internalvistas

American Regrets

2010-08-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been interested in antiquing. It sounds like something old ladies meet up to do, not something a thirty year old guy would be caught dead doing, but I enjoy it. I like seeing things from the past. I've developed a simple thesis that the average person seems to be a stranger too: Not everything that is current is best. In other words, people tend to think the present is always the peak of how far civilization has come and that we do everything better now than in the past. That is false. Exhibit A is pop bottles. That's one of my favorite old things to look at and collect. They used to be made for repeated uses, out of thick glass (much more environmentally friendly). The writing and imagery was another kind of glass applied as a paste to a bottle and then baked on. In addition to the materials being better and the bottles being built to last, old bottles are designed better, aesthetically. In fact they are brilliant in that regard. When did we loose our way so completely in regard to design in this country? Everything is overly complex and underly clever now. A simple field of color with text of another can be so evocative, and yet this simple fact seems to be ignored totally in current design. And that's just one concept that seems lost in design today.

Which brings me to a new 'reality' show on the history channel called American pickers. It is about two guys who run an antique shop and search the countryside looking for neat old stuff to sell. I should love it, right? I don't---in fact really rubs me the wrong way, but I still watch it sometimes because the actual stuff they find interests me. For one thing, both these guys, Mike and Frank, seem to be rather unlikeable, especially Mike. They are loud mouthed, yet rarely have anything to say, and seem to have a less than encyclopedic knowledge of antiques. They are not clever or fun. They also overlook many neat objects in favor of a very narrow scope of items, such as bikes, motorcycles and oil cans. Further, they lie about values to make every 'pick' on their show seem not only wise, but like a major money-maker. They both have a patronizing attitude towards the people they 'pick' and also rip off many of these people value-wise. They both seem to be trying to appear as cool as possible, and desperately project that they are no longer the looser nerds of their high school. As part of this they are very lingo-heavy. Picking and pikers is lingo for what they do and who they are, professionally. The term itself is crude sounding in general, but also implies that they are picking through mounds of useless crap looking for the 'diamond in the rough'. While this may be true from a money making point of view, the things that the people Mike and Frank visit collect are important to them.

Beyond the fact that Mike and Frank seem like less than TV ready personalities, or maybe part of it, is the 'reality' shown in the program. The show is about guys trying to buy stuff for an antique store. Yet, we don't see the store itself in operation ever. What is it like? Who comes in and buys things? And most importantly, how do they stay in business? None of these questions can be answered by watching the show. Clearly, the value they put on their 'picks' is on average quite high in relation to reality. Even if it was not, antiques move very slow, especially big ticket antiques, and we never get a feel for what they need to collect to stay open. From what is shown on TV, they tend to buy mostly mid range to big ticket items, rarely 'picking' any bread and butter lower price items such as, not to be biased, bottles. In the end, I walk away feeling that only two things keep the store afloat; Danielle the assistant and the History Channel.

Over the course of watching the show, I've come to actually hate Mike. Neither of the pair seem like bright enough people to pull off a brick and mortar store and they seem like poor candidates to build a show around. But Mike makes being unlikeable an art form, while Frank just merely struggles with being likable because of a lack of certain gifts. One must from time to time wonder what people in the antiques industry think of the show and these two fellows. I imagine people who work in antiques around the country are turned off by Mike and Frank as people and perhaps even their tactics. I also imagine they see a lot of money left on the floor of the 'picking' locations just from what we are shown on camera in an episode. The show is getting hard to watch and it is part of a new trend of seemingly simple 'reality' shows that in actuality greatly bend reality and star unlikeable, semi-professional egotists.

Pretty good rant, but I have to eat my words here a little. The other night I was watching an episode where Mike and Frank went to an old bearded man's place who goes by Hobo Joe. He lived on a wooded area with creeks running through it and several buildings. Most of the buildings were filled with stuff and the land itself was covered with small, tarp covered piles of things. After a particularly fruitful 'pick' there Mike did one of his little talks to the camera. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here because I don't have the show recorded, “They should take buses of kids out here [Hobo Joe's land] to see all this great stuff. To remind them of when America made things. To show them that America used to make things too, not just be consumers.” I was stunned. I still am. Occasionally Mike or Frank says something I like or relate to because they like old stuff and so do I. They make efforts to chase down neat old things and so do I. In fact they take it to a pretty high extreme, so they have to say some things I agree with or that sound semi-intelligent. But usually it is rare, and I've come to respect them less and less as time has gone on. So I was surprised to my bones when Mike said one of my mantras, creatively articulately and with true passion. His short enthusiastic rant covers the spectrum of aesthetics to politics.

For one thing, one has to wonder what kids understand of aesthetics and the visual arts these days. They are brought up on Xbox video games, CGI movies and a sense of commercial design that is both hyperactive and dull, that takes no risk and has no ideas other than to layer more crap, plaster more pattern and shade more objects. Just take a look at the cereal isle at a local grocery store and then try to find some old images of cereal boxes from the 50's-70's. You'll see what has happened to them and design in general---but not just design, also aesthetics and our cultural values.

In a country that is struggling as ours is, not just economically, but with its identity, arts education should be highly valued. Instead it is the first thing to be chopped. At very least, what happened to our pride as Americans. We used to want to be on the top of everything---including arts. We were the best-looking, best run, richest country in the world and we knew it and no intention of giving it up. Now we seem to be willing to sell all of it off, piece by piece, to the cheapest bidder. Which brings me to the political side of Mike's rant. If you antique or just pay attention to old stuff, you start to notice something. America used to make a lot of stuff, and it was good. We don't make that much stuff anymore, but we consume more than ever. Perhaps beyond the point is quality---we may never get the care and attention out of the items we consume that we once had because those days are gone everywhere and as expensive to rehabilitate. But how can we expect to have a stable, fruitful economy, let alone the best one in the world if we don't make anything but consume more than ever? While some people might be shocked by our economic problems another more logical view might be to ask what took so long? Our lack of manufacturing and heavy reliance on service industries is only one of many issues that have led to our trouble, but all the factors were relatively apparent. What Wall street, George W. Bush and banks and lenders were doing was clearly was trouble for the future. And our corporation dominated, richness and fame doting culture have created weak minds and a helpless underclass in a country founded on equality.

Which brings me back to Mike the picker. Does all of this mean I now like the guy? No. Or even respect him? For the most part , no. But it brings an important idea into play: If even the idiot cries foul, there are changes that need to be made.

1950's Rock Guitar Greats

2010-04-21T21:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a list of my top guitarists of 1950's Rock 'n' Roll. I don't have enough courage to list things in order---there is too much taste involved. I'm rating them on style, technique, influence and their ability to promote the use of electric guitar. In the 50's Rock 'n' Roll itself was precarious, and it was far from a certain thing that electric guitar would even be used in rock songs.

Carl Perkins----Carl brought the guitar strong on every song he played. With his smash #2 Blue Suede Shoes from 1956 he even had the audacity to include two guitar solos. Carl had a unique scene of rhythm and a sharp attack on the instrument that made for an inimitable style. His total comfort while playing, the feeling that the guitar is just part of his body, brings to mind later guitar gods such as Eric Clapton (nick-named slow finger because of this ease). The rhythm and blues element was very strong in his playing even though his songwriting heart always leaned country. That being said, that mix is what made Rock 'n' Roll, and he was always a honky tonk virtuoso on the guitar, too. Carl had tough career luck, but was always was respected as a founding father of rock. It is unfortunate that his later life was not in the spotlight because he just kept picking up more and more guitar tricks as time went on. Bonus points for any artist that sings and writes songs, too.

Chuck Berry----According to many, Chuck taught Rock 'n' Roll guitar to the 60's. This is true to an extent; I would rate him as one of the two most influential guitarist of the 50's. Several Beach Boys songs lift a simple and rather stiff Chuck Berry solo almost verbatim. Others such as George Harrison of the Beatles are under his constant influence. But in another way, Chuck played in a style of souped-up blues that no one else could pull off. Perhaps his greatest influence is popularizing the instrument. Who didn't want to play guitar in a band after hearing a Berry song? He probably had more guitar per minute than any major 50's rock artist and was thus constantly promoting the instrument. Honestly, Chuck was not always at his best and most original, but when he was he created a sound that no one else has before or since. The guitar in the opening of the solo in Too Much Monkey Business sounds like a spaceship landing. Again, bonus points for writing and singing, too.

Buddy Holly----When people think of Buddy, they think of one of the great vocal stylists in all of rock, but he was a fantastic and original guitarist and songwriter, too. In fact I rate him as one of the two most influential rock guitarists of the 50's. Buddy basically invented the foundation of rock guitar that all subsequent acts stand on---Rock 'n' Roll rhythm guitar. Buddy played great leads solos, but often played something called rhythm-lead. This created a driving momentum to his music, not heard in rock music before. Sometimes he mixed lead and rhythm elements in a solo such as the immortal guitar work in That'll Be the Day. The flip side of that release, I'm Looking for Someone to Love, includes a song with two solos and some of the best pure rockabilly lead guitar of the 50's. Buddy lead the way in other guitar respects. He invented the idea of lead guitar throughout an entire song, as can be heard on Words of Love. He also promoted what would become the king guitar of rock, the Fender Stratocaster, and was the 1st major rocker to use it. Although the stereotype is that Buddy's songs leaned to the sweet, nerdy style of Rock 'n' Roll, the fact is that his original guitar style made for a driving backdrop. Few guitarists of the 50's were as 'heavy' as Buddy, and his modular, driving approach to the instrument became the status quo in rock ever since.

Eddie Cochran---Eddie was the master of the 50's riff and some of his songs were, from a guitar standpoint, nothing but a riff over and over. This could be said of two of his biggest hits, Summertime Blues and C'mon Everybody. But don't let such modesty fool you----Eddie was one of the true virtuoso's of early rock guitar. He came from a remarkably similar background to that of Buddy Holly, starting in country and easing into Rockabilly until he brewed his own style of rock. But his guitar style was more urban than Buddy's with true blues elements. His influence beyond the riff was not so much on record, but from his tours. His tour of Britain introduced many up and coming rockers to blues guitar and the art of bends. Once again, bonus points for songwriting and singing.

Cliff Gallup---In a brief run as the lead guitarist for Gene Vincent's Blue Caps, Cliff was able to create a nervous, detailed and jazzy rockabilly guitar style that would influence many lead-oriented guitarists of the 60's and beyond. All this while working in 1956, in the first year rock really took over. He quit early to become a family man, but remains a guitar legend.

Scotty Moore---Elvis only rocked when he was working with this fellow. Scotty exemplifies the early, classic Rockabilly sound more than anyone, with it's circular way of picking chords and gentlemanly country gestures. But Scotty could also play in a very high octane manner, pouring in blues and jazz touches and never letting Elvis' antics eclipse him. Just appearing on Elvis' best records as the lead guitarist makes him one of the most influential of 50's guitarists. But this also has the tendency to exaggerate his abilities and mystique.

James Burton---Similar to Scotty, but less legendary, do to the fact that he didn't work with Elvis in his early heyday, James created a career spanning decades based on 1950's style country-rock guitar. While working with Ricky Nelson he developed classic rockabilly guitar into country-rock guitar, which would be exploited in the 60's and 70's, by mixing rockabilly guitar with country and pop styles of picking. Check out his immortal playing on 1958's Suzie Q.

