Beyond the Picture

How different is your inside from your outside? Your interior thoughts from your exterior presentation?

Some people I know have very few filters; the distance traveled between their thoughts and actions seems … short. Others are enigmatic and full of surprises. Sometimes the unfiltered people and the inscrutable people change guises. Sometimes it is apparent that I simply have not learned enough to decode it all, either way.

Recently I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon in my artwork: the things I’m thinking about most in my interactions with people seem to show up in some form - symbolically and unbidden - in the artistic and technical problems I encounter in my work. Turns out that efforts to achieve harmony with people are on some level, anyway, not so different than efforts to achieve harmony of form in art. I regularly feel that I get the opportunity to examine spiritual concepts through the evocative processes of ceramics and picture-making.

A recent ceramic piece that I liked, and spent an inordinate amount of time making, failed. It was the most frustrating kind of failure because it appeared only in the final firing. At the same time, it proved to be a very useful failure.

I had applied a surface texture to it, and glazed it with a verdigris on the outside, and a clean white on the inside. The glazes, however, were apparently stressed out because they had such different formulations. They didn’t get along.

One had a high frit content and didn’t budge (so I’m told) when it became vitrified; the outer glaze reacted quite differently, and expanded and contracted with the extreme heat of the firing. These very different chemical reactions, along with the shape of the piece, caused it to crack from stress. It’s called “dunting”.

Although disappointing, the dunting drew my attention to a spiritual idea. Perhaps it was a symbolic, visual demonstration of what happens when the interior and exterior of a thing do not match:

“They … have no ambition except to revive the world, to ennoble its life, and regenerate its peoples. Truthfulness and good-will have, at all times, marked their relations with all men. Their outward conduct is but a reflection of their inward life, and their inward life a mirror of their outward conduct.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u'lláh, CXXVI)

Or maybe, “Hast thou ever heard that friend and foe should abide in one heart?” (Hidden Words of Bahá’u'lláh, #26 from the Persian). I do know now that shiny white and verdigris should not abide in one vessel, for sure. And that it is more fun to experiment with this topic on pots than it is on people.

So what of dunting, or jarring differences between the inside and outside, when it happens within a person? Between people? In your own creative efforts?

[With thanks to A. for asking about the artwork and precipitating thoughts]

My ceramics colleague, Robert Boyer, shares my fascination with obsessive, repetitive patterns and textures. So I wasn’t surprised that he drew my attention to Jen Stark, the Miami-based paper/color/X-acto artist:

She discusses in a video on her site how she got started with the obsessive paper sculptures. She went to Paris for a year-long art fellowship, figuring she would buy art supplies once she arrived in France. Once she realized how expensive everything was, however, she bought the least expensive, most appealing thing she could find in the art supply shop - a ream of brightly colored children’s paper. She figured she could make something of it. She made something of it, indeed:

The video is fascinating, as is this one on another site. In both, you can see glimpses of Stark at work. You also get a sense of her demeanor, which strikes me as unassuming, humble, simple. She is just cutting paper, no big deal. She is not making big, sweeping statements about what she does. And yet she makes these incredible, technically sophisticated gems of beauty that draw one’s attention to light and color and geometry. She even grabs a few leaves and achieves a similar effect:

What other artists do you know of who work in a similarly meditative, unselfconscious sort of way?

I like people who see things others don’t. This guy collects on his blog images of people and objects that, well, look alike.  It’s not just the “Separated at Birth” concept, however. Aref-Adib has collected some unusual pairs, like this one (Banksy/calligraphy):

Here’s a Mondrian/”Mind the gap” juxtaposition that I like a lot:

There’s also one of Borat vs. the Turkish “I kiss you” guy.  I think one influenced the other, however, and their similarities are no accident.

So what other observant, unlikely collections of visual connections do you know of?

Some years ago, my brother and I were playing Boggle with a friend. Boggle, for those who don’t know (and I don’t know if you deserve to be told if you don’t know, but I am in a munificent mood) is a word game consisting of a small plastic board, 16 letter cubes, and a transparent plastic hood that enables players to shake up the cubes and rearrange them on the board.

