Why I am like a Braque painting

Why I am like a Braque Painting

I like Braque. He was the analytical Cubist and continued to be so well into the synthetic phase and farther on when others allowed Cubism to delve into realms of Surrealism, including Picasso, whose shapes became a spectacle of fanciful forms and traces of what Cubism had been, now painted merely as Modernist icons with no real Modernist significance. Braque continues to pay attention to the dynamics of a composition well after others had made a farce of Cubism. He paid attention to special relationships and volume of the form within those relationships, as a room for example, where, and this is well into the 20’s, he still focused on the perspective of the viewer on this very blatantly artificial setting, this art setting that is a stage to challenge norms of special dynamics from the analytical eye of the viewer, witnessing the piece, not for any sort of representation but to examine these formulas and the malleability of the literal, or the absence of the literal, or absolute.
But back in the second decade of the cacophonous twentieth century, we see these elements manifest early in Braque’s early work, like the early Picasso, placing in that very two dimensional range of artifice, all that is deep, made up in short, of bodily planes, angles and perspectives of every sort, locked into this two-dimensional artificial reality, the reality that was almost a proof that art by its very two-dimensional, painterly nature could indeed house fathoms, multitude of depth and perspectival recessions and contradictions in the mode which is art, free, honest, true to its very nature as an artificial avatar yet able to contain the vicissitudes of a guitar player or a café table with all of the dimension that one might find in a piece by Velasquez or Manet.
Why I am like Braque painting is due to the artifice of the world and my own placement in it. That shallow plane is the reality of society, the expectations, limitations, demands and ironies that potentially “frame” an individual in this artifice. I defy that. Although I must obey the rules, I have no choice in this matter, I am slave to the artifice of the world; but I am no slave to myself and I am able to transcend this shallow plane by playing by the rules, but defying them through authenticity. The more I play this game, trapped in this artifice, the more my own authenticity becomes manifest. The more I concede the more my primal nature takes shape in this contradiction of acceptance of the artifice but establishing my own character, true to my authentic human being who sees and thinks in more than two dimentions, takes shape and my abstracted form, is able to breath and cultivate itself in this two dimensional space.
The age of the history painting is past and we subsist in a shallow existence- depth is an illusion and we cannot deny societal confines. Anyone who denies this is denying themselves. But I allow myself the freedom to express my multi-dimensionality in a way that Braque would, placing temperament against intellect, desire against fantasy till my character is so abstracted that it bears the sense of three dimensionality.

LICENCE TO BE MADDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

The words I listen to on the HiFi express how I feel, which is a cavern of stalagmites and stalactites, a cavern which is continued on and on, the words I hear echo through the walls but only penetrate to a certain depth. The pain I feel penetrates farther. The pain I feel penetrates deeper and resonates and reverberates, causing a cacophony of waves which fluctuate in all directions. But this madness is not something lost. I have a control on my certitude, but how or much I do and do not have power over. My control is of a minimal extent. And with that life proceeds at a tolerable, pleasurable, manageable certitude. But there is another rate and that is a life with an acceptance of madness.
This life, be not swayed, is not one predetermined, but one meandered upon by choices of habit and desire, of love and lust. This life given to madness, is not given to with full fruition of insanity, but is freckled with tangible productivity, one not initially chosen but which is accepted to, with a greater degree, and with nothing sacrificed.
Having the means, a life that is to be lived with pleasure, must be lived with essence intermingled with leisure. Such a life, if attainable, can be durable with such pleasure, while a certain degree of madness is accepted and ALLOWED! Such seeking can be found by degrees of madness which are the ends of the productivity. Without such productivity, misery and loss are a result, but with a definite degree of productivity, one might, if chosen, find themselves in that certain state of madness which is the chosen pinafore of the productive state.
This certain intoxification is indeterminate, however, for the present, the writer chooses either nullity or intoxification to occupy himself with while all else is void. The degree of pleasure enabled by the present occupied state is entirely satisfactory, yet this state, left unattended, ostensibly will lead to boredom, or worse, inactivity which will only hinder and impede the occupied state. So either state, occupied or non should be consumed by a self imposed madness thereby benefiting both states of being.
The madness of the occupied state will increase the output of that state, and the freedom, and that is what we speak of, freedom of mind, will only liberate the state of being when the mind is not occupied in its employed state of being.
Thus, the reader might be assured that a state of productive eudemonia might be experienced by the writer in either states of occupation or leisure, the one contributing to the other. It must be stated that neither states of being are chosen, both are a product of self, but both reacting towards a state which might result in a perpetual pleasure, a euphoria resulting from an assurance that the ends accomplished are enjoyed by the means.
So it must be confessed that there, although there is no end to the echo in the cavernous depths, this cacophony of sounds, might be a joyous one. It might be confessed that this Ehren E. Clark might be a geological marvel in this cavern, this well deep into the Earth which has no end. This Ehren E. Clark is a unique wonder waiting to be beheld, with a character uniquely his own and forever to perpetuate.