Johnny Meeks----When Cliff Gallup left Gene Vincent's band, Gene found another guitarist plucked from the mid-southern countryside. Although Cliff is on Gene's biggest hits and has the fame, Johnny is every bit the guitarist that Cliff is. He certainly fit the greasy persona of the Blue Caps better. His guitar style is fluent and audacious. While Cliff could feel cold and bogged down in the technical side of playing, Johnny's blood was always hot. But that doesn't mean he was a technical slouch---his guitar work is as complex as any guitar man from the 50's. This is one guitarist I wish I could hear more of.

Luther Perkins---Johnny Cash was at his best when he did songs in his 'rockabilly-country' style, and he was best able to do this with Luther playing guitar. Luther's style might be too simple and too country for some people to put him on a Rock 'n' Roll list, but I think his style can be considered country leaning rockabilly. Either way, his understated talents added to the thick atmosphere of Cash's early (and best) style. Once you've heard the solo to Folsom Prison Blues, it is in your head for life.

Tommy Allsup---I recently saw Tommy at the Kato Ballroom for the 50th aniversery of the Winter Dance Party tour. At 78 he can still play guitar with the best---in fact Paul McCartney has said he's one of the finest guitarists in the world. Tommy's style relies on touch and detail. He's down here at the bottom because he has a very slim Rock 'n' Roll resume. His home base as a guitarist is texas swing, and he was only majorly involved in rock in 1958. Buddy Holly heard about him through his producer and was so thrilled by his guitar work when he heard it that he granted Tommy lead guitar on a number of songs, most famously, It's So Easy, Heartbeat, Lonesome Tears, and the Everly-style demos Wishing and Love's Made a Fool of you. His guitar style on these cuts is so modern, compelling and unique that it cemented his reputation as a great rock guitarist forever, even if he'd prefer to play Bob Wills and country blues.

Danny Cendrone----While Cliff Gallup took an early exit from rock in 1956, Danny one-uped him by dieing before he saw 1955. Like Tommy Allsup he was a bit old for the rock scene and a guitarist that grew up playing Texas swing. With it's genre bending array of influences, Texas swing was an ideal place for detail oriented lead guitarist to spring up from for rock purposes. Danny was not a member of Bill Haley's Comets, but cut the lead work on Rock Around the Clock and Thirteen Women in 1954. Within a number of days after the session he died. Some have called his solo in Rock Around the Clock one of the greats in all of rock music. I agree. His eerie guitar work on the flip side, Thirteen Women is not to be missed, either. The solo from Rock Around the Clock was actually lifted from Rock the Joint, an earlier Bill Haley number with Danny on guitar. He didn't have time to come up with something new, due to short notice. The Clock version of the solo is better, with superior phrasing. His style was so modern that it still sounds intergalactic today. Despite his tiny output, Danny showed the great skill and mischief that could go into rock guitar from it's earliest days, and thus is an important founder of the rock guitar style.

Tea Party Trouble

2010-02-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

Here is my attempt at a political essay. I feel the media coverage of the Tea Party movement has been lacking depth and decided to try my hand at analyzing the movement.

If you need evidence that America is on the wrong track, look no further than the Tea Partiers. This is an indicator on two counts. First, the fact that a large group of Americans are dissatisfied enough to rise up in groupings and voice their grievances in various forums speaks to the trouble we are in. You could call this a credit that I give to the Tea Partiers—almost anyone can agree things are not going great in America. The second count is darker. In essence, the loudest mouthpiece of American dissatisfaction is the Tea Partiers, and they don't represent us well.

First off, perhaps out right dissent is not the best way to handle the kind of challenges America faces now. The spirit of cooperation emphasized by the Obama administration should be the spirit of the whole country. The only way to get out of the current mess is by working together. Obama's leadership in setting a tone of cooperation is outstanding, in fact, he even pushes it too far. One could argue that a major tactical error that Obama has made so far is using so much energy in vein just to show the right he is willing to cooperate. The unfortunate truth is that the right that he strives to hold his hand out to are not interested in working with him. They would rather refuse any cooperation just to make a point and wait it out until they have full power.

The Tea Partiers are a bizzaro version of the Hippies in this respect. The Hippies and 60's left worked hard on their agenda, and when it failed over and over, the Hippies began to 'drop out'. They gave up and followed their own track in a separatist sort of way. Eventually, this got tiresome and they dropped back in. The Tea Partiers also seem bent on 'dropping out' in their own way. To them, all Washington is rotten and they aren't interested in forming their own political party—they hate political parties. Oddly, many Tea Partiers are disinterested in a third party. Most probably think Ross Perot was a wacko, while they've taken his banner and infused it with a less logical, articulate and practical bend.

One thing Tea Partiers all hate is 'big government,' but that is how the country has always been run. They think it tramples personal freedoms, while in reality, for the most part, it allows them. Their main solution to big government is to move power to a more local level. While having power at the local level is healthy and efficient, moving things traditionally run at the federal level to state and local government wouldn't work. In fact, it would be a disaster, and it is at best innocent to think that localizing government is a solution to anything. So, in a way the Tea Partiers are pulling back, refusing to participate fully in government as it is, while failing to offer a single viable alternative idea. While rising up, they are also 'dropping out' in their own way.

While many Americans may cheer on or even join the Tea Partiers, a whole other segment of America is disgusted by them. Their mentality as a unit is like that of a spoiled child. A common Tea Party ailment is irony deprivation. Isn't it obvious that there is an irony to complaining about existing political parties while refusing to start your own? There is a certain irony also to aligning yourself with our founding fathers protesting the control of an imperialist government, while you are protesting your own government which you have representation in. A Tea Partier would probably refute that such representation exists for them and their views, but in reality that representation is just one vote away.

The term Tea Party can be mistaken for a double meaning—for being an allusion to their fondness of referencing the founding fathers and the Boston Tea Party, and as an official title—the designation of party. The truth is far from that. As mentioned before, many Tea Partiers are uninterested in creating a new political party. But even if that was the movement's main purpose, such a reality would be far off. The Tea 'Party' has little large scale organization, no official representatives and a great diversity of views. Most of them lean heavy to the right, while some insist that their disgust is equally spread between right and left. This is probably an image-serving lie, but even if it is not, it is a defeatist point of view. Obviously, one party is more responsible for our trouble than the other. I could name names, but I won't just yet. Sufficient to say, it is illogical to assume both parties share exactly equal fault.

Tea Partiers do agree on a few things. They don't like 'big government', they dislike taxes with every bone in their bodies, and most of all they hate the bailouts. In fact, their movement probably began with the bailouts. Perhaps these aren't the most original bullet points. Everyone dislikes taxes, most people want to keep government on a short leash, and no one liked the bailouts. This leads to another characteristic of the Tea Partiers—gross over-simplification of the issues. They tend to simplify things to a cartoon in times that call for exactitude. The most obvious example is bailouts. For those who oppose them, not on principal, but absolutely, put yourself in Obama's shoes. In theory he could have let Wall street, the banks and Detroit automakers fail, which they deserve. Perhaps America would be okay and we would climb out of our tough times quickly. Much more likely is a collapse on par or perhaps beyond the Great Depression. In short, it is not a gamble that any president, conservative or liberal, could take, Obama included. So to not merely complain about the fact that the bailouts had to be made, but instead blame Obama for issuing them is ignorant and not constructive. All parties, real or imagined, would have to avoid gambling with America's future.

The Tea Partier's timing is curious. Not so much because of the tough times we are in, but because of their reactionary nature. While it is understandable that people are speaking out now, because of the desperate feel of our times, politically, Tea Party timing raises questions. Don't like 'big government'? Where were you during the George W. Bush years? Don't like deficits? Where were you during the Bush years? Don't like taxes? Unless you are very well off Obama's tax burden is no worse than Bush's. In a larger sense, all the trouble that we are in now that inspired the Tea Partiers was caused by the Bush administration. While many negative trends have been evolving for a while, like deficit budgets, (Ronald Regan is their modern father) the often outright reckless governing of the Bush administration put us where we are today. It seems very odd that the Tea Partiers were silent until a new president took office. This could be a coincidence—that the times only got bad enough after Bush left to inspire protest—but it is clear from talking to Tea Partiers or just reading their signs, that they blame Obama and his policies even though he has only been in office a year. Certainly, Bush's inarticulate tone, looseness with the facts, and ideological perspective has more in common with the Partiers than Obama's intellectual tone, exactitude and pleas to work together. Still, it is clear that Obama is a very bright and ambitious man, which is what one would hope for in times of trouble and the Tea Party hatred of him is bizarre.

The Tea Partier's lack of organization not only keeps them from developing into a real party with an official platform, but it also, as a result, causes them to include aspects that diminish their credibility. You could call some of this the 'loony fringe,' groups most often from the very far right. These groups include people who believe Obama was not born in the U.S. and other conspiracies. Aside from tastelessly hard edge beliefs on small (or no?) government, taxes (or lack thereof) and anti-immigration, there is a lack of class to the movement. The anti Obama rhetoric goes from intense, to disrespectful, to borderline racist in a flash. Not only was this sort of opposition weak during the Bush years, but such tone would have been condemned as disrespectful and unpatriotic. Why is it okay now? An offensive fog of over simplification, lack of respect, racism, and lack of tolerance hangs over the movement. As of yet, no leader has emerged to try to clean the movement up—perhaps because the dirt is at the core.

While no leaders that are true Tea Partiers have emerged, who the movement attaches itself to as heroes is telling. Most odd, but perhaps least surprising, is Sarah Palin. Her overly simple rhetoric that is loose with facts and heavy on outrage, the victim complex, match with Tea Party tone. But these are surface features. Palin is fairly inexperienced politically and ultimately has little in the way of direction and ideas. Her gift for connecting with a certain segment of 'everyday Americans' is overshadowed by her frankly shocking lack of knowledge and political intellect. Even if her views were articulated and matched the Tea Partiers perfectly, she is a bad powerful representative of the movement. The fact that she quit as governor early and her extremely polarizing personality make her unelectable to national office. Her lack of smarts may also factor into this, but also makes her a dangerous mouthpiece. Will what she says be in the best interest of the Tea Party, or will she just sound off? Her puerile brand of bicker politics brings focus off of political issues which the Tea Partiers need to focus on and define. While she complains about Obama reading speeches from a teleprompter (which every president from our time has) the country continues to fall apart. In short, no single voice adopted by the movement seems to put the movement in a practical or positive light.

The media portrayal of the Tea Partiers is interesting. The coverage of the movement is everywhere, which helps fan the flames. On the other hand, their attitude toward the movement is patronizing. This may frustrate the Tea Partiers and their opposition alike. While the odd sensation that the media (though obsessed with them) do not take the Tea Partiers serious might paint them in an unkind light, it also lets them off the hook for their sins. In effect, while the Tea Partiers may not enjoy being taken lightly, the opposition might feel that the dangerous pitfalls of the movement go unreported and uncondemned. In addition to serving no side well, the media's attitude also leaves questions of our age unanswered. If the Tea Partiers are right on par with many Americans, the majority are confused by them. What do they stand for? Why protest the way things are being done only now? Why is their rhetoric so disrespectful? What ideas to fix things does this movement offer? While the answer to these questions may not satisfy most people, they must be asked, and the media's lack of willingness to look into these matters makes the movement seem inexplicable and even dark. If nothing else, the movement is a good litmus test for the times, and the media seems to feel that both going into depth about the moment and going out on a limb to criticize them is not worth the price.

