Dan Callis Art

new things stirring

2011-12-10T00:36:00.000-08:00

2011-12-10T00:27:00.000-08:00

2011-12-10T00:24:00.000-08:00

2011-12-10T00:21:00.000-08:00

2011-12-10T00:13:00.000-08:00

currently at the studio

2011-05-02T09:32:00.000-07:00

Lo-Limb, an exhibition

2011-01-31T10:59:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow night opens my show at Biola University's Art Gallery. The works in the show are selections done during and since my fall, 2009 sabbatical residency in Barcelona, Spain.

Jorge Lusi Borges

2011-01-18T07:45:00.000-08:00

oil on linen, Callis

Inferno, I, 32

From the twilight of day till the twilight of evening, a leopard, in the last years of the thirteenth century, would see some wooden planks, some vertical iron bars, men and women who changed, a wall and perhaps a stone gutter filled with dry leaves. He did not know, could not know, that he longed for love and cruelty and the hot pleasure of tearing things to pieces and the wind carrying the scent of a deer, but something suffocated and rebelled within him and God spoke to him in a dream: "You live and will die in this prison so that a man I know of may see you a certain number of times and not forget you and place your figure and symbol in a poem which has its precise place in the scheme of the universe. You suffer captivity, but you will have given a word to the poem." God, in the dream, illumined the animal's brutishness and the animal understood these reasons and accepted his destiny, but, when he awoke, there was in him only an obscure resignation, a valorous ignorance, for the machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of a beast.

Years later, Dante was dying in Ravenna, as unjustified and as lonely as any other man. In a dream, God declared to him the secret purpose of his life and work; Dante, in wonderment, knew at last who and what he was and blessed the bitterness of his life. Tradition relates that, upon waking, he felt that he had received and lost an infinite thing, something he would not be able to recuperate or even glimpse, for the machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of men.

Lo-Limb

2011-01-17T07:36:00.001-08:00

Lo-Limb were the words that had been scribed on a small simple bright yellow signboard hung in front of my family home. A single tree stood on the front edge of our property between the house and the sidewalk. A large, gesturing branch swung out across the public walkway just at adult head height. It was the only thing that encroached on that walkway for as far as your eye could see but my father was sure that people would miss it and strike their head on the limb so he made a small wooden sign, approx. 3”x9”, painted it cautionary yellow and in black marker wrote the words: Lo-Limb. This was then hung off the tree branch. Even with the warning sign it was not unusual to see some distracted walker bump off that fleshy arm as they moved along completely self-absorbed and unaware. My father was a practical man he thought if he simply pointed those things out people would surly take notice. Perhaps I am more like my father then I ever realized. As we skirt across the surface of our lives what are the things that reach down from the sky to remind us of the gifts of the present moments.

A few new things

2011-01-13T16:18:00.000-08:00

Some things that are happening in the studio. Two bodies of work, both small scale (approx. 12") oil on linen. One set of works are non-serial based works full of color and movement. The other set is serial based and much quieter. Don't want to talk about them much, just show you some work.

David Wilcox at the Coach House

2011-01-13T01:34:00.000-08:00

At last nights performance I decided that you probably need to be over 40 to really appreciate the music of David Wilcox. Partially (but of least importance) because there is no real innovation, no provocative vocalization or challenging discordant use of instrumentation. He doesn't scream, wail, or whine. He doesn't bring to the stage an existential angst or wafted disengagement (all things I truly enjoy mind you.) He is simply and unapologetically a storyteller and song crafter. He is a troubadour. I don't think I have seen a performer more present on stage. During the whole performance he seldom stopped smiling and it was a smile of sheer delight (I know, for some of you that alone would be enough to discourage you from seeing him but I found it contagious.) But not to be confused, the smile was not because his subject matter was light or simple, generally is was not, but because he seems to love his art and loves those willing to listen. As a musician he is profoundly talented and demanding but his craft serves his story telling and the two are seamlessly meshed. The reason i say you need to be over 40 is because his songs speak to a life that has been dragged around for a while. The kind of life that has enough experience that one can begin to look back on it for possible insights. The thing that I find most endearing about his writing is that he believes we are capable of such insights. And because he does believe that he is willing to be extremely honest and vulnerable in his performances. If you ever get a chance to see him live I recommend you take it.

new life

2011-01-07T10:28:00.001-08:00

Stepped out of the studio this morning and I had a new arrival, a monarch butterfly. A few facts about my new studio mate. did you know that the monarch butterflies that live in North America migrate? They are the only insect to migrate up to 2,500 miles to get out of the cold weather and hibernate. But not all monarch butterflies migrate; only the fourth generation of monarchs can migrate each year because the first three generations die after about six weeks from escaping their cocoons.

They go through four generations each year. The first three generations hatch from their cocoon state and live for up to six weeks, but the fourth generation continues to migrate to a warmer climate, hibernate, and then start a new first generation in the spring time.

Female monarchs have several hundred eggs to lay during their short life in the spring time. Monarch butterfly larvae eat milkweed and they need them to live. Milkweed plants are been cleared for roadway and development and the monarch population is decreasing because of this.

All right boys and girls that our nature lesson for the day - now get back to work!

2011-01-03T22:32:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine recently said that my paintings were very vaudevillian, what say of nature?

Mary Oliver

2011-01-03T22:24:00.000-08:00

White Heron Rises Over Blackwater

Mary Oliver

I wonder what it is that I will accomplish today

If anything can be called that marvelous word.

It won't be

My kind of work, which is only putting words on a page,

The pencil

Haltingly calling up

The light of the world,

Yet nothing appearing on paper half as bright

As the mockingbird's verbal hilarity

In the still unleafed shrub in the churchyard-

Or the white heron rising over the swamp and the darkness,

His yellow eyes and broad wings wearing

The light of the world in the light of the world-

Ah yes, I see him.

He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.

Book of Hours

2010-12-28T11:04:00.000-08:00

Dear darkening ground
you've endured so patiently the walls we've built
please give the cities one more hour
and the churches and cloisters two
and let those who labor
let their toils still hold them for another five or seven
before that hour of inconsolable terror
when you take back your name from all things.
Just give me a little more time
I just need a little more time
because I am going to love things as no one has thought to love them
till there real and worthy of you.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Gifts

2010-12-27T08:55:00.000-08:00

"Every culture offers its citizens an image of what it is to be a man or woman of substance. There have been times and places in which a person came into his or her social being through the dispersal of his gifts, the "big man" or "big woman" being that one through whom the most gifts flowed. The mythology of a market society reverses the picture: getting rather than giving is the mark of a substantial person, and the hero is "self-possessed," "self-made." So long as these assumptions rule, a disquieting sense of triviality, of worthlessness even, will nag the man or woman who labors in the service of a gift and whose products are not adequately described as commodities. Where we reckon our substance by our acquisitions, the gifts of the gifted man are powerless to make him substantial." Lewis Hyde

"The human gaze is not the closed, fixed view of a camera but is creative and constructive. Both the gaze that sees and the object that is seen construct themselves simultaneously in the one act of vision." John O'Donohue

Ben White and Co.