Discovering ruins of a medieval abbey, wandering through it with a strange reverence, awe, one is filled with a feeling of wonderment. Upon exploring a castle nestled along the Rhine, why is it that our thoughts are elevated as we reflect to an age long past, stories recreated in our minds? Why when touring France and upon entering a cathedral, with its towering nave and illumination of light, we enter, not with a cheerful exuberance as we might have felt upon discovering the structure externally, but once inside this immensity, with a sense of solemnity, spiritual contemplation, rejuvenation and inspiration?
When a tourist navigates the ruins of the forum in Rome, the mind takes an imaginative journey to a day when all of this was in its grandeur, when the jagged remnants once housed senators and emperors. Westminster abbey recalls to the mind a sense of a thousand years of English history- kings, queens, stirring our minds and our hearts with a distant past, contrasting the busy streets outside and the flashing lights of the city. Even more so the ruins of Stonehenge in rural England bring to mind strange images and indescribable feelings of an obscure past to the soul- a mysticism is experienced at the mystery of an ancient culture with unseen abilities to create such a structure. The human spirit is elevated to new heights- as at the pyramids at Giza- a tribute to human capabilities and spirituality that is baffling to our modern sensibility.
Such is the same with wondrous contemplations of nature. The cliffs of Dover, on a cloudy day with stormy sees inspire the mind. The sun as it sets over the Pyrenees in the south of France; a forgotten rustic cottage nestled in some wood in the Alps- a sense of pure magic is felt. Even more dramatic are the moors of England, the Highlands of Scotland- they fill us completely with feelings unknown- a fullness and awe at the sublime creations of nature, and a connection with the Earth and that which is eternal.
The glory of the Danube meandering through Salzburg, the Volga, produce a new feeling with every turn and every mile of its continual flow of waters flooding our inner being with a wealth of permanence in the land; in this connection to that which is timeless we feel a security in the present- in our own self. We feel connected with the waters of the Mediterranean, the islands of Greece, the sun over the valleys and vineyards of Italy- a sense of calm repose with what once was and still is and will be continue to be. This sublime feeling of the world, that outward world, physical and natural, gives a greater sense of who we are, the possibilities we possess and the possibility of things to come challenging the anxieties we may have felt before we are transfixed by these revelations.
As we leave behind those things of a more temporal nature and contemplate that which is timeless and sublime, we reconnect with the spirit of humanity. The past and the present become one and for a moment we forget our troubles, feel the minutia of our lives and feel a sense of calm, a peacefulness and repose as we are lost in the wholeness of the universe. All in life is transient: the world seems to move forward at an alarming rate. One moment we are in our youth and the next we are experiencing the signs of age. Those things which connect us with something outside of ourselves, something of a more permanent nature, a timelessness, galvanize us for a moment to the non-ephemeral, the universal.

