Earth Days

As the Icelandic volcano Eyjafijallajokull spews ash across Europe, Mother Earth complains to humanity with the barest tip of the Iceberg that is her power and wrath. Her rage at unthinking, uncaring, ignorant humanity is a just, deafening, blinding, inferno. "Ground the damn planes now and forever!"...seemingly she shrieks. We can all have empathy for a planet besieged by one species--- humanity--- which having the capacity to know better, is concerned only with puny self. It is time to begin to think, and think carefully, and think again about the cruelty of bringing new ones into this world. The new ones are innocent, just as Mother Earth herself is innocent. They are undeserving of what greater and greater havoc will be turned by her on the glut of greed and ego that is the ever unthinking and exponential human birth rate.

I do not call for a complete halt, but this is a call to each individual to assess for her or himself the true need for another vulnerable little one added to the mess we have collectively brought down upon our world. This is a cry out to think about how casually we fly in machines that spew millions of tons of carbon dioxide into our friendly skies. Think also of the killing machines we drive which are costing us our atmosphere and killing more people each year than Cancer or heart decease. Automobiles have killed many times the amount of those killed in the hundred or so years since their invention than have all the wars fought by soldiers in the entire history of the U.S.A.

1000 deaths, 240,000 auto accidents caused by driver cellphone use in 2002

1,187,037 Americans killed in wars 1775-1998 3,159,489 Americans died in U.S. Highway accidents 1900-1998 

I urge everyone on the planet to re-think their dietary needs and realize once and for all that they do not need meat, it's a very bad habit learned in childhood; it is a habit easily broken. Simply learn to appreciate delicious vegetarian and vegan food. Learn the virtue of good whole local food, food from close to it's source. Support your local Farmer's Market! Grow your own food!

In honor of Earth Day, I urge you to throw out your air-conditioners, jettison your addiction to electrical, gas, and wood heat; learn to dress in layers, move your body to stay warm, open your windows, open and change your minds, before it is too late.

You've been told before and in defense of Mother Earth I'll say it again: use CFL bulbs, turn off lights not in use, plug electronics into power strips then shut them down when not in use (for the day when you leave the home, for the night when you go to sleep), then turn off the power strip. It's easy, it gives you the wonderful feeling that comes with doing what's right, and multiplied by billions, it will make a huge difference.

Let us all put an end to the individual use of pesticides, herbicides, and huge corporate agribusiness. Pressure corporations and congress to come up with solutions to the crisis of global warming and ocean acidification now. The time of worship of the almighty dollar has passed. It is time now to embrace again the ecological philosophies of ancient indigenous cultures worldwide, especially those we stole this land we call America from, the American Indian (they laugh at us for calling them Native Americans---they never called this land America, and all of us born here are native Americans).

Each of us must finally realize, we are in this together, it is not only about my ego, my money, my power, nor is it about yours. It is about a sustainable future for the planet's suffocating atmosphere and oceans and it is about the survival of our and all other species.

All of us together are one eco-system, mutually dependent on us all for everything. Do you care enough about your child to care for her the way she deserves? Do you care enough to not bring him into this world?

I am proud to say I have never brought a child into this world, I am proud that I have been a vegetarian for nearly two thirds of my life, I have not turned on a heater in years, never have I owned an air-conditioner, I never fly, I have never owned a car or driven one, after the license to drive one that I obtained long ago. I walk, ride a bicycle, and public transportation everywhere I go.

I am happier and healthier for facing the truth, I am proud of doing all I can individually and bringing pressure to bear on collective humanity, including the biggest and the most powerful. We are all David against Goliath, if only we are willing.

A Reminder of the Beauty of Life...

...In the form of a few simple gifts from the Earth: Turquoise, Aquamarine, Beryl, Carnelian, Garnet, Amethyst, Fluorite, Moonstone, Quartz, and more. It is interesting that coincident with the economic downturn, I came to realize with sadness that this was yet another gift not given of Earth's own free will. Excavation, wounding of the Earth, the destruction that is mining is involved. I slowed way down, production of these jewels has all but come to a halt. Now, photography of them has become the thing for me, still not ecologically pure, sadly, yet a nearly harmless pursuit of the joy I take in any creative endeavor. I continue to weigh what I give, what I take, and where I am closest to my ideal of ecology, the areas of greatest neutrality.

Thank You to the Heroes of the Catholic Church Who Courageously work to Bring to the Attention of the World Rampant Child Abuse

It affects children of the church, families, neighborhoods, every kind of temple, schools, swim teams, I defy you to name which part of our world anywhere has not been affected by this scourge. The sisters of this evil are rape of women and men, every nameable and unnameable human on human cruelty. Silence = complicity. Say no to every form of tolerance of every form of child abuse perpetrated anywhere by anyone.. Jail the offenders!

