Friends have left notes here over the past weeks and I have either been too busy – or too idle – to respond. I’m reluctant to return to this blog. Keeping it up requires mental and emotional space I don’t have to spare now. I sometimes think of starting a new one – anonymous this time, a place where I could post without self-consciousness.
Deb Szczech Zabel – such a great name – left a note here the other day which led me back to another post and the thread of our conversation, which was about missing friends and losing loved ones. I am re-posting the poem I found there, one I haven’t thought of in a while. Goodnight Marcia Ryder, and now so many others, wherever you are.
What so deeply underlies our baseline conceptions that fathom weights turn in circles and loops, like one who seeks hope in the ocean, swimming in waters far beyond waters we know? What overarches our thinking from such a far distance we can only guess… Maybe…. as above, so below? What holds us here like the unknown unseeable holds the mosaic total?
Father swings through the trees, he wrestles crocodiles, white men, personal demons. I see a small jewel – green hills and blue ocean – rotating inside the compass of heaven. Fine silver threads in circles and spirals, fractured pinpoints of gold, ruby and emerald hang in a canopy of velvet. The absence of light does not equal darkness, sight shatters on far-away anvils and leaves hammer shards, finally silent.
Through transparent eyelids I watch a sandstorm cover the sun. Twilight rides not on light but whips around from darkness, a rude wind marshaling vast killing wings. Between sight and knowing are clear jelly curtains and outside, the mean blur of teeth. The wind is an iron-framed plow, a rusty, steaming, oil -flecked stallion with shoes of blue steel, throwing up sand, clacking, spitting and clattering. It is a torn accordion,
wheezing and whistling, entropy compressed and then tortured through ripped leather fittings. The wind hits the dunes with cutting fists of diamond. It is here that my mother nurses her husband. She waits down the wind, the triumph of darkness, the blowing sand peeling skin, carving bones. The wind grinds the rocks down. Mother swings Father onto the wind and leaps on behind him. She seizes a good night not to go
gentle in and leans to the stallion’s ear hissing: is this the worst you can do, evil thing? A maniac riding a maniac wind, heels hard in his ribcage, fists in his mane, holding a man who is dying. She drives her heels in and spurs the wind on, into the well of souls that they came from. The wind sends it’s unrest, it’s hornets and locusts but nothing remains here to kill or consume except death, and death is dying. Time has unrolled
to its end over nothing and no new myth comes. No milk streams through space from her breasts, no planets or galaxies spring from her forehead or anus and he’s just crazy, with crazy thoughts, like: the son beside the elephant is so small, yet the elephant obeys him. Higher now than she has ever been, she holds her husband through the driest time. The black wings of another wind sweep down around them.
The ground turns upside down and vanishes. The stars take their place in the sand. Silence and stillness replace sound and movement and now the unteaching, in earnest, begins.
Catherine Nesbitt called the other day to buy a painting. It was her husband’s birthday and the painting gave Jim pleasure so she wanted him to have it. If the truth be told it wasn’t her favorite. The other painting they have been holding in safekeeping for me in North Carolina was actually the favorite, but that is one my 9 year old painted with me two years ago, when he was 7, and for a lot of reasons, mostly sentimental, we are not ready to part with it yet.
But Jim likes the other one a lot, too, and so we made the deal. I told her the image had been used as a writing prompt on the Storybook Collaborative and there might be writing that could come along with it and which might increase Jim’s pleasure. Of course she wanted to see what there was to see and so I dug to see what ekphrasis pieces people might have written about the painting. The painting to me was a constellation of images and I couldn’t remember, really, what might have been written. I hoped I would find something.
As luck would have it, I did find some things. I will post the image and the links to the writing below, because I think the story is interesting.
Loopy Heart(a.k.a. Mobius Heart: a.k.a. The Wheelbarrow Woman); mixed media,oils and charcoal on canvas, approx. 4’ x 3’
(Click on the links to sample the flavor of their writing.)
And I was surprised to find that the third piece was my own, which I wrote in gibberish and then translated, and which I had entirely forgotten. I wrote the nonsense/sound poem for fun. The “translation” was something I did to squeeze a little more fun from the silly-talk. Both may be found here:
In my mind the poem and the painting fit somehow. Maybe because the painting reminded me of children’s book illustrations I grew up with. Sometimes I’ll look at a painting and wonder, where on earth did that come from? Then I’ll open some old children’s book, one of the Childcraft* series from the ‘50’s, say, and see a border illustration around a page and think, hmmm, that’s where they come from.
The painting itself was part of a series, in that they were all painted at roughly the same time. I try to do it that way – to always have multiple projects going – to protect myself from the tendency to torture a painting to death when I have only the one in front of me. With multiple projects I can turn from one to another when I run out of ideas for the first, working on the second, or third, or fourth, or fifth until ideas and a sense of direction for the first piece returns, or a sense of completion sets in.
Happy Birthday, Jim, best wishes always.
* Childcraft: hours of serene, happy, absorbed, enjoyment: projects, mythologies, stories, poetry, games, how to, and more.
Childcraft is also, I found after rediscovering the series 10 or 12 years ago in a thrift shop, easily recognizable as part of the institutionally racist, mid-century, white male dominated culture insinuating itself into every aspect of the lives of those of us growing up in the good old U.S. of A at the time.
Which is to say, it was invisible. To me, anyway. Like Crayola’s pink crayons, which were called “Flesh”, and the dusky red/burnt sienna, which was called “Indian Red”. Quite likely invisible to the authors of the series, as well. What am I overlooking today?
Nanda Sosa just emailed me the pictures below, which are of paintings hanging on the walls of her home in Caracas. I had forgotten them. Which means it has been too long since I visited that beautiful, amazing, troubled country and and enjoyed her beautiful, amazing people. Let’s hope sane leadership emerges soon.
Working on a year-long string of films took me into the magic but grueling land of below-the-line movie making, interrupting the flow of weekly prompts I had been posting here. I’m still not back in the studio so I won’t be posting images regularly until I am. But if anyone sees a story here and wants post a link to it in the comments section below, well, feel free. Maybe it will get the motor turning over again.
For samples of what others have done, click on the Storybook Collaborative link and scroll down.
Balancing Act, latex house paint and charcoal, approx 6′ x 4′, Courtesy of Maria Fernanda Sosa.
I have forgotten what I named this. Mixed media on bleed (reverse) of printed English linen. I wish I could find more. Approx. 3′ x 4′. Collection of Maria Fernanda Sosa.
Done. Story on demand for Scott Card’s six day writing intensive. I left the outline in the middle of the 1st paragraph and after that I never knew where the next sentence would take me. The story shows it but there is enough good there to continue working on it.
Card has an interesting thing to say about writer’s block. He sees it, if I understood him, as the mind shutting down because we are bored with the story, or have been untrue to the needs of the characters for fuller, richer development. His answer is to back up to where we were excited about the story and to put away or discard the parts where we had gotten lazy, or turned away because letting the story become what it needed to become was too much work, or we thought we didn’t know how to do it. According to Scott, when we follow this rule the zest for the story returns, the block evaporates, we are no longer shut down due to following an untrue path.
I would recommend this workshop to any serious writer. I’ll post the story after I take it to another level.
i wish i was there. i wish
i was almost anywhere but here.
most especially though,
i wish i was there, where you are.
these people are weird
and this place is strange.
the stars don’t look right,
neither the water
and the trees are all wrong.
how did i get here?
how long do i stay here?
do i really need to be here?
what was i thinking?
the higher power calls me:
hark it sings, hark hark hark,
hark hark hark hark hark hark hark.
the lower power though,
it has a fuller sound.
its sound is louder, rounder, hotter, redder.
it hisses more, and releases steam.
it has fur and juice and teeth,
runs faster, and closer to the ground.
i sure would like to be there. mmmmm…
i sure would like to be there.
we could do something with that power.
we could make something with that power.
if i don’t do something with that power…
i have to do something with that power.
maybe i should go home now.
at least i should call home now,
i could say, “honey,
put the phone down,
close your eyes,
smile.
Al-x Chamyan and yours truly outside the model shop on "The Crow". I made up one after another of these cityscape "groundrows" to fill in the spaces beyond the last buildings of the miniature city the model makers built. Add lights and fog and the city seemed to sprawl in all directions. Al was working in construction on the same show. He rode his unicycle around the studio, sometimes juggling or playing his violin as he went. Favorite Al quote: "Carnival people? Oh yeah, they're pretty much just like movie people, only with integrity." By which I believe he meant that Carnival People know they are Carnies, but movie people think that they are something else.
