to New York City to find him, is told through words. The parallel story of Rose, which takes place 50 years earlier, is told visually through Selznick’s original drawings. The two stories are woven together seamlessly. The desire to see how these two stories converge and connect creates a sense of mystery and an effective momentum.

An illustration from "Wonderstruck" by Brian Selznick

 

An illustration of Rose in Brian Selznick's "Wonderstruck"

The alternating tales of Ben and Rose were so compelling that I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. I read the entire 637-page book in one sitting. Even as an adult reader, I was transported. Reading Wonderstruck reminded me of the formative reading experiences of my youth–of countless hours spent squirreled away reading The Hobbit, Winnie the Pooh, and The Hardy Boys.

Selznick spends significant time and energy researching his books, and Wonderstruck is no exception. The author weaves details about deaf culture, the New York theater scene in the 20s, museum dioramas, 20s fashion, the New York World’s Fair, and more into the narrative, which gives the story a realistic weight.

An illustration from "Wonderstruck" by Brian Selznick

 

A diorama of New York City inside the Queens Museum of Art (from "Wonderstruck" by Brian Selznick)

 

An illustration from "Wonderstruck" by Brian Selznick

Selznick told NPR that the concept for Wonderstruck began forming when he saw a documentary about deafness and deaf culture. “One of the deaf educators emphasized how hyper-attuned deaf people are to the visual world. So Selznick set out to tell the story of a deaf character in pictures. ‘We experience [Rose's] story in a way that perhaps might echo the way she experiences her own life,’ he explains.”

When I spoke to Brian several years ago when the book was in progress, he was especially enthusiastic about a behind-the-scenes tour he had taken of the Museum of Natural History in New York City, one of his favorite destinations as a boy. The museum’s hidden storage rooms, attics, and basements excited him most. His idea to set part of the story in the building after hours predates the film Night at the Museum and was inspired instead by classic children’s books such as From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

 

A series of illustrations from "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick

While Selznick is a capable storyteller, it’s his drawings and cinematic style that make his books unique. His rich, detailed monochromatic illustrations are nothing less than extraordinary.

I particularly love the way he communicates movement through still images by zooming in or pulling away one image at a time. Each turn of the page artfully conveys movement and progresses the narrative, a technique that is reminiscent of another favorite book in my library–Charles and Ray Eames’ Power of Ten. (For more information on the art of page-turns, see author Remy Charlip’s comments below).

For his new film, director Martin Scorsese worked to recreate the scenes of Brian Selznick's illustrated children's book "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" (Photo courtesy Awards Daily)

“I think from an early age I was aware of how a camera can tell a story, how a movie camera can affect how the narrative is told,” Selznick said in a recent interview. “I think when I’m drawing, I’m seeing what’s happening on the page almost as if it were unfolding like a movie in my head.”

Selznick is a gifted illustrator and knows how to make the most of his medium. It’s no accident that Scorcese chose Hugo for his first 3D film (perhaps his first film with no body count!). Both Scorcese and Selznick are talented visual storytellers. They share a love of cinema history, and a passion for the medium of film.

I can’t recommend Wonderstruck and The Invention of Hugo Cabret enough. Both books are excellent gifts for the holidays and will appeal to adventurous readers of all ages.

 

Brian Selznick at the premiere of Scorsese's "Hugo" at the Rome Film Festival (Photo by Claudio Peri)

To commemorate the release of Scorsese’s film and Selznick’s Wonderstruck, I asked Brian to share a list of his own favorite books for children and young adults. There are some well-known classics on his list, but many surprises as well.

I know I’ll be adding The Arrival and The Juniper Tree to my own collection in the coming weeks and purchasing a few of these books as gifts for the holidays. (Note: A percentage of the purchases you make through this site benefit Gwarlingo).

A big “thank you” to Brian for sharing 20 of his favorite young adult and children’s books with Gwarlingo readers. There are a lot of great titles here to explore…

 
 

1 Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak



When Brian sent me his list, he said the books were in no particular order with one exception: “All lists like this should start with Where the Wild Things Are.”