2010-11-21T08:20:00.001-08:00

Ben White - Salvation from PilgrimTreehouse on Vimeo.

2010-11-20T00:53:00.001-08:00

2010-11-19T20:37:00.001-08:00

Stories of Earth Keeping, Gary Snyder and Ellen Davis

2010-07-21T22:46:00.000-07:00

The Sanctified Life

ink, gesso on text, 2000

Dan Callis

Today I listened to a really interesting podcast with Gary Snyder: poet, environmental activist, and Zen Buddhist. Over all the Snyder interview was a good overview of the last 50 years of American Environmentalism punctuated by Snyder's lyrical, free verse poems. I did take issue with one pint Snyder makes which is a small one within his interview but it is a theme that comes up again and again in the Deep Ecology writings.

Snyder talks about how his Buddhist world-view informs his practice as an earth keeper. He states that the first ethical precept of Buddhism is to "cause the least possible harm." He then equates that to the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments: "Thou shall not kill." He then states, "but in the Abrahamic tradition, ie, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, thou shall not kill applies only to human beings and there is absolutely no concern for the rest of life." He strongly implies that these traditions have a deep responsibility for our current environmental problems.

I am mindful of the scholarship of Dr. Ellen Davis, Hebrew scholar and Old Testament professor from Yale, now at Duke Divinity School. She has been writing on this issue for years and more recently she has been collaborating with Wendell Berry on issues of environmental stewardship and earth keeping grounded within faith traditions. She states, "According to the Judeo-Christian scriptures we are part of an intricate web of physical relations that are at the same time moral relations." "We are placed creatures, we are placed within an order." She speaks of the first book of the Hebrew bible, the Tanoak, the book of Genesis. According to Davis the narrative account of the fifth day of creation God offered a blessing to the creatures of the sky and the creatures of the sea. It was the very same blessing God offered the created man of the sixth day: the same. She states, "So we are living amongst creatures that are blessed before we even come into existence." According to the Genesis account, Davis says, "Humans occupy a special place of power, privilege and responsibility in the created world...a condition of "skilled mastery" (the Hebrew interpretation of Gen. 1:26) It is set by the precondition of the blessings of the creatures of the sea and the sky. The human can not undo the prior blessing of the creatures by God." "How we see the world is how we value it", Davis says, "and according to the Hebrew Scriptures, "God saw the world and said it was good." In the Christian New Testament John 3:16 states, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son...God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." The world. All of it.

Let us not so easily place blame based on an impoverished understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures where the care of the land is considered a sacred task. Let us admit more quickly that we have more then likely arrived at our current dilemmas from a post-enlightenment, materialistic form of consumerism then by our religious traditions. If I am honest with myself it is my own selfish appetite that brings me to this place of environmental mourning not some ancient religious narrative. Perhaps it is in these narratives we can find some applicable wisdom for a more sustainable way of living.

In Praise of Burton Blatt

2010-07-06T23:07:00.001-07:00

wait, graphite on paper, 1989, D. Callis

I was going through some files and came across a paper I presented on the work of educator and reformer, Dr. Burton Blatt. In 1965 Burton Blatt, then director of the Division of Special Education at Syracuse University and his friend, photographer Fred Kaplan, visited a number of east coast residential facilities for the developmentally disabled and documented the visits with a small camera mounted in Kaplan's belt buckle. the images were first published in Look magazine and later as a book entitled Christmas in Purgatory. As Kaplan's images profoundly disrupted the psyche of the American imagination with visuals that aggressively denied the mid-century believe in the goodness and compassionate care of our medical and education institutions, particularly as it provided for our most vulnerable citizens.

Blatt spent the rest of his professional career reconstructing an American imagination that concerned the developmentally disabled using his skills as an educator, writer, poet and Catholic layman. As an educator he served on several presidential committees on educational reform, he is credited with establishing most of what we now teach in our universities concerning educational mainstreaming. As a Catholic writer and poet he worked from a cosmology that could confront evil and suffering and at the same time locate grace, celebration and profound joy. In his novel, The Revolt of the Idiots, he asks us to imagine a peaceful revolt in which disabled residents shed their label of patient and take on the role of citizen, demanding their civil rights and simply walking out of the institution and into a small town which had realized the value and worth of these odd people. In the story one of the townsman argues with compassion, "each man's life means everything, or it means nothing. He is the only man or no man exists. Each life and each death is a profound event, or no life - not a single life ever - was of any consequence. Everything matters or nothing has mattered.

In another reforming work entitled, Exodus from Pandemonium he recounts his participation on an inspection team. The team has just toured one of the back wards of a state institution for the long term care of the mental retarded. He recounts, "I have seen it all too many times. A gust of fresh, clean air rushed around us as the front door was unlocked, but the relief at regaining my freedom was shattered by a scream from above, "Good-bye, you fuckin doctors!" A shirtless man, his face twisted in anger, was waving his fist from the second-story window. I smiled and waved to him. He waved back and, as anger gave way to a smile, he waved again, this time with open palm. This was Building 8, a "custodial dormitory" for people the institution has labeled "severely mentally retarded" and for people who label their keepers "you funckin doctors."

a few new things

2010-06-29T21:35:00.001-07:00

yet to be titled, #3 & 6, oil on canvas, 14"x14", D. Callis

The autonomy of the painted experiential object. In these works I have introduced an indexed image or a fragment of an image that is trying to signify an additional, external meaning but it is in tension with the absorbing visual field.

Today I received the announcement for the next exhibition at CB1 Gallery in downtown LA. CB1 is a really exciting gallery space with a very strong painting program. The next show opening Friday, July 78th is a group show including Edith Beaucage, Alexander Kroll, Matt Lifson, and Lily Simonson. In the introduction of the show gallery owner Clyde Beswick quotes New York Times, art critic Roberta Smith. While discussing current trends in the "art world" Smith says, "What's missing is art that seems made by one person out of intense personal necessity, often by hand. A lot but not all of this kind of work is painting, which seems to be becoming the art medium that dare not speak its name..."

That's it, isn't it!