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.

One More against the Filthy Addiction to Smoke (see below, below, and below)

By the Three Little Sisters, who sadly were subjected to second and third-hand smoke (the kind that clings to houses, furnishings, art, little animal lungs, little child lungs, and disgustingly, the clothing, hair, and breath of smokers, even long after their last cigarette or cigar). Incense also stinks.

In the apartment complex next door one of those horrible smoke/fire alarms that can bust everyone's eardrums has gone off, just as I was completing this post... The power of blogging!

These are Sculptures of My Two Sisters and Me Coming Out Against Smoking

The photos were taken by Rafael Landea, an artist in his own right, and they were creatively worked up by me.

They were shown at Expressions Gallery in Berkeley, where they created quite a stir. In post below they valiantly speak out against the filthy habit of smoking, especially near innocent non-smokers.

Frankly I'm Disgusted That I Would Have Had To Post This Where I Live

To all my neighbors,

Some of you are new here. Some of you who are new may not realize that it is against Oakland housing law to smoke on the premises, anywhere on the grounds of this building. Please will you all leave this posted so everyone knows.

All of us living here would like to be comfortable. That means we wish to open our windows for fresh air anytime we feel like it. There is a ninety year old neighbor living here. She served in WWII. Doesn't she deserve to be comfortable? Others do not smoke and do not wish to breathe in second-hand smoke, nor should they have to. Others are artists and they do not wish their artwork or their furnishings to stink of your smoke.

I believe that there are times for radical honesty, and this is one. I have asthma. I smell the smoke from anywhere in or around this building. It makes me cough. It gives me headaches. It stinks.

More radical honesty: My mother recently died a horrible torturous death from Lung Cancer. She had smoked for 35 years. She weighed 60 pounds at the time of her death. She had tubes coming out of every part of her body. She was delirious, and like many smokers, in denial about the cause of her illness right up until the very end. It was not pretty. I will go so far as to say that the death of my mother was about as ugly as death gets.

Do you know that even third-hand smoke (the kind that clings to insides of houses, in hair, on skin and worst of all on the breath of smokers even when they are not smoking, even when it has been hours since the last smoke) can be deadly? These are the latest findings.

I am an artist, so I have tried to be a little bit more casual and creative than this posting is, but sadly there are perhaps a few of you (judging by the different brands of butts I find on the ground here) who continue to smoke even though I have spoken to you, and left other notes here as well as little butt installation artwork on this table. Both have been promptly removed.

Please do not remove this note. I have more, and I will replace it. I need for everyone to get the message: DO NOT SMOKE ANYWHERE NEAR THIS BUILDING.

For all of the above reasons, please also do not burn incense.

Thank you for your cooperation in this very important matter,

Chandra

Haiti 2010, The Dolls, Toothpaste, a Little Girl, and the BBC

Note that the Angels and the Devils are in the details. I think the detail of reports coming out of the rubble of the Haiti Earthquake that burned like lightening through my heart, was that of the toothpaste. Even the dolls could not compete, doll person that I am, little girl that I was, alone as I felt in those days.

The young man reporting from Haiti for the BBC told of a detail of the catastrophe, a detail of a little girl alone. His voice from the radio by my bedside was obviously overwhelmed by his desire and his inability to help, to do more than merely report; what tore him inside was his inability to help at all in the face of so much need all around him. I heard it in his voice.

He reported a few days after the Earthquake from the street where finally people desperate for food had been able to gain access to a store. He was obviously moved, I could hear it in his voice. He told listeners of a little girl, about seven years old, a little girl alone. She had been in the store broken into by desperate others, in one hand she held a bag of dolls, she held in her other hand a tube of toothpaste,the only goods she had acquired from the store. Chaos all around her, a man ran by, grabbed her bag, and the toothpaste tube out of her hands. The young reporter described her cry, pain in his voice, helplessness all around, even as he held the microphone to the keening wail of the little girl, and even as I write these words, my own heart is rent by the remembered sound.

It seems to me her family, her only home, whatever she might have had before the horror of the quake, was gone, and she was alone. It seems to me she took the dolls in desperate need of any kind of family. Her only family was now taken from her, cruelty upon cruelty, a child kicked when clearly down. All children are down, even in the best of circumstances. Care and soothing were not forthcoming for this one in need. She was trying to care for herself and her family of dolls. She had been taught to brush her teeth, and knowing how to care for herself in this way was important to her dignity and sense of reality. In this moment however, dental hygiene was not a comfort allowed her, alone and traumatized though she was in the hellish world she inhabited. I think of her daily since I heard the story, I wish her help and comfort, I wish her soothing and love.