“I’ve always loved the wild rumpus in Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak,” Selznick explained in an interview, “because the words disappear, the pictures take up the whole page, and we move forward in the story by turning the pages. The more I thought about this idea, the more I thought how interesting it would be to have part of The Invention of Hugo Cabret told with pictures, because the story involves the early history of cinema. The pictures would be like a series of silent movies running throughout the book, helping to tell the story. When I got this idea, I had to go back and take OUT all the text that I was going to replace with pictures.”

It wasn’t until Brian talked about this classic book during a community presentation at The MacDowell Colony that I fully understood the brilliance of Sendak’s illustrations. Take a look at that tattered copy of Wild Things you have on your bookshelf and notice how Max is drawn in a small square at the beginning of the book while he’s in his bedroom and how that box expands and eventually disappears as the forest grows and Max leaves the safety of his home.

 

 

 

2  The Arrival by Shaun Tan

 


This may be my favorite discovery on Brian’s list. Tan’s illustrations are breathtaking, and it’s easy to see how Selznick would be drawn to Tan’s dramatic, monochrome illustrations. Both authors are interested in telling stories through images.

Here’s a review of The Arrival from School Library Journal: “Tan captures the displacement and awe with which immigrants respond to their new surroundings in this wordless graphic novel. It depicts the journey of one man, threatened by dark shapes that cast shadows on his family’s life, to a new country.

The only writing is in an invented alphabet, which creates the sensation immigrants must feel when they encounter a strange new language and way of life. A wide variety of ethnicities is represented in Tan’s hyper-realistic style, and the sense of warmth and caring for others, regardless of race, age, or background, is present on nearly every page. Young readers will be fascinated by the strange new world the artist creates, complete with floating elevators and unusual creatures, but may not realize the depth of meaning or understand what the man’s journey symbolizes. More sophisticated readers, however, will grasp the sense of strangeness and find themselves participating in the man’s experiences. They will linger over the details in the beautiful sepia pictures and will likely pick up the book to pore over it again and again.”

 

An Illustration from "The Arrival" by Shaun Tan

 

Illustrations from "The Arrival" by Shaun Tan

 

Illustrations from "The Arrival" by Shaun Tan

 

An Illustration from "The Arrival" by Shaun Tan

 

 

3 Fortunately by Remy Charlip

 

 

Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party.

Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away.

Fortunately, a friend loaned Ned an airplane.

Unfortunately, the motor exploded.

Fortunately, there was a parachute in the airplane.

Unfortunately, there was a hole in the parachute.

 
Poor Ned. What else could go wrong as he tries to get to the party? You’ll have to buy the book to find out.

 

 

Some fun trivia…Fans of Selznick’s work may recognize author, dancer, and choreographer Remy Charlip in The Invention of Hugo Cabret.

“I was lucky enough to become friends with Remy a few years ago,” says Selznick, “and while I was working on The Invention of Hugo Cabret I realized that Remy looks a lot like Georges Méliès! I asked Remy if he would pose as Georges Méliès in my book, and he said yes. So all the pictures of Georges Méliès in The Invention of Hugo Cabret are really drawings of Remy Charlip.”
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The Sunday Poem: Conrad Hilberry

November 26, 2011 in Sunday Poem, Words with 4 Comments

 

 

 

Negative Space

 

Where the body isn’t – that’s how
dancers know me. Sculptors bend
their clay and steel against

my emptiness. Somehow, though I’m
not giving it a thought, I nudge
a shadow from a twist

of bronze or change the way
a breast and elbow size
each other up. Writers like to wrap

white space around their wit,
but I’m not white,
not bound or folded. I’m your

zero with its circumference
erased, an abandoned building
once the building’s gone. Let’s say

a heavy childhood event
has bent your life, shaped
what you’ve become. Now you find

it never happened. Nothing
there at all. That’s me.