2010-06-29T21:32:00.000-07:00

"Moments of pleasure are the remnants washed ashore from a shipwreck, bits of paradise extended through time. We must hold these relics lightly, and use them with humility and restraint. Never seize them as our entitlements." G. K. Chesterton

Jonathan Lasker

2010-06-26T09:11:00.000-07:00

all images Jonathan Lasker, LA Louver, 2010

"over the last two years, there has been a gradual increase of interest in abstraction. During this time, I've puzzled over what this so-called return to abstraction could mean. I still cannot imagine it. For me, abstract painting finished with the black paintings of Frank Stella. The goal of a modern painting, which represented nothing but its own pure form, had been attained. When I began working, my objective was to find a way to make a painting discursive, rather than monotopical. I also wanted it to be discursive on its own terms, rather than in literary terms. Painting had already achieved this minimal monosubject, ie, the subject of its object reflexivity. To me, this existential objecthood was now ready to be depicted as subject matter in discourse with the additional component of the subjective psyche. It was possible to use our experience of the elements of painting for their associative powers, in a poetics of painting. A poetics which could also embrace broad topics, such as memory and presence, materiality and transcendence, and the flattening of high and low culture.

It is towards this end that I have painted unhappy marriages of the biomorphic and decorative, the mark of the "loaded brush" land the geometric, the psyche and popular culture. I want a painting that's operative. I'm seeking subject matter, not abstraction."

After Abstraction (1986), J. Lasker, Complete Essays 1984-1998

Semester is Over, Summer is Here

2010-06-22T22:36:00.000-07:00

The Sea that has no ending, oil on paper, 2009, D. Callis

You can always tell when my semester is over because I get active on my blog again. It was great semester but I'm loving the full-time in the studio. I have been rereading G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy. Take a read at this:

"It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. Heaven may encore the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance."

Rachel Whiteread @ The Hammer

2010-03-05T10:55:00.001-08:00

a beautiful lesson in drawing; process, mapping, design, representation. see the show!

close the window, pull the curtains

2010-03-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

Whiteread, Rothko, Hopper

Annual Art Symposium

2010-03-02T14:18:00.000-08:00

Biola University Art Dept. annual arts symposium this week end, Mar. 5th & 6th.

Fri. night 7-9:30, Sat. 9:30 - 4:30. This years theme is "Metropolis, how art in the city influences our beliefs and actions." featuring internationally recognized sculpture, Janet Echelman, LA's Lynn Aldrich and Marc Pally, curators Liza Simone of Phantom Galleries LA, Paul Hebblethwaite of Art and Shelter, Charlene Melhorn of Artology for BuildaBridge.

It's an amazing line up and its free!

what's happening in my studio

2010-02-23T12:08:00.001-08:00

2010-02-23T12:04:00.001-08:00

Painting with Bob

2010-02-16T18:02:00.000-08:00

2010-02-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

self portrait, P. Bonnard

John Fante

2010-02-11T08:26:00.000-08:00

Just started reading John Fante's The Road to Los Angeles. An amazing rant by Arturo Gabriel Bandini after he decided that his chosen vocation of writing was too difficult (after a 30 min. attempt) and that perhaps philosophy would be easier.
"A Moral and Philosophical Dissertation on Man and Woman, by Arturo Gabriel Bandini." Evil is for the weak man, so why be weak. It is better to be strong than to be weak, for to be weak is to lack strength. Be strong, my brothers, for I say unless ye be strong the forces of evil shall get ye. All strength is a form of power. All lack of strength is a form of evil. All evil is a form of weakness. Be strong, lest ye be weak. Avoid weakness that ye might become strong. Weakness eateth the heart of woman. Strength feedeth the heart of man. Do ye wish to become females? Aye, then grow weak. Do ye wish to become men? Aye, aye. Then grow strong. Down with Evil! Up with Strength! Oh Zarathustra, endow thy women with plenty of weakness! Oh Zarathustra, endow thy men with plenty of strength! Down with woman! Hail Man!
Then I got tired of the whole thing. I decided maybe I wasn't a writer after all but a painter."

Thomas Nozkowski

2010-02-09T16:21:00.001-08:00

Robert Storr

2010-02-09T15:53:00.000-08:00

In an interview in The Art Newspaper, Robert Storr, critic, curator and dean of the Yale School of Art, was asked "what kind of advice are you giving art students now?"

Storr: I'm telling them that this is actually a fine time to be in art school because, when I was in art school, when a lot of people I admire were in art school in the 1960s and 1970s, there was no money. If you go into it knowing that you will probably not be rewarded lavishly, but you can in fact continue to work, you're o a much better footing than if you go into it trying to make a huge impact when you're 23 or 24, and then maintain that for the next 60 years. You know Jonh Baldessari is someone whom everyone admires, but people by and large forget that he destroyed all of his "successful work" and started all over again. I'm interested in people who make good art, whenever they make it, and I think a lot of the best artists today are late bloomers. I'm a big fan of both Raoul De Keyser and Tom Nozkowski, who I put in the Venice Biennale (2007). Tom is 65 and Raoul is 78 and neither one of them really hit it until they were way past the age when most people think it would be the end of your career.

TAN: Maybe there's less of a focus on the cult of youth.

Storr: There isn't less of a focus yet, but it's going to dawn on people that it's not working. It's always nice to be a coming attraction, but it's murder to be a has-been. If it hasn't happened for you yet, you can at least console yourself with the idea that it might. It's a fashionable world and even good artists go out of fashion. If you've never really thought about what you're going to do when you go out of fashion because you've never been out of fashion, it's much harder to take than if you've gradually come into your own, gotten through difficult times and know that you can survive.

Raoul de Keyser

2010-02-09T15:50:00.000-08:00

recall

2010-02-04T08:30:00.001-08:00

am light in my studio

1 hour old monarch outside my studio

2010-02-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

Amy Sillman, Untitled, 2007

"Sometimes when I am getting into a painting I try to paint around what I think is the great part. Then the great part becomes this ugly little tumor that has nothing to do with anything else in the painting, and finally I just have to paint it out. In writing it's called "killing your darlings." Sometimes there are beautiful places that you have to keep, but there are definitely always struggles between one state and another. The paintings are the results of those struggles. Other times I try to go back to the original impulse for a painting after it has become unrecognizable. I'll take out the original drawing that I was looking at the use it like a compass because the first thing I was doing might have been the best thing." Amy Sillman

2010-02-02T14:04:00.000-08:00

Ancient Wall, P. Guston

"Painting seems like an impossibility, with only a sign now and then of its own light. Which must be because of the narrow passage from diagramming to that other state - a corporeality. In this sense, to paint is a possessing rather than a picturing." "To will a new form is inacceptable, because will builds distortions. Desire, too, is incomplete and arbitrary. These strategies, however intimate they become, must especially be removed to clear the way for something else - a situation somewhat unclear, but which in retrospect becomes a very precise act ..." Philip Guston

Bill Jensen

2010-01-26T15:13:00.000-08:00

Bill Jensen, Louhan, 2006

"Artists are people who go in a room everyday, let the art drag them a little further, and then sitting back twenty years later say, "How did I get here?" Bill Jensen

2010-01-26T15:11:00.000-08:00

oil on panel

2010-01-26T15:06:00.001-08:00

some new things that i'm excited about. i've been thinking about structure and order, collapse and reconfiguration.

