New Maladjusted Work In Progress

So I was thinking about the normal hours at a meth lab. You know. Most businesses have their standard hours of operation and meth labs are businesses at the end of the day. If you doubt that, check out the IRS code. Did you know that money from dealing drugs is taxed as ordinary income? Or at least it's supposed to be. The War on Drugs has made it hard for people in that, ahem, line of work be forthcoming with their income statements. I mean, can you imagine what that W-2 would look like? Well friends, now you don't have to. I've done it for you and while I'm not going to the trouble of trying to actually design a W-2 from a meth lab, I did just wonder what happens to the poor bastard who needs his fix on Sunday (preferably for the week) and he finds the place closed.

Or...do meth heads even think in those terms?
What if meth labs don't think in terms of "normal business hours"?
If we perhaps ended the War on Drugs, would meth labs become respectable places of business? Or would that constitute an unintended consequence?

Maybe I think too much.


More Later

KCD

Visit www.theworkofart.net

Leonard Nimoy RIP

Leonard Nimoy, famous for his singular portrayal of Mr. Spock, half-human First Officer aboard the USS Enterprise, died two weeks ago this past Friday, a month shy of what would have been his 84th birthday. He died of end stage COPD which came from smoking for a long time before he gave it up.

Guess all that talk about the dangers of smoking proved right. But that's another discussion.

Leonard Nimoy grew up in Boston in a Jewish family and he realized at a young age that he wanted to be an actor. He'd had a bit of a career in television and in the movies before Star Trek came along, but it was the role of Spock that, as has been said many times, really defined his career. Nimoy lived long enough to see the affect his portrayal had on the culture. A whole lot of thinking has been done as a result of Star Trek, about the kind of world we want to live in, about negotiating the differences between races and cultures, languages and customs, mythology and the stories we tell, the conflict between logic and emotion. Our obsession with technology and the tug of war between the pace of technological advancement and our evolution as human beings all evolved out of Star Trek and it was embodied most definitively in the character of Spock, the Vulcan Science Officer and right hand to William Shatner's James Kirk.

It turns out Nimoy understood the sense of isolation that being different can bring. He brought that to his portrayal of Spock. Cooly efficient and logical, yet deeply moral in the most meaningful sense of the term. So often as a member of an "out" group, one needs to view the world with a kind of cool detachment and objectivity in order to survive. Artistic expression in whatever form holds up a lens that allows us to understand the world we're in and how to deal with it effectively. It also allows us to see ourselves, our own mythology, our own sense-making mechanisms for good or ill. It helps us become conscious. Fans of Star Trek in particular and science fiction in general will no doubt recognize some of their own journey through consciousness in the journey of Spock.

And all this took place in the day-to-day grind of series television. If you follow the craft at all, you know that being on a sound stage or a movie set is a long working day, especially if you're in a lot of scenes. William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy were of course, the featured players, but they were working actors, working artists making a living and trying to capture that moment of inspiration in a performance when it seems like God (however one understands the term) manifests in a flash of perfect illumination. Every artist knows that moment, and if you can nail that, you can pat yourself on the back and be in awe because you were present for when it showed up. I'm quite sure Leonard Nimoy knew about that moment.

Artistic expression is about reaching beyond the materiality of logic and order. It's a tool we use to answer the questions that V'Ger was asking after Spock tried to mind-meld with it. "Is this all that I am? Is there nothing more?"

In the 2000s, Nimoy left the acting business and turned to fine art photography, perhaps answering his own question in the way that artists do: by trying something new, exploring a new passion, ever evolving, ever becoming, using a camera to reach beyond the veil. Now he has gone beyond that veil. Certainly we are the better for his having been here, striving in workaday fashion to be present for those flashes of brilliance. I applaud that he was able to turn it into a pretty great living, and in doing so, he was able to leave his distinctive imprint on all of us. On stage and off.

Leonard Nimoy
born March 26, 1931
died February 27, 2015

Rest In Peace

More Later
KCD

visit www.theworkofart.net

Under Re-Construction: Pardon Our Appearance

Dear friends,
Sometimes the old place needs a makeover. You know how it is. The same old, same. Old. But it's familiar and it's safe. Changing it over seems traumatic and something you'd never recover from. But as wise people have observed, the only constant in life is change. Some of it is welcome, like a new job, or a new place you've never been to, or a new pair of shoes. Some of it isn't welcome at all. Like my neighbors across the street, a family I've known for 17 years, kids who just lost their father, and a wife who just lost her husband. All change requires adjustment. A few tweaks or a major overhaul.