Pippi

Pippi Explores Place
Ehren E. Clark

Seasoned artist Anne Watson, Utah native who has lived in New York City for the past 18 years as a professional artist and has recently moved back to her home, has expressed her anxiety that “I cannot make sense of place very well, or time, or sense or nonsense”. In the upcoming exhibit Pippi Explores Place at the Art Access Gallery, the artist uses various media to initiate a search for truth, her truth, a confrontation with reality, and trying to make sense of that “place” she has been searching for- her “place”, her sense of identity, her oneness with the world. This accomplishment is achieved through a very unlikely source: through the eyes of the fondly remembered mischievous, tenacious and lovable childhood icon Pippi Longstocking.
Watson’s canvases are angelic, whimsical, surprising, naive, clever, aggressive, and never predictable. Painted by the hands of an expert who has left traditional painting behind and abandoned herself to forms of pure meaning, Watson’s work in the exhibit is a series of paintings linked together by common elements. She explains “I don’t do work which stands alone...it is a narrative, a story, a series.”
But it is Pippi Longstocking, childhood misfit, who is the star of the show, and she leads the narrative -as Virgil leads Dante through Purgatory and Paradise. Watson, who remembers and cherishes memories of Pippi from her childhood, owns the books and shares them with her daughter, has an interesting relationship with the icon- “muse”, “misfit”, “her voice”. “She speaks to me and helps me understand things- takes me through the ‘landscape’...she is the voice.”
Watson grew up in the west coast, left for college and subsequently received her MA in fine art at NYU. She has lived in New York City for 18 years as a successful artist, and in returning to her native Utah, has come full circle. She and her daughter have lived now in Utah for 3 years and her integrity as an artist has led her to this exhibition- “trying to understand place”. As she has returned to America’s heartland, she has sought truth in places of thought, places of landscape, places of environment, and places of self.
Using Pippi, Watson is able to explore her “landscape”. Pippi wanders capriciously through the hinterlands of the Western USA (which Watson rediscovers from her childhood), in a way that is honest, unprejudiced and unbounded, allowing for a free flow of thought. A motif which runs through the cycle is a flow words, randomly placed, arbitrarily positioned, seemingly autonomous and express innermost thoughts and feelings of Pippi her discovery of the “landscape”. These words are free form -the voice of Pippi: childish ramblings- but prophetic.
These flows of thought are most predominate of war- a theme pervasive in the cycle - that reality which forms an integral part of “place” so relevant to the “landscape” in which we all exist. When Watson was asked how Pippi feels about the war, she quickly responded that “she hates it! She hates the war, she hates violence, she hates stupidity.” When asked of her own feelings on the war, she stated; “I don’t have answers, but that is truth- facing uncertainty about what we are doing.... and the harm being done”. Watson uses Pippi’s honesty to discover “place” through the eyes of a child, which are susceptible and sensitive to injustice and the subtle inhumanities we are so inured to.
Watson is “grappling with place” and hopes that others will embark on a similar search. What Watson gives inevitably is honesty, and “the more honest the work, the more universal it is”. Watson wonders, when the public see the show, if “she (Pippi) will see you and talk to you, or maybe some will just walk by and yell, or some will simply say -‘dumb puppet’.”
Maybe after seeing these works some may go back to their attics, dust off their books of Pippi Longstocking and reminisce on that crazy rambunctious youth we all read and relive those memories, thought, ideals, and hold on a bit more to that which so often seems lost.