Society of Interested People

2010-01-18T13:44:00.001-08:00

2010-01-18T13:41:00.000-08:00

Alexander Kroll

The cat drank all the milk

2010-01-18T13:31:00.000-08:00

Bonnard, Le Cafe

Nozkowski, untitled

Guston, Source

mise en forme (desires its placement in form)

2010-01-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

Recent exhibition of my work @ Bunny Gunner in Pomona

works on paper and canvas

Art Residency in Spain

2010-01-08T19:23:00.000-08:00

Can Surrat, a three hundred year old winery converted into an artist residency. Situated in a grotto on the outskirts of the small village of El Bruc, 45 mins. from Barcelona. Five visual artists, five writers. 4 weeks working in the studio. 24 paintings. Great working environment, great people.

Two of the books I read while I was there were John O'Donohue's, Beauty, the invisible embrace and Musa Mayer, Night Studio, a memoir of Philip Guston.

"there is nothing predictable here. For the artist there is a sense of frightening vulnerability, for anything can come, anything can happen. The unknown outside and the unknown interior can conceive anything. The artist becomes the passing womb for something that wants to be born, want to become visible and live independently in the world." John O'Donohue

"Some other quality of mind, some crazy, driven insistence on getting it right, on shinning the glib and easy reach, on letting the line down through the surface glimmer, past the lotus blossoms and bait fish in common view, into that murky place, into obscurity, and once there, waiting - no, not patiently, but waiting - for the deeper tug of truth." Musa Mayer (Guston)

2010-01-08T19:12:00.000-08:00

(top to bottom)

my studio first two weeks

my studio second two weeks

works produced

Basel to Barcelona

2010-01-07T12:05:00.000-08:00

(top to bottom)

Joan Miro Foundation

Muse d'Art Contemporiani de Barcelona

Sagrada Familia Cathedral

From Basel I traveled to Barcelona, Spain. Spent four days in the city before going to the artist residency. First time in Barcelona, wow. So much to see: Miro, Picasso, Gaudi, Tapies. From a city of museums I will mention just a few of my favorites. The first is the Joan Miro Foundation. The museum opened to the public in 1975. It was to be a site dedicated to the artist's work and also to provide a space to promote and publicize the work of contemporary artists. The Foundation's collection currently comprises over 14,000 pieces: 217 paintings, 178 sculptures, 9 textiles, 4 ceramics, and almost complete graphic works and some 8,000 drawings.

Another site for contemporary art is the Mueseu d'Art Contemporiani de Barcelona. The MACBA opened to the public in 1995. The building, which I found interesting but a bit sterile and institutional, is nested in the historic Gothic district. During my visit the two shows, ironically, where of Americans: Ray Johnson and John Cage.

Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) You can't think of Barcelona without thinking of Gaudi. His architectural genius and eccentricity ( love or hate his work) defines a major part of the urban landscape of Barcelona. Almost all of his works where executed in Barcelona including his masterpiece, Sagrada Familia. It is worth the entrance fee to tour his work. Don't miss the cathedral and Park Guell. If you've been in the presence of his work you know that words are not sufficient to explain what has been made manifest. All I kept thinking is that Frank Gehry seems so conservative.

Basel and Colmar

2010-01-07T11:33:00.000-08:00

Fonation Beyeler, Basel, Switzerland

Giacometti

Isenheim Altarpiece

I will continue to archive my adventures of the last several months. In October I had the good fortune to spend time in Europe, most of which was doing an artist residency in Spain at Can Serrat located in El Bruc just outside of Barcelona. I started my trip visiting friends in Basel, Switzerland. While there I visited the Fondation Beyeler. The Beyeler is the life work of Hildy and Ernst Beyeler, who over a period of fifty years, as collectors and dealers, built up an exceptional collection of works by modern masters. Their collection, which was transferred to a foundation in 1982, was first publicly exhibited in its entirety in 1989. currently comprising around 200 works. The opening of the Fondation Beyler in 1997 provided the Beyeler Collection with a public museum. The building was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano. Works by modern master such as Cezanne, Picasso. Rousseau, Mondrian, Klee, Ernst, Matisse, Newman, Bacon, Dubuffet, Baselitz. What was on exhibition during my visit was a great show of drawings, paintings,and sculptures by one of the Beyer's favorite artists: Giacometti.

While in Basel I also had the opportunity to drop down into the north of France to Colmar to visit the Unterlinden Museum, specifically to see the Isenheim Altarpiece. The museum, which opened to the public in 1853, is housed on the site of the former Dominican convent of Uterlinden. The Grunewald masterpiece was executed between 1512 and 1516 for the monastery of the Antonite order in Isenheim, a village 15 miles south of Colmar. This religious institution had a hospice on the premises where the monks ministered to victims of Saint Anthony's fire, a disfiguring disease now called erogotism caused by the ingestion of rye infected with ergot.

To stand in the presence of this work (because of poor weather I was in the room with only two other people) was a profound experience.

Rant Exhibition @ The Pacific Design Center

2010-01-06T10:29:00.000-08:00

Top image (left to rt.): Ryan Callis, Dan Callis, Mark Dutcher
Middle image: Monique Prieto (painting), Mark Dutcher (sculptures)
Bottom image (left to rt.): Alex Couwenberg, Merion Estes, Monique Prieto

2010-01-06T10:21:00.000-08:00

Top image: Matty Byloos, Ryan Callis, Quinton Bemiller
Bottom image:Merion Estes, Dan Callis, Max Presneill

Back on Line

2010-01-06T10:02:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since I have been active on my blog. Part of the issue was technical and part was absence. The technical issue was a sad story of strokes. My little Mac had the first stroke back in early Oct. just days before the Rant exhibition install. Then I went to Spain for five weeks and I left the little guy home to recoup. Days after my return from Europe I was down loading photographs and it had the next major stroke which sent it to the tech. hospital for three weeks of surgery and rehab. I think all is well.
I have a bit of archiving I need to do. Things that have gone on in the past several months.
I will be posting documentation of several exhibitions and my residency in Barcelona.

