This is from a series of tiny drawings, done one after another after another on the backs of business cards from the job I had at the time (at Denver’s Capitol Hill Books). The printed text on the other side affected the way the ink was absorbed, and ghost traces of letters provide an eye for our avian friend.

Rising always
borders on falling,
as steam inevitably condenses.

Our situation is different, and as far as planetary environmental disaster goes, there’s nothing we can do that will settle things this year, or this decade. We can, however, make shifts in our habitual patterns of consumption and waste, and if we don’t, disaster is practically assured. A relatively small shift will do wonders, if that change in behavior spreads through the cultures that surround each of us. Because your friends respect and admire your thoughtful, intelligent approach to life, a visible change in your own habits makes an impression, and the virus spreads.

Many of us already do the basics: Flip the lights off on your way into the next room. Put a sweater on instead of spending the winter in a t-shirt. I’m sure that you, dear reader, don’t leave the water running while you brush your teeth. Because you’re not an idiot. You may be self-centered and narcissistic, but you don’t do harm to living things and the world around you for no reason at all. Right? Trivial things, but offhand waste is the crux of the problem, at least for this society of frantic consumers. The only trouble, in these tiny things and practically everything else, is that it’s hard to pay attention all the time, and it’s hard to break habits that developed as children, before we really learned to think critically. Before we understood that the situation was so fragile. Unless we deliberately make an effort to examine our experience, we, all of us, are almost automatically shaped by the daily barrage of advertising. So, we crave, we buy, we toss.

It takes a lot of effort to stay aware of our own small actions, but the effort makes life richer, every day. The “payback” is your own enlarged consciousness, and deliberate daily alertness will do more for you than a doctorate in philosophy or strong dope. As I was saying at the beginning, the crux of the matter is dogged persistence. Results don’t come quickly, but by putting one’s own everyday actions in a broader context, one becomes gradually wiser. By striving to see more, one notices yet more, and then more still.

How? Deliberately pause and think about what this moment is like for the other people in the room. In the world. Think about where your food came from, and from how far away. Think about how to solve the problem you’re dealing with, or the craving, with what you already have, rather than buying another specialized device. Generally, your metal comes from strip mines, down to your paper clips. Plastic is petroleum, usually. Water is not “just there,” forever, and it’s running out in the Western US, where I live, as sprinklers chatter all night long. Mass culture keeps us in the perpetual now, in the shallowest sense, and only with effort can we cultivate the habit of looking at ordinary life with a little distance. Paradoxically, this deliberate distance brings us closer to it.

Consider it a New Year’s gift, and if you’re seeing it for the first time at a later date, it should still work alright. For best results, try to suppress any skepticism you might taste rising up in your gullet. You’re welcome. Happy New Year, I wish for you and myself. Let me know how it works out.

When someone is sent to find the old man, all else has already failed. If he’s not out in the boat, he’s out walking, some way off the paths, in-turned, but aware of each sound and scent, and each combination. He’s always just wrapping up as you arrive, tucking bundles in his bag. What do you need then? Cordial, willing, he is, and not surprised to see you.

Rian Kerrane‘s piece, Velvet Letters, covers two walls with an evolving tangle of letters/words that wrestles with red-flocked circles and leafy shapes. Visitors add their own significant words and phrases to a rolling list, and the new thoughts and sounds get composed and installed as the run of the show continues. Labor intensive interactive installation. If all of Letterkenny gets a word or two in, the wall will be a highly-figured near-black with the texture of text and its intersections. There’s still some space, so bring your words.

My short movie looks great on a framed monitor lent by the Letterkenny Arts Centre. (See this previous post for an even-more-abstracted variant of what’s being shown.)  The show is open to view right now. A wide range of people have come through and are amazed, puzzled, charmed, or caught off guard by Letterkenny’s most peculiar currently-showing movie. Everyone I run into seems to have something to say, which can’t be bad, and most seem to be productively befuddled, which is perhaps how the human mind evolves. It’s how mine does. I like this writhing flick. Hope you do. Stop by the opening and talk to us, and to the exhibition’s adventurous curator, Seamus Quinn (pictured).