 

 

 

About Conrad Hilberry

Conrad Hilberry was born in Ferndale, Michigan, and is a longtime resident of the Great Lakes region. He earned a BA from Oberlin College and an MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison; he was a professor of English at Kalamazoo College in Michigan from 1962 to 1998.

Conrad Hilberry working at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (Photo by Katey Schultz courtesy kateyschultz.com)

Hilberry has written twelve collections of poetry, including Encounter on Burrows Hill and Other Poems (1968), Rust (1974), Man in the Attic (1980), Sorting the Smoke: New and Selected Poems (1990), winner of the Iowa Prize, Player Piano: Poems (2000), The Fingernail of Luck (2005), and After-Music (2008). In 2009 he co-authored This Awkward Art: Poems by a Father and Daughter with the poet Jane Hilberry, his daughter.

A master of both free verse and received forms, Hilberry infuses the familiar and everyday with intellectual insight. Poet Henry Taylor has said that Hilberry’s poems possess “the spooky ability to make odd, though rarely surreal, connections. The poems move with quiet authority from the observation of a particular, and of the possibilities surrounding it, to exploration of what might happen next. The miracle is that they do this without arbitrariness.”

Hilberry is also the author of the nonfiction book Luke Karamazov (1987), an account of serial murderers in Kalamazoo. He has co-edited three volumes of “Third Coast” poetry from Michigan—the most recent, New Poems from the Third Coast: Contemporary Michigan Poetry, in 2000.

Hilberry’s awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry and a Michigan Arts Award.


 
“Negative Space” © Conrad Hilberry. This poem originally appeared in The Fingernail of Luck (Mayapple Press) and was reprinted with permission from the author.


Sol LeWitt’s Advice to Eva Hesse: Don’t Worry About Cool, Make Your Own Uncool

November 25, 2011 in Images, Process with 4 Comments

 

Sol LeWitt, “Horizontal Brushstrokes (More or Less),” 2002. Gouache on paper, 22-3⁄8 x 22-3⁄8 inches (Photo courtesy Craig F. Starr Gallery. Art © 2011 The LeWitt Estate /Artists Rights Society, New York)

 

 

“Metronomic Irregularity I” by Eva Hesse, 1966. (Image courtesy the Brooklyn Museum. Art © 2011 The Estate of Eva Hesse)

 
Because I’m surrounded by artists in both my professional and personal life, people often ask me what insights I’ve gained into the creative process.

The unromantic truth is that being an artist in any field is hard work. Because artists need a lot of time alone in order to create, they wrestle with loneliness and insecurity. They face continual self-doubt, as well as the criticism of others. Many artists work with no financial safety net or healthcare. Those who do have some financial stability often work day jobs that drain precious time and energy from their creative work.

Even for artists who make a living from their art, there is the constant tug-of-war between the need to make new work, which requires quiet and solitude, and the need to promote, sell, and manage the business side of being an artist. And all of this must be done while paying the bills, nurturing friendships, family, and relationships, doing the chores, and getting the kids to school on time.

The challenges vary, but all working artists, regardless of their struggles and their financial or critical success, share one thing in common. They make art. They sit at their desks and write. They draw. They paint. They compose music. They shoot images. They perform. They create.

This is the single most important piece of advice I could give a young artist or anyone who is trying to realize a creative project. Do. Play. Explore. For a short time every day, forget about the chores, your personal goals, your email, your upcoming travel plans, and your career trajectory. Forget about what is appropriate or fashionable–about what your mother, friends, or the public will think of your work.
 

Artist Eva Hesse in her studio

 
In a recent interview with The Atlantic, painter Chuck Close describes how “everything comes out of the work itself—every idea comes out of something you’re already doing.” Doing is a key word here. The act of creating, of showing up at the desk or in the studio each day is critical.

Making space and time to create without interruption is difficult but essential. Our competitive culture rarely rewards stillness and imagination. From childhood, we are programmed to stop day dreaming and told to be constructive and busy instead.