Its good to be back.

Out of Country

2009-12-05T10:58:00.000-08:00

Sorry about the lack of posts during the past several months. I was out of the country for five weeks at an artist residency. I decided not to take my lap top and go unplugged for a period. It was the right choice. I've just recently returned and am organizing my documentation for posting. I will get images and information up in the next few days

Solo Exhibition

2009-12-05T10:50:00.000-08:00

venia apparendi #2, acrlyilc on canvas, 36x48, 2009

Exhibition of recent works at Bunny Gunner in Pomona opens on Sat. Dec. 12th, 6 - 10pm
Seven works on canvas and three on paper.

Rant opening

2009-09-29T13:58:00.000-07:00

Rant exhibition opened Thursday evening to a large and enthusiastic crowd. Works by Merion Estes (who also has a solo show at Galerie Anais, Bergamot Station), Monique Prieto, Mark Dutcher (who also has work at the Torrance Museum of Art), Ryan Callis (who also has work up at LACE), Alex Couwenberg and Dan Callis (who both have work up at Cypress College), Matty Byloos, Quinton Bemiller, Phoebe Unwin, Max Presneill (who also has work up at Carl Berg), Astri Swendsrud, and Zach Kleyn. The event was djed by the amazing Eric Trine.

The exhibition has been archived on my website - dancallisart.com

The show will be up through Nov. 20th. The hours are Monday - Friday, 11-5 or by appointment. You can contact me @ dancallisart@gmail.com to make appointments. There are also a dozen or more other galleries and art project at the Pacific Design Center including Carl Berg and Sam Lee. Its well worth the trip.

I'm too spent to write anything else and we are on to the next project. This Saturday evening, Raid (the new, renewed Raid) opens at the Brewery.

2009-09-03T09:04:00.001-07:00

Rant - painting in LA

2009-09-03T08:42:00.000-07:00

(re) Rant - an exhibition that will be mounted at the Pacific Design Center opening Sept. 24th and going through Nov. 20th

The conceptual genesis for this show began with two experiences. One was an evening of gallery openings in which I was completely under whelmed by the work I observed, more specifically, I was struck by what appeared to be a lack of commitment or conviction (or even a basic enthusiasm) in the works produced/displayed. The other was rereading of an essay by Doug Harvey. In this essay, David Amico: coloring outside the lines, Harvey begins by talking about painting as a map, "a painting is always a map of some kind, if only for being a two-dimensional visual reference to something else, even if that 'something else' is discernible only from its demarcation as 'special', of more deserving of our scrutiny than a non-painting. Indeed, many conceptual artists consider this transitional area to be the only viable territory for contemporary artistic exploration: What is the least gesture, the smallest indication or event that can serve as the trigger for making this distinction?" There are two things in this statement (two again) that caught my attention. The first is the painting as a demarcation of the special or as Jean-Luc Marion states: a painting as a privileged case of phenomenon, where it becomes an index for investigating the condition of appearance. The second is the idea of the least gesture, the smallest indication as the trigger for activating the area of demarcation (the work.) I find myself currently interested in a practice and practitioners that have a more robust, celebrative production. A production where the triggers are more forceful and I might even say more gracious but definitely more curious. Practitioners of large gestures.

And thus the idea of the RANT.

Rant: to speak in a very loud, aggressive, or in a bombastic way. To rave, to be noisy, to affront. To talk in a loud, wild, extravagant way. And my favorite - Rant: boisterous merry making.

In a metropolitan area that is as diverse and decentralized as Los Angeles there are select things that provide continuity to the region; one of these is a strong sense of optimistic purpose in artistic production. The artists that have been selected for this exhibition show a strong tendency toward belief or expectation in their studio practice. This exhibition gathers these artists together under the common conviction and passionate commitment of object making.

Exhibition at Cypress College this week

2009-08-29T07:16:00.001-07:00

I'm excited to be part of an exhibition that is opening this Wednesday evening at Cypress College. ONA2X2 is a project curated by Susie Eaton and Juan Thorp of Bunny Gunner.

They've provided 24 artists with 2' x2' panels and asked us to use this surface to create origional works for this show. It's a great group of artists including Shari Wasson, Michael Woodcock, Steve Comba, Alex Couwenberg and many more. There is also a solo show in the Project room by Macha Suzuki. Macha is an amazing sculpture who's imagery is provocative and haunting and his craftsmanship with leave you breathless.

The works that I submitted are a combination of a surface process and imagery that I have been working with in two different series of works. The surface process that I have been developing in response to my wax encusitc work. I've been using resins instead of wax attempting to create surface nuance and depth that wax allows but in the much more resistive material of resin. The imagery is from a series of small oil canvas' that I have been doing creating a visual versions of renga.

Come on over to Cypress, Wed. 6-8pm

Sean Scully

2009-08-29T07:05:00.000-07:00

The Bather, 1983, Sean Scully

"My painting, however, is a compression: a compression of form, edge, weight. And colour participates in this density. The painting is immediate since it is painted aggressively, by hand; yet it is difficult because it is compressed. The light in the painting has to be opened up, pulled out.

And it is exactly this difficulty that gives the work its interior life. It is an incarnation, not an explanation." S. Scully

digging in the dirt

2009-08-27T09:42:00.000-07:00

Well, it's done. At least on the right side. I've been tapped and drilled. The first ear canal has been drilled out. As I mentioned in earlier post my surfer's ear (exostosis) finally became so severe it required surgery. It's kind of strange, something that you anticipate for so long, the thing you dread and fret over is suddenly done. It's done in the same time someone might spend going to the mall. I went in at 1:00 and was out by 4:00. Can I say that general anesthetic

is such a surreal experience. One moment you are lounging around in your fashionable backless gown nervously chatting it up with the nurses and doctors and then He tells you to breath deeply and the next thing you know you are waking up in a different room and there's a whole new set of folks talking to you. You never do see the previous care providers again but this new group welcomes you back to the world of the living so they seem particularly dear (until they start pulling off the surgical tape.) Then out you go. Just like that.

Thank you Dr. Norman Ge and the surgical staff at Harriman Jones.

Surfer's Ear

2009-08-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

Watch SurfDonkey Ep 9 What Up Doc (2 of 3) in Sports | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Back Home

2009-08-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

The birds taking their morning shower

Back from Portland. A very productive time. Produced four glass works, left one in the kiln to be finished later. Thanks to my dear friend, gracious host and ever patient glass teacher, Tim. When we weren't in the studio working we were deep in conversation. When not talking we where looking at art, eating great food and taking in the beauty of the Pacific North West. Music, books, film. Art, life, community. It was really an amazing time. Still thinking about the relationship of glass work and my painting. I will definitely be doing it again.