.
.
Oh, Naomio, де ви? Ти зник в самій тонкої в важнічать
I was hoping for an emotionally clear space before heading out later in the week. Instead, I am frazzled to frizzled nub. And very short, too. Much shorter than I used to be, notwithstanding all the years I have spent trying to grow up. I am shorter now than I have ever been, except when I was smaller. I think I am down to about 3 feet, 11 inches. I am looking up at the people I used to look down on, just like they said would happen if I was not careful about the things I said and did, and the ways I said and did them.
I must have said some awful things, because I am even shorter now than I was a few minutes ago. My feet don’t reach the floor anymore and I have to keep sliding this laptop closer to the edge of the desk because my arms don’t go as far as they used to.
Well, I think I had better say good-by and go look for that pill that will make me taller. The ones that mother gave me didn’t do anything at all. But I have found some other ones that did all kinds of crazy things, made me tingle all over, weep, throw up, fall into fascinated gazination. There was one that turned my body into a wave, a long, extended one. It was so long that the front of me lost track of the back of me and I had a hard time particularizing myself again, and when I did, my particles were mostly in Egypt and I had to put them back together on the fly since apparently upon arriving I managed to really piss off the locals. I had to gigolo myself all the way back to America – which took a while because I wasn’t very good at it and because my particles were still arranging and rearranging themselves, which scared the ladies or the occasional gentleman I was lucky enough to find. I got slung overboard from a cruise liner once because, while particularizing, an ear and seven toes fell off and the woman wouldn’t stop screaming when she found them in the bed. The crew didn’t like it and made short work of me.
But I made it back somehow. I am having to jump on the keys to type now so I am going to say goodbye and go look for a large dung beetle to carry me to the medicine cabinet to look for those pills while there is still time.
Я тебе дуже люблю, naomio.
Your Little Rickie once tikki tavi but now so diminished. My tavi fell off and my tikki is starting to feel loose, so I’m gonna git gone before the whole mess evaporates, like Charlie’s did, last Thursda
There was a night when the lights went out – it was only for a second, but when they came back up everything had changed. I was dripping wet from the bath, rain was coming down in buckets outside and thunder rumbled, now from near, now from far, and occasionally with a crash that sounded just overhead.
I wasn’t worried about bathing during a lightening storm. I’ve always done pretty much what I wanted to do. Not to bait or tempt fate but neither afraid of small probabilities.
I was rising from my bath when the lights flickered and, suddenly dizzy, I reached for the wall to steady myself. I felt a small, rapid stabbing in the palm of my hand and felt a flash of light – that is the only way I can describe it – fill my body. I looked down to see steam floating on the surface of the water and in the steam small sparkling lights the size of summer gnats. They moved this way and that in small circles and spirals and winked out as I watched.
But I had no time for the lights, no matter how pretty or fascinating, for it was my feet and legs which drew my attention and drained human feeling from my heart. One moment I am lean and tanned, the next I am furred like a dog, with a wiry coat like an airedale, but the color of a gray wolf down to the twisted yellow nails of my misshapen but still human feet.
I jumped from the water – rather I bounded from the water and twisted in mid-air, crashing down on the baby’s bath toys cluttering the bathroom floor and catching sight of myself in the mirror as I spun. The fur ran from my feet and legs to the middle of my chest, sprouting there even as I watched, new fine threads undulating softly then quickly thickening to the gray coarseness of the coat covering my legs and chest and throat. In the blink of an eye the fur covered the backs of my hands, my cheeks, jowls, brow and the bridge of my nose.
I sat down on the edge of the tub. A dream, a vision, a waking nightmare like ones I had experienced as a teen but which had not troubled me since. What else could it be? I spend half my life in my imagination. Something had rattled loose with the noise and thunder…I opened my eyes. My legs, the backs of my hands, my face in the mirror – the transformation was complete.
If I wasn’t dreaming, or ill, what could this be? But maybe I was ill, or sick or hurt! Maybe I had been struck by lightening. Maybe I couldn’t see it but I was actually lying on the floor, dying, and life was preparing me for the transition. Well, if that was the case then I wasn’t ready. Kids too young, still loved my wife, too much unfinished business. I closed my eyes and imagined bending down over my unconscious body, whispering into my ear like a lifeguard might, “Come back, you are not ready, this is not your time. There is too much left to do. Come back, we need you, come back.”
There was a sound at my back, from the bathroom door. The vision of myself beside my body vanished and I rose from my seat on the edge of the tub.
It was my daughter, just a little over one year old and now walking. She pushed the door open and her rapt expression turned joyous.
“Doggie!” she cried, the only word beside mama and uh-oh! that she knew. She toddled over, and threw her arms around my furry legs. I looked up to see my wife and son regarding me from the doorway. My wife was slowly shaking her head back and forth, her lips pursed, mirth barely contained. My son was staring in happy amazement.
“Cool!” he said, “I’ll go get some doggie treats from the neighbors.” He ran from the room.
“See if you can borrow a leash!” she called after him. Then she looked back at me.
This is something I painted for Maria Fernanda Sosa, rolled up and carried to Venezuela to deliver to her. I probably owed her some money, I can’t remember now. Or maybe it was because her daughter, Fernanda Sosa, asked for it and I never could deny her. In any event this picture just surfaced. Nanda, if you read this, send me some decent pictures, please.
“…Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.”
In the previous post I matched one of my paintings with a poem or song I wrote some time ago. Both the song and the image have always brought a favorite poem by Hopkins to mind. When amuirin asked why I referenced Hopkins in the post I wanted to share the private reference and his poem.
The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 to 1889)
I have always loved the poem, the poet’s love of wordplay and especially the last line. Not to mention the interesting man; an Anglican convert to Catholicism who became a Jesuit priest, a wordsmith, and who died young. Wikipedia has this to say about his death,
“…Although he probably suffered from what today might be diagnosed as either bipolar disorder or chronic unipolar depression, and battled a deep sense of anguish throughout his life, upon his death bed he evidently overcame some of that despondency, at times stygian in its intensity: his last words were “I am so happy, I am so happy.”
I just noticed the date of his death and see he was only 44 when he died. It makes me think of passages Robertson Davies wrote inFifth Business, or maybe, What’s Bred in the Bone, where a priest is reflecting on his evolving understanding of the life of Jesus. The priest (if I remember this correctly), now an old man, is speaking to someone he knew in his youth, when he was new to the priesthood and his fervor was strong and his ideas about Christ and religion seemingly set for life.
“How do you feel about your religion now? The same as you did then?” his questioner asks.
“I am more than twice as old now as Jesus was when he died,” said the old priest. “Things do look very different, from where I am today.”
Forgive the paraphrasing and the misremembering, all you Davies fans. What struck me at the time I read the passage was the likely truth of the old man’s words. I was younger then – 33 or 34, about the age of Jesus when he died – and I thought that some day I might look back on those words and weigh them.
Well, I am too busy to weigh them now. All I can do is hold them up in the light of this coffee shop window and turn them a bit. They seem true, the light shines through them. I can reflect on the life and pain and glory of Gerard Manley Hopkins from a new perspective, that of outliving his 44 years; that of surviving some hellish years of my own.
I don’t have any great wisdom or insight to offer, just that yes, things do look different from the perch at the end of the branch. Flight is inviting, it always has been. Endurance is important, if only because we say it is. Not leaving the branch before our time means everything in the world to those who’s lives we light, and to those whom in turn light our own.
Thank you, amuirin, for your question. I am so glad you are able to stop and wander.
don’t struggle against the irresistible: the answer to surviving a fall into a whirlpool.
A small madness took me, and now I am back from Chicago. Four hours in a line stretching around a city block, a five minute interview and a thank you very much and I’m out on the street again, glad I didn’t haul a lot of crap up with me. It looked like somewhere between 1,500 to 2,000 artists were there in line. All genders, sexes, sizes, ages, colors and probably the whole human range of maturity, ability, native talent and training, attitude, aptitude, genius.