Michael and his Tricycle

Michael is a dreamer. Some young boys want to be firemen, or cowboys; Michael wanted to be a world class cyclist. This dream began when Michael was only three. While he watched television, he saw something that made him dream big. Michael saw on the television an amazing group of men, racing down a hill on something that Michael had never seen before because he was just three. Michael loved his toy cars and the machine that he saw on the television with men going fast down a hill was a little like a car but it was not. It had wheels and went down the road, fast, very fast, but this was something different and new. This machine had two wheels, not four, and, like a car, went fast, very fast. It was the speed that really caught Michael’s attention. This made Michael very excited. Michael had a new dream now, to be like one of these men, speeding down a hill with the world flying by him. He asked what that amazing machine was and his parents told him it was called a bicycle.
It was only a few weeks before Christmas and all that Michael could think about was what he asked, and asked and asked for- a bicycle like the one he saw on the television. Then he could go as fast as the men he saw on the TV. When Christmas morning came, racing downstairs to see what Santa had brought them, who do you think was first to see his presents. Michael because Michael ran fast, as fast as he could down the stairs, knowing that when he got there he would see that wonderful new shiny bicycle that would let him fly down the hill like the men he saw on the television. But, when Michael went into the living room, he saw something that looked a little like the bicycle, but it definitely was not like the one he had seen on TV.
What Michael found next to the Christmas tree had three wheels, not two; it was the same color as the one he saw on TV, had a handle like the one on the TV, but it had three wheels! Michael was confused. How could he go fast on that? Michael started to cry. He had wanted to be that man so much, to feel what he felt, and to go fast. Michael did not want to even look at this “thing”, which was definitely NOT a bicycle. His parents called it a tricycle and Michael did not like what Santa had brought him.
Day after day, the tricycle sat outside the back door. Michael became, day by day, little by little more and more curious till one day Michael thought he would look closer at the “thing” brought by Santa. He looked closely at it, the three wheels, the red frame, the shiny handle bars; Michael started to like his new present from Santa. His heart started to pump a little faster and then faster still. Faster till he touched the handle bars, then grabbed them, and as he grabbed those strong handle bars, he threw his leg over the seat and get on the new tricycle.
The first thing Michael saw, like the man on TV, was that his legs were long enough to turn the pedals. Then he noticed his arms reached to the handle bars like the man on the television. Maybe this tricycle was not such a bad thing after all. Michael suddenly had an exciting thought. “Maybe, maybe, with three wheels I can go even faster” he said to himself! He called to his mother to see if she would let him drive along the sidewalk. He did not even notice that because it had three wheels he did not have to learn how to ride this tricycle, but suddenly he felt his dream might come true!
Michael started slowly and then peddled harder and then harder and even harder till he felt the wind on his face, saw the world go by and he felt he WAS that man on the TV! But for Michael, he thought he could go even faster. He had THREE wheels, not two! He did not know that the next year he would get a two wheeled bicycle with training wheels. The year after that the training wheels would be gone. Who knows, maybe someday Michael really will race down the hill with the world flying by him, going fast, very fast.

A World Without Art
The concept seems frightening when it is considered. What would the world be like without art? What would the world be like without music, without film and other media, without literature? Yes, this would be frightful, a desert. This is not simply rhetoric, but a reality which is averted by artists who are responsible for making the world vibrant, cultural, colorful, interesting, enjoyable as well as provocative, meaningful, insightful and interesting.
When the artist is not patronized, what is the result? The result is that society falls short of where it could be- a place where free expression is allowed to prosper and grow. The world is not only beautified but new ideas are allowed to cultivate and challenge norms; in short…progression. The arts allow a society to progress through painting, sculpture, video, song, performance, film, all creating a dialogue, a forum by which those whose calling it is to be an artist might be understood and heard while making life worth living, through beauty.
When a community gravitates around a few select “celebrity” artists who are revered and paid mass sums, where do others, countless others with as much to say through their art as their abundance of talent, find an outlet where their art might be seen and “heard?”
Sadly, in most communities this is the case. There is a monopoly on art by the few and a recession for many. This by no means implies that those monopolists are anything greater than the others, they are not. Art may be compared to a corporation where the “giants” leave main street deserted. In our community there are giants and they need not be mentioned as they are so well known. But as galleries such as OneTen are faced with closure and the spectrum of quality art is ignored as degenerate, there is something wrong with this situation.
The exhibition, “A World Without Art” was created to challenge the thinking of a community who sees little or no value in art aside from that which they are accustomed to and feel comfortable with. This show is a pro-active statement against such norms in our community. It is an opportunity where many artists have been given the chance to say what they think about the inequality which is the art world in our town. We will not sit lazily around and complain, but show the population of this area that there is more out there, there are more artists worth considering than the few that monopolize the attention and revenue which could be more evenly dispersed…if only the public is willing to stop, consider and think!
Much time and talent has gone into this exhibition, placed directly on Center Street in stores that have closed down due to similar circumstances. Many members of the community pass by this location every day. Many will notice it, and sadly many will not take even take a first look. Regardless, this is an opportunity for those who have worked on the show, artists with much talent and creativity who center their lives around art, live and breathe by it, to show what they can do. This is not fantasy art or fairy tale art which belongs in children’s books, or art that should be used for religious purposes.
To patronize such art is fine, but don’t stop there! There is more to see, more to think about and experience. If the world were left only with the Walmarts of the art world, people might stop and realize what they have missed out on. If the world was left without art, it would cease to be.