I want Tim's birds.

out of the kiln

2009-08-25T10:30:00.000-07:00

glass after 12 hours of firing

glass work

2009-08-19T10:22:00.000-07:00

base glass, ready for firing

pattern making

George Fox University, Glass Studio

Bullseye Glass, Portland, OR

Working in Glass

2009-08-19T09:57:00.001-07:00

The last several days I've been in the Portland area, Newberg to be exact, staying with my dear friend and artist, Tim Timmerman. As part of my sabbatical project I have come north to learn the process of glass fusion. Part of Tim's studio production in the last five years has been the addition of various glass processes to his painting and assemblage practice. I am spending a week in the glass studio at George Fox University where Tim is the sculpture and mixed media professor. He's teaching me some of the basic fusion processes as I create a series of small works based on my paintings.

The week started with a supply run to Bullseye Glass. Bullseye is one of the leading art glass studios and glass manufactures in the country. It's located in downtown Portland and truly is an amazing place. I was overwhelmed and seduced by their glass offerings. Row after row of pure color rolled out in slabs of what looked like frozen paint. We bought our glass; a dozen or so colors from my current pallet, as well as frit (ground color glass) and a view other things.

Back at the studio the first step in the process was to make a pattern of my image. Next was to cut the base colors and lay them out. Glass fusion involves numerous kiln firings of a single work allowing for the layering of color, brush marks and washes (frit), and line work (stringers.) Today I got two works started and in the kiln for the first firing. They'll be birthed from the fire in 12 hours.

Chisels and drills

2009-08-07T16:22:00.001-07:00

"We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome."

G.K. Chesterton

"The human gaze is not the closed, fixed view of a camera but is creative and constructive. Both the gaze that sees and the object that is seen construct themselves simultaneously in the one act of vision." John O'Donohue

Two days ago while making my morning coffee one of my ears opened. It actually happened over a few days. At first I had a moment of opening, a slight pop, and then it closed. A few moments later it happened again. Just a moment, an awakening, a respite from the silence and then silence again. That was it for the first day. But then, standing at the sink filling the coffee pot, bink my left ear opened. I didn't move for a moment. I was afraid it close again. No, it hasn't closed yet.

I went to see the surgeon and as he examined the closed ear I took a perverse pride when he stated, "in all my years of practice I have never seen such an extreme case. Your ear is completely closed off." I swelled with a boyhood since of a job well done. I did it the best!

He then stated that the other ear wasn't much better. It was only when he started probing my ear canal with small metal tools forcing me to squirm in my seat that it dawned on me that this was not such an accomplishment.

The surgery is scheduled for late August. "Do you use the mirco chisels or the drill?" I asked (showing off my newly acquired knowledge of surgery procedures.) "Both" he said. "I do the rough work with the chisels and then clean up with the drill." Sounds like he's doing construction. I suppose he is.

movie night at the boat yard

2009-08-05T09:36:00.001-07:00

Tonights movie is by Seal Beach's own, Cyrus Sutton. Riding Waves, Cyrus' first film, was an award winning freshman effort pulling in a "best film" and "best cinematography." Come on by at sunset. everyone's welcome.

Demarcations

2009-08-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

"A painting is always a map of some kind, if only for being a two-dimensional visual reference to something else, even if that 'something else' is discernible only from its demarcation as 'special', of more deserving of our scrutiny than a non-painting." Doug Harvey

Space of sound

2009-08-01T17:06:00.000-07:00

Today I was working on some paintings in a different location then my studio. As I was working I was aware that normally I would turn on music while I worked. I always listen to music when I paint. Music or podcasts. That kind of sound, along with the paint, takes me out of an awareness of time or I should say what I call "task time." But today, not being able to listen to music, I was aware of how much music is a way in which I occupy spaces. It, my music, is one of the significant ways I link the various spaces that I occupy during my day, week, life. I try to be purposeful about attending and listening to the spaces I occupy but a some point I fill those spaces with my songs. I have a fair collection of songs. According to my itunes I have 43 days worth of songs (a modest amount compared to some folks I know.) I also own a good collection of CDs and vinyl (and a seriously large box of cassette tapes.) I am a true NPR junky: All Things Considered, Fresh Air, Prairie Home Companion, Speaking of Faith, Off Ramp, etc. If not music, then NPR. It's been 9 days since I heard any of this. I do miss it, but I also am aware of how I use it to fill head space. I never compared audio to visual in terms of cultural crooning. But now that I have lost the audio I find myself settled in ways that are surprising. I have become more attentive to the task I'm on. I don't mean physically attentive I mean mentally attentive. I am so in love with the world of ideas that I am constantly seduced from one subject to another by a sound, a spoken statement or uttered phrase. Now that the world is momentarily blocked from my hearing I find myself a bit more settled. My head doesn't have that internal buzz that it so often does.

I wonder what I will do with that latter?

Just read the short story, The Hermit's Story by Rick Bass. Amazing, please read. Thanks, Andrew

Spell it!

2009-07-31T14:26:00.001-07:00

what

i say is

whistle that

sing that yell that

spell

that out big

e.e. cummings (thanks elly)

So, life without hearing. There are so many things that I continue to be surprised by each day and many of them are simple annoyances. Like when I want to buy a cup of coffee or go to the grocery store. Or the much more advanced and risky things like restaurants and hair cuts.

What all these things have in common is, of course, they all involve a series of verbal exchanges. Most of the exchanges range from slight to meaningless but you don't want to be the one who misses the cue. "Debit or charge?", "have you been having a good day?", "what kind of dressing?" I took a bit of a verbal fall this morning. I went to Starbucks and ordered a cup of coffee. Once I ordered I knew the first question would be, "room for cream?" So as his lips moved with his silent request I confidently responded, "yes please, room for cream." His look was NOT one of confirmation but one of slight confusion. And then it dawned on me, he had asked the other Starbucks question - did I want my receipt. Oh well, it's the little things.

In these social situations I am on high alert, trying to look for body cues, read lips or see if I can't just get a bit of what's being said. I am very aware of what I should be able to do but can't. However, its when I'm just moving around, mostly outside, that I am often struck by the strangeness of it all. To see trees sway and not be able to hear the wind. Being on a busy street and not being able to hear the crowds. Driving on the freeway and not being able to hear the traffic noise (not even being able to hear the noise of my own car.) It's a strange and sort of beautiful silence. All that action and no corresponding soundtrack.