The object is to find as many words as possible in 3 minutes by linking the letters on the cubes. Three- and  four-letter words win a single point, for five letters you get 2, six get 3, seven 5, and eight or more yield the Holy Grail of Boggle: 11 points. It’s quite difficult, especially as you are rewarded for uniqueness: during the tally, any common words that you and other players have found are disqualified.

Most of our games that evening (and, to be fair, any game played by us on any evening) consisted of trash-talking. During the round in question, after the gameboard made the Pavlovian “clack-a shick-a shick-a” sound, pencils set furiously to paper. To our alarm, at minute 1:30, my brother threw down his pencil, crossed his arms with a triumphant smile, and watched us as we continued to search for words.

The reason for this display? He had found an 8-letter word: QUAGMIRE. And it was worth 11 points. A terrible blow. He knows how to stop when he’s ahead, and so shut down the tournament, claiming victory.

We knew what ensued would be bad, but we had no way of knowing how bad. Declaring himself the “King of Boggle”, he asked our mother to fashion a crown—yes, a crown—out of wrapping paper. For reasons still unclear, our mother complied with this request from her grown son, making him a Burger-King-style wrap-around crown.

To the crown he affixed “pieces of charm”, if you will—Post-it notes with the words: “King of Boggle. QUAGMIRE. 11 Points”; “RISK: Flattened opponents” and “BACKGAMMON: Marsed Dad”. This of course further endeared him to all members of the household. Uh, the royal household, I should say: starting at his coronation, he would enter the room with a “royal” wave of the hand towards his humble subjects. How happy we were when he said it wasn’t necessary for us to genuflect when he got up for a snack—we only needed to do that when he arrived in the room.

The Boggle win was, in short, unbearably annoying. For not only is the brother an expert trash-talker—especially when it comes to lucky wins—but he is also tenacious. We knew we would not soon hear the end of this.

Fast forward to the next summer. Another friend (with an encyclopedic knowledge of music, I should add) had come to visit, and while the others prepared the barbecue, I was hunting for something in the cupboard. I came across the evil crown and showed it to my friend, telling him about my brother’s ascension to the Boggle throne, precipitated by his win with QUAGMIRE for 11 points. My friend, apparently unimpressed, said, “Oh, like the Beastie Boys.”

“What? No, this was when we were playing Boggle,” I said, concerned that he was not listening.

“Right, so, like the Beasties,” he said. I still had no idea what he was talking about.

“No, no, I am talking about a word game. Perhaps I should start at the beginning again?” He told me to wait and went out to his car.

Whereupon he retrieved his computer. He played a song for me by the Beastie Boys which simultaneously made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, drained the color from my face, and made me feel dizzy. It had the following lyric:

I’m the King of Boggle
There is none higher
Got eleven points with the word quagmire

The name of the song is “Putting Shame in Your Game”. Check it out for yourself.

I think a lot about the concept of placeness, and what differentiates one location on the planet from another, beyond what you can see. Isn’t it interesting that in certain places you can sense stories humming in undertones? And that the spaces in which we move, physically, effect our activities and emotions and aspirations in radically different ways, via so many variables: geographical location, physical and natural features, human culture, history and migration, climate, pollution, design … and many more?

Some physical places look mundane, but have witnessed horrors and can make you shiver just to enter them. Some places make you feel elated and free.

moss-covered wall
Originally uploaded by .Leili.

Some crowded, whirring places simultaneously press on your soul, and awaken creativity. If there is no personal space for you in the crowd, in order to survive, you might have to make psychic space and distance around you.

Kampala Old Taxi Park (Matatu Park)
Originally uploaded by Kattaka.

In addition to these physical features, it seems that each place could also be said to have a spiritual history - a history of human relationships, advancement, interactions, choices, conflicts, innovations, struggles and love.

I went the other day to Boston Symphony Hall. We saw Fidelio with the amazing Christine Brewer in the Leonore/Fidelio role. Symphony Hall really has placeness. I grew up hearing stories about music heard in that place, towering musical figures encountered in that place. The building even had a role in my parents’ marriage.

So what constitutes “placeness” for you? What locations stay with you, and why? Do these places look unassuming, or might the uninitiated be able to tell that there is something special about that place from just a glance? Are your thoughts about placeness connected to ideas about home?

