may2006

The Spring Collection et al, May 29 2006

I try to bring my camera to every reception at Chambers, but this doesn’t mean that I always take pictures. Sometimes I just want to be with the people, plus I love this show and got swept up in it. Still, luckily someone had the presence of mind to remind me that I had it just as we were closing the doors. Brian Borrello took this photograph of Wid and me with the artists Guy Martelet and Horia Boboia.

The Mode, May 27 2006

Recently I read a review in which the writer speaks of a particular work as: “…. fibres into the realm of fashion without diminishing any of the art-related importance of the medium….”

Well I have to add something to this. Modernism, as a word, has various sources. Baudelaire calling for a new work addressing Modern Life, that’s one.

But the other important source was in the single word, a new word for the 19^th century called Mode. And this was a word to describe a new phenomenon of how women in particular dressed. The industrial revolution changed everything in that department. Within a century we went from one, maybe 2 sets of clothes, to new ensembles every year, and the only reason to buy them was to keep up with the new. This perpetually new path was the Mode and it was part and parcel with the demand for the new in the world of western art.

Just because you address style or fashion (in your life or in your work) does not make you an airhead and it does not divorce you from serious art or art history. Serious Modern art history was made within the context of the Mode and fashion, right from the start.

I’m thinking about this a lot because my own work addressed it from time to time in works like 60s/80s. But the more my work looks like the woven or the worn (and these are other’s words, not mine), something people want to ‘wrap themselves up with,’ the more I can’t ignore that I’m informed by a slew of life interest and experience, like anyone else, and some of that is what’s on my back.

Soundtrack, May 27 2006

Ever had your heart broken? If so, then you know that you need just the right soundtrack for it. Frank Sinatra, when dumped by Ava Gardner in 1955, created his own with In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning. Maybe there is not a better Dumped record. Maybe there is not a better Sinatra recording. It's considered by many to be the first fully-realized 'concept' album. What a concept! This is a masterpiece start to finish, aided by the Nelson Riddle Orchestra. No agenda will present the original recording, before re-mastering, reissuing, etc., and it’s my last agenda until I return to KPSU in August.

Big Mistake, May 25 2006

Yesterday I learned that a favorite Professor of mine at PSU did not get his contract renewed. This news is very upsetting to me.

I say ‘a favorite’ because I have not been able to study with everyone there. PSU has some luminaries I have not had the pleasure of learning from. I came to the school with 127 credit hours from the U of O and have had to pick and choose as best I could towards graduation, plus run a gallery, have an art career and whatever else. Since I have been there, sometimes I have only had one class all year (the minimum required to keep my matriculated status). So I am far from a PSU art history department expert.

Still, I’ve had a taste of the weird and lame which passes for an art history class there. One class had me watching films all term and doing projects way under the scope of my everyday life (like “interview an artist” or “go to First Thursday” - !). No tests, no need to remember anything.

Then I had a class in which I had to look at images and pretend I was Roland Barthes when I wrote about them. What’s wrong with being Eva Lake? Why not exercise her brain and views instead? (To be fair, none of these were tenured Professors there.)

But this Professor gave me philosophy, history, novelists, discoveries, interpretations combined with cold hard facts in such profusion that my hand hurt with note-taking while my brain gloated with new found pleasure. His oft-eccentric personality reassured me rather than the opposite. Perhaps it takes one to know one. Portland State University is making a big mistake.

Oregon, May 24 2006

The above is the side of a building across from my mom's old house in Jacksonville. She had an old miner's house, a historical monument and I was sad when she sold it. Every time I go down south I walk up to it, and walk through the entire small town. Some of my best childhood memories are locked within that place.

Portland, yes, I've had a fluctuating affair with, always have. But Portland is not Oregon. It’s amazing to me how people can wax on the virtues of PDX and think they are defining this state without knowing it. There are the real spots which are not trend-x but are authentic. Like Becky’s Café in Union Creek.

And there is also the glaring fact that beyond enclaves like PDX, Eugene and Ashland, this could be a red state. If you don’t know that, you don’t know Oregon.

The jokes abound about how Oregonians rust and don't tan. Tell that to my pals down south, who already sport one. There's this Portland-centric attitude that this valley is all there is to the state and that raises the fur on my back. I did not understand the jokes as I grew up down south. But I came to understand the bane of the rain once I moved to Eugene for school. The tales the natives told started to make sense. You know, the Indians would not settle in the Willamette Valley. Bad vibes, they said, maybe due to all that damn rain. And maybe they had a point.