Informal portfolio reviews were happening all down the line as people got to know their neighbors and shared their work. I stood in line with theresa handy, who showed us beautiful, evocative painted landscapes with structures, figures, bare trees and other elements drawn from nature, placed in her pictures and half concealed by her washes and stark design and muted colors. She lives in St. Paul and shows in Chicago and Minneapolis. I would trade work with her. With any of these artists, actually.
Wading Boy, by Theresa Handy
christopher stuart, of Noblesville, IN, was next to open his portfolio to us there on the sidewalk. Multi-talented, capable and brilliant; well known as a product designer as well as a sculptor and a hell of a painter. Check out his website.
Noblesville Co-op by Christopher Stuart
Nancy Pirri, Chicago artist, and a spirited magnet, draws and prints on ceramic vessels and large sculptural pieces and figures. Textured and evocative work by one waiting in line with the rest of us.
from Ancestry series, tiles by Nanci Pirri
Chicago Artist, Rodney Swanstrom showed us prints of paintings based on geometric skylight shapes, using interference colors which do not read well in this photo but shimmer in life.
Skylight Forest, by Rodney Swanstrom
I wish I had collected more contact info as others around us were equally interesting and accomplished artists. Up and down the three block line people spontaneously divided into groups and clusters and shared their work with each other. Too bad the energy and talent could not have been further mobilized by the event organizers to somehow offer a larger show and share event.
So, while my trip was impulse driven and still strikes me as and absurd thing to do with my time and money, it was also an exercise in following through with something new. I met and enjoyed people outside my circle, pulled together my portfolio and prioritized my intention to move away from film work and back into my studio.
Also, I saw a little bit of Chicago, and I want to see more.
Returning from work taking me so many months away from this blog I have started back by rearranging the furniture here (so to speak), an old, old way of getting control over my life. I used to do it so often I finally put everything in my studio on wheels – workbenches, couches, chairs, work stools, tables, easels. I even put myself on wheels, rollerblades, constantly rearranging myself, I suppose. I’ll look for some studio pics to post later.
Selected Collaborations; for submissions to the collaborative storybook which have particular potency for me. This page will grow as I comb through the year of submissions, and as you send me your favorites.
blog history, to explain what we are doing here. What began purely as a place to post works in progress grew more complex as people started contributing writing to accompany the images they responded to here. I set aside a page I called the Storybook Collaborative to post the hundreds of contributions. It grew messy and confused by becoming a family and personal blog, especially when our newborn daughter contracted a serious illness. (She is strong and sassy now, just having celebrated her first birthday; but her illness was very frightening.) I wrote about her illness and the support from readers and contributors here touched and encouraged us. My return to work in the film industry blew away any hope of getting back to this blog, until this week, when I finished a year-long stretch in the movies.
tapestry; an evolving story about a blind child and his ability to read the past in the weave and texture of weavings and tapestries, and his startled recognition that he, and a mysterious woman share histories, the threads of which are woven into the centuries. They keep missing each other, naturally. Or maybe she’s avoiding him, or hanging with a drummer in a girl’s band, or they are just star-crossed, or working towards some ending, or some future, or some eternity, or something else. I haven’t figured out what yet. We have collaborated on everything else. Suggestions? Maybe Orson Scott Card can help me.
See? Now you don’t have to read it.
Storybook Collaborative; not intended from the start, but what this blog has come to be about. I supply the images, readers make up the stories. This is ekphrasis, telling the story found in a piece of art. Amazing the number of stories, myths, poems that people can find in the same piece of art.
There are hundreds here. Browse through them. As you find favorites email me and I will consider moving them to the selected collaborations page, or putting the matter up for a vote. Visit the blogs and contact the authors if you are moved to do so. Let them know you are paying attention. You may not know how important those words and visits can be to artists and writers struggling in isolation to remain true to their callings.
About, which just gives you a little more information about yours truly.
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Bravo’s Untitled Art Project
“It’s so wrong, it’s right.”
“We have all seen you make a fool of yourself, but not on national TV. Do it.”
“You are a casting Director’s dream.” (But you should get a haircut, buy some shoes and fix that broken tooth.)
Great response to the previous post concerning Bravo’s Untitled Art Project. Awesome. Hits shot through the ceiling. Most had nothing to do with me but indicate a high level of interest in the subject. Good luck, all you contenders.
My plan is to have fun with it, use the application forms and requirements to answer questions I need to be asking myself and to push myself to do things I need to be doing anyway: putting together a portfolio of current work and greatest hits, cleaning up this blog , bringing my resume up to date, thinking about my work in the film industry and my desire to move my career to the direction of becoming a rich and famous artist – or a self-supporting one, at least.
The wisdom of the ancients is that everything passes and my experience so far confirms it. If I had a turkey and a bucket of frogs for every time I have publicly embarrassed myself I would truck them to Central Park and release them, and then we’d really have some fun. So I’m not worried. Too much. If I’d gone ahead and shot myself, like sometimes I thought I oughta, well, there wouldn’t be much left of me, now would there?
So I’ll fly to Chicago Wednesday morning, attend the casting call Thursday morning, and fly back to Albuquerque Friday morning. Call will be held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A place I have always wanted to see. Anyone want to offer a couch to crash on or suggest a cheap motel near the school?
I’ll be the guy in the clown suit, life in a backpack, pushing a shopping cart full of old newspapers, crushed carnival horns, rusted crap (I love rust), a sketchbook, a notebook, an ocean, a seahorse, marbles, some shiny hooks, snakes enough for two… also a basket of frogs, a cornfield, a waterfall, a house big enough for all the family, and all the friends, and all the ghosts of our ancestors, the unborn, and everyone who never had a chance, and all those who got burned, and all who are frightened, and all who are alone, and all who search for meaning, and all who follow a calling, and all who know the gods, in all their many shapes and forms, and all who recognize them in the people around them, and all who don’t.
We played paintball in the mountains here, with friends from work. I sprained my ankle and broke a rib and had quarter sized bruises all over my body. I limped for a week and still hold my side when I laugh or cough. It was great. We played capture the flag, every man for himself, king of the hill, team against team, assassinate the president (or protect the president, depending upon the side we were on.) In this photo Broadus was the president. He is displaying his helmet, and the green ooze from the shot Danny got off when he jumped up out of the brush and shot him between the eyes. We, the protectors, didn’t know that the game was supposed to be over when the president was shot. So we shot Danny, dozens of times, and then we shot him some more, just for good measure.
Broadus found a killer place to wait in ambush. He got us all, one by one.
the gods of war call, and we go.
we go nuts, but we go.
But there is another side to Mr B, one we call Ferdinand the Bull. He drags his reading chair to the soccer field, opens his book, and the world around him disappears as the world inside his hands opens and surrounds him. Sometimes, when we know he is really, really in another world we throw things at him, or drop the baby in his lap. But usually, we leave him alone. He is amazing.
Now, tonight: who am I?
Eating raw broccoli from the garden, other green things, lots of bean burritos. Almost bit into a snail hidden among the curly lettuce. Curly snail foot, greenish brown and speckled, riding curly leaves, frizzy edged lettuce.
Tripping over crap in the hallway. Dirty laundry, tools, brushes, books, reference material, mail on the floor; unfolded clean laundry spilling over the living room couch. Ruined paint shoes… all I have left now. Choose any two.
Managing to keep garden watered and critters fed – 2 pigmy hedgehogs from Madagascar or Zanzibar, some such place – and the fish alive, and in clean tanks, too, but all other housekeeping has gone to hell.
Writing from the bathtub. Decided not to drown myself but should be careful of electrocution. When is the last time I backed up this macbook pro?
Finished 10 week gig on Paul, a new movie in production here, brought to you by the British comedy team behind Shawn of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz. No scoops to be found here but will sell secrets cheap through back door channels. I’ll find or make up some interesting lies. Cheap, cheap, cheap, just like the little birdy said.
I have got to be out of my mind to write this here, but here I go anyway. I have just filled out the 22 page application for Bravo’s Chicago cattle call for under-recognized and/or mid-career artists who would like to compete in a reality show against others of their own, surely pathetic kind. Okay, I’m speaking for myself now, as I ponder selling out to the man – or to the woman, to be more precise. Sarah Jessica Parker is the executive producer behind this Bravo enterprise. But then, all art is commercial art, yes? Unless one has outside means of support. It is just a matter of degree. And dignity. There is that.