This morning I was in West Hollywood and I was standing on the corner of Santa Monica and San Vicente Blvd. As I stood waiting to cross I watched as four lanes of traffic filed by. When I went to take a drink of coffee my slightly open mouth created an audio cavity that caught the sound of the traffic. It was so slight but so beautiful. If I moved my tongue or slightly changed the opening of my mouth it would change the pitch of the noise. There it was, the sound of traffic singing through my skull.

Noise coming in instead of going out.

I miss hearing my granddaughter's voice.

What?

2009-07-29T16:38:00.000-07:00

I've had a strange thing happen to me this last week. I have temporarily gone deaf. Silence. My life film with no sound track. I have a condition that is not so unusual called Exostosis or "Surfers Ear". Those of you who know me know that I have been affected by this the last couple of years. But as of last week the spirits of the sea have closed the hatches in my ear canals.

As I said, it's a fairly common amongst surfers a condition that is brought on by years of exposure to cold water and cold wind. In an attempt to protect the inner ear the body grows bone matter that closes off the ear canal protecting the eardrum and shutting out the outside world. To remedy this there is a common surgery in which the bone matter is drilled out reopening the ear canal.

From what I understand it will be a couple of weeks before I can have the surgery so I will be in this state of silent bliss or purgatory (depending) for a short while. I've decided I want to write about my experience for the next few weeks but feel like I need to start with several disclaimers.

1) As I stated my situation is fairly common with a very good prognosis so I'm not writing from a distressed emotional state. I have friends and family members who have been vexed with far more serious ailments requiring far more physical and moral strength and I in no way want to equate my situation with theirs.

2) I am fully aware of my extremely privileged position in which this experience is framed by access to expert medical care and medical insurance. I will be taken care of.

3) Mine is a temporary situation that I will not honor by calling it a disability. I consider a disability something far more impacting and again requiring far more moral strength then I will be requiring.

4) This situation has not been brought on by some tragic misfortune or wicked transgression. It has been visited me by the long and glorious privilege of surfing; a sport that has brought me great joy and insight, physical and spiritual gains and a sweet fellowship with my sons, brother, dear friends and extended family of practitioners. So I must say, that if this is what the cost is of all the years of wave riding, so be it. I accept.

5) I am going to say a lot of obvious things over the next few weeks but give me a break; I'm trying to learn from this.

That said, why do I want to blog about it? Because it's such a totalizing thing. From full hearing to no hearing (though I can hear using a cell phone as a hearing aid.) To have one of my primary senses taken away has been a profound experience, particularly in light of a busy studio practice. To wake up day after day (this is the seventh day) and be surprised by the fact I still can't hear. I know I will, but I can't now.

So I will use my blog as a site to document this strange performance I'm in. What the heck, I can't talk to anyone so I might as well write to someone.

Richard Tuttle

2009-07-28T09:56:00.001-07:00

Sand-tree 2, 1988, R. Tuttle

"Tuttle, who in perilous times persists in making delicate, witty, and in all other respects exquisite things, he is the creator of perishable delights in a period given to appalling destructiveness. Rather than critiquing power's excesses with totalizing alternatives, he does so by changing the subject to the poetics - that is the making - of being in the world." Robert Storr

Nomads

2009-07-27T12:36:00.000-07:00

"We are indeed beginning to go about our lives homeless, shelterless, undefined and indefinable .... Settled peoples have split the world and themselves into portions, into 'nomai,' into idioms, and that is what they are sitting on, trying to own more and more of these portions. And nomads experience the connected, concrete reality, they travel within it and ride fields of options."

" I have no doubt about one thing, however, if we do not travel toward each other, we will eradicate each other." Vilem Flusser, Nomads

works in progress

2009-07-27T12:32:00.000-07:00

a few things that have my attention

Activity in the Studio

2009-07-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

Whatever you

have to say, leave

the roots on, let them

dangle

And the dirt

Just to make clear

where they come from.

C. Olson

2009-07-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

Mexico Builds Border Wall To Keep Out US Assholes

Return to Baja

2009-07-19T14:45:00.000-07:00

I can't remember, do you get the flu or drugs from whale sharks? Anyway, Rafe put us right on top of these creatures. Got to swim with them. Needless to say, it was amazing.

2009-07-19T14:35:00.000-07:00

Spent a week camping through Baja. Went down to celebrate the retirement of Rafe and Jan Payne. For those of you who don't know, Rafe, professor and field biologist, has given most of his teaching and research career to Baja and in particular to Bahia De Los Angeles. He has a home in Bahia where he, Jan and their dog, Poncho, look out over the Sea of Cortez.

In spite of all the bad press concerning drug gang violence and flu epidemics, Dick Flory and I found Baja as peaceful and beautiful as always. Maybe even more so because there were so few tourists. Don't tell anyone but American media has a need to cause paranoia.

We spent four days camping and surfing on the Pacific side and two days in Bahia on the Gulf side. Highlights of the trip were good surf, spending time with Rafe and swimming with (riding on dorsal fins) migrating whale sharks.

2009-05-04T12:39:00.000-07:00

2009-05-04T12:35:00.000-07:00

2009-05-04T12:24:00.000-07:00

new life

2009-02-16T16:09:00.000-08:00

Secrets on the Way

Daylight struck the face of a man who slept.

His dream was more vivid

but he did not wake.

Darkness struck the face of a man who walked

among the others in the sun's strong

impatient rays.

It was suddenly dark, like a downpour.

I stood in a room that contained every moment -

a butterfly museum.

And the sun still as strong as before.

Its impatient brushes were painting the world.

Tomas Transtromer

New Studio

2009-02-16T15:58:00.001-08:00

I'm settled into my new studio in Seal Beach. The property is an old boat yard built in the late 1940's. The place has good bones and a rich history, I should be able to make something here. If your in the area, come on by.

all you can eat - bunny gunner

2009-02-16T13:20:00.000-08:00

One of ten works I have in a current show at Bunny Gunner in Pomona. It's a great little show. Little in that nothing is larger than 5"x7" and prices are little as well. Nothing (much) is priced over $50. The show is the idea of Susie Eaton and Juan Thorp, owners of Bunny Gunner (great people!) They invited approx. 100 artists to participate, 5 - 10 works, small scale, small price. Easy to own. I thinks a great idea, simple way to share good art. Check it out, thru Mar. 11th.

