Todd Lilienthal, Artists, Babysitting, and John Henry

I am reminded of the day I met Todd Lilienthal, now a thundering musician, singer, steal-drivin' banjo man with his band out of Boulder, Colorado, Moonshiner.

I met Baby Aaron's brother Todd when he was just a year older than in his photo (right), closer to the age he is in the photo with Aaron, but earlier than that, at about age six. I was glad to know this talented person until he was eight. At the time I was very happy to meet such a personable, engaging, friendly boy in my new job as nanny on Quail Avenue, in the Berkeley hills just shy of Grizzley Peak, near Tilden park.

I was primarily there to care for his new born brother Aaron, A little bitty boy, layin' in the palm of yer' hand... oh wait. I guess that was John Henry, Aaron was a little bigger than that, 'tho he was but two weeks old when our association began.

I found them both on facebook! Amazingly, the boy I knew from age six to eight, Todd, is now the leader of a steal-drivin' gang... hold on. He is a great banjo picker, a singer of John Henry, and covers of other great bluegrass, soul and rock tunes such as Time (Pink Floyd), Brown-Eyed Women (Grateful Dead), as well as some they wrote themselves, and many wonderful others. The painting is of some of the tools of my own trade.

Moonshiner has been described thus:

"The hard driving newgrass outfit from Boulder County is known for their invigorating innovations of traditional forms with insurmountable twang."

- Marc Tonglen, The Mountain Ear

"Moonshiner formed based on long standing friendships and common, deep rooted musical interests. The band is focused on playing high energy shows and writing tunes that fit their unique style of playing..." is their description of themselves
Moonshiner link is to your right at this blog, have a listen!

Baby Aaron

The miracle of facebook for me is that I was able to reconnect with Aaron, the tiny babe I cared for from the time he was two weeks old until he was two years old. What an adorable little golden- curled personality was this child.

I would stroke the little soft spot where the cranium has not yet closed in infants ever so gently, barely touching it. A look of sweetest contentment would enlighten his already Yogic little face as he lay upon my belly, then the two of us would sleep an hour or two.

His first word was "Nanra," for Chandra. Then he said "Mama," "dogie" for doggy, "hoie," for horsie for the giant horse that the Revolutionary War soldier rode in the enormous painting at the Berkeley Art Museum. It was wheelchair/stroller accessible, and I frequented it with Baby Aaron on a regular basis.

I had taken care of and taught art to hundreds if not thousands of children (beginning when I was eleven, until well into my thirties) by the time I met Aaron, and after as well; but he is the stand-out in my memory, the most precious little infant of all. we met when I was twenty-eight, as I recall. Now Aaron is studying for the Bar examination!

Pages are from my book, Insomnia (Awakening).

Assemblage sculpture was the first of it's kind that I did. It is made from the baby-suit, tiny tee-shirt, and outgrown stroller given to me by his mother. It was created in the garage of his parents that they graciously allowed me to use as my art studio.

The original photo of the piece (smallest, yellow and black) was taken by Amanda Dahl, for the website created by Aki Sasaki for my work, http://www.darksecretlove.com/chandra.

San Francisco Ballet, Romeo and Juliet

I took my best friend, Pedro Moreno, to the San Francisco Ballet again. This time, how lucky we were to see the Helgi Tomasson choreographed production, danced by Prima Ballerina Sarah Van Patten as Juliet, and Primo Ballerino Pierre-Francois Vilanoba, as Romeo. How thrilling to see the pair embodying the tragic lovers.

How gorgeous to revisit through exquisite dance, perhaps well-meant but nonetheless cruelly consequential and misguided parental skills, as danced by Mariellen Olson as Lady Montague, and Jeff lyons as Lord Montague.

How delicious to once again partake of Shakespeare's supreme psychological insight into the desructive meddling goodness of the perfectly beautifully danced parts of Nurse, and Friar Lawrence by Anita Paciotti, and Ricardo Bustamante, respectively. How horrifying to realize yet again the cruelty and ignorance of human existence through the barbaric testosteronic ego and body slaying antics of the supreme athletic grace in the dance of Damien smith as Tybalt, Pascal Molat as Mercutio, and sad to say, Romeo.