So, wind me up for ten weeks, then release me from a movie while my family, my anchors, are away and all the weirdness rises to the top, just like Papa Jung said. The task of the human, he said, is to reconcile the opposites we find in our own nature. Fine, but it seems I can’t do it just once and expect the reconciliation to last. I gotta do it over, and over, and over again; meanwhile not letting the laptop slide into the bath.
Family is in NC, where we still have property, business, lots of stuff for Naomi to sort through, pack up, discard, give away, store or send out here. (We came here to NM for a three month gig at United World College. That was two and a half years ago.) Many of my paintings are still there in NC, the ones which were not abducted by my four sisters and taken to Boston to decorate their homes until I pay them back the money I borrowed back when I was a starving artist.
I am digressing. My plan was to reveal the fact that I bought a ticket to fly to Chicago next week to attend a cattle call for artists who think they would like to participate in a reality show to be produced by BRAVO & Ms Parker. Here is an interview Parker gave to ArtNet Magazine about the project, called the Untitled Art Project.
Now why would any self-respecting, stable, mature, experienced, talented and handsome artist want to do such a thing? If you have read this far then you deserve an answer.
Because his son, Jason Bruno, said, “It’s so wrong, it’s right.”
Because his friend, Ian Gold, said, “You are a casting Director’s dream.” (But you should get a haircut, buy some shoes and fix that broken tooth.)
Because one of his oldest and orneriest, closest friends, Venezuelan graphic designer and political activist, Maria Fernanda Sosa, said, “We have all seen you make a fool of yourself, but not on national TV. Do it.”
Because I realized that the application form held questions I need to answer anyway, if I want to move from supporting myself through film work to supporting myself through the work I produce in my studio; and the sifting and sorting and selecting of images is also important to do if I want to take my famous career to the next level.
But the real reason is, I believe, because the idea sends a shock of fear through me that I can feel down to the webs between my fingers and toes. Thinking about being in front of a camera is like mainlining a vasodilator, or staring straight into the Eye of Mordor.
So of course, I have to do it. #1 son, Jason Bruno, aka “Champ”, understands.
Well, I know I lost most of you during the year of movie work, Naomi’s over-committment, Broadus’ rollicking joy and Ada’s First Year. But maybe some of you do check back from time to time and when you do, you’ll find this long, thin, drawn out scream from someone who used to be just a regular guy but who is now rolling in dough, maybe, or maybe just cringing in embarrassment; or who maybe decided that those grapes probably were sour anyway.
But…. If you would like to be involved, there is something you could do. That is, to select 10 or 20 or however many favorite images from this blog: the storybook collaborative page, or from my website, rickmobbs.com, and email them to me (rickmobbs@gmail.com). Thumbnails are fine, and quick, intuitive selections of however many you want. Don’t trouble it too much. You should be able to drag and drop them. I have to take a portfolio of images to Chicago, and feedback would be interesting to me now. Your selections might help me narrow down my own.
If you want to participate in the show (God love you.) you are a little late, but you can still scramble and maybe pull it together. Twenty-two page application is online here. I only knew about it because last week Lakota sent me an email.
Interesting interview about all this with Magical Elves Casting Director Nick Gilhool on ARTFAGCITY.
So, wish me luck. I look forward to getting back to this blog, reorganizing and updating it, or else abandoning it and starting another one. It has been a rich experience. You are the most important part of it. I don’t want to get too far away from it, or from you.
Love to all,
Rick
p.s here is a photo of a work in progress, for Ada,
and another, a storyboard exercise for Jack and the Beanstalk that Broadus and I are collaborating on.
p.p.s almost forgot. Aug. 2nd – 8th I’ll be a participant in a writing workshop organized and led by Orson Scott Card, a favorite author. If I can’t get my famous art career off the ground, maybe I can work on being a famous writer.
p.p.p.s. maybe this blog will get me disqualified from consideration for the show. oh joy, oh sweet relief
She is a fierce and funny newcomer, strong and determined. The universe is her home, and for now, we are her country.
Who knows where these kids will go, what they will see, what they will do? We follow our imperative and they fight their way in. We bear, feed, clothe, nurture, protect and educate them. We love and would die for them. Time will tell us who they are and why they have come. Whatever they become, whatever their tasks or missions are to be, whatever joys or sorrows come to them, they will always be our children. They say the beggar supplicates, but the son and daughter appropriate. Appropriate away, children. Broadus has claimed half my studio as his birthright. What happens when Ada claims her share? Or Jason, the grown son, carrying his weight now, and with children of his own? We all move over a little, and make room. I hope they like our music.
Naomi, 3 July 2008
later in the evening of the same day
and a few hours later
and she’s here
and we call her, Ada.
naomi, broadus & ada, day 1
Now a year has passed since she arrived, moist and pink and howling. She’s feisty, determined, smart and funny. She’s walking! She adores her older brother, Broadus, and in turn he loves, protects and plays with her. We are lucky, happy, and grateful. We are humbled by the beauty in our lives and the strength and love of family and friends. We wish to thank each and all for their love and prayers and help this year. We could not have done it by ourselves.
(photo by Logan Bunting Mock)
and I am out of practice blogging, and now out of time. Tomorrow should be my last day on “Paul”, the movie I am working on. Then to find my place again with my own creative work. We have been working 6 days a week, 12 hours a day for months, leaving only time for family and sleeping. I look forward to catching up with my friends here. Thank you for checking in from time to time and for the notes you have left here. I am looking forward to time in the studio, time with family and friends, and to a week-long writing workshop with Orson Scott Card in August. (Hear me, Pepek?) That should get the wheels turning.
Thank you, Amuirin for the video below, which I lifted from your blog yesterday. It is perfect for Ada’s birthday.
p.s. enigma, thanks for the horoscope. we read it again. it fits.
Anyone following battlestar galactica? I’m way behind. I’m catching up on my motel cable tonight though. I came down here to Carrizozo NM to paint a fork in the road in the desert black, with biodegrable paint.
It will degrade, if it ever rains. Spent the rest of the week on the Carrizozo sets. Great crew. Shooting starts tomorrow. Final touches in the morning then I’m out of this lovely little town. I’ll come back with the family and explore. They will love the wind, the mountains, the mining towns and the desert.
I appreciate all the notes left on the blog (and on facebook) while I have been on this show. I look forward to responding to all of them.
What a treat to have this time. I’ve been living out of a suitcase in a motel while working in Albuquerque on “The Book of Eli”. My co-workers are extraordinarily gifted and easy to be with and the sets are beautiful, sumptuous, and stark. No photos, sorry, as these are closed sets but I’m sure that when it is released the film will draw a lot of attention.
No time for my own art now. With the world falling apart it doesn’t seem smart to say no to work. We work from 6 in the morning to 6 at night, and soldier on six days a week. I’ve jumped from the art lane to the art factory. I’ll be back in the studio soon enough. Hopefully more collaborations await.
The time I have I spend with family and friends. Broadus, now 9 years old, has developed a love for model rocketry (using rockets and solid fuel engines from Estes Industries). I’m back in my childhood now, doing some things I always wanted to do. Lucky me, Broadus loves it, too.
In debriefing after our launches we have determined a few things. It is best not to launch after dark, things like that. We’ve blown up a few rockets and crashed others and we’ve frozen our butts off out on the soccer field, but we’ve had a great time.
Naomi is as usual, organizing is 12 directions. She and Ada have just returned from 4 days in NYC working with donor organizations funding some large projects in New Orleans. The Las Vegas NM Cold Weather Shelter seems to be a going concern. Folk-singer and songwriter and 7 times Grammy nominee John McCutcheon (www.folkmusic.com), will be playing benefit concerts Valentine’s Day in Santa Fe and the following evening here in Las Vegas NM, to benefit the Rio Gallinas Charter School, The Las Vegas Peace and Justice Center, and Grassroots Leadership, Inc. and their work against the private prison industry/complex and immigrant family detention centers in NM (and across the country).
UWC-USA will host John’s song-writing workshop Sunday afternoon on the UWC campus (free to UWC students, $20 to others, space limited). She is also organizing the annual 2009 New Mexico Peace Works Conference – Global Youth Forum and Youth Leadership Workshops, Feb. 20 – 22, 2009, Santa Fe, NM FREE! Open to 7th – 12th Grade Youth. Please email me or leave a note here if you would like more info.