The current exhibition at the Salt Lake City Art Center: “Printmaking by Four American Masters- Pop Art through the End of the Century” combines collage, drawings and painting from four exceptional and ground-breaking artists: Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Brice Marden, and Tony Fitzpatrick in four narrative cycles of prints. Each cycle is unique in character and poignancy of form and meaning, representing each artist’s approach to their medium and their approach to their subject matter within a narrative cycle.
Brice Marden’s prints, “Ten Day Series 1971” has arguably the least representational subject matter, yet is charged in content. Marden’s prints are highly minimal, exploring the relationships between space, shape and color. The pieces work together and not individually. One may categorize the works into shape- rectangular or square, and how Marden approaches the spaces within the forms using color. The profundity of his approach is how he contrasts the shapes and the spaces within the shapes using variations of shade: white, grey or black, and the nuances, brought out by these. A harmonious whole in the cycle is achieved which gives an ethereal and contemplative effect to the narrative.
Frank Stella, a pioneer of Minimalism, steps outside of his roots in his narrative cycle “Had Gadya: A Response to Yiddish Passover Song, 1982-84.” These lithographs focus on form and color, each substantiating the other in unified compositions. Unlike Marden, these works are highly expressionistic, uniting recognizable geometric shapes in the style of Leger, and colorful abstractions similar to that of De Kooning. The product is a Modernist use of shape and color to create a flat plane through juxtapositions. Each has its own unique palate of color and form, which gives holistic cohesion to the individual work and together as a narrative a homogenous whole.
Tony Fitzpatrick’s ‘Infinite Wager’ is a more capricious cycle, using a multiplicity of visual puns- iconography of playing cards, astrological symbols, tarot cards, etc., in a collage-like manner creating unique compositions: “Moth of Clubs”, “The King of the Penny Poker”, etc., incorporated into a cycle, which is purely banal or high art. It is the nature of his collage (visual puns) and their relationships within the cycle that makes this high art.
Certainly the ultimate usurper of the everyday to fine art was Andy Warhol. The exhibition shows the silk-screen prints of the artist’s, not merely a pastiche of his work, but a specific cycle documenting prominent Jews from the twentieth-century. Albert Einstein, George Gershwin, Gertrude Stein, Golda Meir, Franz Kafka are but a few. This is the ultimate example in the exhibit of the strength of the cycle, here not only formal but ideological. Warhol, unlike many of his other recognizable works gives each individual portrait a varied, skewed and quilt-like coloring, each unique and seemingly fit to the individual. For example the Kafka portrait has fields of varied blues with a flash of yellow, where as the Stein portrait incorporates softer, pastel fields of hue.
The exhibition is one worth seeing, not merely for the purposes of viewing great artists such as Warhol or a Stella, but to examine and appreciate how each artist approaches a unique concept within a narrative context, and how the relationships of prints in the cycle are articulated. The strength of each can be seen and all may be appreciated as each are considered.