He's Alive

Well, I haven’t been so sure on what to report on the blog for quite some time, but since my friend Martin Cockroft recently contacted me to check for a pulse due to my eerie blog silence, I figured it was time to at least let cyberspace know I am alive and breathing.

As I’ve said in the past, it is difficult to blog about writing. While, if I am focused more on painting, I can comment on what is influencing me, or comment on my progress. Writing about art seems like a nice break while writing about writing seems like treating a headache with a hammer.

So, what have I been up to? Artistically, I have been working on a long piece of fiction. I have been trying to reconcile my ability to go on endless tangents of description and voice with actually formulating around some sort of plot. This led me to some exploration in screenwriting and plot development and using some tricks of the trade to try and bring voice, image, and plot together. In my twenty years of playing with fiction (note how many stories I have published) I have always been sidetracked by plot and character development. Maybe this is common enough, but it is extremely disheartening to get 100 pages in and discover you don’t believe that anyone cares what happens to these characters anymore. I believe I have remedied this in all my development work with this piece in progress, but we shall see.

As a side note, please say the above “He’s Alive” in true Frankenstein format. As another side note, perhaps the greatest take-off on Frankenstein of all time came in the movie “Better Off Dead,” with a Frankenstein-esque hamburger who was armed with an Eddie Van Halen guitar and did a David Lee Roth impression.

As another side note, might I suggest anything from the “Live Without A Net,” movie on YouTube if you are itching to do a Van Halen catch-up. No quibbling on Red Raider vs. DLR.

So, here is a bit of catch up on Eidsvig:

OPEN STUDIOS

Fort Point Open Studios is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the 17th, 18th and 19th of October. I won’t be opening this year, as since I have been so focused on writing, and continue to work on this one piece, I felt it might be a bit difficult to shift gears and prep for open studios. However, it is looking like a great turnout and I would urge anyone and everyone to come and check out the new work from other artists in the neighborhood.

For more information see: http://fortpointarts.org/

THE BLUES

In the past few weeks, the universe has randomly presented two stories by two very different writers to my front doorstep. I found myself listening to Elmore Leonard’s “Tishomingo Blues,” as a book on tape (there may be none better in popular fiction to study plot at the feet of) while reading “Reservation Blues” by Sherman Alexie. I didn’t even think anything of the “blues” connection, but oddly enough both referenced Robert Johnson, the famous-famous blue musician, and the infamous crossroads.

While Leonard used the “blues” to represent both music, as well as the dress uniforms of a Civil War reenactment, Alexie had his characters creating songs on and off the Indian reservation and a certain sadness throughout, of course mixed with Alexie humor. But, bizarre that I should find them both at the same time. Should probably add that I have been gravitating towards writers who I know in my bones can weave a story mixed with humor and drama, and also, that the story I am working on involves music and musicians.

As a side note, I read Alexie’s “Indian Killer” before “Reservation Blues.” While I like RS, “Indian Killer” was easily one of the best works of fiction I have read in a long, long time, if not ever. Check it out.

INSPIRATIONS

I am not sure if I mentioned it on the blog, but I have been Netflixed, which is a verb, I guess. Get your Netfix. Get your fix of flix. Net-fix. Anyhow, I have been renting movies on the internet.

This is especially good for someone like me who loves obscure art movies. I don’t mean French films. I mean documentaries about artists. For instance, “The Mystery of Picasso,” which lets you watch Picasso painting— was actually shown in one of my art classes at MassArt a million years ago (OK, make that 14-ish), but of course, I could never find it at Blockbuster. I think I tried to buy it somewhere once and it was on sale for like a million dollars (in this instance a million translates to 100 instead of 14), which seemed like a lot for a VHS tape.

All that said, I recently rented the 1997 documentary “Inspirations,” if only to see a bit of Roy Lichtenstein painting. So many of the art movies are bad— like where they tour around a museum and just talk about the work— but the ones where you see the artists working are fairly amazing. I was amazed, again, at Lichtenstein’s use, and love of, the line. It did nothing but solidify my reverence for this man. I love the idea of him strapping paintings to the roof of his station wagon and heading for Leo Castelli’s. But, alas.

Anyway, the other great surprise in this piece was the bit about David Bowie. Both for visual artists, and musicians, I would think this is a great little picture of his work. However, there is also a part about a program he uses to formulate song lyrics from found material that was wonderful— great fuel for any budding poets out there.

POLITICAL POEMS

So, Cockroft is at it again. See http://wazoofarm.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-in-my-dreams.html for a few of his new poems.

I have read out loud, and thought and thought…. wondering about the charge of words. Thinking what it might mean to mention the word “oil,” now in a poem, or how Katie Holmes can mean one thing on Dawson’s Creek and then the world changes altogether.

At first, I thought, “Sarah Palin” means too much. She means too many different things. The difference is that when O’Hara used James Dean or Spicer, Billy the Kid, they were already immortal. They could be anything in a poem. Sensitive, insecure, powerful, vulnerable, beautiful, ugly, comic, tragic. But people aren’t ready to have Sarah Palin be anything— the U.S. is too polarized, to filled with opposites. She means hope to some devastation to others. Death and life. It doesn’t have the distance of a Marilyn Monroe. We aren’t ready, democrat or republican to have Sarah Palin be that human. She is either God or Devil, not nervous or confused or able to fall in love or snort while laughing. No one is ready to see her like that, no matter what they have invested.