Here are some pics of the family now… Naomi and Ada and Broadus and me.
WE like our failed presidents to be Shakespearean, or at least large enough to inspire Oscar-worthy performances from magnificent tragedians like Frank Langella. So here, too, George W. Bush has let us down. Even the banality of evil is too grandiose a concept for 43. He is not a memorable villain so much as a sometimes affable second banana whom Josh Brolin and Will Ferrell can nail without breaking a sweat. He’s the reckless Yalie Tom Buchanan, not Gatsby. He is smaller than life.
Frank Rich is right, for a moment one can almost feel sorry for him. Until reflecting on the stupid, arrogant, mindless choices that have caused so much ruin, so many deaths and so much sorrow. I can’t think of anything he could do to make amends except to walk out on the world stage, express profound regret, and then shoot himself. Followed in the act by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove, and the rest of the and svengalis and sycophants.
And here’s a note to the Secret Service. I’m not suggesting here that anyone should off the president. That’s his job. I am suggesting that the tradition of hari kari has its place, its noble and proper use and that I think it should be employed here. The whole point is to atone and to restore some lost honor. Hardly possible in this case but the attempt would be nice. And the whole mess could have been avoided if only george had called his sponsor and gone to a meeting. Instead he’s used Jesus to justify every evil thing he’s done.
I know, I know. Its not for me to cast stones. The man has to live with himself. It should be enough just to be glad I am not him. I guess he really rubs me the wrong way.
is hard to find these days but I have some now and I am puzzling out how to use this blog. I stay away from writing and painting too long – which happens whenever I take a movie job – and I begin to feel dry and a little bit crispy. Not to mention cranky. Great things are…
I work with people I like and admire and I have work I usually enjoy, and that I know has a finite end. When that end comes I rejoin the ranks of the unemployed, and try to put my talents to good use in my studio until the next job comes up.
Ada and Broadus are well again and we are out of fearful parent mode. They are again little wells of life and beauty, sensitivity and intelligence. Joy and trust. B as always is a creative dynamo. Naomi and I are unwinding, releasing the fear and tension that comes with having a really sick child.
We have energy and health and a roof over our heads. A couple of months ago I returned from a meeting complaining to Naomi that I had met a young couple who were sane, sober and homeless and that cold weather was coming and there are no shelters here. She got on the phone and started making calls, seeking volunteers, donors, places that might work as temporary shelter for the homeless here in San Miguel County.
The upshot is, there is now a cold-weather shelter for the homeless here, thanks to a host of people here. I’ll get a more complete list from Naomi but for now I’ll mention that there would be no shelter without the work of Sharon Seto of UWC-USA and the students of UWC in Montezuma, NM; Pastor Rev. Randy Campbell and the congregation of The First Presbyterian Church of Las Vegas, NM; Rosie Lopez; The Samaritan House; Birdie Jaworski and Daniel; Gallinas Magazine; Spence and Janet Swinton: and the benefaction of a generous, anonymous donor.
The organizers were hoping to have the location of the shelter rotate between churches, two weeks to a church, staffed by volunteers from the congregations, and others. First Prez has stepped up to the plate but as yet the other churches here have offered to support the project in any way they can except with space and volunteers. Hmmm…..
Who can blame them, really? These are the great unwashed, and they do smell to High Heaven. Naomi and Ada and I staffed the shelter a few nights ago and I know what a difficult commitment it is to take in the homeless, the hopeless, the misguided, the deranged. But it is only for 3 or 4 months of cold weather, and in the meantime people can put their heads together to figure out a more permanent solution to the problem of homelessness in Northern New Mexico.
By the way, if anyone has seen the painting above, “Citylights”, please let me know. It vanished from storage in Boston some years ago. I wish I had a better photo to share with you. Please feel free to tell the story here if you see one. I think I’m back. I won’t be posting as often while I’m working, and the image prompts will be hit or miss. But it is good to be writing. Let me hear from you. Click on “comments” and add yours. I would love to hear what you think about things, most anything.
p.s. more late-breaking good news. (Actually the news has been out for a while, but I’m just getting it.) A poem of mine, Sizzle, was accepted and published in the Nov. issue of the new online journal, protestpoems. Publishing is a first for me. Check out protestpoems and its parent site, babelfruit. I wondered why I got such an unusually high number of hits in early November. As requested, I have for the time being taken the poem down from this blog.
Much better. Still some coughing but back to her happy, bouncy, cheerful self. Back to making funny noises and rocking out in her bouncy seat. Thanks for the good energy and warm wishes.
I’ve been meaning to write but with Ada sick and new movie work starting my creative energy is way down. Broadus has been sick with pertussis, too, but since he has had the vaccination it hasn’t hit him quite as hard. His cough has gone on for 4 weeks now, maybe 5. I’ve lost track. It has been crazy. Things are easing up now but Ada’s cough still makes my heart stop. She doesn’t cough as often but she still coughs until she runs out of air and then the coughing doesn’t stop, it just keeps going and I’m saying, breathe, Ada, breathe and finally she is able to draw a quick breath between coughs and the air whistles back into her lungs. That sudden panicked whistling is why it is called Whooping Cough. It will scare the daylights out of a parent. For two weeks Naomi has been sleeping sitting up, her back against the wall behind the bed so she could hold Ada upright. We’ve been getting to bed after midnight and then I’m up at 5 to drive to work in Santa Fe. Waking up with her, or with Broadus 5 or 6 times during those hours has left us all weary.
It is good to see my movie friends again but the days are long and I usually have to pull off the road and sleep for a few minutes during the drive home at night. My eyes start to cross and I start to see double I know I need to pull over.
Other than that, everything is fine. Oh, yeah. The world is falling apart.
She’s doing much better. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, your good energy. The coughing spells are still scary when she loses her breath but they don’t come as often and all of us are getting a little more sleep.
I’m finishing up lunch on this show (Georgia O’Keefe) and just wanted to post this update. Now it’s back to work.
Here are some pics of the kids and their friends here at World College. Pictures by Logan Bunting-Mock.
Lunchtime, and wireless! I’m writing from Santa Fe. I started a new movie this morning of this new day in our country. The sun was rising overr the mountains as I drove through the Glorietta Pass. It is a beautiful new day for us.
The movie is “Georgia O’Keefe”. Looks interesting but don’t know much about it yet. Paint crew are familiar hands, great painters. It is good to be back in the saddle.
Ada is holding her own. We are all a bit sleep deprived but in good spirits. Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts.
Hello everyone, all of you who have left such kind notes since my last post. This is just to let you I have no intention of disappearing from the blogging community, nor of laying this particular blog to rest. We really have been slammed or I would have said this sooner.
We had a wonderful time with family in NC and now are back in NM. Naomi’s work also carries her far and wide so I’ve been Mr. Mom to a greater degree than usual (best job I’ve ever had).
Our son, Broadus, turned 9 years old on Halloween. Her is a picture of Broadus with his friend Morgan. B is on the right.
At this moment I can’t remember just what were the other things that took me out of my studio and kept me from writing but I can’t complain that life is not full enough for us here in NM.
Bad news here is that Whooping Cough seems to have appeared in our little town. A lot of kids, including Broadus, have developed wicked, deep, long-lasting coughs. Because of early vaccinations they don’t get the full, potentially dangerous illness, although they can carry and spread it until treated with antibiotics. The illness is especially bad for babies.
The bad news is Ada (almost 4 months) has not yet been vaccinated and she has just been diagnosed with it. Naomi spent a few hours in the emergency room at our local hospital (and was given great care and attention by the E.R. physician, Dr Mariann Lucini).
Her coughing is racking and sometimes she stops breathing between coughs. It’s frightening and weird because, except for being a little more subdued than usual, she’s fine when she’s not coughing. The coughing spells themselves are awful. When she starts to cough we hold her against a shoulder to help her. We expect she is going to be okay but they tell us the illness could grow more severe for the next two weeks before easing up over the following two. We treat the symptoms and feel grateful that she’s such a fundamentally healthy kid.
We watch her carefully, and don’t leave her alone. Broadus and the rest of us are now on antibiotics so we are no longer contagious. I don’t understand why the NM Dept. of Health hasn’t stepped in to educate and treat everyone in the schools. This county in Northern New Mexico happens to be one of the poorest, most neglected in the country. It is a shame some of the billions wasted on Iraq could not have been spent at home on health care and education.
