What do you think you are looking at here? A box of cash, right? It would be nice to get this in the mail.
But what is it, really?
If you are confused about what you are looking at after you are done viewing this: There is only a block of wood. There is no cardboard box, there is no paper money, there are no rubber bands. It’s all wood.
Where does the term Weapons of Male Destruction come from? Try stepping on one of those shoes upside down barefoot in the dark in the middle of the night, and you will know.
Someone (JD) commented on my post about the fiasco of the Healthcare.org website, in defense of Obama, giving some examples of good judgment under very complicated conditions.
This chalice of a Griffin was looted from an Iranian cave and illegally smuggled into the U.S. in 2003. Luckily it was intercepted by the government and stored in a federal warehouse since.
This story in the L.A. Times is one example of Obama taking good advice and exercising good judgment with respect to Iran.
Reviewing the outcome in light of the intent, it was certainly the perfect thing to do, given a difficult situation. Congratulations to Obama on a job very well done.
At the northernmost point on the Big Island of Hawaii, there is a little town called Kapa’au, reminiscent of Julian, California. Driving through, I glanced to the right and saw a gallery with large, bright paintings. We stopped and walked in and were lucky, because the artist himself was there. He was most gracious, and we talked for quite a while about his technique and the work he was planning on doing, while looking at all his work. Whenever I see a successful artist, I always get inspired. What a life.
If you visit the Big Island, make sure you stop in at Ackerman Galleries.
Shane Koyczan and Hannah Epperson:
Last month I drove from Albany, NY to Cooperstown, NY, on back roads. I enjoyed the fall foliage, the sunny autumn day, and the roadside views. As I drove on Highway 145 west through Cobleskill, my eye caught some color off to the right. I drove on up the hill, did a U-turn when the road was clear and pulled down into the parking lot of Klaus’ Autowerks, a German auto repair shop. Here I saw, off to the side, the inspiration to a new painting: A Bug Retired.
Note that the colors are those of the German flag, black, red and gold.
This bust, chiseled from marble, by Italian sculptor Giovanni Strazza, was brought to Newfoundland in 1856. Nobody knows exactly when it was completed.
Now THIS is an artist.
Janis Joplin would be 70 years old now.
My daughter took the photograph, which inspired me to make the painting. Then she split both and collaged them together, half the painting and half the photograph.
I am an introvert. But I am also a creative person. I write and paint. And there lies the rub. If you are a creative person you need to have the courage to publish your work. Today, times are better than ever in history for people who want to reach an audience.
With every blog post I state my opinion and I sometimes choose sides. I try not to insult or attack others, except call congressmen knuckleheads. Stating my opinions and feelings exposes me in several ways. First, being an introvert I am naturally reserved and I don’t want to be in the limelight. But when I say something stupid, I am right out there, front and center, obvious as a fool to all.
Supposedly Lincoln once said: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”
I remove all doubt every day on this blog. People read these things, form an opinion, sometimes learn something, often agree, more often disagree, and sometimes they repost or refer to my posts.
Copying somebody’s work without attribution would be plagiarism. But re-blogging is like bestowing an honor. It’s like taking my work, giving it to somebody else and saying: “Check this out, you will benefit from it.”
In the world of writing, everyone with the will to collect his thoughts can publish today. You don’t need to make it past an editor, you don’t need to find a publisher. You can write, and publish yourself immediately. If it’s garbage, nobody will read it. If it’s good, you will establish a readership and a following. That’s where it starts. Writing on the blank screen and hitting the Publish button.
The same is true for artists. Every time I finish a painting, I take a picture of it and I publish it online. Just so I can share. Sometimes people have used my work and, as they should, given me credit back by a link to my blog or by adding my name. Other times, they may have just taken my work. I will never know. But even then I am honored. My work was good enough for somebody to think it valuable enough to take it and use it for something.
Sometimes I go to art shows and I look what other people are doing. Here are artists that pay a thousand dollars for a booth for a couple of days, hang up a bunch of pictures, label and price them, and wait for people to come by and buy them.
