The Little Mermaid

I was so privileged to be able to see Sarah Van Patten dance the title role in The Little Mermaid and Garen Scribner dance the part of the Sea Witch in the San Francisco Ballet production of choreographer, scenic, costume, and lighting designer John Neumeier.

While this was modern ballet at it's finest, and while consummate artists are at the core of every aspect of the tour de force that is The Little Mermaid, it must be stressed that Sarah Van Patten could not have taken on a greater role to express her artistry (at least for this moment in time). Beyond the obvious talent and athletic ability of the artist, the dancer Van Patten exactly embodies the tragedy of sacrifice for love both specific to the story, and more generalized, along with the tormented darkness of the rejection of that love to which all has been lost. Suffice it to say that it is nothing short of a miracle how she is able to show us the anguish of simultaneous flight from her own oceanic world and the grace of her every movement there, to transformation of her body: accompanying legs for the first time, the crippling pain thereof, her balletic expressivity of the gracelessness of foreign new limbs. Her social world too has been sacrificed; this new heavy, earthly world of gravity and human hierarchy is totally alien to her. The mermaid's tongue has been cut out for the beautiful voice contained therein by the Sea Witch, the evil exchange that ultimately alienates the mermaid. She cannot even tell her story, nor explain to the object of her love that she saved him from drowning, and that is how she came to love him.

The original star of the story of course is Hans Christian Andersen, who wrote the story two-hundred years ago. As a child I swam in the bathtub, pools, and oceans of Los Angeles, Santa Monica, and Venice, California pretending that I was a little mermaid, while I read Andersen's tale over and over. Let's just finish this little piece with the understanding that in too many ways Disney mangles every story it gets it's hands on. The best way for children to learn of the real tragedy of life (and all about life, as preparation for growing and development) is to read the original literature, and to see the greatest art that has been spun from the original.

Title Page, and Bones of the Artist

Photos by Author and Eric Sahlin means only that E.S. came into my studio to photograph some of the artwork in my studio. It actually happened at some website or another that E.S. was given credit for the artwork. Someone did not understand the difference between photos and artwork in a book featuring sculpture, painting and installation fine art. Reminds me somehow of a student (no excuse for ignorance) journalist who saw my graduate exhibition at the Union Gallery on the campus of San Jose State University. She believed that poems on the wall, which I had posted by my work, which I had clearly attributed to Shelley, Keats, Byron, Sidwell, Dickinson, etc. were my poems. She actually criticized these masters, because she thought their work mine, and she had not bothered to read carefully enough to read the quotation attributions. And while my ever-voluminous work covered an area of about 1,000 square feet in the gallery, and she clearly was not happy with my work, she saved her most scathing criticism for the opening foyer of the gallery featuring obvious Guatemalan folk art, starkly not mine, which she also believed to be mine.

Maya

A Slight Detour From The Book, Me at About 8 or 9 Months (?)

Must have been my Edward G. Robinson phase.

Couplings of the Written Words With Images

...And also interesting, the couplings and the pairings of people who go into it believing fervently in their mutual destiny, unwilling or unable to truly see into one another, or the future.

We were like Icarus, we flew too high, too close to the sun, our wings melted.

Mine grew back again, I guard them carefully, I know how delicate they are.

Studio Stories of Childhood and Crucified Barbie

Leonardo and The man of Perfect Proportions

Maybe Alberta

And in black and white, see color below. Select pages from this book soon to be posted at this blog.

Front and back covers of book Insomnia (Awakening) for exhibition of same name in Oakland, California, at ProArts Gallery

Smoke Backwards

And please don't hang out in front of the building smoking. If you do the residents or workers will not have the option of opening their windows.