All the questions that crop up when one looks into the Tea Party movement seem troubling. It is clear that while the movement may politically disagree with Obama, their idea that our problems now are his fault is factually wrong. It is not possible that all these problems could have been created in a year and change. This basic premise of the movement is an error—and the does not speak well of how informed the American people are. Is this because of extreme ignorance or extreme ideology, or some mix? Also clear is the fact that the media, while patronizing to the movement, bend over backwards to not offend that demographic—thus while rarely given full respect, the Tea Partiers are also rarely asked any tough questions that need to be asked. Both these are symptoms of a sick society. In reality, the only thing that can rescue America from the problems that inspired the Tea Partiers is to become more informed and less idealogical—to embrace the intellect and to cooperate toward common goals.

Minnesota State Fair

2009-09-05T20:37:00.000-07:00

Two of the Fair's classic attractions, the Giant Slide and the Space Tower as seen from the Grandstand ramp.

This wooden 'flower train' is in front of the Heritage Square entrance to the grounds. Heritage Square's nostalgia seems to be spilling out of it's borders.

Fair ground. The typical filthy ground people at the fair walk on all day. Most grass is dead, and some areas are worn down to dirt and dust.

This is a vintage seed bag from a display in the Agriculture/Horticulture building.

Looking down Liggett Ave. toward the barns. Crowds can be up to 200,000 on a record day!

Creature illustrating an old circus car, Heritage Square.

Inside the small and dingy transportation and racing museum for the fair at Heritage Square. There was a large display of primitive paintings featuring transportation devices of fairs past. I was drawn to the dirigible!

Wagons made of steel. I once owned an album named that. This photo features an old pioneer wagon in Heritage Square with its modern equivalent in the nearby parking lot.

This wall is near the entrance on Liggett ave. It is a WPA project made from local limestone that is rarely used as a masonry material today.

Jacuzzi Falls. This is one of many Jacuzzi stands at the fair. This one is in the Grandstand (which has merchandise in its bowels). A cheesy wonderland!

A random CBS eye logo painted on the floor of the Grandstand. It still functions as seating for pay concerts and events at the fair. I know it only as a strange mercantile.

An oldies band playing, as seen from the Grandstand ramp. Note the skyride to the upper right. Oddly enough, as I shot this photo there was a drum solo.

Spin art stand. It is a relatively cheap aesthetic pleasure (3$ or 2 for 5$). Recently Frisbees were added.

Local anchor Amellia Santinello is depicted on this mural at the WCCO TV building.

A candid back-side shot of one of the famous french fry stands at the fair. Those sacks at the left are potatoes.

Looking down my favorite fair alley toward the Space Tower.

My favorite ride at the fair is Ye Old Mill, a boat ride through a pitch black tunnel with occasional dioramas. It was built in 1913. This wheel powers the whole ride.

A view of the meticulously organized Republican Party building. Note the odd red vests of the volunteers---Wal-Martian?

Located on a secluded alley (relatively speaking) near the Horse barns, Steichen's is an old fashioned convenience store that caters to fair workers and participators, not fair goers. It looks so old I felt like the food would all be spoiled. That stuffed animal is a mangy version of 'Fairchild' the gopher, the fair mascot.

The front of Steichen's store. Note the great old-fashioned signage.

Fish in the DNR pond. This pond displays Minnesota's native fish.

Another view of the DNR pond. The water is 4 feet deep.

This is a street scene on Liggett ave. looking down the alley that Steichen's is located in. At the end is a Barn.

The derelict Frog pond--A forgotten project that I have a soft spot for.

This animitroic feller is the mascot for Quality Bag's stand in the Coliseum (or Hippodrome as I call it).

Cattle entering the Hippodrome from the cattle barn way. Yes, this is bad photography, but is captures the excitement of the animals and people as their paths cross on the Hippodrome walkway.

Cattle waiting judging, midway between the cattle barn and Hippodrome. This picture reminds me of a Rembrandt scene.

In an alley, behind an unfriendly fence lies this private parkland with the serpentine shape of Ye Old Mill. Note the extra boat.

A 'Snozzle' firetruck with the DES Dinning Hall in the background. For the faint of stomach there are several church-style dinning halls at the fair.

Here you can watch your corndog fry in lava hot oil.

At the dog building live surgeries are preformed throughout the day.

Live demos of products are in many buildings at the fair. This is one of at least three Sham Wow! stands.

A display of arts and crafts at the educational building. As a child my dream was to have work displayed here.

A giant cigarette butt outside of the health building. One year they made paper 'butt out' hats available featuring a large cigarette butt above the forehead.

A rare lone eater inside the beer garden building.

The Minnesota State Fair is a tradition in my family, like it is for many others. It is all about fun, but mostly what the fair consists of is walking around as a family through shuffling crowds looking at food stands and schlocky merchandise. Over many years there is a lot of change at the fair, but from year to year or even five years to five years things are the same down to the last inch. Many merchandise stands have been in the same location for over 20 years (and it seems like they never leave the fairgrounds, just sitting there year round). Things that were novel in the late 70's or 80's thrive--spin art, personality analysis 'computers', computer portrait art (dot matrix!) airbrush art. A stand or booth changing locations can get quite disconcerting!

With all this baseless repetition, the fair can seem like a forced march through a collective memory. My family has to look at a day's worth of certain things, just because. There is no logic to most of is. The stands seem random, because almost any stand could turn a profit at the fair, but many are not particularly swell ideas. Here is capitalism mixed with monarchism on display--if you get a stand into the fair, your family gets grandfathered into a profitable buisness, almost regardless of what you sell. It can be a very odd and trying sensation at times to walk through this same landscape of shilling over and over.

It certainly seems like America incarnate and in microcosim. But there is one big difference I notice between the real America and fair America. Tradition, no matter how cheesey or empty-headed is valued greatly at the fair. The real America is always on to the next thing, racing to erase evidence of a potentially embarassing past. Nostalgia is ok, but chest-beating patriotism that is part of America doesn't rely on pride in the past, excepting milestones. But at the fair, even a change of venue or a disappearing stand is a slight outrage. Nostagia is everywhere--of all kinds, from all eras of Minnesota. A whole section of the fair is called Heritage Square and has a pioneer/historical theme. It features an creepily old-fashioned (and simply old) State Fair museum housed in a train car.

All that is old fashioned Minnesota is celebrated at the fair. Pioneers, family farms, unique Minnesota products (and totally non-unique ones), free-moving livestock, old cars, old buildings old benches, old rides (Ye Ole Mill was built in 1913)--things done right, done the old-fashioned way. Tradition is paramount. Here history isn't relegated to empty county history museums, it is a living, valued aspect of the fair itself. Because the fair is all about Minnesota pride, in a way people at the fair are collectively saying, 'the past is great and our history matters,' as they stuff their faces.

This photo essay is not a planned hunt for certain sites. It features things I snapped a shot of as I randomly wandered around a landscape of American exess, burned into my memory. This hardly represnts a comprehensive cross-section of the fair, but rather is colored by my family's own history and tendencies and what I spotaneously came across and enjoyed at the moment.

The Greatest WPA project

2009-08-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

Question: What is missing from the stimulus package? A fair answer may be a lot. But what really stands out to me, among all the Great Depression comparisons, is the total lack of attention to arts. Almost as lacking is attention to parks and architecture. On top of that a lot of the projects that got funding right away seem to be unnecessary or at least low priority--and always uninteresting. Considering the money that is being put into it, that's a little shocking.

But I'm not hear to beat up on the stimulus package. That it lacks attention to art that the WPA and New Deal included says something about our values and priorities in this society. I don't think it say much good. One could argue that the only goal of this stimulus is to get the economy back on it's feet and to put as many Americans to work as possible. And that perhaps focusing on art, architecture and parks is not the best way to do that. I don't think that kind of thinking says a lot for us. Part of how we got into this mess is because of the 'benefit of the few' mentality. By making a stimulus plan that only helps transportation and auto workers (and perhaps emergency personnel) we are just continuing down a path that brought us here. Diversify!

Another thing we seem to lack in our society is vision. Under the WPA, many projects were done that still effect us today. In my beloved, local state park, there is a beautiful stone staircase (made with craftsmanship nearly extinct today) down to the waterfall, a huge picnic shelter and several beautiful stone buildings, all done by the WPA. And there are countless such features in parks just across Minnesota, let alone across the USA. In other areas of the country, there were dams, murals and sculpture done, almost all built well enough to serve us now. The architecture of the WPA is precious, not only for its usefulness, but also for its beauty and lost sense of craftsmanship. Some of my favorite all time buildings are WPA structures.

Compare that to today. Most of the money is going into roads. Sure, the automobile rules much more now than in 1934, but roads have to be constantly maintained and improved. Who is going to notice in sixty years when one piece in a long series of improvements on a road was made during our stimulus? We always have to do that. The WPA funded things that are sometimes hard to get done, even in good times, and left behind a memorable and lasting legacy. A whole spectrum of different workers, craftsmen and artists found employment this way. The way we see things now suggests we could learn a lot looking back at the WPA and New Deal

All this has been boiling under the surface of my mind for a while, but exploded fourth when I visited Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, South Dakota. It is probably one of the oddest WPA projects. Built in 1934, it coincided with rising tourism to the region due to Mount Rushmore. It amounts to a kitsch dream, a place Pee Wee Herman wouldn't dare believe to be true. It sits on a scenic hill overlooking the city. On it are five Dinosaur sculptures (another Dinosaur and Reptile were added later), built life size, in concrete and painted only green with white and red trim. They freeze in time the way people thought Dinosaurs looked in the thirties. Perhaps we don't know much better, but the cartoonish way these lummoxes are sculpted just invites people to climb on them. In short, Dinosaur Park is pure fun, and my favorite WPA project.

Authenticity

2009-05-28T14:01:00.000-07:00

I once had a professor who wrote a presentation on the idea of authenticity in art. It was an important moment for me, because it opened my eyes--made me conscious of an important force that I'd only felt instinctively. I'd never though about authenticity out in the open air, where the idea could not hide in the shadows.

The presentation itself was for some sort of professional organization, I think, but it was given to us in class in some form, after quite a bit of begging. The irony is that I don't remember anything about it because the presentation was so inauthentic.

Perhaps it did the job better than any authentic presentation could have. It put the concept of authenticity in art into my head, and then showed me the pitfalls of not being authentic in one motion. If I squeeze my brain, I seem to remember some of the presentation interpreted authenticity as not so much a personal virtue that comes through the art, but a force of culture that can be played with to create pithy commentary on experience. My definition is much more clear--it is the aspect of art that communicates the artist's genuine joy and belief in what he or she is doing.

It is one thing to lay out a clear line of words to define what authenticity in art means to me, but another entirely to feel it, like I think we all instinctively do, even people who know little about art. Being involved and knowledgeable about art sharpens one's 'authenticity radar' in general, but this fact can be overplayed. A great pitfall of contemporary art comes from art people not listening to their authenticity instincts despite their experience in the field. Or perhaps it is just not the hip thing to be--genuine, joyful, passionate. That complicates things. In theory it would be possible to do work that is sardonic, silly, witty, sarcastic, light-hearted, miserable or ironic and still be genuine about it (at least on some level). I think this kind of complexity highlights the usefulness of following instincts.