Okay, we’ll get back to the art soon, and the writing. I do want to say meeting all of you through this blog has been a very enlightning, incredibly enlarging experience and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I look forward to again circulating, visiting, reading, writing and painting. In the meantime of course feel free to use the images you find here for your work. Send me links to it and I will get back to posting them when I can.
Hold us in the Light, please, and we’ll do the same for you.
I’m writing from the coast of North Carolina as tropical rain and winds lash the house and the lights flicker inside. My extended family is gathered for a reunion here. There is something comforting about working while the winds rage and the lights flicker and the family sleeps peacefully around me.
Trying to juggle the needs and demands of family, work and travel I keep dropping the weekly image prompts I have been putting up here on Thursdays for the last nine months. So rather than letting the adventure sputter out I’m either taking a break or calling it quits, time will tell which. Although turning the blog over to the next artist or artists is an idea I have toyed with, and I am open to suggestions.
In any case I can’t keep it up in a way I feel good about so here is one last prompt for all who are interested. In a post to follow I’ll put up the recent collaborations. I will also try to look back over the time spent doing this and the collaborations that have resulted and try to make some sense of it all and thank you properly for your months of interest, your amazing collaborations and your support.
ybonsey asked me recently about this image, which I used to illustrate a post about war and pacifism.
The painting is in oils on canvas and is maybe 3.5 feet tall. It began as a study for a class in figure painting in oils. I considered it a failed painting and abandoned it until Dan Brawley, Director of the Cucaloris Film Festival, and founder of the Independent Art Company, of Wilmington, NC, invited me to submit a piece for a show he was curating on the subject of the Male Nude.
As it was a failed piece I flipped it upside down to see what I could make of it, thought about male aggression, noticed the penis was the pivot point and worked from there. Now, if you find a story there I would love to hear it.
(from Google’s Project 10 to the 100th project proposal submitted tonight by Rick Mobbs and Naomi Swinton)
10. What one sentence best describes your idea? (maximum 150 characters) Social networking for conscientious objectors, friends & families of COs & prisoners of conscience; connecting media, COs and the resources they need.
11. Describe your idea in more depth. (maximum 300 words) Create a web-based global registry for Conscientious Objectors, Prisoners of Conscience, Pacifists, Refusniks, War Resisters, their families, friends, and supporters; and a Social Networking site along the lines of Facebook, where people could begin to build an international, multi-lingual pacifist community in real time, and in real time could talk, correspond, share and compare experiences, educate, etc. They could also respond to threats, intimidation, harassment, and the incarceration of their members, much in the way a human rights violation can trigger a massive response from Amnesty International.
The effort would leverage the web to explain Conscientious Objection and the Pacifist Movement to the public, attract individual C.O.s, their families, friends and supporters, and give them the tools to build a real-time community of peers and allies on-line. The site would be used to heighten publicity around individual cases where needed, mobilize membership drives, especially of teenagers and students and their supporters, and to organize and present educational ventures and massive critical response triggered by any threat to its membership.
12. What problem or issue does your idea address? (maximum 150 words) The isolation of and lack of information available to young people considering conscientious objection; the lack of leveraging of these individual acts of courage, which aggregated, do have the power to impact governments and armies; the need to strengthen and make more readily available a culture of peace and habits of resistance to violence.
13. If your idea were to become a reality, who would benefit the most and how? (maximum 150 words) Conscientious objectors and their families would gain support, recognition, and safety in numbers; more people might see possibilities for peace and alternatives to war that could save many lives; young people would be recruited to take courageous stands and see that their choices can make a huge difference in their lives and the lives of others.
14. What are the initial steps required to get this idea off the ground? (maximum 150 words)
Set up a website with a number of different kinds of access to allow for outreach and privacy where needed; assemble information and resources to populate the site; disseminate widely and begin registering conscientious objectors, friends and family; assess particular needs of conscientious objectors in particular countries/communities and tailor web resources to them; create strong media relations to assist with individual cases.
15. Describe the optimal outcome should your idea be selected and successfully implemented. How would you measure it? (maximum 150 words) Thousands of people would be inspired to refuse military service. Conscientious objectors would gain power in numbers and be better able to share their stories. Media would have greater access to stories of war resistance and the on-line community could create a more informed dialogue about methods for war-resistance and an action base in support of peace.
18. If you’d like to recommend a specific organization, or the ideal type of organization, to execute your plan, please do so here. (maximum 50 words)
War Resisters International, in cooperation with other Pacifist organizations doing similar work.
A couple of weeks ago I posted a notice about Google’s 10 to the 100th project. You know, Google’s call for ideas that could change the world and offer to fund the most popular to the tune of $10,000,000. Deadline is Oct. 20. I suggested a collaborative, web-based approach, using this or some other blog to work on ideas collectively. Blog hits went through the roof because of the tags but most had nothing to do with me and since I didn’t get any takers on the idea of a collective project I took the post down. Probably should have left it up but I felt freakily self-conscious about the attention.
The days go by and and I’m thinking, well, you know, I could have thrown out an idea. Just to give people something to start with. What could I come up with if I was trying to think of a project that could change the world in a positive way? Even a little thing. Even an itty-bitty little thing.
Well, I thought of something but kept it to myself except for emailing friends for feedback. I got all jazzed up and then I crashed and now I’m sick of the whole thing and want to drop it. It’s that sense of self-consciousness again, that uncomfortable feeling that I could have kept my mouth shut and let people wonder how dumb I was but no, I had to go and tell them.
This is how I flip flop. Think of something, say it out loud, wish I hadn’t. That’s the flop. The flip side is I know that often the only way to get to the good idea is through the string of half-baked ones. The road to success is through failure, my dad used to say.
So I’m going to do what I thought of originally, post an idea on the blog and ask people to shoot holes in it, offer corrections, refinements, or tell me it’s already been done and suggest I scrap the whole thing and move to something new.
Anyway, here’s the idea. If anyone would like to pick it up and run with it please, feel free. I am still most interested in a collaborative effort.
My idea is to create a web-based global registry for Conscientious Objectors, Pacifists, Refusniks, War Resistors, their families, friends, and supporters; and a Social Networking site along the lines of Facebook, where people could begin to build an international, multi-lingual community in real time, and in real time could talk, correspond, share and compare experiences, educate, etc. They could also respond to threats, intimidation, harassment, and the incarceration of its members, much in the way an event can trigger a massive response from Amnesty International.
This idea came to me because here at UWC-USA (where my wife works and where we live) we are very aware that a recent graduate, Mia Tamarin, an Israeli teenager and a Conscientious Objector, has been jailed in Israel for refusing induction into Israeli compulsory military service. Here at the school we have 200 students, 17 and 18 years old, from 90 something countries. We live in on campus in an incredibly beautiful place with some of the smartest kids in the world. We have kids from all the trouble spots. You name it, they’re here. And once they get here they have to work out their differences or the experience just won’t work. More often than not they come to see themselves as Citizens of the World.
Mia’s experience led her away from seeing the wall dividing the Israelis from the Palestinians and the occupation of Palestine as necessary and good to seeing it as harmful, degrading and in the long run counter-productive to the best interests of Israel. A commitment to Pacifism – to conversation, negotiation and mediation, and to her people was, as far as I know, the basis for her refusal when she graduated and went home. She knew what the consequences of refusing military service would be and prepared herself.
And while perhaps her family would have made other choices, her friends understand and everyone who knows her well recognizes that with this decision she is speaking her truth. People want to help her. Her friends want her actions to help make a difference on a larger level. However, they depend upon an email chain for news and discussion and altogether have no more clout than any other small group of teenagers protesting injustice anywhere.
Since dreaming up this idea of an international registry I have discovered that other organizations have been doing this quite effectively for years: documenting Pacifism through registration in order to create paper trails for individuals facing hearings; providing trainings, resource materials, links to outside resources and a bulletin board for notices of events, conferences, popular and scholarly articles, and issuing alerts concerning the intimidation, harassment or threats to C.O.s.
In other words, these organizations provide critically needed clearinghouses of information and resources, and all credit goes to them for the courageous work they have been doing for years. But, as far as I can tell they have not yet begun to really tap the potential of the web to explain Conscientious Objection and the Pacifist Movement to the public and to attract individual C.O.s, their families, friends and their supporters, and to give them the tools to build a real-time community of their peers on-line, and help them mobilize membership drives, (especially of teenagers and students and their supporters), and to organize and present educational ventures and massive critical response potential triggered by any threat to its membership.
