small ponderings

fini.

2007-09-03T20:32:00.000-04:00

Time to stop pondering and start doing.

I am an artister, my work is artisting, as often and as much as possible.

Real life is analog, a messy business if done right.

An oldish quote from Wes Modes which resonates quite strongly these days:

"Without connecting people to people, the Internet isn't worth shit. A bunch of machines up-on-high presenting static information to us little people down below. More machines in our lives, taking us one step further from the world of love and life and work. The real world. Remember that one? The world full of joy and pain and dirt and unexpected surprises."

Reaching a harmonious agreement with the tools and making more stuff, that's where I'm heading...

Look thru the ether window, follow along, and join in if you're so inclined...

ciao all, be well and stay in touch. I'll see you on the flip side.

what the ?

2007-09-03T07:49:00.000-04:00

what, pray tell, has happend to my template? i don't post for a couple of days, and it's AFU.

hmmpf. time to rebuild/recycle?

Breeze

2007-09-01T11:59:00.003-04:00

Click To Play

Rustic Theater

2007-08-19T11:03:00.001-04:00

Click to Play

DIY theater

Blogging other people's blogs...

2007-08-18T10:02:00.000-04:00

Good morning class...

Required reading, testable material. Pop quiz forthcoming.

Marc Snyder's FIMP

Make stuff, set it free, make more.

"Without that audience, it's just a pile of stuff. With that audience, it's art."

Now that's one of the best arguments I've seen for showing stuff.

prelude to making the next stuff...

2007-08-15T18:46:00.000-04:00

why make stuff?

2007-08-15T07:44:00.001-04:00

my friend tom knew i needed a boost, sent me this snip he received from a friend of his:

"On this shore, we shall raise our monuments of stones,
of wood, of mud, of color, of labor, of belief, of being,
of life, of love, of self, of man expressed
in self-determined compliance, or willful revolt,
secure in this avowed truth, that no man is our master,
nor can any ever be, at any time in time to come."
-Bob Kaufman
from "To My Son Parker, Asleep in the Next Room"

(i especially like the self-determined part...)

impromptu windows

2007-08-13T17:52:00.001-04:00

Click To Play

Shakey Cam presents:

2007-08-08T21:21:00.000-04:00

My response to the big art machine: *

Ephemeral. Cheap. Accessible. Fun.

Anyone can do it.

"we're not making art, we're making ourselves..."

*(I made this after I got home this evening from a hot grueling day with several more to follow, only differentiated by the ever increasing amount of people and confusion to contend with. Sometimes the only thing left to do is sit in my chair and blow bubbles. I'm not quite sure what this says about my state of being, but they looked good against the sunlight...oh, and banana popsicles are helpful too...)

Making stuff

2007-08-05T08:30:00.001-04:00

The stuff I think about

2007-07-31T19:28:00.000-04:00

Workdays leave me mostly nonverbal and non-literate, but this is some of the stuff on my mind lately...

and here is some of the stuff I've done lately...

Alert the media!

2007-07-28T09:46:00.000-04:00

A new post! However brief, though I intend to do a more substantial one later (as soon as I wrote that flashing on the thought that intention frequently gets derailed lately...)

I am beginning to allow for the fact that I'm a much better reader than writer. Caught up on some of the folks in my links, oh my goodness there's some good stuff there! And I'm adding a link this morning (prompting this post)- a fellow named Tucker Nichols that I stumbled on; I love his stuff and the comments he gets are as good as the posts he does. Of course, my being so far behind the curve on popular culture he's probably a world-renknowned blogstar and I don't know it. But what do I care, good is good and better late than never.

Immediate followup

2007-07-25T08:21:00.000-04:00

File under irony...

As I was making that last post, one cat came and sat in my lap, another nestled behind my neck on the chair back, both purring contentedly. Lucy and Izzy in their respective sleepy spots, dogsnoring contentedly.

I have had some idea over the years that if I could evolve to being a stuff-making semi-hermit surrounded by and having conversations with only dogs, cats, birds, trees, rocks and the wind, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Apparently, I am closer to that than I might have thought. If I only had the time to make stuff, I guess I'd be pretty much there.

Navigating obstructions

2007-07-25T08:11:00.001-04:00

Too many demands from too many directions to be able to think/write/read and post lately. Busy-ness can be a disease. In my case it's mostly a problem of imposed speed and scale. So I need to let the dust settle, smoke clear, and all the internal and external noise quiet down a bit.

Advice welcome if you have it. (I tried the "just say no" approach, that didn't seem to work out so good...)

(Ab)Normal broadcasts resuming soon...

Because most of the time the only answer is keep going...

2007-07-19T08:19:00.001-04:00

(today's Indeterminacy)

Making a muddle

2007-07-15T22:38:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy couple of days with a wicked work week looming. This necessitated some mojito mellowing therapy. Of course, I needed the proper utensil for official mojito construction...

Details

2007-07-15T22:31:00.001-04:00

How it happens

2007-07-15T21:56:00.000-04:00

A brief look at how I make stuff or "The evolution of a thing..."

New linkage goodness

2007-07-15T21:54:00.000-04:00

Eyes right, and read...

Working hard for your entertainment pleasure.

Re-start

2007-07-10T20:43:00.001-04:00

It was hot today.

Ponderings have been few and far between. Want to know why? It doesn't really matter. Suffice it to say I lost my way, for various reasons.

I took this great trip in May that reminded me how to see, feel, hear, experience, absorb, slow down and not think. Also, it gave me a short and sweet glimpse of how things can be. But back to the daily routine, try as I might to hold onto those lessons, I couldn't. The contrast between known elements, between the two sides of the same coin became a bit overwhelming. I worry about my ability to dream AND do. There seems to be some rust on the gearworks (which is not necessarily a bad thing, I have an aesthetic appreciation for rust, but not when it brings the machinery to a halt from disuse).

Thus the water park. I can make stuff. I could make this, I would in an instant and love every second of it.

I have a friend that recently experienced a satori-like moment of clarity about who they are and what they should be doing. I find this incredibly inspiring and very hopeful.

Getting the ideas out of my head (however insignificant, the ideas I mean, not my head) is a start to making stuff again. The start, that's the hard part, getting past the inertia and excuses and challenges and just MOVING. Mark-making leads to drawing, drawing to painting, painting to painting on things, so of course then one needs to make/build/assemble/alter things to be painted on, and all the better if they whirl, spray, rattle, move about...

"Random displays of seemingly pointless activities..."

But as necessary to Life for some of us as food, water and air.

Have some limeade. It's hot.

I still make stuff (occasionally...)

2007-07-08T09:42:00.000-04:00

Lately, tshirts.

Viva la revolucion!

Off to work for me...

(thank you for the wise words and inspiration, you know who you are!)

Found wisdom (illustrated)

2007-06-30T13:16:00.000-04:00

"Monks don't Multitask"

(detail from my latest smearing...)

Since I can't make sense of it, I might as well try to make the best of it...

2007-06-28T08:04:00.000-04:00

Today's John Cage Indeterminacy:

Wisdom finds you when you least expect it and need it most...

" It's always Thursday and the wisteria is always blooming..."

2007-06-26T07:23:00.000-04:00

Because it's good to remember that complicated days and bumpy times don't last forever, and that more good stuff generally happens than bad. (Bad stuff just tends to get all the attention...)

Therein lays the value of making good memories. So it's time to get to work.

Antidote

2007-06-24T10:10:00.000-04:00

To too much work, too many people, too much noise, not enough time to make much of anything, read, write, or watch blogs:

Life's short: have another Mojito...

(watching fireflies at midnight is bonus...)

Leaping back into the fray...