New class, new blog

2009-02-13T15:59:00.001-08:00

This is the blog for a new class that I am team teaching with poet, Chris Davidson. Half of the class are poets and half visual artist. Our interest? What would happen if poets and painters spent 15 weeks together, breathing the same air, reading the same works, and on occasion working together. Check it out and keep checking. visionvoicepractice.blogspot.com

up in the pipe organ

2009-01-21T00:19:00.001-08:00

Tonight we had an amazing opportunity to go up into the pipe organ area in a Long Beach area church. We were doing some ground work for a commission and needed to see the space that we will be working with and were surprised by this incredible find, a beautiful mid-century German pipe organ. Each one of the pipes could be lifted and mouth blown, it was amazing! It was also pretty great that we accessed it through a bathroom stale.

Opening this weekend (Jan. 24)

2009-01-20T18:56:00.000-08:00

Ragamuffin Gospel

2008-12-31T12:19:00.000-08:00

Did you ever have one of those books that for years everyone references? You just have it in your consciousness to the point you begin to believe you've actually read it. For me that would be the Ragamuffin Gospel, by Brennan Manning. Well, I have to admit, I've never did read it and now I am. I understand.

Here is a prayer of rabbi, Joshua Abraham Heschel:

"Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of Your universe. Delight me to see how Your Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not His, to the Father through the features of people's faces. Each day enrapture me with Your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share the wonder of it all."

Idyllwild

2008-12-31T12:16:00.001-08:00

Snow in Idyllwild. Apparently the snowplow guy didn't see my cabin. My driveway is right behind that pile. Lots of snow so far this winter, 4' and counting.

Shift

2008-12-30T07:59:00.000-08:00

"untitled" acrylic, wax on paper

24"x32", 2008

I was asked to post some of the statements I made about my current work: the work that is represented in the Shift exhibition.

Shift

To move to a different position, or be moved to a different position.

A change in the position of a spectral line representing a change in frequency.

This work is intended to invite and/or provoke a visual shift. The shift can be phenomenal, metaphoric, and/or allegoric. These works are to be joyous objects of contemplation: a bit clumsy, a bit gosh, but unapologetically optic.

I have been considering:

Biological systems

String theory

Profundity

Incarnational theology

Fractals

Semaphore signaling

Joy

Shift - new work in Portland area

2008-11-13T21:16:00.001-08:00

I'm just finishing up the last of the works for this show. It is at George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon (just outside Portland.) It opens Nov. 25th. Strange works, clumsy works but unapologetically optic works. I'll explain more later (I'm teaching a studio class right now and no one wants to be disturbed so I had to do something productive.) If your in the Portland area please stop on by, I'll be there the night of the opening.

Robert Rauschenberg erased DeKooning

2008-11-12T21:45:00.000-08:00

society of interested persons

2008-11-10T21:36:00.000-08:00

This Sat. night at 6:00 the one year anniversary of The Society of Interested Persons Bi-monthly Salon. It will be held at "The Boat Yard" in Seal Beach. It's located at 700 Marina Dr. just off PCH. Live music, live poetry, two art studios and more. I'll be showing a chunk of the work that I will be showing in a solo show in Portland at the end of this month. This is going to be the event of the year! Well, almost. Anyway come on by!

sending signals

2008-11-09T21:54:00.000-08:00

When I was twelve years old I learned semaphore signal flags. This was something my father thought was important. Semaphore is a abstract visual (flag) symbol system used to share pertinent information from sender to receiver. I've been thinking about that a lot lately. Sending signals.

2008-11-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

Jim Morphesis, skull study

Las gentes cruzan el mundo en la actualidad sin apenas recordar que poseen un cuerpo y en el la yida- really roughly translated- People cross the world in actuality, reality, barely able to recall that they posses a body and in that body, life. I came across this posting in the site of a good friend, Elenor Greer.

So appropriate. Last night I went to a lecture of LA artist Jim Morphesis. I first met Jim in the mid eighties when he was a visiting professor at Claremont Graduate University. I studied with him for a year. He had a profound impact on my practice. At the time he was one of a small group of artists, including David Amico and Merion Estes, that were revitalizing painting in the 80's Los Angeles art scene. It was a time of "cool", "slick" and "reserve". It was one of the times of the "death of painting" and Jim Morphesis had dug up the bones and he was making them dance. And they still do.

Last night I was struck again by physicality of Jim's work. Of the urgency of it, by the sensuality of the surfaces, the marks. He demands that you recognize the body; the body of the painting and as that body demands its recognition you are acutely aware of your own body. The works scrape along, scratch along, slip and lick along.

They are wet from secretions both of pleasure and waste. They work like a Baudelaire poem, "... I remember! I saw everything - flower, spring, furrow- swoon under its eye, throbbing like a heart ... smell of the tomb in the swirling dark, and my timid foot bruising, at the edge of the swamp..."

So stinking romantic, and yet so very tasty.

2008-11-04T08:28:00.001-08:00

what the hell (or heavens) are you lookin at this for? Go Vote!

Jim Morphesis at Biola

2008-11-03T13:04:00.000-08:00

study of meat, J. Morphesis

Dramatic, compelling, powerful and passionate; these are words often used to describe the work of Los Angeles artist Jim Morphesis. Morphesis made his reputation from his intense paintings of the male torso, derived from the image of the crucifixion, an omnipresent element in his art to this day. The artist was raised Greek Orthodox and often attended church with his grandmother.

His work can be seen in numerous museum collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.*

Works on paper, studies and major works including pieces from his "meat" series are on display at Biola University Art Gallery thru Nov. 20th.

Jim will be lecturing on his work, at the Biola on Wednesday, Nov. 5th @ 7:00pm. Contact the Art Dept.

(562)903.4807 for location.

*info from Kennebeck Fine Art

creativity and embarrassment

2008-11-02T21:48:00.000-08:00

performance, J.U.

Every creative act involves a leap into the void. The leap has to occur at the right moment and yet the time for the leap is never prescribed. In the midst of a leap, there are no guarantees. To leap can often cause acute embarrassment. Embarrassment is a partner in the creative act - a key collaborator. If your work does not sufficiently embarrass you, then very likely no one will be touched by it.

Anne Bogart, A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre

Songs of Ascension

2008-11-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

Songs of Ascension is the most recent work of Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton. It is currently being preformed at the REDCAT, Disney/Calarts Theater in Los Angeles. I took my painting class to see Thursday nights performance. I was not prepared for what happened.

When the approximately 90min. program ended and the performance group cleared the sparse stage several of us sat speechless, in fact, breathless. Thoughts of anticipation, utterance, the liturgical, and dare I even say, the sublime. One of the students said that her body understood what had happened the last 90 mins. but the language had not yet arrived.

As we drove back to the university we drifted back and forth between animated talk of "already / not yet" and a grinning silence. After I dropped everyone off at school and was driving home I found myself driving in silence and listening to the sound of my breathing.