But great art can come only from deep, focused attention–attention combined with the discipline of doing. In order to make our best work, “doing” must take place in a favorable environment–one that allows us to block extraneous interruptions and calm our own mental chatter.

Doing is particularly hard for artists who are in the beginning stages of their creative field. As Ira Glass has explained, there is often a gap between taste and skill when starting out. We aspire to become artists because we love great music, paintings, or books. But there is often a gulf between our aspirations and our skills. Overcome by self-doubt and indecision, many beginners quit at this stage. But artists who have the nerve to push through this awkward, uncomfortable phase evolve and eventually improve. Over time, they find their own unique style, the right medium, and a routine that makes original art possible.

 

Artist Sol LeWitt

 
Artist Sol LeWitt understood fear and the importance of doingbetter than anyone.

In 1960 he met Eva Hesse, and the two artists formed a decade-long friendship. As Stephanie Buhmann details, “despite superficial disparities (LeWitt’s oeuvre is usually thought of as idea-driven while Hesse’s works reflect the opposite: intimacy, personal gesture, and physical sensuality),” the two artists shared a lot in common. “While Hesse drew inspiration from Minimalist aesthetics and the conceptual clarity that characterized LeWitt’s work, LeWitt respected Hesse’s devotion to the trace of the human hand in art.”

 

A detail of LeWitt’s letter to Hesse (Image courtesy the Art21 Blog)

 

The wonderful letters, photographs, and postcards in the Hesse archive demonstrate the depth of the friendship between Hesse and LeWitt. Many of their artworks were dedicated to each other and bear the poignant inscriptions “for Eva,” “for Sol.”

Earlier this year, Veronica Roberts curated an excellent exhibition titled Eva Hesse and Sol LeWitt at the Craig F. Starr Gallery in New York. The show investigated the creative dialogue and camaraderie between these two talented individuals.

As Roberts showed, art was the centerpiece in both of their lives, but for Hesse, self-doubt was a persistent challenge. In 1965, when Hesse found herself in a difficult creative place after a year in Germany, LeWitt wrote his friend a long letter of encouragement:

Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping,…Stop it and just DO!…

Don’t worry about cool, make your own uncool. Make your own, your own world. If you fear, make it work for you – draw & paint your fear and anxiety…

You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Then you will be able to DO!…

Try to do some BAD work – the worst you can think of and see what happens but mainly relax and let everything go to hell – you are not responsible for the world – you are only responsible for your work – so DO IT. And don’t think that your work has to conform to any preconceived form, idea or flavor. It can be anything you want it to be…

I know that you (or anyone) can only work so much and the rest of the time you are left with your thoughts. But when you work or before your work you have to empty you [sic] mind and concentrate on what you are doing. After you do something it is done and that’s that. After a while you can see some are better than others but also you can see what direction you are going. I’m sure you know all that. You also must know that you don’t have to justify your work – not even to yourself.

This is some of the best advice about overcoming a creative block that I’ve ever encountered.

 

Eva Hesse circa 1959 (Photo by Stephen Korbet)

 

 

 

Eva Hesse, Untitled, 1969. Gouache, watercolor, silver and bronze paint on paper 21-3⁄4 x 17-1⁄4 inches (Image courtesy Craig F. Starr Gallery website. Art © 2011 The Estate of Eva Hesse. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth)

 

The close friendship between Hesse and LeWitt suggests another essential ingredient for a healthy creative life. For an artist, quality community can be just as important as quality solitude. Being a writer, painter, performer, composer, filmmaker, etc. is hard enough without the burden of isolation.

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Thank You Gwarlingo Readers

November 22, 2011 in Events, Welcome to Gwarlingo, Words with Comments Off

A studio visit with MacArthur recipient Anna Schuleit kicked off Gwarlingo's "Creative Spaces" series in June. A feature on Kim Uchiyama's Tribecca studio is currently in the works. (Photo: "Bloom" by Anna Schuleit)

This Thanksgiving holiday I want to thank all of the friends and readers who have supported me this year during the launch of Gwarlingo. What a year it’s been.