(Please correct me if you are aware that I am wrong and it seems I am suggesting we re-invent the wheel.)
So I have moved from the idea of creating this organization from the ground up to the idea of proposing inviting the existing organizations to work together to create a central, multi-lingual web-based clearinghouse for all they already offer; to begin to investigate how they might utilize the web to its potential; to become a free hosting service for websites and bloggers, and especially, to establish a real-time on-line community of C.O.s, War Resisters, Refusniks and the like and their families, friends, and committed supporters. Something on the line of facebook but without advertising. Or perhaps to make use of Facebook and all the other social networking services instead of trying to create a new network from scratch.
Well, that about wraps it up. How much would we need from Google to fund this? I don’t know. The cost of a stamp maybe, or a telephone call to someone who could set these ideas in motion. Maybe we don’t need Google at all, just, as Paul says below, their technical expertise and some of their programmers willing to donate their time.
Here is a partial list of existing organizations currently registering C.O.s or providing support. It is a quick list so please email me with others if you know of them . (Or list them in the comments.) If I include Peace Groups there are dozens, hundreds, who knows how many more. peaceabbey
(The organization provides national Conscientious Objector registration and also addresses many other social justice concerns.
This is a registry created by the U.S.- based Peace Abbey in response to the 1st Gulf War. Articles and links and a place to register as a C.O. and begin a paper trail.)
pointofclarity
(national Conscientious Objector registration
Here one can register to begin a paper trail and there are many resource links.)
Exceptional resource. Founded in 1921. International sections and associations, resources, contact info, international conferences, publications. I could be wrong but at a brief glance it seems to be geared for adults, activists, leaders rather than teens and the individual resistor. War tax resistance resource. Threat alerts.
I’m actually posting these images on a Thursday, like I said I would. Life gets a little hectic here with a new baby, workaholic parents, a wild 9 year old. Almost 9.
Okay, about the baby. Omygod, what a baby. She is beautiful, with incredible eyes that are open to her soul, maybe beyond. She favors Broadus when he was a baby except that she is delicately formed were he was a great galumpus, so big his cousins called him Bam Bam. She is 3 months old now. Born on the 4th of July. Our Halloween birthday boy is coming up on his 9th birthday. He thinks it is really neat that they both have such interesting, special birthdays. He’s magic and jack-o-lanterns, no fear of witches or things that go bump in the night because that is his domain. She’s fireworks and rockets and sparks, he says, and dotes on her.
So, for an image prompt this week I am putting up a work in progress, a Halloween painting for Broadus. If you find any stories we would love to hear them!
by Marc Figueras, for the UWC-USA newspaper
followed by notes by Rick
After all the preparations for what was going to be a unforgettable experience in Mexico, Bart, Ditha, Gal, Hickson, Holly, Kwun Kui, Louisa, Nicole, Rayah, Rave, Zipporah and I finally departed at 6 a.m. in the cold of Montezuma’s mornings, destination Agua Prieta, Mexico. We were led by Adriana, Naomi, Rick and their kids, Ada and Broadus. We were accompanied by Logan Bunting-Mock, a hilarious photographer from North Carolina. The bus ride was long and not very exciting in general except for the balloons we could see through the windows of the bus when we passed by Albuquerque. The food was greatly appreciated and very Mexican. Pretty much what we ate every day was rice, tortillas, and beans. We were staying at a community center in this small town. On the first night there, we had empanadas for dinner, prepared by a local family. The father of the family worked in a maquila and lived in a house with no electricity or running water with his wife and two kids. Their house was made of cement blocks and consisted of a dormitory, a bathroom and a small kitchen, all lit by candles. They were very kind and generous and I think the opportunity to talk to them that night was unique for us and for them.
On the next day we woke up early to visit the border in the Sonoran desert. We were accompanied by an organization called Agua por la Vida (Water for Life), which maintains and refills water tanks for migrants on the Mexican side of the border. Around 600 migrants die every year in the desert, mainly because they get lost in the desert or because of dehydration. It was shocking to see the 4-meter-tall wall built by the U.S. to separate them from their neighboring state. We also visited the office of Just Trade coffee in Agua Prieta, where we learned about the processing, the different kinds of coffee and the main issues in the trade. Their coffee is produced in Chiapas, Veracruz and Haiti and most of it is sold in American universities. One of the most interesting activities was working with drug and alcohol addicts in a rehabilitation center called CRREDA in Agua Prieta. We painted the walls of one of the girls’ dormitories and built a new floor for the community space of this center. Some of them were as young as 15 years old but I was surprised to hear them talking so openly about their addictions with us.
I think the most striking experience was volunteering at the Migrant Resource Center. The following account was written by Rick Mobbs, and I think it greatly reflects how shocking this particular experience was for most of us.
….the returning migrants—the returned migrants—straggled into the Agua Prieta Migrant Resource Center in ones and twos, threes, fives, sevens. Weary, dirty, bruised, aching, sad, some in shock, some tearful, all were tired to the bone. These were migrant workers captured in the Arizona desert by the U.S. Border Patrol. They were arrested, booked, processed and held for varying lengths of time. The coyotes, their hired guides, tell their groups to run if confronted, describing the Border Patrol agents as sadistic fiends. These migrants had been caught, and perhaps a lucky thing too, as the desert brings horrible deaths to hundreds and hundreds of migrants every year. Tonight my group of UWC-USA students was? staffing the Center. We had the 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. shift. The regular staffers gave us a half hour briefing and went home, leaving us alone to deal with whomever and whatever showed up.
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Our job was to watch for these people and help them if we were able. In their condition they were easy prey for predators, robbers, and rapists. The returning migrants were easy to distinguish from the other pedestrians walking back and forth through the border crossing. We recognized them by their lack of shoelaces. Shoelaces are confiscated by the Border Patrol. We recognized them by their dulled affect and the way they clustered together as they walked, as if for protection and safety. We counted and noted for the record the ones who passed by our open doors without turning, and we waved inside the ones too hungry, scared, sick, exhausted, or defeated to walk farther. For most it was the first time in many days that they could feel safe, hear civil words, tell their stories and be recognized as human beings. Most were cowed, ill from desert exposure and exhaustion, bruised, cut and scraped by stumbling about and falling in the desert at night. We gave them places to sit, brought them steaming coffee, burritos, sandwiches and pastries made by church groups or donated by individuals. We supplied phone cards for them to use to call their families, their husbands and wives, their parents.
The first group of tall/short, light-skinned/dark-skinned, men/women and a child of maybe 9 or 10, arrived penniless and pesoless. They had been robbed twice in the desert by men with guns before being picked up and jailed by the Border Patrol. Between 10 p.m. Friday and 1 a.m. Saturday, 30 or so people straggled in. We lost count of the number who passed on by without stopping. This flow of returnees went on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and this is a relatively small town border crossing. Another man, in his 40’s, thin, so thin and pinched, came in just as we were closing. His group had been robbed by men with pistols before they even got to the border. Fifteen of them were made to lie down and were systematically robbed of all their valuables. This man had been across before and knew to take only a few dollars, but others in the group were carrying $300 with them. He said the coyote set them up but wouldn’t admit it, and afterwards everyone walked across with him anyway. After walking two nights and sleeping in the day to avoid being seen, they were spotted by a helicopter and arrested by the Border Patrol. I asked him where he was trying to go. He said, “Texas”. I asked if anything good had ever happened in Texas. He smiled and said, “My wife.”
Three other women were also in the Center, part of another group picked up in the desert. One of those women had sent her three year old son through the border with fake papers, in the care of a couple with legal documents and with a plan to rendezvous in Phoenix. When she was picked up and returned to Mexico, she lost contact with the couple with her baby and, in any case, didn’t have another $2,500 to pay to have the baby brought back through the border and returned to her. She stayed in the Center until we locked up at 1:30 a.m., at which point we gave her a ride to a cheap hotel on a dusty, unpaved section of Avenida 1 near Calle 7. She didn’t know how she was going to reach her baby. Before getting out of the car she cried and asked us if we would find the child in Phoenix. She had the address. I told her I would meet her the next day at noon with Naomi or Adriana Botero, the vice-president of UWC-USA, who was a member of our group and a native Spanish speaker.