All I know is that after I pass Eugene on the freeway - the clouds break - it happens almost every time...and the green gives away a bit to gold and red, just a nice balance, that's all, and the air grows dry and warm and embraces your skin. Close to the Redwoods, to Rogue River, rattlesnakes and coyotes and gold - that is another Oregon, the one I knew first.

Bill Nelson, May 21 2006

An album that I listened to over and over again was Love that Whirls by Bill Nelson (formerly of Be Bop Deluxe). He was Northern, romantic, sensual and combined guitar with the electronic. And so I have a couple songs from that LP on the next agenda.

What I don’t seem have much of though is an album which in many ways was more extraordinary: Das Kabinet. Nelson worked with a Yorkshire Actors Company, providing them with soundtracks. One was for Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, but the real killer was his music for Das Kabinet of Doctor Caligari. No doubt you are familiar with the Gothic film of the same name from 1919. Talk about moving art.

Implosion, May 20 2006

They are being built all over the world but how often can you see one destroyed? Tomorrow, 7am.

Yes.

Coral Charm, May 19 2006

This is a flower that starts out pink in the garden and not all that large. But cut it, take it inside and watch the transformation. Eventually it passes from coral to golden and huge like a massive feather boa. My mate grew these.

Tonight, May 18 2006

I don’t know that we’ve ever pulled together as cohesive a show as what will open tonight at Chambers. Both of the artists work is just stunning. They both have chops, an intimacy and quiet danger, but are also very different from each other. The work above is by Horia Boboia and the work below is by Guy Martelet. And no, there's no collaging there. It's all paint.

May 17 2006

It’s hard to say when exactly my fascination with the Second World War and the Holocaust began. Maybe with the first reading of Anne Frank’s diary in 1968 or so.

But to be fascinated, to have the need to read every morsel (junior high was filled with reading William Shirer’s Berlin Diary and the like) and watch every film – there is nothing original in that - for I am a baby boomer and this was my parents war. Or at least I think it was, for my step-dad’s past is untracable, for all his glorious war stories, and I have no idea who my real father is.

Still, whoever told me all about it. The teachers at school had us watch all of the films. Film after film about the Holocaust, the sepia tone is ingrained in my brain. When I first saw the work of Christian Boltanski, I was immediately attracted.

As regards education, I wonder if such an agenda is on the slates at schools these days? I ask this question because while I was given a very thorough understanding of WW2, I never did receive during this time (the 60s) a satisfying and clear answer of why we were in Vietnam – a much closer reality, on the TV every night, the counting and imaging the dead. I knew it was full on. I had friends who lost brothers or came back never the same. But what I got in school was the Holocaust.

To this day if my husband should shoot by the History Channel and bomber jets and dog fights appear, I am mesmerized. The biggest prize collection of sources for my photomontage were copies of Die Woche, a German mag from the 1930s, which I cut to pieces and which contributed to all my Ghetto pieces.

And now in the news (today, the Oregonian) is the fact that the formal recounting, an exact recounting as only a Nazi could, are now about to be made available: the exact murder and disposal of over 17 million people – many not Jews but artists, gays, conspirators. 300 people shot randomly to celebrate Hitler’s birthday. A record held tight for all these years. I have to ask myself why?

Say what you will about 11 nations having a unified responsibility to these documents - they are all resting comfortably in Deutschland for over fifty years. They talk about protecting the families but what rubbish. It's a temporary wash away in a safe of the deaths of 17.5 million people?

Just the cover of the document creates a strange push-pull in me. I put the paper aside to look at later. Like I said, I’m not rare for (a certain sector) my generation. Feed me enough of that brown death and I will want to know more. I’m pretty sure that is why we as punks took that swastika and wore it. There are many reasons for it, but indoctrination from a previous generation and the need to circumvent it had everything to do with it.

Rodin, Modern Dance, Martelet, May 16 2006

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about Rodin, as I am writing a paper on him, based on the Crouching Woman (at the Portland Art Museum). One thing that strikes me is how his position of capturing the figure naturally in movement (as opposed to how previous sculptors posed models deliberately) as premise for a life’s work coincides like hand in glove with the platform for modern dance.