Since the official launch of the site in June, the number of Gwarlingo subscribers and visitors has grown dramatically. I’ve had the excitement of watching a few articles go viral. (The most popular articles so far have been on Japanese manhole cover designs, rare color photographs taken by Farm Security Administration photographers, Slinkachu’s street photographs, the moving letter from Sol LeWitt to artist Eva Hesse, my feature on artist residencies, and Bridget Lowe’s Sunday Poem).

Bridget Lowe's poem "In the Study of My Hysteria" has been one of the most popular Sunday Poems since the series began five months ago. Since July, eighteen Sunday Poets have been featured on Gwarlingo.

Artists and poets who never knew each other have connected for the first time as a result of Gwarlingo, and last week I had the privilege of meeting Jean Marie Casbarian–an artist and Gwarlingo reader who won tickets to see Joseph Keckler’s show at La MaMa in New York. None of this could have happened without the support of readers like yourself.

Because of you, Gwarlingo is gradually turning into the online community I envisioned when I first launched the site six months ago.

I created Gwarlingo because I was fed-up with seeing the same movies, music, shows, and books covered in the mainstream press again and again. (A press release can only endure so many facelifts before it loses its allure). There are a lot of fabulous alternatives out there, but the trouble is knowing where to look.

My idea was to create a place where art lovers and artists of all disciplines could discover compelling work. I wanted to go deeper than the average blog–to have real conversations with real artists about ideas and process. To break down the barriers of genre, geography, and age, but to also have a little fun along the way. In spite of the impression given by many arts and literary publications, you don’t have to be overly earnest or annoyingly hipster to have an impact.

The letters and emails I’ve received from readers lead me to believe that I’m on the right track. Here’s a small sample…

 

“Because of Gwarlingo, I’m continually gifted with these amazing gems from you and other artists–everything big-hearted and highly creative. So thank you for all your work on it–I know it must take a lot of time and energy–and it’s very much appreciated.”

 

“Your subjects are so genuinely interesting, and your approach to them is refreshingly thoughtful and insightful, particularly these days in which mindless chatter abounds. It’s also wonderful to see your photos–they not only illustrate your text but give it further depth. You’ve managed to capture the spirit of creative imagination and provide some smart, much needed nourishment in the notably sere world of blogspheres. Congratulations and thank you!”

 

“Excellent! I keep seeing…[Slinkachu's] images pop up places but I didn’t really have an overall view of his work and who he is. Which is exactly the problem with the common way of sharing on the internet, and why I enjoy your blog so much.”

 

In spite of this encouraging feedback, I know Gwarlingo is still in its youth. I have so many new ideas for expanding the site–for increasing coverage of the arts, while also giving artists a much-needed platform for sharing their work with a smart, interested community of peers. There is a lot of work to be done in the days and months ahead–work that requires both time and money.

 

Performer and singer Joseph Keckler and Michelle Aldredge in New York City last week. Gwarlingo reader Jean Marie Casbarian was the lucky winner of two tickets to see Keckler's performance at La MaMa. This was Gwarlingo's first contest and ticket give-away, and hopefully not the last.

When I was in New York last week, a number of people asked me how they could help support Gwarlingo. These conversations made me realize that I haven’t been very explicit about answering this question in the past. So if you would like to support this new venture, here are a few specific ways you can help:

 

1. “Like” Gwarlingo on Facebook. I post arts-related articles and events on the Gwarlingo Facebook page on a regular basis–many are links to topics I haven’t covered on the site. It’s an easy way to stay in the loop.

 

2. Follow Gwarlingo on Twitter. Ditto for Twitter. I share links on Twitter that appear nowhere else.

 

3. Subscribe to Gwarlingo by email. With a free email subscription, each new Gwarlingo article is delivered to your email inbox. This way you don’t have to remember to check the site for new content. I use this option for many of my favorite blogs. My morning is always better when I find Ta-Nehisi Coates waiting in my inbox!

