Valentine's Day Musings. . .

Valentine's Day is such an odd day. I have a sweet fondness for the childhood cards and sweet treats, but it also has a dark side. Our society puts such pressure on having a "mate". I have been making more collages that I thought I would send out to close friends. But then I start to second guess myself about who should receive a card on Valentine's?

My mom is the best at sending the right card at the right time. I received a very old fashioned card in the mail today from her.

"Your Valentine,

Your little net, as'round it darts

Among the fluttering, willing hearts,

Will catch one for you valentine,

I hope the heart you snare is mine."

As I get older my heart gives love to all and to none.

AVATAR

I have been out of the loop around town due to ankle surgery in December. One of my first outings in the New Year was to see AVATAR in Saco, ME in the IMAX theater. Wow. I thought it was amazingly beautiful and loved the 3D effect. If you are a science fiction freak you will love it, but if you are not you should buck up and go see it anyways. I saw it for a second time this weekend and still felt it was breathtaking.

Locally I am most excited to get to the Portland Museum of Art to see the collage show. I will report back on that one.

I plan to make a trip to Boston to the MFA for the Egyptian show along with Toulouse Lautrec's Paris and Jewels of Modern Indian Art. So lots more to come in the coming weeks at the Vortex!

Happy New Year to Everyone.

Traveling Here and There

It has been a busy few weeks since my last post. Thanksgiving has come and gone, bringing family and friends together for food and movies. I highly recommend going to see the newest Wes Anderson film, Fantastic Mr. Fox. It was everything I had hope. The sets for this stop motion animated movie are amazing. The story by Roald Dahl was brought to life and expanded upon with Anderson's own recurring themes of parent and child relationships, being different, living outside the rules and consequences. I am looking forward to seeing it again, hopefully in the IMAX theater.

On the famed Black Friday, I was off to New York City to see the Tim Burton show at the MOMA. We had an entrance ticket for 10:30 am on Saturday. It was already sold out when we arrived and crowded upon entering. The show itself was interesting, but seemed to lacking something curatorially. It was laid out in a series of rooms that did not seem to flow from one to the other. The crowds forced us to jump around a bit. Although they tried to impose a chronological flow it felt out of balance. I wish they had done a better job at editing down all the drawings, which are interesting, but there was no added benefit to seeing the endless doodles. When the chronology finally arrived at his mature period of films, there seemed to be too little in the way of creative examples of what I consider to be his true genius, a complete vision that creates another world we can all identify as Tim Burton's world.

That said, I was glad I made the trip and thoroughly enjoyed seeing his work. If you make it into the MOMA soon, make sure you check out the rooms of design and architecture. I loved the show of items from their permanent collection of modern design. Take particular note of the corner filled with posters from Poland vintage 1945 to 1989. I found them visually striking and fascinating.

After taking in some of my favorite Matisse paintings along with an awesome Jean Dubuffet painting (when can we see a retrospective show of his seminal work?), we headed up Fifth Ave to the MET. Along the way we took in the Bergdorf Goodman holiday windows that are worth the trip to NYC right there! They were loosely following the theme of Alice in Wonderland. I want to know who the artist or artists created these amazing works? Each window was filled with such a complex maze of installation/sculpture/fashion it is mind boggling. I snapped away with my phone camera. The images do not do them justice. I could have stood in front of them all afternoon: mirrored instruments, fringe covered life size polar bears, cheshire cat, miniature buildings with M.C. Escheresq spiral staircases, horses of moss, shells, grass manes, etc..

Great Theater by Good Theater

The good theater company at St Lawrence Art Center has a run of Frost/Nixon through November 22nd. It was a full house last night, so get your tickets ahead. The performance was fantastic. Tony Reilly gave a beautifully controlled and steady Richard Nixon. Nixon has become such a caricature of himself that it would have been easy to go over the top with his portrayal. Reilly kept the energy that really sums up Nixon consistent throughout the show, which was quite a feat given there was no intermission.

One of the most telling lines was in the opening monolog given by the unidentified character, Jim Reston. He references Greek poet Aeschylus and the belief in 450 B.C. that man is struck down by the Gods when his hubris is too much. Reston says that we believe more now in man's self-destructive nature and give less credit to the God's. We see the pattern again and again in politics, economics and everyday dynamics. Does power corrupt or does a corrupt nature seek power?

Most of you know the story of Watergate and the fall out, which in today's current events seems almost benign. I found myself thinking about the actual history of that period and how would we compare George W. Bush's legacy to Nixon's? Have we learned anything from our own history? Is it inevitable that as humans we default to a neutral position of believing and trusting in our leaders and institutions without thinking and researching on our own? How many people formulate their own opinion on the ever increasingly complex world we live in?