What always gets me is when artists put up signs on their walls disallowing people to take pictures of their work. This is pretty hard to enforce, now that every human being runs around with a high quality camera on their belt or in their purse. I cannot understand the attitude of the artist. Here is a great $2000 painting in a booth at a street fair. Some young person, perhaps an art student, likes the painting enough to want to take a picture of it to check it out later. But the artist gets upset. What does the artist think the viewer is going to do with the picture? Sell it? Copy it and make a similar painting that he is going to sell for $1999? Steal the idea and make a better painting?
Goodness, it’s the artist’s business to get the work out into the world. If enough people come around and take pictures of their work, perhaps their work and their names will reach the right person one day.
Are they really thinking that the only value they get is from somebody pulling out a checkbook and writing a $2000 check?
Artists with signs on their booths disallowing photographs turn me off completely and I walk on to the next booth, where I might be more welcome.
As a writer or an artist, we have to have the courage to put our best work out there, and then see what happens.
But that is hard, especially being an introvert.
A friend in Albany recommended that I visit to the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown.
I had, of course, heard about Cooperstown often, for reasons other than art, and I had driven by the exits off the freeway, either to the north on I-90 or the south on I-88 many times over the years. It is far enough away from both freeways to prevent an accidental stop-over. One does not happen upon Cooperstown. One must purposely go there.
Cooperstown is famous in part because that’s where the National Baseball Hall of Fame is located. Since I only know the name of one baseball player, Babe Ruth, and since I have only been to two baseball games in my life, during both of which I had a hard time not falling asleep, I was never likely to make my way to Cooperstown.
Then not too long ago I read the book Reflections of Toddsville by Hollie Van Horne, a time travel romance novel that plays in and near Cooperstown. This book was descriptive enough about the area that it piqued my interest.
Needless to say, when the recommendation about the art museum came, it was a quick decision. I had to drive from Albany to Syracuse, and I might as well take a lesser highway, enjoy the fall colors in their full glory in rural upstate New York and visit Cooperstown.
The village of Cooperstown had 1852 residents in the 2010 census and is the county seat of Otsego County.
The village was part of the Cooper Patent, a 10,000 acre stretch of land which Judge William Cooper purchased in 1785 from Colonel George Croghan. Cooper was the father of noted American author James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Leatherstocking Tales, a series of novels which includes The Last of the Mohicans. Contrary to popular belief, the village was named after Judge Cooper, and not his son. The village is located at the southern tip of Otsego Lake and is surrounded by some of the most beautiful and scenic land in upstate New York.
So there are two things Cooperstown is famous for, the family of its founders and the Baseball Hall of Fame.
I loved the Fenimore Art Museum. There are two main categories of works exhibited. First there is a wonderful collection of Native American art, clothing, buffalo hides, coats, and blankets. Then there is a wealth of American paintings, most of them created in the 1800 to 1900 timeframe. Since photography, as usual, is not allowed at the museum, I cannot share anything here. However, I can share their website here!
The most impressive work to me was Thomas Cole’s The Course of the Empire series of five paintings. They were all there, lined up on one wall, and had me captivated for quite a while.
Of course, the very most exciting work was Thomas Hill’s View of the Yosemite Valley:
I was keenly interested in this painting, since Yosemite is one of my favorite places in the world, and I had just taken a photograph of the valley recently from the air myself.
All in all, I loved spending a few extra hours on what would have been a routine freeway drive on a splendid autumn day in upstate New York, visiting a wonderful village on a spectacular lake with an impressive art museum.
The best commercials tell a story without speaking a single word. Here is one like that. I watched it three or four times, just had to.
This summer I hiked up Mt. Baldy. From the “devil’s backbone”, at an elevation of about 9,000 feet, I had this view toward the north, overlooking the Mojave Desert stretching out into the distance. Thick clouds covered the bottom of the mountain, but the sky above me was bright and blue. A painting was born.
Friends were visiting Switzerland this summer and were there during the supermoon period. From the balcony of their lodging they were able to watch the moonrise, catching some great zoomed shots. One of them (permission by V.T.) inspired this painting.