 

4. If you are going to buy from Amazon or iTunes, make your purchases through Gwarlingo. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this one. I’m a big supporter of local businesses, bookstores in particular, so if you have a great independent bookstore, by all means, support it. But if you don’t, and you plan to buy anything through Amazon or iTunes, you can support Gwarlingo by using this site as your Amazon or iTunes portal. Gwarlingo earns a small percentage of each purchase you make.

I have some of my favorite books, films, and music listed on the site and in the Gwarlingo Store (there are some great gift ideas there), but you don’t have to purchase these specific items for Gwarlingo to benefit. If you click on a link for Brian Selznick’s book Wonderstruck, for instance, but then decide you have a pressing need for tube socks, Gwarlingo earns a small percentage of profits from your sock purchase! So if you’re going to buy from “the big guys,” you can do it through Gwarlingo and help “a little guy” in the process. How cool is that?

 

5. Donate to Gwarlingo. You can make a donation (large or small) by credit card via Pay Pal. Gwarlingo is not a nonprofit, so unfortunately, your donation isn’t tax deductible. But I do acknowledge every donation personally and use the money for essentials like web hosting, travel, and coffee. The more money I can raise, the less I have to rely on advertising, which is always a good thing.

 

6. Spread the word about Gwarlingo. It’s simple, free, and makes a big difference. There are a lot of ways to do this–”like” a post on Facebook, retweet an article, email a piece to a friend, or give a general plug on Facebook or Google.

 

Those are six simple ways you can help. I want to thank all of the writers, artists, poets, composers, filmmakers, art lovers, and performers who have visited the site regularly, shared their work, passed on links to friends, added money to the tip jar, written comments, followed Gwarlingo on Facebook and Twitter, become subscribers, and sent letters and emails of support. It’s been a wild adventure. I can’t wait to see what’s next.

Happy holidays!

 

New York City

November 20, 2011 in Events, Images with Comments Off

Paintings by Kim Uchiyama in her Tribecca Studio (Photo by Michelle Aldredge)

I’m not posting The Sunday Poem today because I’m traveling. I will have some great stories to share in the near future from my visit to New York City, including an in-depth studio visit with painter Kim Uchiyama, a photo tour of the High Line, and much more. Until then, if you’re on Facebook, you can see a few photos from my trip here.

Stay tuned!

Little People in the City: The Street Art of Slinkachu

November 17, 2011 in Images with 4 Comments

"Scavengers" (Photo © Slinkachu)

In recent years the London street art scene has been dominated by the brash, satirical, crowd-pleasing work of Banksy. His 2010 film Exit Through the Gift Shop, which I’ll be writing about in the coming weeks, made Banksy a familiar name in certain American households, and his book, Wall and Piece, has been one of the best-selling art and photography books since its release.

But while the public lines up to see Banksy’s shows, and art collectors, like Brad Pitt and Christina Aguilera, fork over big money for his paintings and prints, a more polished street artist named Slinkachu has been producing brilliant, evocative artwork that has largely escaped the attention of an American audience.

Slinkachu is everything Banksy is not–subtle, empathic, poignant, contemplative.

While Banksy’s art relies on shock value, cleverness, and overt political statement, Slinkachu’s miniature street tableaux and photographs convey more complex narratives about the human condition. His art is often witty, but never clever for cleverness’ sake.

(Note: Click on images to enlarge)

miniature, photography, bee

"They're Not Pets Susan" (Photo © Slinkachu)

 

 

"Life as We Know It" (Photo © Slinkachu)

 

 

"Dreams of Packing it All In" (Photo © Slinkachu)

 

 

"Chicken Tikka Disasta" (Photo © Slinkachu)

Like most street artists, Slinkachu’s bio is deliberately vague. He says that his curly hair is what earned him the nickname Slinky–a name that eventually morphed into Slinkachu when the artist needed a name for his photography blog. He grew up in Budleigh Salterton, a small town on the south coast of Devon, As a boy, he played with bugs and creatures in the yard behind his house and helped his mother build dioramas for the children at the nursery where she worked.