Originally uploaded by ardour.

I find this picture by Yoav very beautiful. It reminds me of something that has bothered me for some time, and for which no one has yet supplied an answer that makes sense:

Although we see and hear many birds each day, why do we almost never see dead birds? I have seen hundreds of thousands of birds in my life. I am even one of those nerds who seeks them out. Yet I have only seen a tiny number of dead birds in my life. In Haifa, yes: I understand that there are ravening feral cats everywhere, and “being eaten” has got to explain the phenomenon, at least partially. But what about all the other places? How could street animals and/or wildlife possibly get to all the millions of birds who die each day without me seeing any evidence? It’s not like I don’t look around, either.

What’s your theory?

In a related question, I am wondering what is happening to all the flowers that are grown and cut and shipped and bunched and displayed in a streetside stand for myriad purposes — apologies, love, restitution, thanks — and go unclaimed? Do all those potential emotions wind up wilted and unexpressed in the dumpster at the back alley?

Roses in the heart of New York City.
Originally uploaded by .Leili.

Morningside Park.

On Friday, I had to get from the upper west side of Manhattan down to the UN, over to Brooklyn, and back, and happened to pick a miserable, urban ice storm in which to do it. In addition to subways, that’s about 40 blocks of outdoor walking. I had not come to the City with the right gear, either (dramatically incorrect footwear, no hat, flimsy umbrella). I felt, as I often do these days, culturally ill-equipped for my re-entry into US society — Martian, even — as though I have never had to be out in snow before and could think only of the 78 varieties of coconut that grow in my fictitious backyard.

As I walked down 42nd Street, I couldn’t help but notice that my face was being bombarded with tiny stinging ice pellets (Mum helpfully pointed out that said pellets are called “rime,” but the fact that they have a name that appears in 19th-century poetry does not excuse their behavior).

As we stepped gingerly through the gunmetal slush, trying to find a bus - any bus - to catch, a recent transplant from Canadia confessed to me that she had dismissed that morning’s severe weather warning as the paranoia of wimpy Americans. Then she got to work, and started noticing colleagues arriving at the office covered in, well - rime. With wet feet. And then she realized her only shoes were buttery-soft leather flats. I should add that the addition of ziploc bags used as socks did not help (is that some sort of Canadian trick?). The one who fared best among us was, interestingly, from Perth, and had never been in such weather in her life. She was wise enough to have invested in granny boots at the first signs of winter.

So, lucky me! Lash came to visit.

It was great to see him, though surreal, because it’s been months, and many farewells, and thousands of miles, and … thousands of degrees, besides. We walked around Boston in freezing ridiculous weather, and snapped some photos.

The light was very New England - I would even venture to say that it was very Bostonian. I don’t know, however, if I have a leg to stand on when I assert that Boston has its own light. It may just be superstition. People say the Caribbean has its own light. The Mediterranean. The American southwest.

And Boston: something about the brick against the blue cold sky, and the silver shine that glints off bare urban twigs - for me it is iconic. I was eager to see how a Canadian eye-lens would see all of this, and of course I was not disappointed. But you can’t see them because he hasn’t put them up on his Flickr yet.

Here are a few from that day. Because I like taking pictures too, Mr. Professional Photo Person. If ONLY I had a better camera I could take photos just. like. you. <wink>

… We stopped to chat for a while. He was lolling about by the incoming tide. Because he didn’t seem to be making his way back into the water, and because there were no other seals lolling about in the vicinity, we thought he might be ill and waited while a man called the New England Aquarium for help. Apparently seals “look abandoned” while their mothers leave to seek food for them. No, I don’t know how to tell the difference between seals that look abandoned owing to the lunch issue, and those that really are abandoned.

Later, I was asked what there is to discuss with a seal. It went something like this:

Me: What are you doing here? I’m cold. Are you?
Furry Creature: (flappity flap)
Me: I see your family also makes you go out in the tundric wind in the middle of winter.
F.C.: (disarming seal-grin)
Me: You have a coat on, but still. Is your mother getting you lunch? Are you lost?
F.C.: (flap flap flap)

Am I wrong, or is it kind’ve unusal to come across a seal during a mundane walk?