Category Archives: Life

6 Days

It’s been six days since my father died, and I ‘m still trying to wrap my head around it.

My father was a good man, and well loved, the church was overflowing at the service on Friday, and many people talked about what my father had done for them, how he’d helped then in some manner, large or small, and their great love and admiration for him.

I don’t think I’ll ever be as good a person as my father (although I know my wife may think different), but if I’ve learned one thing this week, it’s that you need to be the change you want, you need to do what’s right, or appropriate, even if no one else does. Do what’s important to you.  Help those that need it.

And, I think that that is the greatest thing that my father left for me.

Sculpture is RUDE

Deborah Fisher explains why public sculpture is inherently rude, and argumentative, and why it’s good to challenge our “internal notion of reality”.

A sculpture is this essentially rude thing, whose sole purpose in life is to take up space. It should therefore be unsurprising that public sculpture is, more often than not, the site of outrageous conflict, and that the overwhelming response to that inescapable fact is generally to settle on the most numbingly bland public work possible.

John Cage’s “Rules for Students and Teachers”

1. Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.
2. General duties of a student–pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
3. General duties of a teacher–pull everything out of your students.
4. Consider everything an experiment.
5. Be self-disciplined–this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
6. Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.
7. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
8. Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
9. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
10. Break rules. Even your own rules. Leave plenty of room for X quantities.

(Via Robert Genn)

Chuck Close: Self Portrait/Scribble/Etching Portfolio, 2000


I went to see This show at Colby College yesterday. Really nice show, nominally based around the etching of the title, whch you can see the whole process here.
Description of the show from the Colby site (since I don’t know how long it’ll stay there)

Chuck Close has been making self-portraits since the late 1960s. These efforts are invariably based on photographs that he makes of himself and famously translates into paintings, drawings, prints, and other media—typically a methodical, labor-intensive process. His investment in such processes forms the subject of his Self-Portrait/Scribble/Etching Portfolio, 2000, a set of twenty-five prints that illustrates the steps required to produce a single, twelve-color etching. It is also the focus of this exhibition, which uses that portfolio as a lens through which to examine the intersections and parallels that structure Close’s artistic ideas. Accompanied by a full-color catalogue featuring a new interview with the artist. Organized in conjunction with the Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University and The Mead Art Museum, Amherst College

It closes at Colby in a couple of weeks,, and I’m not sure if it’s headed anywhere else (it looks like Colby was the last stop on the tour).
This tapestry was also in the show, and is from Colby’s permanent collection:

This is also the 2nd thing on my 101 in 1001 I get to cross off. Yippee!

101 in 1001

Today starts Jenny’s and my 101 in 1001 days challenge, which ends May 30, 2011.
basically we have 1001 days to do things on a list of 101 things.
Check out my list by clicking the link in the sidebar over there on the right, under pages. I’ll keep you updated on the progress.

Tired of those credit card and insurance offers?

Opt Out at OptOutPrescreen.com.
You can opt out from these offers either for 5 years, or permanently (by mail).
It won’t eliminate all of the offers, but according to MasterYourCard it took care of about 90% of their junk mail.
Ecological, and de-stressing.
The rest of the post at MasterYourCard is worth reading also–it’s about doing for yourself what the company LifeLock says it will do for you for $120/yr.

immaculate heart college art department rules (tecznotes)

immaculate heart college art department rules (tecznotes)

From Sister Corita Kent

1. Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while.
2. General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher, pull everything out of your fellow students.
3. General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students.
4. Consider everything an experiment.
5. Be self-disciplined. This means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
6. Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail. There is only make.
7. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.
8. Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
9. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
10. “We’re breaking all of the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” – John Cage.

Helpful hints: Always be around. Come or go to everything always. Go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully often. Save everything, it might come in handy later.

There should be new rules next week.

Yeah I copied and pasted the whole thing, because (1) it’s short, and (2) I want to save it where I know I can find it.
Found via BoingBoing