In one interview, Slinkachu describes a critical “a-ha” moment he experienced while watching a stag beetle crawling down a London street. The unusual sight of the beetle in the city made the artist wonder if such insects actually were rare, or merely unnoticed in the busy flurry of day to day urban life. This intriguing idea of the “unseen” compelled Slinkachu to try his hand at creating his own small, urban dramas.

Slinkachu’s work has a dual existence as both a street art installation and a photography project. He often leaves his miniature scenes behind for observant pedestrians to find. The element of surprise is key. His street art may linger for days or weeks, or may be swiftly removed. Luckily, the work has a life beyond the street in Slinkachu’s large-scale photographs and marvelous book projects.

"For Sale / Sold" (Photo © Slinkachu)

 

 

"Bad First Date" (Photo © Slinkachu)

 

 

"The House of God" (New York City. Photo © Slinkachu)

 

 

"House of God" (New York City. Photo © Slinkachu)

Slinkachu’s modified model train figures are the perfect expression of urban angst, for who hasn’t felt small or overwhelmed? As Slinkachu’s photographs and street scenes illustrate, each of us is only one tiny person among millions. The lonely singles, melancholy office workers, and misunderstood teenagers in Slinkachu’s art resonate because they’re familiar. Our own daily lives, like the lives of these little people, are filled with humor, tragedy, boredom, and surprise.

The banality of urban living with its crass commercialism and junk food litter is a well-executed theme in Slinkachu’s work. And when it comes to the subject of religion, I’m hard pressed to think of a contemporary visual artist who tackles the topic with such humor and poignancy. Slinkachu’s converted fire hydrant mosque in Lower Manhattan is pure brilliance. And while the British artist creates most of his street art in London and other European cities, his photograph “Jesus Saves” strikes me as a particularly American scene–a shrewd observation on the similarities between marketing a commercial product and marketing religion.

Slinkachu depicts our violent human impulses too. It is unnerving to see boys throwing Lego bricks off of highway overpasses or a miniature mugging. “Animals” is a fine example of Slinkachu’s talent for choosing the perfect titles. Who are the real animals in this photograph–the insects or the official-looking men in uniforms beating them with nightsticks?

Slinkachu’s moving photographs remind me of a passage from W.H. Auden:

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;

"Animals" (Photo © Slinkachu)

 

 

"Jesus Saves" (Photo © Slinkachu)

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The Sunday Poem: Matthew Dickman

November 12, 2011 in Sunday Poem, Words with 1 Comment

 

 

 

 

 

Lents District

 

Whenever I return a fight breaks out
in the park, someone buys a lottery ticket,
steals a bottle of vodka, lights
a cigarette underneath the overpass.
I-5 rips the neighborhood in half
the way the Willamette rips the city in half,
it sounds like the ocean
if I am sitting alone in the backyard
looking up at the lilac.
This is where white kids lived
and listened to Black Sabbath
while they beat the shit out of each other
for bragging rights,
running in packs, carrying baseball bats
that were cut from the same hateful trees
our parents had planted
before the Asian kids moved in
to run the mini-marts
and carry knives to school, before the Mexicans
moved in and mowed everyone’s front yard—
white kids wanting anything
anybody ever took from them in shaved heads
and combat boots.
On the weekend our furious mothers
applied their lipstick
that left red cuts on the ends of their Marlboro Reds
and our fathers quietly did whatever
fathers do
when trying to beat back the dogs of sorrow
from tearing them limb from limb.
Lents, I have been away so long
I imagine that you’re a musical
some rich kid from New York wrote about credit,
debt, and then threw in Kool-Aid
to make it funny for everybody.
I can see the dance line,
the high kicks of the skinheads, twirling
metal pipes, stomping in unison
while the committed rage of the Gypsy Jokers
square off with the committed rage
of the single mothers.
The orchestra pit is filled with Pit bulls
and a Doberman conducts them all
into a frenzy.
In the end someone gets evicted, someone
gets jumped into his new family
and they call themselves Los Brazos,
King Cobras, South-Side White Pride.
Dear Lents,
Dear 82nd avenue, dear 92nd and Foster,
I am your strange son,
you saved me when I needed saving
and I remember your arms wrapped around
my bassinet like patrol cars wrapped around
the school yard
the night Jason went crazy—
waving his father’s gun above his head,
bathed in red and blue flashing lights,
all American, broken in half and beautiful.