Save this piece is decades ahead of Isadora Duncan or Nijinsky – choreographers he was highly curious about when they made their entrance years later, not to speak of what he really looks like: the moves of Martha Graham. It got me thinking that while we know Rodin influenced generations of visual artists, could he have contributed, even if inadvertently, to the platform and destination of modern dance?

Speaking of Rodin, Guy Martelet has included one of Rodin’s major sculptures in one of his pieces (see above), combined with a Durer and a lovely woodpecker. This show is really going to be something.

Horia Boboia: Untitled (Terrorist), acrylic on paper

Wild life, May 14 2006

What a wild week. First off, danced the night away at the P Modern party.

For Saturday evening we had the CAP auction, which provides amusements as well as funding a good cause. For me it gets more fun because I know some people now, but it took all nine years here to get there.

I’ll be frank: I wish the curatorial committee would be more adventurous in what kind of images they select for the catalogue and the live auction. Things seem a bit predictable. - The argument could be that they did not receive the adventurous work to begin with. Well, they did receive some and also, if committees consistently shoot for a certain level, some artists will stop donating. I think the younger and more underexposed will keep donating, hungry for exposure and the committees count on that and take advantage of them but don’t necessarily promote them.

This has nothing to do with the great cause they support. Artists relate to those at risk, knowing plenty about it themselves.

Also, I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: why are we so interesting just one time of the year? With the exception of the wonderful Marilyn Murdoch of Guestroom, the various people associated with this auction are never around, never come into the gallery; have never been to one of my exhibitions. I wonder if they even care, are familiar with what they are asking for? Or does this not matter? To the artist, I can assure that it does.

But suddenly once a year we’re essential. I need some interest back at this point. I know they work hard and are busy, but so am I. Pay you back with interest.

Guy Martelet: Untitled, gouache on paper

And today a show at Chambers came down and new one emerges: I am so excited to be showing the work of Horia Boboia and Guy Martelet. A Romanian and a Frenchman, so continental! The work is intimate and very unique, on both ends.

Wisteria time, May 12 2006

This Polaroid has been posted before. I just thought I would show out-of-towners what Portland looks like this time of year. An abundance of wisteria, rhododendrons, azalea. This is a house in the NW part of town, but such houses are elsewhere, older and laden with color.

Get down, May 10 2006

One day not long ago I was driving in the sunshine (still a new experience for me) and a song by KC and the Sunshine Band came on. Maybe I’m Your Boogie Man. I was like, stop the car! I need to get out and dance!

So I contacted a certain person who just might have that kind of music. He did, and kindly created a collection from that time and era known as disco.

The first time around, I despised it. This does not mean that I never participated, for the one gay disco in Eugene (the Riviera Room) was about the only place in town that did not card me, and who would also vaguely accept my style. I recall requesting Young Americans from the begrudging DJs countless times. About the only real nod I ever gave to disco was a gold lame bomber jacket I acquired in London.

Fast forward to the early 90s in New York: several factors play into an interest in the music. First of all, I got into 70s everything, the clothes and the elevator shoes, etc. The fascination did not stay with me all that long, whereas unfortunately PDX seems to still be into it.

Then there was a small pack of my pals from Chanel who went to obscure downtown clubs on the off-nights (never on a weekend), Sapphire Lounge in the lower east side and Jackie 60 in the meat market district were the favorites. They played not only disco but loads of funk and soul music.

It was all about dancing, which leads me to the next factor: my dance teacher Luigi. He had truly sunk his teeth into me by then and made me, at least for awhile, a dancer. Between his classes and the clubs, I danced everyday.

So this next agenda is all about the dance. I won’t talk save at the start and end of the hour, so you could download something which can start a party.

Bonsai, May 9 2006

People ask me what my mate does. He is a plant man, especially as regards Bonsai trees.

let's dance, May 7 2006

While most of the music for the next agenda is The Sound, my favorite cuts are the Au Pairs and The The’s Uncertain Smile. I still love to dance to this song.

Speaking of dancing, I am actually contemplating an hour of Disco. Yes, disco – which I regarded as a Nazi Death March by 1977 – became something else in the early 90s for me in clubs like Sapphire Lounge and the famed Jackie 60 in NYC. But more on that later. If I do this set, you could have a stash of primetime disco for a party. I mean Car Wash, Bad Girls, Le Freak, etc.