Of course, a moment after I started thinking sharply about authenticity in art, I began to apply it to other creative fields. I think most of us know what an authentic person is like, and when someone is being 'fake' but it is a more difficult task to apply this to creations. When I think about Pop music, especially rock 'n' roll, I can come up with the clearest examples of the power of creative authenticity.

A guy like Buddy Holly was musical pioneer, a songwriter, a great vocalist and guitarist and a restless, experimental artist who also tried to please his audience. All these factors make him a legend, but he has a special quality above what other artists with all these skills seem to posses. I'd argue that it was the fact that Buddy's authenticity was off the charts added to all his skills that made him a timeless legend. Compare him to Elvis. For all the greatness and earnestness Elvis possessed, he became less and less authentic with his music. From almost the moment he made it, a gradual trickle started and began growing exponentially, leaking out his authenticity. Since he lived well beyond 1959 we were unfortunate enough to see the terminus of this process in Las Vegas, an ugly mix with his personal and health problems. Elvis oozed talent, sweated charisma and, at first, had an bit of conviction, musically. But all of this added up to very little, because he ended up not being very authentic. One could argue that he believed in every musical decision he ever made passionately, and was thus authentic, but something deep down in his soul was an endless compromiser, bending over backwards to stay away from the edge. Buddy has been described as earnest, but he could be playful, ironic and mercurial, so I'd rather call him genuine or authentic. With this gift he could make the simplest gesture endlessly entertaining and meaningful.

Credence Clearwater Revival is a great example of the complexity of creative authenticity. On paper they are very fake. They sing and play songs about the bayou country of the south obsessively, but they were from the bay area of California. Further, John Foggerty and his band didn't go to the south and seek out what the authentic south sounds were. They just played the way they though southern music might be, mixing gospel with early rock sounds and using bits of modern sixties rock to fill things out. They created a whole idealized and romantic view of the rural south with their lyrics, where poverty is a wholesome, simple existence, like a refreshing breeze and where people are "always happy to give". They create their own, rather arbitrary utopia out of the south. What could be more fake? Fake is synonymous with inauthentic, right?

Wrong! Credence's commitment to their musical-geographical fabrication is very authentic. It becomes only a point of style aesthetics and mimicking reality. Perhaps one could question Credence's deviation from the sound of real southern music, but it is hard to question their commitment to their vision of it. It is true that their music does not accurately copy true southern music, but that was never their point. They believe in the dream, even if they know it is not real. The idealized web they weave is fascinating and highly entertaining. They benefit from authenticity despite obvious outward signs. And so it is with a lot of art.

For a long time I thought that authenticity was more important and prominent in music. I no longer believe this--I think it is easier to illustrate the concepts related to creative authenticity with music, but it is at least as important to visual art. One problem with authenticity and art is that their is often a dearth of it in art. Old painters, for instance, were hampered by practicality and society, and had to work over the centuries to free themselves and allow for full authenticity. Does that mean that realism and illustrative styles that were dominate in the times of older painters were less authentic? Not at all, but society wanted certain things from artists and in the past viewed artists more like we see artisans today. This certainly hampered the spirit of the individual, and made authenticity difficult. Even when it existed it was rarely as obvious as it is today. Perhaps Baroque greats like Rembrandt and Frans Hals are the exception, oozing authenticity in an era when it was under the radar in painting. In fact most famous artists, the guys we know today, had way more authenticity than was normal for their times. One could argue that Rembrandt is one of the most authentic artists ever.

When one looks at an artist like Van Gogh, one can see how far the process evolved over time. Van Gogh was ahead of his time, expressive, and stylistically unique and brilliant, plus he had a sympathetic (and pathetic) biography. All these things add to his greatness, but his massive authenticity is what makes him one of the most popular artists of all time. One feels like one can look into his soul by viewing a single Van Gogh painting. What could be more authentic?

Despite an open playing field, so to speak, for authenticity in art, their seems to be an ironic backlash in today's contemporary scene. Ironic and contrived are in. Can something be ironic and contrived and also highly authentic? Certainly, but it is probably quite difficult, (I don't see it a lot) especially because no value is placed on authenticity lately. Crack open a copy of New American Paintings, a contemporary art exhibition in print, and I think you'll see what I mean. There are interesting (although somewhat homogeneous) styles, great virtuosity, high ambition, and topical intellect, but is is very easy to flip by most of the work and set the magazine down quickly. Being jaded has become the easiest of things. With everyone painting to 'make the scene' authenticity goes out the window, and as an insurance policy for such sellouts, authenticity is for squares right now. Proposing that authenticity in visual art is undesirable or somehow not as intellectual or meaningful as irony and contrived conceptual matrices is a dangerous game.

Waterfalls of the Blue Earth River

2009-04-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

The Blue Earth River, in south central Minnesota, might seem like a typical Midwestern river at first glance, but it is remarkable in several respects. For one, it is a rare south to north flowing river. It starts is Iowa and flows to meet the Minnesota River at it's famous bend, where the city of Mankato now lies. It is the central vein in a wide, leaf-like watershed south of the Minnesota River. This watershed is notable because it is wider than it is long. Most of it's way the Blue Earth meanders gently from bluff to bluff carving out muddy banks. But near Rapidan, Minnesota is a dam that marks the beginning of a deep, wild valley that goes on for nine miles until the valley widens at the confluence of the Blue Earth and Le Sueur Rivers. This narrow stretch of the Blue Earth is short but sweet, containing many class I rapids and very scenic surroundings. Because of the lively current, this section is popular with canoeists. What most people don't know or pay attention to is that this section of the Blue Earth is also one of the best Waterfall regions in Minnesota. Only a few miles from the river is Minneopa creek and its famous falls. Most people know about Minneopa and perhaps a few other falls of the Minnesota valley such as Minnemishinona falls. The falls of the Blue Earth are not comparatively unknown, most are almost literally unknown. Only Triple falls and Devil's Den are locally known. This probably is due to the low volume, intermittent nature of the streams feeding the Blue Earth along this section, mixed with relatively limited access. These factors do little to dull my personal enthusiasm for these natural treasures. Posted here is a photo guide to these waterfalls.
Pictured above is the fall pool of what a call 'Tall falls'.

A view of the beautiful wall-like cliff of Tall falls. A rough estimate for the height is between 30 and 35 feet. They form a high single drop, but because of the lack of undercut the some of the water slides down the cliff.

A classic view of Tall falls. This falls has a small watershed and is very intermittent.

A view from the top of Tall falls.

I've only been to this falls once. For lack of a better name I call it small falls, because it is not a very high drop compared to the other falls. This view shows the falls in the background with the steep, rock stream bed crashing down to the river.

A close up of small falls. It measures about five feet tall.

This is another modest waterfall near small falls. I call it Minni-triple falls because it has three drops, all of which could fit into one drop of Triple falls. This is the highest, top fall.

Here is the full view of Minni-Triple falls. This Falls probably only totals 10 to 15 feet in height.

This is the view from the top of Minnejujuwaha falls. I named this falls anglicized versions of Dakota words meaning, 'water broken to pieces.'

This is one of the reasons for the name--the stream falls perhaps 30 or 40 more feet after the waterfall on the way to the Blue Earth River. The stream bed is choked with huge talus pieces and glacial boulders, further breaking the water to pieces.

Here is a classic view of Minnejujuwaha. It is one of my favorites aesthetically. The water falls over a staircase of hard, rough sandstone before it plunges over the softer layer. The falls is almost half hard stone and half soft, making quite unique in the area. It has a very rugged beauty. I'd guess its height to be around 20 to 30 feet.

Water broken to pieces. This view shows the falls and the stream bed character as if flows about 30 yards down to the river.

Minnejujuwaha has little undercut because of the thick capstone. The result is many interesting carvings into the soft sandstone.

This is the odd view from the top of Triple falls, one of the most spectacular falls in Minnesota. Note the three separate platforms and impressive height.

This is a view from under the massive overhang of triple falls' final drop. Springs come out from the bottom of the cliff.

The classic view of Triple falls. This is an average, healthy flow during wet times. Note the tree stuck into the ground in the foreground. Triple falls is the most visited falls along the Blue Earth, revealing need for conservation. It is easy to find garbage and new carved initials when one visits. This would be an ideal place for a state or county park.

Triple falls after a very heavy June storm. I've never measured the leaps, but have pondered it often. My guess: top, 8 feet, middle 15 feet, lower, 25 feet, totaling 48. That would make it the region's tallest waterfall. I don't know if that is true, but it feels like it.

The bottom falls during the June burst. The crest of the bottom falls can be very wide in high water, while the middle is also fairly wide the top is always narrow and concentrated.

A head-on June view of the falls. It was loud!

This is what is locally called Devil's Den or Devil's Gulch. A creek flows down to the Blue Earth via a high waterfall in a round amphitheater type gorge. Then the stream narrows into a razor thin sandstone canyon as it flows to the river. This photo is from autumn when the stream bed was bone dry.

Devil's Den gets to be 3 or 4 feet wide at it's narrowest places. The narrowest part is at about waist height and the walls gradually open up as they get higher.

Nature's beautiful sculpture. Unfortunately, much of the canyon is marred by graffiti carvings. This view shows the potent beauty of the untouched parts of the walls.

Here is Devil's Den falls is summer. It looks to be at least 30 feet high.

The canyon while water is flowing through the stream. Although I am not an expert on such things, I'd guess this area harbours rare plants. There is an amazing community of mosses and ferns turning the walls into hanging gardens.

This is how the canyon begins near the river. The river is about 20 yards behind the spot of this photo. The canyon begins almost right away and gradually narrows as it nears the round falls arena. The canyon walls are probably 30 to 35 feet high, after that are more gentle ravine bluffs.

Near Devil's Den's unworldly environment is another strange place, the tiny Grotto falls. This falls is too small for almost anyone in their right mind to name, but I did anyway. It might rarely flow, but it is a beautiful, secluded spot. It is little more than a mossy notch carved into the river cliffs, falling in two parts. The falls is probably 20 feet high, but usually only trickles.

Exquisite water carved sandstone at the bottom of Grotto Falls.

This is the top of what I call Rapidan falls, do to the fact that it is near the dam, across the river from the county park. Despite being near the beginning of the Blue Earth River gorge, it is quite high.

Rapidan falls has a nice cascade that in unsual in this area. Most of the falls are created by hard but thin capstone over very soft stone in a thick layer. Rapidan falls has a very thick capstone that hasn't eroded much.

Despite the large capstone, this falls has a healthy overhang. It is also quite tall, probably near 30 feet, maybe more.

These are the stunning falls of the Blue Earth, an area of uncommon and rarely appreciated beauty. There are probably more falls in this stretch to discover. Most are probably minor places, like grotto falls, that most people won't appreciate. However, I know of at least one more decent falls, which I have discovered only when dry.

My heart is torn with these falls. On one hand, I wish they were better known, even a tourist draw. I wish they brought joy to many people the way they do to me. On the other hand, I see what happens to places that do get frequent visitation, like Triple falls, and I fear for them. Perhaps most of these falls should and will continue in relative anonymity. Ideally it would be great to see Triple falls a public park with a caretaker as it is so often visited already and one of the unique falls in the Midwestern United States. It is actually shocking to me that it is not already a public park of some kind. Almost any other feature of this grandure would be, why not Triple falls? The falls of the Blue Earth reveal the joy of nature, and the character of each falls mimics the characters of indivdual people. I hope people long into the future can enjoy these features.