On the way home, in a lull in the conversation about the woman, I said, “Yes, but what would Jesus do?” The kids fell absolutely silent until they realized I was kidding. The laughter broke the spell of despair. But the question resonated with me and maybe with them. Thoughts of the woman and the child were with me all night.
“Historically, the conquest destroyed the outward form of what had already inwardly decayed; it cleared away with regrettable brutality and thoroughness a system of life which, with all its gifts of order, culture, and law, had worn itself into senile debility, and had lost the powers of regeneration and growth.”
-Will Durant (on the decline of the Byzantine Empire, The Story of Civilization, Volume IV)
The Mad Celt asks…What forms of conquest do YOU think the U.S. is succumbing to? Are they outer forces, inner forces, both? What, if anything, can we do about it? Discuss.
‘America’s main export is envy.” Used to be, anyway. On a national level I think our downfall was written in our hubris and hypocrisy, our ruthless death-dealing, our arrogant policy-making, our addiction to getting our way, our rationalizations and self-justifications. It was written in hidden motives and in our denial of truth and responsibility. It was written in our unwillingness to confer human status – and human rights – where it did not suit us. Power and strength have corrupted us. These are human faults and foibles, not limited to Americans, and lie in wait for every individual and society but they are most readily recognized in the strong, for the unchecked display the wildest excesses.
How far will we fall? I dunno. I think it is true we are a divided society and that our cognitive dissonance is building. Perhaps a bottom is coming. But then we still have to do something with it, make something positive and creative out of the ashes. We have a little window of opportunity here. If we bounce right back we’ll probably lose it.
“We have met the enemy and they are us.” as Pogo used to say.
We’ll call this painting this week’s image prompt. I’m in Agua Prieta, Mexico, on the border with Arizona with a group of UWC-USA students who are doing a week-long Border Issues study. Internet is sketchy so while I have it I’ll say a few things, but first a picture and then a poem. More about Border Issues in another post.
What so deeply underlies our baseline conceptions that fathom weights turn in circles and loops, like one who seeks hope in the ocean, swimming in waters far beyond waters we know? What overarches our thinking from such a far distance we can only guess… Maybe…. as above, so below? What holds us here like the unknown unseeable holds the mosaic total?
Father swings through the trees, he wrestles crocodiles, white men, personal demons. I see a small jewel – green hills and blue ocean – rotating inside the compass of heaven. Fine silver threads in circles and spirals, fractured pinpoints of gold, ruby and emerald hang in a canopy of velvet. The absence of light does not equal darkness, sight shatters on far-away anvils and leaves hammer shards, finally silent.
Through transparent eyelids I watch a sandstorm cover the sun. Twilight rides not on light but whips around from darkness, a rude wind marshaling vast killing wings. Between sight and knowing are clear jelly curtains and outside, the mean blur of teeth. The wind is an iron-framed plow, a rusty, steaming, oil -flecked stallion with shoes of blue steel, throwing up sand, clacking, spitting and clattering. It is a torn accordion,
wheezing and whistling, entropy compressed and then tortured through ripped leather fittings. The wind hits the dunes with cutting fists of diamond. It is here that my mother nurses her husband. She waits down the wind, the triumph of darkness, the blowing sand peeling skin, carving bones. The wind grinds the rocks down. Mother swings Father onto the wind and leaps on behind him. She seizes a good night not to go
gentle in and leans to the stallion’s ear hissing: is this the worst you can do, evil thing? A maniac riding a maniac wind, heels hard in his ribcage, fists in his mane, holding a man who is dying. She drives her heels in and spurs the wind on, into the well of souls that they came from. The wind sends it’s unrest, it’s hornets and locusts but nothing remains here to kill or consume except death, and death is dying. Time has unrolled
to its end over nothing and no new myth comes. No milk streams through space from her breasts, no planets or galaxies spring from her forehead or anus and he’s just crazy, with crazy thoughts, like: the son beside the elephant is so small, yet the elephant obeys him. Higher now than she has ever been, she holds her husband through the driest time. The black wings of another wind sweep down around them.
The ground turns upside down and vanishes. The stars take their place in the sand. Silence and stillness replace sound and movement and now the unteaching, in earnest, begins.
I wrote this poem when my father was dying. I am posting it now because it came to mind as I was thinking about the recent passing of my friend, Marcia Ryder.
Marcia was a native of Wellfleet Mass, a ninth generation Cap Codder. She was a painter, a ceramic and enamel artist, a sailor, gardener, art teacher, wife, daughter, sister, friend. She was married to Roger Cole. She died April 1 of this year.
I never thought I would be writing this. I knew Marcia since high school where she was a year behind me and oh so far ahead. I used to check in with her once or twice a year but have been out of touch for these last years and just now when I was looking on the web to see if I could find a current email address I found instead that she had died. This is so sad. Marcia seemed to be made of light. She was a lifelong beacon and inspiration to me and probably to many others.
In high school we had the same tuned-in art teacher, Marcia Sewall, who inspired us to both to careers in the arts. I bumbled my way into mine. Marcia took a more direct route, maybe knowing from the start that she was born to be an artist and a teacher. She taught art in the Kittery, Maine school system for 28 years. She touched and brightened the lives of I don’t know how many kids and teens and grown-ups. I can’t begin to describe her grace and humor, the beauty she radiated and she found in nature and in the people around her.
This picture prompt does not do her justice but it is one of the ones that stands out for me tonight. I hope your week is a good one. Goodnight, Marcia Ryder.
Oops. It’s been a topsy turvy week. I apologize to those who have sent work in that I have not yet put up. I’ll try to post it later today or tomorrow. In the meantime, here is something Broadus and I started in the Spring that we are just getting back to. I don’t know if it is finished, but I am ready to be done with it. Remember when you are looking for stories here that this is a collaboration with an eight year old, one who will be nine on Halloween. One who continues to lead me. Best wishes for a great week.
I just get better and better looking. Thanks, Virginia Jones, for sending this little portrait, a memento of our Grand Canyon rafting trip. Photo by Mike Jones or Liz Willey.
In the beginning, when we were still made of mud, and pieces of ourselves were always falling off, it was necessary to live close to water. Running water was best. Still water makes smelly mud, and we would be too easily stalked if we were to leave smelly droppings as we walked to and fro across the earth. Red mud was the best of all, because it was the oldest, ground from the most ancient stone to the finest dust and therefore an aid to memory, for we were an old people, the oldest people, and too easily did we forget our origins. We saw that often, especially upon the veldt but also far to the arid, mudless north. Straggling remnents of once vital families and strong tribes, mud slatherings fallen away, soft skin the color of sand, dry grass, dark water, shadow, or the clouds at sunset; peppered with bug bites and burned by the sun and worst of all, no memory of who they were, where they came from, how they came to be, and no idea of where they were going. Sad people with vacant eyes, lost in the bewilderness, but lessons to us all.
Like the moon she swims in darkness.
She gives, and only hands can block her gifts.
She wraps herself in blues and greens
and tastes of loam and snow, of marmalade
and rolling thunder.
Summer hides within the everglades with her,
and plays upon her belly.
But Summer’s knees are getting older now,
older as the rocking earth a slower,
slower movement makes.
She sleeps, and quiet trees and green birds
with eyes like conduits to god record and watch
the burst with which, too late,
summer struggles to be free,
and gasping, drowns in autumn.
A day early but I’ll be out of town tonight (off to Santa Fe to hear Isabel Allende with my son, Broadus, who loves her children’s stories, and a van full of international students from UWC-USA). And besides, this is one of the paintings I am currently working on. I’m interested to see what you see in this work-in-progress. Best wishes for a great, productive, safe, happy week.
This site is a work in progress, a place to post my work and reflections and, on the Storybook Collaborative page, to post the work of others using the images collaboratively.
Although much of my painting could be called narrative, I don't always take the time to find the stories. So it is a pleasure to see them used as writing prompts, and to link to the stories, poetry and myths others find in the paintings.
The PAGES column below contains links to my writing, to the Collaborative Storybook and a sampling of Favorites, to my Artist Website, and to my New Mexico Storyboards blog.
I am not presently posting weekly image prompts. I am returning to this blog after a long hiatus and I am enjoying just watching it evolve.
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