The event, May 6 2006

R and D is comprised of Jason Dumars, Tim DuRoche and Lisa Radon. It was a wonderful night.

William Blake, May 5 2006

It was stated that the auction brought a disappointing result, one in which a collection of primetime Blakes were piecemealed out. I’d say it was karma. The slicing up of a unified body of work like this was a crime which did not pay.

May 4 2006

A nice description of what you can expect tonight (see: Chambers).

conclusions, May 4 2006

TJ Norris wrote an interesting column about curating, sort of using local curator’s comments as springboards to his own past in the activity and his various experiences.

Like I said in the piece, ‘Zeitgiest’ belongs to no particular age bracket. Why do I feel the need to make such an obvious point? Because the big news in the art world is how the young and the ancient are scooped up, but the mid-career-yet-not-famous artist is not as collectable or seen as interesting.

Well, all I know is that in most of the art history classes I have taken, the profs do show the early work. But it’s not what we are tested on and it’s not what fills the textbooks. It is works by artists in their maturity (with few exceptions, like Sherman's B-movie stills, or the only-young Egon Schiele and Franz Marc).

The Prof is happy to show evolutions but no one is thinking that the greatest achievement of Kandinsky is his fauvist pre-abstraction (lovely as it is). It’s the monumental achievement he reached past forty. And art history is filled with story after story like this: even the coveted Warhol was no enfant when he made his dollar bills. Jean Arp made his singular sculptures based on nature as a signature statement long past Dada (and the next war too).

In her interview, Judy Cooke had some wise words as regarding how she taught and the changes she was seeing, in general, around her in the milieu of academia and the expectations towards an art career. “They (the students) feel this urgency to come to a conclusion already.”

And how stable, at an early age with life all before you, could this ‘conclusion’ be? – that specific mark that may define the next 50 years?

Of course it’s personal here. The typical option right now seems to be that we must to wait till we’re 'elders' and then the hubbub begins. Because you’re a ‘find’ writers and collectors can wax on. But I don’t want to wait for that verdict, even while I sharpen, finally, some ‘conclusions.’

The compilation tape, May 3 2006

Lately I’ve been thinking about the compilation tape, which is a source for no agenda. It holds a place in Indie history that compilation CDs never achieved. High Fidelity is telling a true story. I think I’ve figured out why.

Having worked at a record store, I have a lot of them. I never gave my paycheck back to my boss (this was a rule wherever I worked - vintage clothes, Chanel, Saks, I don’t care – never pretend you’re the bucks-up customer). But you know there’s always this subversive pressure to keep up. I found acquisitive ways unappealing and so I just taped.

The trend is to play down cassette tapes and their quality, but hey I’ve still got the music, some of it taped in the 70s. Many CDs since then, a form I do not trust and think is highly overrated and overpriced - can skip, go bad, do all the things they told us they would not do. Not only that, technology should go down in price as it advances, yes? Why are CDs still expensive as shit?

But of course the Internet is changing all of that. All kinds of ‘alternative music’ is to be had, no matter how obscure. But in the years in between, music which was hardly available to anyone became available one way: the compilation tape, often a gift and very emblematic.

Five or ten vinyl copies may have come into the record store. But more than that many people might have liked to possess the music. These were the fringe, the buckless types, and so I taped a lot of stuff – for myself and for others and I know I was not alone. And then they taped what I taped. And so the five copies of Dark Entries (just an example) which arrived in PDX way back slowly landslide as the years progress. But I don’t know that it is the actual vinyl which spread this gospel. I think it’s the tape.

Years after I left the music business, I still had one friend who worked at a record store who, every now and then, would send me a tape. I still have all of those too.

Blanket, May 2 2006

All of the recent paintings are taking me back to blankets my Granddad owned (and then my mother and uncle). None were as multi-colored as the paintings I make. Such blankets do exist though: hot pink with lime green and all kinds of variations.

Tim Duroche, May 1 2006

Today I will have Tim Duroche on the air. He is a writer, a musician, a curator and maybe I have left something else out.

And not only that: I may as well announce right now that he, along with partner Lisa Radon, will perform at Chambers this coming Thursday evening at 7pm. Known as Research and Development, they combine spoken word, experimental sound and percussion. They meld sound and word in live performance, as well as recording and sound installation. Texts are co-written and scores are collaborative for an improvised performance.

More recent entries: April 2006