I often argue that there will always be war, because there will always be humans who want to dominate and control others. We need the impartial structures that governments, at their best, can write and adhere to, in order to protect the freedom of all its citizens. Frost/Nixon brings my attention back to the failure of our own government to protect the rights of the given minority of homosexuals, lesbian, bisexuals, and transgendered in our country. We need the federal government to step in to uphold the separation of church and state, making all unions in the eyes of the law civil unions. Religious views have no place in our government if we are to protect the smallest minority from the tyranny of the majority.

I know I have digressed from the Frost/Nixon play, but when theater is at its best it communicates something powerfully and directly, opening my mind for the connections between everything.

Separating the art from the Artist

I find myself contemplating a question that seems to appear every so often, "Can we separate the artist from the art?" I watched a documentary this week on Picasso and Michael Jackson is playing on the Bose. I have plans to see the movie that is out in the theaters now of Jackson's last show he was about to embark on before his death. When Michael Jackson died suddenly I did not weep; I did not even feel that bad. My first reaction was astonishment that their could be so much adulation for a man who was if not guilty of pederasty, certainly took advantage of his position of power to take advantage of some children.

Michael Jackson had more fame than was good for him at a young age. This fact among others does not excuse behavior; it just explains it. We are a society driven by the fantasy of fame and fortune, yet those who achieve that goal often fail on the basic humanity issues. Both Jackson and Picasso were geniuses in their artistic vehicle.

I have been a huge fan of Picasso's work, while acknowledging the conflict between the creative force of such an artist and his treatment of the women in his life. Was he a misogamist? From everything I have read and seen I think he was at best a quintessential selfish egotistical artist. The bottom line is the work needs to be able to stand up on its own. Any historical facts about an artist's life add a different dimension to experiencing the work, bringing it into cultural and political context.

We cannot ignore the behavior of any person, regardless of their creative genius. It seems that we need to take it all in in life: good, bad, ugly and beautiful. On that note I hope to enjoy the music of Jackson that made me jump up and dance in childhood while staying clear on the score of the fully complicated human being he was. And for Picasso, he will always be at the top of my list of all time great visual artists. Who the others are will have to wait for another post.

Halloween and Music

Halloween was always one of my favorite holidays. I remember being a junior in high school and dressing up as Peter Pan to go out trick-or-treating. In college and before Cooper was born I would go to my brother's house in Groton in costume to hand out candy to the kids. When Cooper was old enough we would go with friends to Groton to go out. Now I get dressed up to go out with friends to dance and party at SPACE Gallery!

I lay in bed this morning, listening to a CD I downloaded last night, Thievery Corporation - Radio Retaliation. It came out in 2008, but I have only recently discovered it on Itunes. I must say the whole digital music revolution is awesome! I have always been into listening to music, but now I get to have immediate gratification along with the intense pleasures of quality sound through my Bose earbuds. For anyone out there who loves their ipod, but is unhappy with the quality of the sound, try the Bose. They are worth every penny of the price, which I think is around $95.

The other group I have recently been introduced to by my good friend Justin (musician and violin maker extraordinaire), is Tosca a duo of Richard Dorfmeister and Rupert Huber. The sound is ambient electronica. It is mellow, but not to the point of acting like a sedative. I love this sound early in the morning, when easing into the day requires a little smoothing out.

Maine. The Magazine

I received my Maine Home and Design magazine along with the newest addition Maine. The Magazine, yesterday afternoon. After doing my usual flip through and look at all the images of both magazines, I was struck by just how aesthetically pleasing this newest publication is. They are using one of my favorite photographers, Karen Lewis. She brings a sense of theatrics without being over the top. The cover alone is worth the price of admission. Who knew Freeport could look so beautiful and exotic?

What comes through on maine. magazines is an amazing attention to detail. I love the tone of each issue. It seems to have a limited pallet that makes its layout and images more striking. It is also nice to see a wide variety of subjects and people represented. Congratulations to everyone who contributes its success!

On the Home and Design side of the duo, I am happy to see Richard Keen featured this month. Richard is a great artist who continues to explore Maine, the ocean, fishing, ship building and a variety of mediums to everyones enjoyment. I am lucky enough to own a Richard Keen painting that plays with abstracted sense of water, goldfish and pebbles. It is one of my favorite paintings!

Richard Keen's new work can be seen in a group show opening at Whitney Artworks on the first friday in November. The show called "Fresh Paint" includes two other artists of note: Deborah Randall and Richard Garrigus. I am looking forward to seeing this show and will definitely write a piece after the opening.