And then I read Martin’s poems. He is able to do things that poems should not be able to do. He is maddening and wonderful.

Long live Cockrofts.

ART IN PROGRESS

So, yes, I have been dabbling with some things. A collage here, a sketch there. Above, see what I have cooking.

The outlines on the one are ready for some collaging in— consider it my attempt to again fuse some sort of expressionism with pop, and in the second is an example of my use of canvas for rolling extra-large sketchbook.

I have no idea when these might be done, if ever. But art calls to me, maybe even especially, when my hands are in the words.

Website Update

One of the things that has been on my "to do" list for a long time is a website update for http://www.kurtcoleeidsvig.com/

If you click on the "Art" section and check out the galleries, I have created a gallery for 2006 and one for 2008.

Attached here, see the images "Snake Charmer," from 2006, and "Pitchers & Catchers," from 2008.

Hope you enjoy the new galleries of completed work.

Blog Consultant

One of the things I have been doing while I have been slacking on my own blog is helping out on my Mom's blog. I take the pictures and she supervises. Pretty decent deal. Pay is lousy though.

You can take a look at:

http://nancycole.blogspot.com/

Final Shots from the Courthouse Show

Yes, I haven't posted in forever. Yes, I know. Yes, I am the worst blogger ever.

But, attached, see some final shots of the show "Reference Point," from the Moakley Federal Courthouse. The show came down June 30th.

If you didn't make it to the show, there will likely be some of these pieces at Fort Point Open Studios for you to take a look at.

Happy Summer.

Connecting Rauschenberg and Audubon

So, I have been reading the book “John James Audubon: The Making of an American” by Richard Rhodes over the past couple of weeks. For anyone who doesn’t know, I typically try to read nonfiction when I am trying to write something myself. I am far too prone to copying rhythm and voice unconsciously if I read fiction while I am trying to write fiction. Or, at the very least, I start comparing my first drafts to writers like Vonnegut and Hemingway— which isn’t fun for anybody and leads to a lot of abandoned paragraphs.

Basically, my “fun” reading over the past few years has been lots of biographies (Franklin, Lincoln, Einstein) some other pieces (Mayflower) and the occasional artist bio, or critical work thrown in (Matisse, Picasso, Courbet). Of course, I don’t like to read artist bios while I am painting as I start comparing my sketches to de Kooning’s, which is also no fun for anyone.

All that said, I came across a passage in the Audubon book last night that reminded me lots and lots of the video on Rauschenberg I posted last time. From page 211, where Rhodes writes:

“He had more in mind than simply scientific illustration: he meant to make art. Art, an older discipline than science, would substitute its reverberant verisimilitude for the life the bird had lost, revivifying it just as he had fantasized in childhood. Restoring life to the inanimate was an emerging theme in the cultural dialogue of the day, a hope projected perhaps from the transforming success of technology.”

Interesting to me here was the idea of Audubon, who truly loved birds, killing them to pose them for the sake of art… and some 130-140 years later (the passage is dealing with Audubon in about 1822) Rauschenberg talking about giving ongoing eternal life to an animal that was seemingly hunted and stuffed. Of course, the idea of giving life to the inanimate (whether the page, the paint, the sculpture, etc.) is likely inherent in all art (the act of the artist becoming creator for a moment), but this concurrent theme of reviving the hunted prey, or allowing the death of the hunted prey for the idea to live eternally is so similar in each of these artists it was hard not to say something about it here.

It has been especially interesting to me to consider Audubon in terms of art, which I really hadn’t before. I’d picked up the book thinking of an immigrant tracking through early America… and had likely considered him a scientist and a naturalist more than anything. I also had some vague idea of him spending time in Key West at some point… so I was interested in that.

But, of course, I was silly not to think of him as artist first. And his life in art, and independence in art, is interesting in relation to Courbet— the free-spirited artist traipsing through the countryside and free from the trappings of the bourgeois life. The big difference being that Courbet used it as a marketing technique and Audubon seems more intent on survival— feeling his artistic skills to be his most marketable talent. All while pursuing new birds feverishly. What would my portfolio be like if I walked nearly 20 miles a day in order to draw?

There may be some underlying claim here that Audubon was pure American and pure artist, and somehow intertwined as the first of each, and for that reason it is an interesting read.

Above, see some pics of Audubon’s work. The first is from Smithsonian.com and the second is from the University of Delaware Library.

RIP Bob Rauschenberg

Today marks a sad day in American art as announcements are coming out that Bob Rauschenberg died yesterday at the age of 82.

One of my favorite things to do in solidifying my place as an artist is to refer to Robert Rauschenberg as “Bob” Rauschenberg. This seems to make one more of an artist than 50 years of training might.

Above, see a pic of Rauschenberg from http://www.jackmitchellphotographer.com/.