 

 

 

About Matthew Dickman

Matthew Dickman is the author of All-American Poem (American Poetry Review/ Copper Canyon Press, 2008). The recipient of The Honickman First Book Prize, The May Sarton Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Kate Tufts Award from Claremont College, and the 2009 Oregon Book Award from Literary Arts of Oregon. His poems are forthcoming or have appeared in Tin House Magazine, McSweeny’s, Ploughshares, The Believer, The London Review of Books, and The New Yorker among others. W.W. Norton & Co. will publish his second book in 2012. He lives and works in Portland, Oregon.

In the Boston Review poet Major Jackson had this to say about Dickman’s work:

“Matthew Dickman’s melancholic portraits of impoverished white teenagers dazzle me into the always painful, yet easily forgettable, awareness that many people suffer psychically under the knife of American prosperity…Dickman hails from a neighborhood called Lents, a largely white underclass suburb in Southeast Portland, Oregon. He knows something about the sorrow of this world, its call for a kind of toughness of spirit and a sensitivity that must go underground if one is to survive and, more importantly here, the violence that such poverty recreates and echoes in the lives of the dispossessed. His authority is that of the native, unwavering and resolute. But it is his artfulness and large spirit, telescoping without sentimentality the single outlook of a speaker who has escaped such conditions and now looks back, as bluesy as such projects go, that gives his poems a universality of feeling, an expressive lyricism of reflection, and heartrending allure.”

You can hear Matthew Dickman reading “Lents District,” courtesy of From the Fishouse. I highly recommend Dickman’s book All-American Poem, which can be purchased here:

 

If you enjoyed Matthew Dickman’s poem, please spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, etc. You can read the entire Sunday Poem series here.

Would you like the Sunday Poem delivered to your email box each week? Subscribe to Gwarlingo by email. You can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook or share a “like” on the Gwarlingo Facebook page.

“Lents District” © Matthew Dickman and was reprinted with permission from the author.

 


Congratulations to Jean Marie Casbarian

November 11, 2011 in Events, Images with Comments Off

Congratulations to Gwarlingo reader Jean Marie Casbarian. She’s the lucky winner of two tickets to see Joseph Keckler perform at La Mama on Saturday night in New York City.

Connecting with new readers is one of the things I enjoy most about Gwarlingo. Some people I know, but many are strangers, and some are as far away as Japan, China, Russia, and Italy. Jean Marie and I have never met, but because of Gwarlingo I’ve discovered her fabulous photographs and installations and will now have a chance to connect with her in person.

Jean Marie incorporates photography, film and video projections, sound, sculpture and performance into her artworks. I’ve included stills from her 2010 video project “Bury Me At Sea” so you can get a glimpse of her work. You can visit her website if you’d like to view her installations and see more of her photographs.

Thanks to all of the readers who put their names in the hat for the free tickets to the performance. Joseph puts on a great show, so even if you didn’t win, please consider joining us anyway. The performance runs from November 18th-20th at La Mama in New York City. You can purchase tickets here.

I’ll be sharing art news from New York in the coming week. You can stay in touch by connecting with me on Twitter, Facebook, or the Gwarlingo Facebook page. You can also subscribe to Gwarlingo by email.

Congratulations Jean Marie! I’ll see you in the city.

 

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