All, all, all, were as great as can be expected from a world-class ballet company, and much greater than that. Ask me if I am a fan of the ballet, and I shall tell you truthfully that as an artist, and the artist that I am, I am in a position to appreciate as much as any, all of the higher arts. I should have been partaking my entire life, but the cruelty of economics in this country prevented me from going as often as I most assuredly would have preferred. Ballet, Opera, Classical or any other musical form should not be only for the wealthy. Theater was intended by the greatest playwrights, including Shakespeare, for the masses. I rue the day when art museums began to charge for admission, and then to prohibitively increase those charges, year by year. Volunteering is an option, but competition for placement are fierce, and people must work to earn a living, so time is short.

I do know this. I was afforded much time my entire life to make art by the fact that I could rarely attend the art of others. I was rendered poverty-stricken by the fact that as a teacher of art I was very poorly paid, and the better jobs went from scarce to nearly non-existant. So work as an artist I did, long hard, rigorous hours. It's a bit different for me now, in so many ways; that is all subject for other blog entries, other times in the future.

Juliet is one of the Three Sisters of Hope and Fear, You may know her by her cap, and by the fact that her Shakespeare written words emerge from her youthful lips as jewels. She is created from found objects, fix-all, pigmented resin, texture gel, and vintage and antique jewelry. The assembled tiny hands in the panels behind her are cast from the hands of my five year old friend of several years ago, Heather Bui, daughter of Rebecca and Thai Bui.

Romeo and Juliet are in reality Adam and Eve, playing the roles for just this blog entry. They inhabit their 5 and a 1/2 X 4 foot canvas, swathed in their nakedness by acrylic and oil paints, various secret and hidden textural drama, and a fig-leaf (or two), symbol of repression (in this case), but more hopefully also symbolic of sharing, and fruitfulness (fruitility?). they are owned by Maureen Anglin.

Pyramus and Thisbe, owned by Barry Ress, are also stand-ins and early inspirations for Romeo and Juliet. They are created on the backs of wooden drawers, each 21"x 21" from tin, wood shavings, vintage can labels, and layer upon layer of acrylic I painted using dual tools of concentration and love, wielded from faith in my own universe.

The jewels in the black table I began to make in the tiny apartment I now inhabit, my studio being much smaller than in years past, and across town, an hour and a half away by bicycle, as opposed to the short trip downstairs that I made in the past to produce my work. They are comprised of Turquoise, Coral, various quartzes, aquamarine, garnet and other jewels fit for young Juliet.

Deep Green is Not the Same as Dark Green... Gushing Oil Blues

A prominent theologian recently wrote a book detailing the green movement as a religion, which he calls "dark green religion." Another who conflates ecology with religion because she grew up in a forest with a father who was both fundamentalist Christian and a forest ranger says that both fundamentalist Christianity and the Green Movement have in common a dearth of humor. She asks if anyone has ever heard of stand-up comedy performed by the proponent of either.

Well, I have also never heard of stand-up comedy about the Holocaust, slavery, child abuse, rape, or mass murder. I have not heard a whole lot of stand-up about war, which generally along with greed and the corrupt usurpation of land and power practiced by nearly all nations and peoples throughout history, is widely glorified and celebrated.

I am deeply green. This is not a religion for me, although I do hold life as sacred. I am aware every day of my duty toward preservation of the planet, including our atmosphere and our oceans. As such I do not drive. I happily walk, ride a bicycle and public transportation everywhere I go. I proudly state for all to hear that I have brought no child into this world to exponentially increase my carbon foot-print in perpetuity. I do not use heaters or air-conditioners, or excess electricity (I keep all plugged into power strips which I regularly turn off when not in use), and I use CFL bulbs. If I owned the place where I live I would go solar. I have not eaten meat, neither chicken or fish, for almost two thirds of my life. I get my Omega 3 fatty acids from Flax Seed Oil. I never fly in a plane.

I deeply mourn for the Gulf of Mexico off of four states, and who knows how much by the time this finally ends, who's coastlines and wetlands will be devastated by the gushing British Petroleum rig sunk more than a mile deep into the waters where perpetual oil bleeds from a major artery without end until it is capped (???), or until our earth is a suffocated, poisoned, dried up little wrinkled raison of a planet forever doomed by threat from nuclear annihilation from the dual catastrophic hazard of both weaponry and energy.

Originally the piece photographed and presented here was made in compassion for the child victims of the Catholic Church. It is part of an installation presented at ProArts Gallery in Oakland, California in which I exhibited over two hundred artworks detailing my feelings about human on human cruelty, called Insomnia (Awakening). It is now time for humanity to awaken from it's long slumber with dreams attending of money, lust, and power; there is still hope that we can save ourselves yet. I recommend knowing how you truly feel and allowing yourself to feel it, for starters. I am talking about deep greening of yourself.

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