Cult of the Past

2009-04-04T23:09:00.000-07:00

Classical music is a very backwards art form, culturally. Perhaps this is a reason that the classical music world has such a hard time recruiting young people these days. The worship of men that have been dead for hundreds of years and the dwelling on their music must seem alien to the majority of people. This sort of 'anti-progressive' attitude has been building for a long time. At one time, classical music was the popular music, at least for the upper classes. This is probably a true statement into the late 1800's. But at the same time as classical music was forward leaning, fast developing and hugely popular, introspection began. This sort of intellectual nostalgia probably started with Mozart and his classical era contemporaries looking back at scores of Bach and Handel for inspiration. This set a precedent--almost every composer since has looked back to Bach in one form or another.

Not that looking back to Bach is such a bad thing, he's one of the greatest composers ever. But looking back intensely creates a tradition-based form of music that becomes very inflexible. Perhaps one of the best ways to demonstrate this effect is to listen to recordings of baroque music before 'period performance' or 'historically informed performance' was developed. The music from the 1700's was literally played the with the same approach as it were composed in 1870 or latter. This might not sound too bad, how different could the approach be, it's all classical. Merely listening to such recordings will answer that question. They make baroque music seem boring, dull, insipid, simple and first and foremost inferior to later music. Nothing could be further from the musical truth.

A giant irony is the fact that the savior of this retrograde is a movement that looks to the past even more intensely and further back than most 'ordinary' classical musicians. In effect they look back harder in order to start to look forward. In this way they have created a new sense of discovery in music. The contemporary composer is still caught in an undervaluing era, but classical music has shown it can look forward, even if it is done through a backwards glance.

For the first time is many years one can say, 'I was alive when that was happening in classical music.' Not a small detail or a particular composer, but something big. A new movement, a new way of looking at things. The movement goes by many names, most recently Historically Informed Performance, or HIP.

HIP might sound dry, like a music historian's lecture sprinkled with musical soundbites, but it is not. The idea has perhaps been in any intellectual musician's head for hundreds of years: 'How was this work by this composer originally preformed?' But it began as a movement of sorts, with practices and practitioners, perhaps in the 1960's. It gained steam very slowly, such that only now are we in a heyday of the movement. It began with dissatisfaction with the results of performances of baroque music--people who knew baroque music was better and more exciting than what it sounded like in modern hands, especially Bach and Handel (Lesser known baroque composers especially Italians were not yet seen as worthy equals to the Germanic Bach and Handel who's musical style more resembled modern styles).

The beginning of the quest for HIP goes back to the question of what a particular piece originally sounded like and what the composer intended it sound like. But the real nexus of HIP was to start from scratch to research old instruments and find how they differed from modern ones. Once the original hardware was in place musicians could move on to more complex matters.

What the HIP researches found was striking. First the hardware: baroque instruments sound fantastic, and I would argue have a superior depth of tone and color. The early HIP performers were more or less handcuffed by their new instruments. They were quieter, darker, and hard to play in the way musicians had been taught their whole lives. Whether explicitly or not, many early HIP's began to feel like they were working against inferior instruments which they were compelled to use dogmatically for historical accuracy. It took a long time to get totally over that hump and play the old instruments on their terms alone. As it turns out they are just as capable as modern ones with one disadvantage that must be kept in mind; they are not as loud. We are now to a point of virtuosity, intellectual understanding and expressive connection with HIP instruments that a Vivaldi Violin concerto played by the same violinist on an old and new instrument will sound better on the old one stylistically, expressively and tonally. Even in the hands of an expert of Baroque interpretation, the works sound better on the original instruments. HIP performers have gotten that good.

The second striking discovery was just how good and prolific Baroque music is. Now that we are on top of the HIP movement every composer of the Baroque seems better, including Bach and Handel. But the composers who've benefited most from HIP have been the Italians, particularly Antonio Vivaldi. Before HIP no one understood how to preform in the Italian manner. Such composers trusted the preformer more, as was their musical culture. Improvisation and the creativity of the performers played an important role in bringing the music to life. Expressive extremes were encouraged (but not necessarily ordered). Objectively, the role of the musician is smaller under Bach's approach. Baroque music of all sorts began to be considered on equal footing with music of other periods.

The third striking discovery is the most forward-looking; what musicians can learn from HIP and baroque music in general. HIP is so widely accepted and popular now that many violinists are experts at it while also being 'modern' violinists (this is still quite rare on other instruments). This is true of some of the best violin talent of our times.Violinists such as Viktoria Mullova and Giuliano Carmignola 'have it both ways.'

Most generally what the classical music world has learned from HIP is flexibility and open-mindedness. Not all great music must be from the time of Mozart to Tchaikovsky played by a huge symphony orchestra filling a giant hall. Great music is played by forces great and small playing things written in many eras. A new liberating level of expressivity has become the norm. HIP has taught musicians not to be slaves to composers but collaborators with them. Baroque composers expected improvisation from performers and different results on different occasions. Most baroque scores leave many expressive details blank, allowing the performers to fill them in. Later composers began to spoon feed musicians with markings which explained every detail of performance. This practice in turn led to a handcuffing of the performers that over time led to a lesser flexibility and creativity in performance among musicians. HIP has effected even musicians not interested in baroque repertoire, because it has created a new independent sensitivity and open mindedness among performers in classical music in general. In a sense working, preforming musicians are taking back music, making it there own more, because of HIP and what it has taught us.

The New America

2009-03-27T21:02:00.000-07:00

This post is a photo essay I created. Lately I've been thinking a lot about the housing market crash. I keep hearing lots of reasons or excuses for it. That greedy unregulated companies and lenders are to blame. That the economy and the crash of the credit system led to there being no home buyers. While these aspects may be true, all of them jog the real issue that few seem to notice--our housing culture. For years, probably since the second half of the 90's, I've been wondering why there is so much new housing going up. The population of my area is only growing slightly and the population of surrounding areas is shrinking. Yet new homes and housing developments keep going up. They are not places many would want to live, but they are also expensive and full of excess. There is little to no affordable single family housing going up. Everything is focused on the rich, marketing the rich and well-off to move further out and into bigger houses. The housing is also marketed to young up and coming families. For years, in effect, the market has been creating artificial demand, in order to develop new housing for the upper-class, pushing the borders of cities.

This idea of flight from the center is nothing new. It probably started well before WWII, but became standard practice as a practical way to house new families right after the war. At the time it was a welcome and useful solution to the sudden housing demands. But it set a precedent that has been snowballing ever since. The idea and particularities of this type of housing keep getting pushed further. They are approaching the appearance of caricature. Currently, suburban developments are odd looking compared to their ancestors. The houses now days could fit three or four average size houses from the early 50's in them. The development is further out with more space, more dead ends and more curvaceous roads. While suburban housing was once modest and affordable, to fit the needs of rising population during a boom, current developments are now strictly luxury housing with an escapist edge. But old and new suburbs have still some things in common. They are built very fast, and cheaply.

This essay explores my mounting curiosity with the culture of American suburban housing. It is a very topical time for such an exploration, because this kind of housing is the result and subject of many headlines today. Most building and buying has come to a dead stop. Apparently this came as a total surprise, leaving many developments unfinished or barely started. For this essay I took photos of several sets of developments at the edge of the cities of Mankato and North Mankato, MN. The area population is about 45,000.

Above: A detail from a lot map sign in a North Mankato subdivision. Almost none of the Balsam Court lots are sold.

One of thousands of marking flags in the area's partially complete housing developments.

A strange sidewalk to nowhere on a lot for sale. It goes in too far from the road to be a path to a future front door.

Rows of new townhouses. They mix concepts of an apartment and a house.

A new treeline at the edge of North Mankato development.

Construction leftovers and a dirt pile. A new road runs behind the pile, but it may be a long time before it is developed.

A new storm sewer drain with a golf ball.

A boxy house at the frontier of North Mankato.

Optimistic planning: A tornado siren installed on streets with no houses.

Utility boxes of unknown purpose on yet to be developed streets.

This street snakes toward more townhouses.

Creative landscaping around a utility post.

When I was a kid my parents would take me to this park when they were in a softball league. It was like Field of Dreams, just a ballfield and corn. Now townhouses border the outfield.

Many new houses have problems. This one has a peeling foundation and a chronically wet basement.

This house has an odd layout with no walkway to the front door.

An older suburban house painted mint green. Almost all new houses are beige.

This house has an odd feature: a second garage with its own mini driveway.

A quaint terrace lawn on the edge of a filled in finger of a ravine.

An older house in a North Mankato subdivision.

The title sign for Mayan Way's own public park. It is only about ten years old.

The artificial golf green, F.A. Buscher Enterprise Park.

The welcome sign for a small subdivision. Only a single row of houses have been built.

Construction rubble, Copper Village Patio Homes.

The potential patio view from Copper Village Patio Homes.

Excavator near the Copper Village Patio Homes dirt pile.

An empty road off of Timberwolf Drive.

An old farmstead with 100 year old oaks being advanced on by townhouses.

This small creek, sometimes called Pohl creek, is crossed by at least four culvert bridges in this townhouse subdivision.

The same unnamed creek feeds into a wetland in a house subdivision.

This empty road now ends at farm implements instead of townhouses.

A lot map at a townhouse subdivision. Wilson creek is called Diamond creek by a nearby, much larger, subdivision.

New housing at Diamond creek. The green objects are to limit erosion into storm drains.

Diamond creek also known as Wilson creek.

Veiw of homes from the North Gate subdivision.

The edge of North Gate from an overgrown dirt pile.

Backyard powerlines, North Gate.

The metal welcome sign, North Gate.

This development is across the road from North Gate near ravines. The houses are all identical except some are singles and some are doubles.

One other difference is the color of the fake shutters. There are black, navy and mulberry shutters.

An enthusiastic landscaper.

It is common practice for the city to fill the bottom of ravines in and lay storm sewer anywhere near development.

A hydrant on the edge of a deep ravine.

Wires and a discared plant litter an unsold lot.

Foundation making equiptment.

Townhomes still under construction.

Unfinished townhome garage.

Housing at the edge of North Gate.

Creative lot sign on Coventry Lane.

A particularly handsome house off of Coventry Lane. The brick and stone give way to biege siding on the other three sides of the house.

Truck parked in unsold lots off of Coventry Lane.

Blown over lender sign, Coventry Lane.

A new fire hydrant near the edge of the Minnesota river valley.

Lot # 1, Coventry Heights subdivision. Behind is an old farmstead.

An exciting playhouse at the filled head of a ravine, Coventry Lane.

The Roy Orbison Series

2009-03-21T20:22:00.000-07:00

I'm currently working on a group of paintings that go by the title the Roy Orbison series. Roy is the perfect subject for a series of paintings, because he is a fastening persona that I feel a connection with, but I also feel some distance from and perspective on. It's hard to describe, but I'll try.
I sometimes describe Roy Orbison this way to people: Roy is like an alien that came to earth to spy on people. (Even that name sounds alien---ORBISON) There is something very strange and unworldly about Roy. He looks like an alien in a human disguise that could be better.

I'm not trying to be mean. That's just the best way I can think of to describe Roy's strangeness. I should quickly mention that very strangeness makes him a great artist and person.

