Climate Change as Art

Score One for Renegade Public Art

Are We Liberators Yet?

A statue built for Iraqi journalist Muntazer al-Zaidi, who hurled his shoes at former U.S. president George Bush, is seen in Tikrit, 150 km (95 miles) Baghdad, January 27, 2009. An Iraqi town has unveiled a giant monument of a shoe in honour of the journalist who threw his footwear at former U.S. President George W. Bush. Picture taken January 27, 2009. REUTERS/Sabah al-Bazee (IRAQ)

Iraqi shoe hurler inspires art in Saddam hometown

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On Art as an Illness

I can't remember a time in my life when I wasn't deeply involved in art of some kind or another. One of my earliest memories is of playing on my dad's guitar, just barely able to press down hard enough to make a D chord.

I have drawn, painted, sculpted, written, composed, photographed, and acted for my whole life. As I've gotten older I seem to cycle through one or two mediums at a time.

When in college, for instance, I wrote constantly and I blew glass but hardly ever played my guitar or trumpet. Right after college I mostly did drawings and a few paintings and played in rock bands but I only wrote lyrics and other than a brief, abortive attempt at picking up my airbrush again I dabbled in no other mediums than music and pen and pencil on paper.

For a long stint, other than playing and recording music, the only drawings I did were for band posters. In the last few years I've taken up photography avidly, I continue to record music (though I rarely perform live), I have done several series of paintings, designed an artcar, sculpted in wood and concrete, and built artsy wind chimes.


It seems as if I am forced to turn from one medium to the next despite my own desires as if something clicks in my mind and I need to sit with an Exacto and masking tape for days, making my spray paint paintings

and then it clicks, mid-project, and I have to start laying down tracks for a new composition. It is as if there is a compulsion to create these things which is beyond my control and which shifts interest seemingly on a whimsy. For weeks I will find myself wanting to write lengthy essays on a wide variety of subjects, and without warning I will suddenly be compelled to spend weeks hunched over my car or spend days wandering around with my camera, looking for a shot.
Sometimes I'll suddenly need to sit and deeply manipulate and create images with Photoshop or sit with my acoustic guitar and sing old songs and on those days when there is no drive to actually create I am left with the seemingly endless process of digitally archiving everything I've done and still carry with me.


The reason I am beginning to see this state as an illness is by looking around at all the people living their normal, comfortable lives for whom the artistic process is an utter mystery that reveals itself to them in no way whatsoever.

For most people there is no drive whatsoever to make anything. They go to work, they watch television, they consume, but there seems to be nothing in their minds that they cannot experience in the world already. When they do experience art it is a kind of magic to them, dark and threatening when art shocks or offends them, bright and wonderous when it brings them joy. Creativity is suspect.


Despite these strong reactions, most people feel no compulsion to try to create that experience for themselves and others just as most people enjoy food but really don't care about getting in their and understanding and manipulating the entire process. They'll marvel at the spinach and chicken salad at Applebee's but they won't bother to try to make a better version of it themselves. If they have salad at home it comes out of the bag and the dressing comes out of a bottle just as their art matches the sofa and comes with the frame or comes on a mass marketed cd or plays on their television.

So people whose experience with art is a force that commands them are the exception to the rule and therefore, by our modern definitions, they are sick.

If one uses the DSM to inspect the psyche of any artist one will find at least one issue that requires "treatment." The people that are not in some way insane are the ones who are content to live their lives inside the hive with no artistic drive whatsoever.

Thank goodness for self medication!

Inflatable Art

These are pretty damned cool.



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Art Car Leads to Momentary Fame

I may have mentioned in an earlier post that I drive an art car. If you don't know what one is you should look here and then search for art car (put it in quotations) on Flikr.com, burningman.com, and whatever search engine grabs your fancy.

My car, The Institute for Psychic Reform Techno Car, has brought me a brief moment of local fame. This last Friday, coinciding with the beginning of the Kentucky Art Car Weekend, my car and I were featured in the Courier-Journal's Features section. The main picture (above) was embarrassingly large in the physical paper and the article was really nice. There was also an online gallery of pictures from the photo shoot. Starting first thing in the morning Friday at the car wash before the show and continuing all day Friday and Saturday people came up to me and said, "I saw you in the paper!" I kind of hope this will have freed some more local people up to come and talk to me about the car, which is one of the reasons I drive it. The hope is it will change people's minds at least a little bit and allow them to be a little more free and a little happier.

When I get my pictures from our big weekend uploaded to Flikr I'll link to it, but go ahead and visit my Flikr page now to see a ton of art car pics from several national events. If you have never seen a bunch of art cars in one place before, there are events all over the country and you should make an effort to attend one. Most are annual events (like the Kentucky Art Car Weekend) so if you missed a show near you this year it'll probably be back next year.

New Camera

So I finally closed my eyes and jumped and bought a Nikon D-80 with two VR lenses. I've wanted this camera for a few years and was surprised at how "affordable" the camera with two lenses and extras was (compared to how much I'd imagined). So let's just say I feel like I've moved from a horse and buggy to an F-16. Not a bare backed horse to begin with and not an F-22 to end with... but a very large leap. Here are some pictures I've taken with it. Some are taken with the Nikon 18mm-55mm VR DX lense while others are taken with the 70mm-300mm VR lense. The "VR" = "vibration reduction" which is some kind of internal motion thing in the lense that holds the image steady. It's pretty amazing, especially in the full telephoto mode allowing hand-held shots in medium to low light at 300mm. I think they have binoculars with that technology as well. I want a pair! So I love the camera and lenses and here's some of what I've gotten so far:

Blu

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Just watch it.

Art, Nuisance, or DANGER?

You would think that driving an artcar would make you a police magnet, but in my experience and in the experience of almost everyone I've talked to, police won't hassle you just because they feel like, unlike being a black male in a car with big wheels. In Louisville a missing taillight on one of those will get you pulled over by two or more cop cars and a dog will run back and forth over your custom seats while you sit on your hands on the sidewalk. I've seen it happen several times. I've had a few cops ask me questions about my old truck that sported a voodoo theme, but only out of curiosity, and none have done more than give a questioning look at my car. I guess maybe since we're so aware of our extra lights, etc. we go to great lengths to make sure we're also legal.

But in the city of Austin, Texas, a pair of restaurants is up against the LAW for using artcars for planters in front of their shops. They demolished an old car and then had it painted by local artists. They filled it with dirt and planted cactus in it.



I had always thought of Austin as particularly progressive but apparently they have some politicians with sticks up their asses there as well. The restaurants have been repeatedly ticketed for violating a junked car statute. It has worked its way up the courts and is being fought on a First Amendment basis. Good luck to them!