In all seriousness, anyone who knows me understands that Rauschenberg is among my favs. Visiting his 2 Furlong piece at the MassMOCA (which was showing at the same time as Rosenquist’s “The Swimmer in the Econo-mist,” another masterpiece) was a major moment for me. In fact, I went back to the MOCA three different times to see them both while they were showing.

Above, see a shot of "The 2 Furlong or 1/4 Mile Piece" from MassMOCA’s website, http://www.massmoca.org.second/

The second is from:

http://art-smart.ci.manchester.ct.us/waddell/wad-massmoca6.html. Also, check this link for many additional iamges of this work.

While I likely (no, definitely) prefer Johns, Rosenquist, Lichtenstein, and some others of that time period in their actual production (that is, the art they created), in many ways anyone in art today owes a debt to Rauschenberg. He was very, very daring and interesting, and all of us who make assemblage or collage stand somewhat on his foundation. His process was essential in opening up art in Post-Abstract Expressionism.

I will not get into the whole soap opera of Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg and their individual success and break up. But it is fun 1950’s gossip if you want to Google it.

I am never far from Rauschenberg, as I have a print of his piece “2 Furlongs or ¼ Mile” that hangs in my office, and I had a print of his "Retroactive I" in my office at the University of Montana. Yes, to all you former students and fellow teachers— the office I never showed up to office hours in.

Above, see a shot of my office wall in 617 Midway and a shot of "Retroactive I" from AllPosters.com.

Anyhow, for those of you looking for other artsy gossip, check out the story on Rauschenberg erasing a de Kooning pencil drawing. It is one of the best passages in the book “de Kooning: An American Master,” by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan. There is a youtube clip on this below. I love the idea of de Kooning knowing full well the intention and goals of Rauschenberg and his participation in this.

Back to the 2 Furlong piece, I have a personal theory that this piece is Rauschenberg’s attempt to capture a visual timeline of post World War 2 American Art. Looking closely, one sees all the players… the Pollocks, the de Koonings, Jasper Johns, assemblage, conceptual art, truisms, earthworks, etc. It is just one man's opinion. But, then again, you are reading that man's blog.

And below, I am posting another YouTube piece on Rauschenberg discussing his work, Monogram.

Thank you Robert Rauschenberg. May someone continue your life like a found stuffed animal. Good luck on your next group of work.

The Fifth of May 2008

Maybe I should be doing a Cinco de Mayo post, but I missed posting this two days ago. Above. see "The Third of May 1808" by Francisco Goya.

From Wikipedia:

The painting's content, presentation, and emotional force secure its status as a groundbreaking, archetypal image of the horrors of war. Although it draws on many sources in high and popular art, The Third of May 1808 marks a clear break from convention. Diverging from the traditions of Christian art and traditional depictions of war, it has no distinct precedent, and is acknowledged as one of the first paintings of the modern era.[3] According to the art historian Kenneth Clark, The Third of May 1808 is "the first great picture which can be called revolutionary in every sense of the word, in style, in subject, and in intention".[4]

Pic is from Wiki too.

New Work Meditation 3: Water Lilies

As many readers of this blog know, one of the major turning points of my art, as well as my life, came in meeting Paul Hayes Tucker at UMASS/Boston.

As someone who attended 5 universities, and lived at another (that is a story for some other time), I have some experience with higher education. And Paul Tucker is the best. I tell everyone within 100 miles of UMASS/Boston to take a class from him.

Anyhow, Tucker is dead-on as far as Modern and Post-modern art are concerned, not to mention being the foremost (or close wherever the argument in art circles is this year) Monet historian in the world.

One of the most interesting ideas I ever stole from Professor Tucker (and I have boosted a lot) was the idea of Monet being a bridge between Modern and Post-modern art. That this idea of a man, painting a water lily pond that he had created himself through landscaping— a water lily garden that had train tracks running straight through the middle of it— who painted images with no horizon that simultaneously captured the surface (the lilies), the reflection of the sky, and the world beneath the surface (the roots, silt), was entirely original and completely postmodern in its construction. Monet was painting 5 or 6 realities, easily, in a single painting… all before quantum physics and simultaneity was even considered.

I am not going into a crazy quantum physics dialogue today (yes you can thank me later) but checking out some of Richard Feynman’s work, the book “The Elegant Universe” or some of the new write-ups on the supercollider getting ready to premier in France should suffice.

More stealing from Tucker… but what better metaphor for layered meaning, layered culture, layered consciousness, the modern trinity of thought a la Freud (id, ego, superego) or the more contemporary conscious, subconscious, super-conscious… what better metaphor for the relationship between two things or two people (you, me, where we meet) … or even what better metaphor for the holy trinity?

So, back to my work. Lay some dots on a painting where you are concerned with layered meaning and reflection, with image in relation to how you see things, for finding a reflection of yourself in what you are looking at, and you might just be painting a lily pond.

I think, and have thought, that these dots I float on the surface of these canvases are my attempts at water lilies.

Pics above are from About.com and Pictopia respectively.

In other news, I thought in this post-post-modern world, I thought it might be nice to challenge Monet and have a post-post-modernist lily pond. Indoors in Fort Point. The pic above is of some of my lilies sprouting this spring.