I spent yesterday helping to install “Kitchen Wallpaper,” a piece by Rian Kerrane, which Jessica Gross had already been working on for days. This food-encrusted room is part of “Artists’ Footprints” at RedLine in Denver, a show curated by Viviane LeCourtois. The reference to Charlotte Perkins Gilman‘s story is no accident.The walls are composed of apples, turmeric, stenciled honey, poppyseeds, pasta, and cumin, and it smells delicious. Rian’s off in Ireland setting up our installation at ArtWorks in Letterkenney, so this piece, and the cast iron handbags in Objectophilia, were installed by her loyal local proxies.  Yesterday, Mike Brohman, who’s also in the show, came to the rescue, helping out for hours, after watching Jessica and I struggle with layers upon layers of layers that were obviously going to take a lot longer than planned. With his help, we were home by 10 pm. Spectacular July 3rd fireworks awaited me in my neighborhood when I got home. The piece is pretty amazing, yes? Try to resist nibbling on the walls.

Kitchen Wallpaper

A tribute to The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892

By Rian Kerrane

Turmeric, cumin, honey, apple, poppy seed, pasta

22’ long, 12’ high

2010

Kerrane illustrates her negotiation of the mental realm of self-sustainability with “Kitchen Wallpaper”. Her use of organic materials shown as repetitive wallpaper pattern reflects the domestic environment on numerous levels. The artist often references this setting as the nucleus of intimacy and personal relations. It is the home where she learns to balance her several public and private personas: woman, mother, lover, artist, and academic.

“Kitchen Wallpaper”, with its direct use of edibles, is a reminder of the transient, the minuscule and the simple innovative idea as nourishment and concept. Repetitive wallpaper-like pattern gives form to abstract thought and the challenges and ingenuity required for self-sustaining and balancing life’s situations. For Kerrane the kitchen is the center of the home environment. Finding balance within oneself, in one’s relationships and the larger social circle is synonymous with finding harmony and ecological balance on the global scale. Actions, conversations, mental health and daily practice are the minutia affecting the broader picture and major cycles of the planet. Every single action exponentially has its larger repercussions.

The steep walls and the vertical emphasis in the space are a reminder of the claustrophobia we sometimes feel. The sense of powerlessness and ineffectiveness we experience, the self doubt of our actions as we continuously negotiate the mental realms of the domestic sphere and the relevance of the single action to those on the global front. What can at one moment seem comfortable can at its next enclose as a trap. Kerrane intends to stimulate subtle changes in consciousness with “Kitchen Wallpaper”.

Rian Kerrane, June 2010

The version of “Old Tongue” that just opened at ArtWorks is too quick and detailed to come across on the web, but by trying to strip it down for compression, I came up with a very different version, one that leaves recognizable imagery mostly behind for a flattish world of peeling and twisting. If you’re in Ireland, it’s up now, in Letterkenny, but I won’t be there until next week. Hope you like this variation.

(Update: I’ve arrived. If you didn’t arrive here via my home page, click here for more info on this show, Rian Kerrane‘s piece, Velvet Letters, curator Seamus Quinn, and the opening reception, which is coming up in a few days as I write. Here is another link, to my description of Old Tongue, my contribution to the exhibition [with a composite image].)

Some kind of Gene Wolfe parlor of tarnished escutcheons, faceless poise, and rotting velvet, with remnants of ruling families maintaining the procedures of dignity as any trace of distinction and inbred purpose fade. Ancestral identity becomes mere cashflow and costume. Vast, dim, cobwebbed atriums (atria?), occasional letters to sign, from estate lawyers. Biscuits and the sherry bottle. Cuddling with grandfather’s trophies and certificates.