But, boy he sure is strange isn't he? That is the nexus of my inspiration. He had a voice that has been reported to span four octaves. He had a black Pompadour that looked like it was made out of jet black fishing line. He wore sunglasses in almost all situations. He was shy and had a heart of gold. He was best buds with Johnny Cash. Despite the soaring nature of his voice, he sang quite softly, in an airy way like a whisper with a wind tunnel's worth of air going through it. Sam Phillips, in anger, once told Roy his voice was weak and that he had to put a mic right up to Roy's face to cut a track. Roy just laughed. Millions of fans and casual observers since have also laughed. But Sam did have a point. Roy's voice isn't all power and virtuosity; there is also something very frail about it.

All this personality is transferred to his music. Roy has a unique mix of country, gospel and rock 'n' roll, pop-ed out to the extreme, mostly in ballad form. But that doesn't tell the whole story. His songs are strange, surreal, dreamy, maudlin tales full of a strange atmosphere that is both mega corny and simple heartfelt expression. It must be also said that his songs have a sort of creepiness to them. Perhaps that is purely due to strangeness. Obviously that is part of it, but while I enjoy a three minute vacation to Roy Orbison land, I wouldn't want to live there.

It's not so much that I love his music. I like it a lot and listen to is often. On the other hand, there is a lot of stuff a listen to way more, stuff that I think had more musical value. I don't just paint this series because I'm a fan expressing that fandom. In fact, that seems like a dangerous perspective for a painter to take, and a reason that this isn't the Buddy Holly series. I can take a step back from Roy easily and have a cool, perceptive take on him. That is a good place to come from for this kind of painting.

Roy doesn't seem full color to me. So, as I do from time to time, I set up a rule for the series: I only use three pigments, black, red and white. First I use black because, to me Roy is the true man in black. I can imagine Johnny Cash relaxing at home in full color, but I feel like Roy only has black clothing. Well, he did have a killer orange sweater, so I should say that it is harder for me to imagine Roy in non-black than Johnny. There is no black without white, so I sort of had to use that too. But white is a very expressive color. One can paint with only white and let the sculptural quality of the paint dictate the imagery. It is hard to get away with that with another color. Plus, my other color is red, so with white I can make pink, which seems like a very Orbisony color! That's right red--the color of blood, passion, anger, the heart. Beneath the skin of every person, even the legendary or the invisibly shy, is red---and so I must use it.

I once read an article which described Roy's disastrous foray into movies something like this: 'Even a Rock star has to have some semblance of personality to make it in movies.' Apparently this writer was not too familiar with Roy. Roy Orbison has more personality than Dee Snider, Gene Simmons, Van Morrison and Elvis combined. I'm still waiting for the spaceship.

What Happened to America?

2009-02-19T13:08:00.000-08:00

I've always been interested in the past. I'm constantly imagining what it would be like to live in certain eras or years. As an artist, the best way to bring that alive is to see what people saw in the past. So the most efficient and fascinating way to explore past worlds is visually, through footage.

Naturally, the past that is easiest to relive in my position is recent American past, so the times I'm most interested in are simply America from about the time of WWII to 1980. Exotic and strange to me, yet familiar enough to comprehend and put into context.

This interest has led to a philosophy, a largely aesthetic one, that goes by the slogan, "What happened to America?" I did not invent the slogan. But that fact proves right away that there are others who subscribe to it. The slogan was invented by my friend while we were watching "Breaker, Breaker" a Chuck Norris movie in which he plays a truck driver. Apparently it was filmed in 1977 and it features lots of those 'flat-nosed' semi cabs. While watching we were both taken aback at how much cooler everything looked back then. My friend exclaimed, "What happened to America?"The proper annunciation is to say the phrase with some disgust, but also exclamation. Suddenly my philosophy had a voice.

I mean, what happened to America? Every era since WWII in America looks so good, has so much personality, takes so many chances. What do we have today? Boring fearful style and bad rehashes because we can't think up our own looks. I'm not a particular fan of the 1980's, but the era had it's own look that could be great at times. If I had to put a number on it I'd say things stopped looking good around 1992 or 3. The age from about 1954 to 1978 is the real hot zone for me.

I realize that part of this idea can be chalked up to a sort of nostalgic way of thinking (even though I was born in 1980). Perhaps in 2034 I'll realize that the 1990's and 2000's were very distinctive looking times with as much beauty and aesthetic charm as any time. But, I don't thinks so. I also wonder about other connections with the philosophy. Isn't the pop music era of 1954-78 also better than anything we've had since? I mean, when Weezer and Radiohead are your era's rock geniuses, it seems to me you're digging at bedrock with your fingernails. And I look at it historically, too. The 50's were not boring! Historically they were a very interesting time, a very definite and beautiful age. The 60's were extremely exiting and chaotic. The 70's were more cynical, but also an important, definite era. The 80's had their flavor too, but they start to feel a little like a bad version of the 70's. The 90's are definitely a lame version of the 80's. The 00's take that sort of postmodern blandness produced in the 90's and makes it the new battle cry of the millennium. More like whimper.

Can you believe how cool 1950's rock 'n' rollers looked? Hippies were insane in the greatest way. Boy, everyone lost it as far as style and fashion goes in the 70's and I love it! What happened to America?

It might also be mentioned that the way collective memory works, how we all understand an era to be, doesn't fit neatly into decades. I'd say the 50's are really 1953-1963. The 60's, 1964-1972. The 70's 1972-1981. And the 80's, 1982-1992. After that it really doesn't matter.

I can really dig old footage of any kind. A great book about what things looked like in the suburbs of the 1950's is a photo book called "Suburban World". It is a collection of photos by a totally non-artistic amateur photographer in Bloomington MN, a growing Suburb between the 1950's and 60's. His name is Irwin Norling and he's great at being there and documenting things as they were with no ambitions to color reality. Being there is 97% of photography, no offence to photographers who's compositional and technical talents are always important. If you think 1958 in a Minnesota suburb is not dark and subversive, take a look at this book.

What else does a guy like me enjoy? I recently satisfied my desires for a hotter America with DVDs. I got a whole lunchbox full of old educational filmstrips. Boy are they beautiful, scary, hilarious, and fascinating! Does scratchy 35mm film ever look great! No one would even attempt to make a filmstrip with cars who talk safety in a cloudy heaven-like set. Nor would anyone now make a filmstrip with a talking chalkboard stick figure named chalky who teaches manners. It's the world's loss.

I also got a season of the show Emergency. I always enjoyed firefighting and rescue squads from childhood, so the show is mega entertaining for me. But the price of admission is paid by the street scenes and vehicles alone. And how about those outfits and hairdos? And the fire trucks and rescue squad---hot! Maybe it's just the technicolor, but those trucks seem to be painted a very, very bright scarlet which no longer exists. What happened to America?

American Variations

2009-02-13T19:29:00.000-08:00

I'm a composer, but I've been out of the game while in school. Well, I did write a piece for solo cello entitled Paul Bunyan about the Minnesota Born giant lumberjack (sorry Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin). Since I've gotten out, I've written some works here and there, but this past summer I started writing a series. I sometimes think American music, from a traditional sense, is ignored for its power and directness. Various composers from the new world have tired to create highly American music. With this series, I throw my hat into the ring.

Perhaps trying to be American with classical music seems too cute or an inherently patriotic act, but I chose to focus on it because it is my heritage, my surroundings and is a fairly untapped area for musical inspiration. Some hyper-American composers of the past include Ives and Copland.

While on tour in Great Britain my college orchestra played a work called Variations on America, by Ives. Perhaps our conductor had a bold sense of humor, but the work was theme (America, or 'My country tis of thee') and variations in which Ives tries very hard to assault the theme in any and every way possible. We Americans can take it, we're used to it, but the tune 'America' is also 'God save the Queen' over in Britain. Luckily, the British are known for their sense of humor.

The point of this story is that Ives is not a subtle or elegantly witty composer. He slaps you in the face with what he is doing and strives for sure attention. Similar to many children, he doesn't seem to make a distinction between positive and negative attention. That is not to say his America is not a good piece. In fact I recommend it (the orchestrated version is fun) but his sledge hammer wit gets old fast. Perhaps there is something too brutishly American about his attitude.

Copland is a finer artist who seeks the subtleties of the orchestra. Rather than impress with his concepts and audacity he tries to carefully refine a style of American music that is urbane and populous. His work tends to sound more urbane and corny, though. He is what I call a Romantic legacy composer. After the Romantic period, the stylistic momentum of classical musicians slowed down. What followed was a long period of minor styles and mutations based on the way music was in the late romantic period. Despite Stravinsky and Cage, most orchestras and even classical musicians are still in the Romantic legacy period. Copland certainly is, and his American style, though inspiring at times, boils down to a slightly corny and modernized version of Romantic classical music--sort of like an American Franz Lehar.

The landscape between these approaches is vast. I decided to take my own likes and instincts and mix them with great American tunes. Part of what turns me off about music of the Romantic legacy type is its focus on big. Everything is long, huge in scale, composed of many movements and for many instruments. So, I took my Baroque aesthetic and composed these works for violin and cello, each a single movement of theme and variations.

Speaking of corny, the theme that prompted this whole series is 'The Ballad of Davy Crockett.' Perhaps not a great American folk tune in the traditional sense, it fills the bill for a person born in 1980. To me this tune (and its great lyrics) is American myth-making at its best.

Second, I used Turkey in the Straw. I've always enjoyed this tune and was egar to compose variations on it. I think of is as a fiddle tune, but it started its popularity as a minstrel tune. Its lyrics were often changed, sometimes to versions of questionable taste. Its a buoyant tune with a call and response section and great cadences.

Third I remembered a true fiddle tune I liked, Arkansas Traveler, and decided to do variations on it. This is a total fiddle tune with jumpy rhythms and quick phrases. Very fun for string players and great to work with as a composer.

A tune I've always wanted to do variations on is Yankee Doodle. For me few pieces are more American. Ironically, it was composed by a British man. Originally it came out of the seven years war, but the version with the lyrics we are familiar with started during the French and Indian wars when a British officer observed unkempt colonial American soldiers. Yet somehow, this tune is synonymous with America. Perhaps deflecting criticism in such a way is what makes us who we are. The tune is just the right mix between gallant march and silly romp. I had some fun of my own with it.

Currently (and perhaps lastly) I'm doing variations on 'Simple Gifts". Copland made this Shaker dance tune world famous in Appalachian Spring. His version, a clever exercise in orchestration with respect for this unusually powerful tune is nice, but misses the point. The tune is simplicity itself and its lyrics preach the power of the simple things in life and the freedom simplicity brings. I'm trying to keep these ideas in mind in my variations. The tune is kept more intact than in my other pieces, and I try not to forget that despite the cantabile charm of the tune, it was meant to be a dance song, not a languid hymn. I feel the simple orchestration of violin and cello rings true for this piece, closer to the soil than to the heavens.

I'm Back!

2009-02-13T18:46:00.000-08:00

This blog is back and open for business. Originally, I created this blog in Grad school as a forum for art writing. When I got out a school, I stopped writing on it. Part of it was that no one seemed to be reading it, which left me little motivation. But, I also realized that a visual art blog can be constricting. I have many interests which I rarely get to write about that I will now discuss here. For instance, I sometimes write CD reviews on amazon.com just because it is a forum for writing about music which people actually read. Now I will write about music and other topics here!

