Artwala Road

I just got word that all five of the pieces I submitted to the Arsenal Arts Center Member’s Show here in Boston have been rejected. Yikes. I’m shocked! I love the stuff I do. Both my writing and my art. But the single juror does not.

I’m experimenting as an artist. My main focus is writing but at the end of the day I sit down to explore art. It’s a fabulous puzzle—what we can communicate and how. The two creative ventures feed each other. It’s caviar and champagne. Daily.

The Impressionist’s rejection in the Paris salons of 1895 did waft through my mind for an instant. It can be useful to know your art history! My paintings were acts of visual play, authentic explorations, not art changing like the Impressionists. But then—this isn’t Paris. Well, bloody hell—there you have it. One person said no. And I love these paintings!

Does it mean anything at all? Perhaps The Grand Poobah is having a word with me—

Stick to your true desire. Stay with your passion. You have something else on the go. Don’t get distracted.

Or maybe he’s saying—Never submit your sense of things to the judgment of another.

Or perhaps he’s occupied with other things. I am too.

My friend Sally just called—also rejected. Hers was the perfect response—’Oh, well. We’ll carry on and we’ll have our own show.’

That took the stinger out. Who knows what the bigger picture is? Only The Grand Poobah knows and he isn’t saying—just giving hints. They’re subtle but rather affirming—as they always are. I’m listening. And carrying on—with everything.  Spirit and determination intact.  So there!

October 31st, 2007 | Category: Dear Reader | Comments (8)

The peace march that took place in Boston and ten other cities Saturday drew a total of 100,000 people. That’s not very many for the whole country but there was music in Boston— The Leftist Marching Band from New Hampshire and The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society from Cambridge, MA. The slogan for The Leftist Marching Band, God bless them, is—’Our music is better than it sounds.’ There’s hope.

At the drawing class on Saturday I told the ladies about James Carroll. We are all liberal in the class but I sensed a little discomfort. We’re there to study art, of course, not to talk about politics and war but I really wanted to share Carroll’s sense of America’s historical trajectory and especially his analysis of how change really happens when people step up and ask for what they truly desire—peace and prosperity for all. At first, I wondered if I’d overstepped the mark by bringing politics to the class then one of our members asked if Carroll’s talk was depressing. No! No, it wasn’t! We’ve all felt so resigned and hopeless in the face of this government that I think the class was girding for more hopelessness. They were cheered though by President Kennedy’s words about Robert Frost—’When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.’

So we did our drawing again in good cheer, not daunted by events seemingly beyond our control. Growing ourselves as artists matters. Not that we are great artists, some of us will be, some of us won’t, depending on the kind of devotion and risks we’re willing to take and other things too perhaps—but it still matters that we connect with artist within, which is with our spirit and humanity.

I did not make it to the peace march because I went to dinner with my wondrous friend, Kelly, who was in town from Ohio for the weekend. With opportunities to visit infrequent it seemed just as important to nurture a friendship as to attend the march this time. We need to create all the good cheer we can and Kelly and I did our part on Saturday.

I must note here too that absolutely no mention was made of the march in The Boston Globe on Sunday. The media seem interested only in bad news. Part of the paradigm shift that needs to happen, I think, is that we begin to pay real attention to the good. What we focus on grows. So I am deeply happy to learn that The Leftist Marching Band and The Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society were out in force. This is the way forward.

October 29th, 2007 | Category: Dear Reader, Drawing Club | Comments (4)

Last night the great writer, James Carroll, spoke in Boston about how this country has become paralyzed in the face of the aggressive power of the behemoth Pentagon machine that makes wars that so many Americans don’t want. We’ve all been asking where are the protests? Where are the photos of Guantanamo? What has happened that this war in Iraq continues when so many Americans want peace? As he pointed out, it is not a war. The Americans are an occupation force in the center of a civil war. Iraq is not our enemy. No one was attacking us but Americans were traumatized by 9/11. It fueled the paranoia that already exists in this country.
He talked about how bit by bit the war machine has taken over the government, and not just this government, but going right back to the second world war. They have become entwined in a bad marriage that nobody wants to break up because the kids will suffer economic consequences. He said it’s not just about blaming George Bush. We are all at fault. We all need to look at what we’re doing, at our complacency, at our love of luxury and at our fear.