Adam and Eve XVIII

This is one of a pair in a series, as were the originals,(see below).

The sculptures, also in the grouping of Adam and Eves, stand alone in the crowd.

Adam and Eve and the Short Distance of Time Surrounding an Object

As relative time passes and relative distance grows it becomes clearer what is important to me. This is relatively important as I am the creative person that I am, and I am not you, or any other. There are times to be swept up in the minutiae of daily and bureaucratic life because there are times and places when we really seem not to have a choice in such matters. Such a time it has been for several months, and my life has been the place around which the objects of law, the requirements of material, and the obstacles to freedom have seamlessly flown into my path.

And so has finally arrived the moment of some creativity, when I allow myself to briefly comment on this seventeenth Adam and Eve I painted or sculpted out of twenty-nine that I created seemingly, but not quite, out of thin air. This for example is oil paint on canvas.

More important to me than material concerns (although as one glorious Art Professor at UCSC, Donald Weigant pointed out--- "art is SUCH a materialist pursuit"---and he did of course refer to visual art as that is what he taught) are not the spiritual either, as Kandinsky would have it, but the personal/psychological in art, in Adam and Eve, in life.

This began to emerge from my work in a much more literal than ever before way in this Adam and Eve series, some of which appear further down this blog, some of which I shall post above, with as little explanation as possible. Suffice it for now to say that for me they are an original male fantasy of bearing no burden of guilt, of finding yet another use for the female of the species, that of Carrier of Collective Guilt. The more interesting question is how it happened that the guilt itself through the culture of at least one of the three religions influenced by the story was interpreted. Through the ages (time and space again) sex and the perception and resultant feelings surrounding all of these became the fulcrum of debate, shall we euphemistically call it. Actually, as many understand the myth, the tasting of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, resulted in the sin of knowing what only God heretofore had known. Tragically, it was a story told by men, notorious deniers, hiders from many truths, that set the world up for destruction by thousands and thousands of tiny cuts, as the Doctrine of Manifest Destiny continues to cut it's swath through the diminishing jungle that should have been this world. Or should it have been the Garden of Eden? It's all relative.

Necessity From Finian's Rainbow, Musical with book by E.Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, Lyrics by Harburg, music by Burton Lane

I posted this and the next two backwards, so you could read a story forward from this to the next two posts. It's a timeless American tale:

What is the curse
That makes the universe so all bewilderin'?
What is the hoax that just provokes
The folks they call God's children?
What is the jinx that gives a body and his brother and everyone around...the run-around?
Necessity, necessity.
A most unnecessary thing, necessity.
What throws the monkey wrench in
A fella's good intention?
That nasty old invention
Necessity.
My feet want to dance in the sun
My head wants to rest in the shade
The lord says go out and have fun
But the landlord says, 'Your rent ain't paid!'
Necessity, its plain to see
What a lovely old world
This silly old world can be
But, no it's all in a mess
Account of necessity.
I'd like to play some tennis
Or take a trip to Venice
But sister, here's the menace
Necessity.
Oh, Satan's the father of sin
And Cupid's the father of love
Oh, hell is the father of gin
But no one know's the father of
Necessity, necessity.
That's the maximum that
A minimum thing can be
There's nothing lower than less
Unless it's necessity.

Come and Get it from Finian's Rainbow, lyrics by E.Y.Harburg

On that great come and get it day,
Won't it be fun when worry is done and money is hay.
That's the time things'll come your way
On that great, great come and get it day.
I'll get my gal that calico gown.
I'll get my mule that acre of groun'
'Cause word has come from Gabriel's horn
The earth beneath your plow is a-buddin'
And now it's yourn.
Glory time's comin' for to stay
On that great, great come and get it day.

On that great come and get it day,
Won't it be fun when worry is done and money is hay.
That's the time things'll com your way
On that great, great come and get it day.
My gown will be a calico gown.
My shoes will dance all over the town.
'Cause word has come from Gabriel's horn
The earth beneath your plow is a-buddin'
And now it's yourn.
Glory time's comin' for to stay
On that great, great come and get it
And keep it and share it, great, great
I'll get my gal that calico gown.
I'll get my mule that acre of groun'
'Cause words has come from Gabriel's horn
The earth beneath your plow is a-buddin'
And now it's yourn.
Glory time's comin' for to stay
"Come and get it" day.