Beyond Chinese Landscape

2008-02-16T21:05:00.000-08:00

I've been learning about Chinese painting lately. In traditional Chinese painting landscape is very important. The Chinese philosophy sees man and nature as one, without the western tendency to keep the two separate. Within this idea, it is logical that natural subjects would be important. The stigma of triteness given to animal art, and even landscape in western cultures does not exist in China. In Chinese paintings these subjects, along with plants, are of the utmost importance. This concept is so obvious within the culture that it need not be defended. Chinese people have been thinking this way about nature for thousands of years.

Landscape is perhaps the most important subject in Chinese painting. The landscape is treated in a very intellectual and symbolic way. This can be best demonstrated by noting the teaching regimen for landscape. First, and artist must learn the basics of Chinese brushwork and begin to copy master landscapes. When a certain understanding of the basic structure and language is gathered, the artist heads out to paint from nature. The artist is not truly a landscape painter until he stops painting from nature, and gains the ability to make up his own ideal landscape out of his head.

This is not an impossible feat, because Chinese painting stylizes and simplifies the landscape in to an elegant language. Chinese aesthetic demands the essence of the subject, not a documentation of it. Thus, Chinese painting, but also landscape painting more specifically, becomes its own language for expression of many unutterable truths. Landscape becomes a forum, or medium of an ideal and an expression of feeling that can't be stated. So, Chinese landscape is more than landscape, but it is important that it takes the form of landscape.

My views on landscape are strikingly similar. I certainly believe that landscape is of central importance. I believe man's attempt to separate himself from nature is silly and foolish. I find landscape to be a great forum to express feelings and ideas. Landscape is symbolic and emotional as a subject, as well as formally stimulating. The stylistic diction of landscape in Chinese painting is beautiful and flexible. It is like an illustration of an abstract ideal. By making abstract ideas into recognizable images, the Chinese artist can make his most obtuse emotions and concepts available to the viewer in a comprehendible manner. That is a very exciting idea to me.

In my painting, I push these ideas one step further. Chinese painters use brushwork to create expressive power. I do the same. But Chinese artists tend to focus on the brushstroke as the main element of expression. Color, even when present is not of great importance. In my paintings I also use color as an expressive tool, just like brushstrokes. In Chinese painting extremes in value are rarely used, subtlety being preferred. I use intense value contrast and shifts expressively. Most importantly, Chinese stylization takes landscape a long way away from what the eye sees. This gap makes for easy symbolism and idealism. But I think the landscapes then miss something important. The viewer cannot vividly imagine himself at a particular location or within the landscape he is viewing. While I would hesitate to call myself a realist, my works are realistic enough to place the viewer at a time and place. That gives the viewer a thrilling churn in the stomach and sets the imagination on fire. It is a sublime, spiritual moment when you become lost in a painting. Despite all the other factors that are important to me, I want to transport my viewer, not just in an intellectual way, but viscerally.

Contemporary

2008-02-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

Earlier today, I had a studio visit that I was looking forward to. As silly as it seems, studio visits always cause me a little anxiety. My studio is a personal place where I create things that reflect upon me all the way through. In my studio I'm far more transparent than I'm used to being. A visit in that context can feel a little like an invasion. But despite this fact, I was looking forward to it. I expected a whole new angle from this visitor, because she is not an artist, but an editor, curator and critic. Usually, I only talk to other artists. To be honest, I don't know what makes people who devote their life to art without actually creating it, tick. I have no idea what someone coming from that angle is likely to say. I felt that I could learn all sorts of things in just a half hour.
The visit ended up being a waste of both our time. I was asked to talk about my work, and I did to the best of my ability at the moment. My visitor talked about how my work didn't seem contemporary or relevant and it seemed to be 'missing something.' But what? Apparently, my work seems frozen in the age when photography was the new technological thing. I need to find a way to make it about today, a time when satellites are traversing the landscape's sky and everything seems to be mapped. Of course, I am paraphrasing my visitor's words here. Perhaps translating or interpreting is a better word, because I was rarely sure what she really meant.
I wanted to find out what sort of thing was missing from my work. I made it clear I wasn't interested in gimmicks to 'update' my work, and stated, frankly, that I deal with the same questions she was asking about landscape's worth all the time. She insisted it was how I was portraying landscape that was irrelevant, and that she has nothing against landscape in general. To prove the point she gave me a video artist's name who deals with landscape. But I couldn't really get any closer to what was so irrelevant about my work. She seemed much more interested in some Dakota place names I had on my door. I said that I was interested in having them in the my upcoming show with my landscapes, but painted on wood. She liked that slight installation idea, but said that if I painted them on wood it would be expected, and people would only think of signs. That is precisely what I like about the concept. But overall, she seemed totally disinterested. Very polite, but bored. She asked if I had any questions. I had about five hundred, but I said no. For one, because I knew by now that we were philosophically on opposite ends of the spectrum. Secondly, she seemed like a bird aching for freedom and I didn't what to hold her back. Third, she'd already professed to not have any specifics on the 'missing something' and relevancy fronts. She left after about eighteen minutes of chatting.
I was quite depressed after the visit. I get depressed when someone who knows nothing about art is bored by my work. Imagine the effect of extreme boredom coming from someone who's devoted her entire life to art. That's a pretty low feeling. When someone is disinterested, an artist can feel it like a rash. Ironically, someone who knows nothing about art would be less likely to be bored by my art. I call that being jaded. My visitor came off as being very jaded, seeming to find no pleasure in the entire realm of my studio. I still was depressed, but I began to feel better. I realized that despite important titles and a life's work in art fields, someone can be less than insightful. It really depends on the person.
In this case, the visitor was someone who'd devoted her whole life to not just art in general, but to 'contemporary art'. That one word is of great importance and it got me thinking about the word itself and what stands for.
In its most basic sence, contemporary means occuring at the same time or age. But contemporary has also come to mean 'now'. In an art context it means the cutting edge--the super-now in art. But in the more broad sence all artists alive and working now are contemporary artists. The art world seems to define contemporary in a much narrower way. It is basicly a synonym for the latest in the avant-garde. And in this jaded age we live in, even what work is considered avant-garde is up for grabs. As usual, a few intellectuals on top decide. For some people that may be the exciting thing, or even the only thing that they are interested in. I don't count my self among this crowd. Unfortunately, the top of the art world has a pretentious habit of excluding everything that is not deemed avant-garde in the present by a small number of people. It's not democratic, and it rewards work that communicates with the most difficulty. The result is that most people that have any potential interest in contemporary art are turned-off by it. And that includes me, an artist in graduate school.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is my visitor, who only seems interested in the art world's narrow brand of 'contemporary'. I don't like the art world to be exclusionary, but it seems to take pride in that fact. If you ask me a lot of the problems artists face are caused by, or exasperated by this sort of culture. It is hard to interest most people in art these days, and it's not getting better. Art is undervalued and underfunded in our society. Deeming only one tiny segment of art relevant at the hands of intellectuals who far too often live one step out of the world they examine will only shrink art's importance.
Basing art's importance almost solely on the avant-garde is silly to me. It made sense when the concept was new, and helped propel art to exciting and unexplored territories. But the idea of avant-garde seems more worn out than modernism to me now. At least many diverse efforts could be welcomed under modernism ideals. It is increasingly difficult to invent something truly avant-garde. Conrad Atkinson's description puts the avant-garde in it's often ridiculous place.
The concept of Avant-gardism had become a blind replicator of a constrictingly rehearsed notion of advancedness, a conservative convention, and a contradictory position. The term 'postmedern' at best, only names the process of disenchantment and alienation which followed from the pressure of this contradiction upon art practice.

The art world seems to act like a child who's just discovered the idea of contradiction and says the opposite of whatever he hears for a day. This quote is highly accurate in its description of dysfunction in the art world. I'd take it one step further. The reactionary nature of the avant-garde has become so brazen that the reaction to the once fresh ideals of modernism were merely dubbed post-modernism. Not because the connection was evolutionary, such as impressionism versus post-impressionism, but because the only unifying element to art after the age of modernism was its desire to be not modern. From that shattered alliance, we now live in an unnamed art age that is in some ways a pathetic attempt to rebel against an era who's only unification was its desire not to be pigeon-holed. That can only create a mess. In my eyes, the chieftains of the art world are attempting to clean up the only way they know how--by being contradictory and exclusionary. To me it is a sick and broken system that cannot pervade long in this form. So, I am suspicious whenever I hear the words contemporary and art together. And I'm not alone.

Landscape Manifesto

2008-01-19T13:45:00.000-08:00

People ask me why I paint landscape, and I think it's funny, in a sardonic sort of way. It's not just that basic, elemental question that bothers me, but the tone. The way in which people ask--with a furrowing brow and and a drawn out, dead tone in their voice, which implies that someone painting landscape is much more confounding than any other subject. It creates a child-like anger in me and I immediately want to be contrary. I want to say, "Why not paint landscapes?" Or, "Why paint anything that is not a landscape?" Of course my tone in these answers would become as confounded.
But, I don't do that. Overall, I'm not a very confrontational person. Usually, I reply with the stock answer, "I've been interested in landscape ever since I can remember." Which is true, but it's only the tip of the iceberg. That answer doesn't explain anything, and barely begins to defend my position. But, I just want to shut people up so I can go paint.
This is a double standard--people seem pressed to find what is interesting or relevant in landscape, but also see nothing confusing or prosaic about any other major subject matter. All without reason or support. Also, people seem to think landscape is done to death, and nothing more that is new can come out of it. If this were true, portraits would be dead and buried. (Oddly, people outside the 'art world' seem to have no problem with landscape. They seem to embrace it.) But on the positive side, all this doubt floating around me gets me thinking even more about landscape, nature, geography, art and my beliefs. I decided to write a manifesto of landscape. I know manifestos can make people sound crazy, but they are so forceful and concise. They are poetic, staccato, energetic and passionate. I've been writing a lot of artist's statements, and they don't seem to cut it. The whole genre of artist's statements has been so watered down that they look to me like they were written in invisible ink. Sometimes, one must isolate one's self just a little to communicate, instead of pandering to everyone's whims. If the reader gets it they get it. If they agree they agree. If not, no loss. The good thing about a manifesto (or at least they way I chose to write mine) is that this process is on a point to point basis. It's not all or nothing, like a statement tends to be.

Andrew's Landscape Manifesto

1. Landscape is a conduit through which I express myself.

2. Paint has it's own organic way of working, which I merely collaborate with.

3. Every landscape has its own drama and its own history.

4. Regions have their own flavor.

5. The landscape is ever-changing and a constant companion.

6. Water is the heart of landscape.

7. No human or group of humans can supersede landscape.

8. Human emotion and landscape are inexorably linked.

9. Sense of place matters. The specifics of a particular location create interest and emotion, and even personification of landscape.