I wish I could tell you all the things he said but I don’t have that sharp a memory and am not as conversant with history as he is. That’s a good part of the problem. We don’t know our history and the long road that led us to the disastrous and dangerous place that we’re in.

But we all know this—it’s not other countries who have most of the world’s weapons of mass destruction, it’s us. And we’ve broken international law like thugs.

And we know this too—it’s not other countries who are coming after us; we are going after them.

The underlying question is—what is this fear that Americans feel? Why have we felt this paranoia for so long, way before 9/11? Why do we think we are going to be attacked, as individuals and as a country? Why do we believe we need to own guns? Why do we believe we need to invade other countries and kill people? One million people have died in Iraq already of which less than 5,000 are American soldiers.

It’s not right.

There were 250 concerned and rational peace-loving people in the room last night listening to James Carroll at a small college. Most were middle-aged. There were only 3 students. I don’t know the reason why.  Could be that the five-hundred-billion dollars spent on this war has left education underfunded.  Maybe our kids aren’t as curious and engaged as they might be if they were better educated.
House of War,The Pentagon and The Disastrous Rise of American Power is the book James Carroll wrote to address these questions. He has a brilliant column in The Boston Globe every week and those of us who have hungered for reason in these awful times have been sustained by it. He is a sharp historian with an eye for how change really happens.

Now the good news, which he took care to point out—the end of the cold war came peacefully forced upon Gorbachev and the idiotic Ronald Reagon by pressure from the people, first in Russia then in the States. And the Russian people sacrificed economically when the arms race ended. We can sacrifice. This is peace and real security that we’re talking about. This is our planet, our only place.
So, Carroll asks us to maintain the pressure and to put our feet to the pavement. The internet does not work as a means of protest. He thinks it has been a deterrent to peace because it keeps people at home safely in front of their monitors when politicians only respond to real people out on the streets en masse.

So, on Saturday, there is a march for peace in many cities across this country and this time Dear A and I will bind on our sandals and be there. I feel my life changed last night. I bought House of War and lined up for James Carroll to sign it. When I met him I ended up saying, ‘I’m an artist. Sometimes it feels so irrelevant.’ He came right back, ‘No! No, it isn’t. Read Kennedy’s speech about Robert Frost.’ Then he smiled and took my hand and shook it.

Here is a small part of Kennedy’s speech— ‘When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the arrears of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

For art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as the touchstones of our judgment. The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state.’

The whole speech is worth reading. You can google it.

Art is always an exploration of what is possible. May we, as artists, not retreat but step forward out of ourselves and into the world with what we have.

Keeping the faith. That’s all for now from here.

James Carroll—www.jamescarroll.net

October 26th, 2007 | Category: Dear Reader | Comments (4)

Always good to watch the backside especially now that wild turkeys are roaming the streets of Boston. Was just on my way out this morning when I read this in The Boston Globe—

“On a recent afternoon, Kettly Jean-Felix parked her car on Beacon Street in Brookline, fed the parking meter, wheeled around to go to the optician and came face to face with a wild turkey.

The turkey eyed Jean-Felix. Jean-Felix eyed the turkey. It gobbled. She gasped. Then the turkey proceeded to follow the Dorchester woman over the Green Line train tracks, across the street, through traffic, and all the way down the block, pecking at her backside as she went.

“This is so scary,” Jean-Felix said, finally taking refuge inside Cambridge Eye Doctors in Brookline’s bustling Washington Square.”

Apparently some thirty years ago an effort was made to restore the wild turkey population in the western part of Massachusetts which is all rural. Once there was a good flock of these turkeys a few wise officials gathered some up to scatter them about the state where they bred happily and walked into town. It appears that they really, really like the urban thing and you can see from this fellow that he looks pretty dapper strolling down Commonwealth Avenue.

One woman apparently found eighteen of them in her garden. Someone else called the police to let them know a turkey ‘half the size of an elephant’ was walking down the street.

This is when it pays to wear specs. No need to be embarrassed when you make a dash for the optician’s shop.

I like the turkey attitude. This guy looks like he owns the street—and he’s just arrived in town! The poor dude has no idea that Thanksgiving’s just around the corner. Though if things keep going the way they are he might just be sitting down to count his blessings as he feasts on a roasted woman in specs with all the trimmings. Hmmm.

October 23rd, 2007 | Category: Dear Reader | Comments (3)