10. The elemental source of conflict and resolution is landscape.

11. To explore the land is to be where one should be, where one feels free.

12. Landscape is a map of time, a map of human endeavors and a log of natural history.

13. Landscape is nature's chess board.

14. Landscape is the ultimate display of layers.

15. Landscape is not a stage upon which time's dramas occur--it is the drama of time.

16. Humans owe their existence, pleasure and survival to the land.

Stream Obsession

2007-11-13T15:52:00.000-08:00

Here's something crazy: rivers and streams. I think we all take them for granted at some point. Ever since I can remember, I've been interested in them. Every time I can cross a bridge, I crane my neck in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the stream below. That said, even I take them for granted. I understand that after living in Savannah, GA. There is plenty of water here, but not many clear or fast-moving streams. The number one thing I miss here is that flowing water. For trivia, the second is hills. Well, I miss my friends and family most of all, but that doesn't count in this blog.
Being that I'm interested in streams, I often think how weird they are, how impossible they seem. Apparently, water just gathers, gravity-wise, as it falls to earth and forms a flowing, cohesive channel. Then that channel goes on and on, cutting through the land, and not only maintaining its' water, but growing by meeting new streams. These things flow endlessly on the surface of the earth. They even carve into it. Picture the highway system of the U.S. There are enough roads to fill every traveling person's need to get anywhere in the country. But that's nothing compared to rivers. They drain every inch of the landscape. Minus a few deserts and lakes without outlets, a drop that falls anywhere in the country can find its way to a coast via rivers. That seems impossible.
Through all this, streams have a life of their own. I sometimes feel like certain creeks and rivers have more personality than people. People have been personifying huge streams like the Mississippi since they were discovered. But try personifying the brook in your backyard. It's amazing how easy it is.

Apathy and Atari

2007-11-08T14:54:00.000-08:00

From time to time a strange sort of apathy washes over me. Its personification could be a giant who follows me around all day repeating, "Why paint, why paint, why paint..."
In some ways its hard to argue. What is painting? What do I do when I paint? In the most basic sense, I spread colored goo on a flat surface to create some sort of image. Sounds pretty stupid! Add to that the fact that to do it well is extremely difficult and also that only a tiny percent of the population of earth might be interested at looking at the finished paintings. What am I doing?
Perhaps I can count on my friends for support. Only problem is that most of them agree with the giant. In fact I could imagine some of them prompting the giant. Perhaps if he got tired, they'd poke him and remind to say his endless quote. Some of my friends really don't understand painting!
If this is not already comical, its about to get there. I have a friend who is totally confused by my art and painting in general. It makes no sense to his brain. That is not to say he's not supportive, he realizes I have talent and is proud of me for pursuing it. But he just doesn't understand painting and I can't figure out how to explain it to him. It got to the point that I decided that he wasn't an aesthetic kind of guy. And then he fell in love with Atari. Whenever I go to his house he wants to play Atari 2600. He found his old 2600 about a year ago and fixed it up. Turns out there is a community of retro gamers, so he can get advice on how to fix things and purchase old Atari games to play.
Why do I bring this up? He loves Atari! In a very aesthetic way. I've never heard him talk about color before. Now when I go over to his house and we turn on Atari he's always exclaiming how "hot" games look. He talks aesthetically about everything Atari. The color combos and changes, the shapes, the sounds. It's all a magic wonderland for him. And it extends to hardware, too! He loves how his Atari looks. It is unnessecarily huge (it only has a small chip and a few electrical components in it) and has fake wood paneling. He loves how the controllers look and how they feel. He's crazy about certain cartridges. Each company had its own cartridge design for its games, and my friend has them ranked based first on aesthetic appeal, but also on practical satisfaction.
The punchline is that when I tried to explain why I like and do art to him by incorporating his sharp Atari aesthetic, he sort of had an epiphany, like he never could have made the connection between the way he sees the formal elements and beauty of Atari and how I see art himself. But he still doesn't understand art. Maybe he understands me a little more, but it didn't help with art.
Tomorrow I'll probably wake up and the giant will be totally gone. I'll just be happy to have the opportunity, skill and desire to paint. I'll be happy about the chance to have someone look at my art and be glad they did. Still, its tough when you have to compete with Atari!

Insanity of the Past

2007-10-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

Once the past is gone and buried, people seem to look on it as quaint. But whenever I look into the past I always end up thinking, 'these people are insane!' Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin and had almost no education, and yet went on to be not just President of the United States, but arguably the best President ever! Where are the Lincolns of today?
As insane as that is, I find insanity of the past strongest in the arts. The level of insanity to even be an artist is pretty high, but these old guys took art to crazy levels of virtuosity. It's hard for me to envision how they kept it up.
I first began to think this way about music. I became very interested in Baroque music around the age of 12. That interest has not wavered since. The commitment and obsession that these Baroque greats had to music is almost incomprehensible. Despite the fact that Bach's toccatas are today heard as Halloween music, the mere sound of the harpsichord conjures up pictures of ridiculous, effeminate antiquity to the casual ear, and Vivaldi is used as elevator music, the fact remains--these guys wrote amazing music. And lots of it. Plus they were alive at a time when many elements of musical thought we take for granted were still new or being developed. So, they were all innovators as well as top notch artists. Most of them were virtuosos on an instrument, too. Bach was a great organist, and harpsichordist and a pretty decent violinist. Vivaldi was one of the greatest violinists of his time. The level of obsession, daring, and formal solidity they possessed made them great artists for all time. If you've ever seen the film Amadeus, one thing I think that is portrayed quite well is the passion and obsession that these composers possessed, which was requisite to their greatness. That film is in many ways a reenactment of this 'insanity of the past' concept.
In visual art, even the most jaded person's jaw drops when they see a Jan Van Eyck. There are a lot of those jaded types in the visual arts. But few people can walk by such a superhuman achievement casually. A little history only adds to the awe. Van Eyck was active in the first half of the 1400's when oil painting was still a toddler. Yet, he has never been equaled as a painter of detailed, hyper-realist textures. His cloth and wood and glass have verisimilitude that is still at the apex of the medium, technically. That's insane.
Fast-forward past many other great achievements to the Hudson river school. Thomas Cole had a student named Fredric Edwin Church. Personally, I'm not his biggest fan--his aesthetic is too maudlin for me, his paintings too clogged with detail. But to look at his paintings is to understand the insanity of the Hudson River School. His finished paintings are huge, caked with an almost blinding amount of detail. His foliage is rendered without editing, every leaf is there and in sharp focus. His only tool to recreate such accurate details from nature were his own observation and his pencil and oil sketches. To today's viewer his sketches may be more appealing than his finished works, which can seem contrived, pretentious and decorative. The sketches have an amazing accuracy to them. Done with great speed, from nature, they take on a visceral quality of that nature. Taking a massive amount of detail, and forming it into a cohesive view of a real location is extremely difficult and Church seems to do it effortlessly. Only seems. He was insane and his effort is a benchmark for any serious artist.
The past is full of this kind of craziness. I don't know if people were more bored back then, art was more valued, or if people were exposed to too much lead and thus insane. Of course history filters out mediocrity, presenting only the great visions. But, I keep finding a brotherhood with these past artists and the level they were willing to take things to. I feel that some of that energy is missing today. At very least people, on average, don't seem to have the respect for the insanity that has occurred in the past and the value it has in the present. The past is not quaint, it's crazy stuff!

Thomas Cole

2007-10-24T18:35:00.000-07:00

Thomas Cole is a hard artist to fully understand today. In looking at his work one might be tempted to look past his innovations to a merely scenic or decorative aesthetic. Cole burst out of the Catskill forests in 1826 with a set of paintings that made him a sensation. Although his technique was based along the likes of Lorrian and Rosa, Cole started a new American landscape. Whereas his old world heroes worked strictly in manicured landscape, land heavily controlled by man, as well as the artist, Cole brought wild and pure landscape to the table.
This might sound obvious now, but it was revolutionary and totally American in 1826. More than just innovation to paint wilderness and audaciousness, Cole was also clever enough to wrap his new, wild subjects in a logical style acceptable to the art community. This seemingly small step freed future landscape painters of many limiting obligations. It also made Cole a national celebrity, because his new aesthetic was seen as a visual equivalent of American identity.
Cole was much less impressive as an artist formally. His historical importance, being as huge as it became, cast a large shadow. But he was interesting formally. His passages of think, swirling paint are almost unbeatable in realist painting.
One thing of interest is that he did some pretty bad paintings, especially early on. It is rare that an artist of his reputation has such underachieving works in his main catalogue. Yet he was capable of masterpieces, even early, such as Landscape with Tree Trunks, from 1828.
Later, he would mix his landscape aesthetic with moralizing history painting, to create two great series, Course of Empire and Voyage of Life. These are often seen as the pinnacle of Cole's art. Though ambitious, I'm not drawn to these works compared to his pure landscape. His pure landscape is direct, honest and ambiguous. His true strength and strongest contribution to history were his wild American scenes.
In contemplating the morality of the American wilderness Cole painted The Oxbow, his greatest work. In it he visually discusses the taming of America's land, an issue he was very vocal about, but also the battle between pure landscape and history painting. Even a man as loyal to landscape as Cole seemed to waver under the pressure of man-made narrative. Yet a painting like The Oxbow showcases landscape's conceptual as well as aesthetic and emotional potential.

Landscape?

2007-10-24T17:23:00.001-07:00

Every artist faces daunting questions. Not just from their colleagues, but also from people who don't know anything about art. Among the most popular and diabolical are, "Why do you paint?" and "Why do you paint what you paint?"
As a landscape painter in 2007, I feel like the latter question is always floating around my studio, even if no one is saying it out loud. Landscape painting has a long history. It also has a long history of being looked down upon. During most of art history there was a genre totem pole. Every genre had its stringent rules and its place of esteem on the pole. History painting was at the apex, while landscape, though seemingly related, was far below.
In current times the stigma of the past continues. It's no longer the rule, but its prejudices pervade. To make matters worst new prejudices have sprung up everywhere. Ever since Impressionism, (ironically, landscape driven) the art world is always on the look out for the next avant-garde. At first, this adventurous spirit was obviously needed in the art world, in hindsight. Imagine being so uptight as to find Monet offensive and worthless. But after more than a century of racing toward the new, the shocking, and the next revolution, the cycle is getting denigrating to most forms of painting.
To contemporary art, landscape is perhaps the most warn and banal subject. Landscape is seen as scenic, decorative, shallow, simple and done to death. Two insights are laking in this judgment.
First, landscape is pervasive in human experience. In fact, without the land and the resources landscape portrays, people would not exist. Landscape is visually interesting and has endless conceptual possibilities. If you've ever been on the banks of a rushing river or under the canopy of deep forest, you've probably experienced something spiritual. And on the edge of that river it is probable to think how inconsequential and vulnerable you are. This notion of human humility, so rare, and yet so truly our state in the universe, is expressed best by landscape.
Second, what truly makes art great is not the shock, but the subtleties. Don't get me wrong, shock can have value--sometimes a good shock is just what people need. But shock, newness and surprise should not be valued above all else. In fact, shock is not painting's strength. Eventually painting will run out of revolutions, while clever and rich subtleties will remain. One can already feel the friction and heat in the art world over the increasing difficulty in finding something totally new and novel. Landscape is a great forum for the flourishing of subtleties.
But what it ultimately comes down to is I want to paint landscapes, so I'm going to. My friend said this of the issue. When he hears someone look at one of my paintings and say, "Landscape?" he wants the reply, "It's ****ing uncompromising." I couldn't agree more.

This Blog

2007-10-23T22:02:00.000-07:00

The purpose of this blog is to write about art. Specifically, my landscape paintings and the concepts and issues that surround it. I aim to create a hybrid between a journal and a formal paper in the writing. I'd like to discuss opinions, personal experience, and have some formal looseness, like a journal. On the other hand I'd like to critically discuss art, art history, and the current art world in an intellectual manner of a paper. Naturally, everything I discuss will be related to my own art, but the purpose of this writing is not to merely point out or promote my work. More than anything, it serves to improve my work by amplifying and organizing my art thoughts.