In this case, that's what's going on here. A re-imagining of this space so that more can happen. Musings, certainly, but not just in words. In pictures. More of my own, which makes sense since this is not just a blog about art, but also about my art, my visual interpretation of observations into the world I live in and that we all live in. I've not always embraced change. I remember not wanting to move my desk to another part of the office years ago for reasons we all understand. It's comfortable. Familiar. Safe. We have our well-constructed house of blocks just as we'd like it. Until some two year-old comes along and knocks it down in some kind of oblivious, playful triumph. At that point you have two options: be angry at the two year-old, or just realize that he was just doing what two year-olds do, and rebuild. Better this time. Removed from the two year-old's reach.

I've been sending out my pirate signal from here since 2010. In order to expand my reach, I need this space to become a place of dialogue, not just monologue. There will be a link to a new Facebook page, where you can continue the conversations we've started here. You'll be able to view new works in progress and when they're complete, you'll have the opportunity to see them at www.theworkofart.net, which will also be redesigned, and you'll be able to buy them at my Imagekind store. It's all about making my work more accessible and available to more people, and being more coherent going forward in my business.

Speaking of change, some things won't change. The attitude for one. The twisted observations of things we do in this culture that seem just the other side of things a sane, healthy society would do won't change. "Maladjusted" won't change, but now the designs will become available as posters or prints. Hey, some people dig this stuff. People in Istanbul were checking this stuff out. Who knew?
Lastly, the name will change. This will now be The Work of Art Chronicles. There is a lesser known (lesser known than this? Yes!) blog bearing the same name. That will go away as the function of that blog will now fold into this one.

So, pardon the appearance, if you would, please. I'll try not to leave too much of a mess. But do please come visit. There'll be lots more to see.


More Later, as always...

KCD

visit www.theworkofart.net

P.S. The best kind of change is the kind you initiate and manage with awareness.

MALADJUSTED! Because You've Waited Long Enough...

Finished product. Here it is. I'll say no more.

More Later

KCD

visit www.theworkofart.net

Happy New Year! A Bit of Food For Thought

This article comes from The Atlantic by William Deresiewicz who recently wrote Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life. The book covered a lot of what is going on in Ivy League schools in particular, but also in education in general. Deresiewicz spent about 25 years teaching in elite academia: Columbia. Harvard, etc. Nice gigs.

Here in this essay, he talks about the commercialization of art and the transformation of the artist as a singular, perhaps visionary genius into an entrepreneur, with all the trappings that implies in our modern (or post-modern, whatever that means) world, that must tangle with the logic (or lack thereof) of the market. He contends that artists in the 18th and 19th and even to some degree the 20th centuries have been sheltered from the vagaries of the market by a variety of structures, and that now in the 21st century, with those structures undergoing seismic shifts, a lot of the old models and paradigms may not apply anymore as it reduces down to how an artist gets paid. Fascinating read. Here's the link.

Also, a bit of catching up. Obviously, posting has dragged to a snail's definition of speed. Lots going on in my off-line, actual life. The holidays were, by turns quiet and chaotic with family and contemplation vying for equal time. A recent birthday has made me more acutely aware of how precious life is and why it's important not to waste it offering what is sacred to dogs. Yesterday Stuart Scott of ESPN died after a seven-year bout with cancer. He was only 49. Closer to home, my neighbor is receiving hospice at his home following a brain tumor that was diagnosed a year and a half ago. The end is near for him. We've been neighbors for 16 years. I watched his children grow up.

It's pretty real when someone near your own age is dying. It makes you affirm life and it makes you affirm your life. And it makes you want to hold on for as long as possible and make it count for something, and to make what you do count for something. Be something more than excellent sheep.

Rest in Peace Stuart Scott. We were not ready for you to leave us.

More Later
KCD

www.theworkofart.net

At Last! New "Maladjusted"!

We're just going to let this one breathe on its own folks, and just say that if you ever see a sign like the one at the top (and perhaps agree with it!), you might well have had too much at dinner.

Drive safely. Please.


More Later

KCD

Visit www.theworkofart.net

Art History Lesson: How Making Art Got a Bad Name, Part One

On a site called "New Advent", I found the most comprehensive, exhaustive (by which I mean exhausting), full throated insanity that I've ever read by a 2nd Century (AD) scholar named Tertullian.

Can't imagine he was much fun to be around.

Without getting into the scholarly aspect of his work, which reads like a pronouncement from a court (apparently the guy was a lawyer), Tertullian basically saw idolatry as the principal sin, and he saw it everywhere, infecting every aspect of society, but most particularly in the arts. He saw the arts, "artifice" as he called it, as essentially the means to give form, shape and service to idols, false gods. Idols, he imagines, must have idolmakers, and the "artificers of idols" should be, in his worldview, condemned to the flames of Hell.

Along with idols, he condemned "similitudes", likenesses of anything in the earth or in heaven or in the water. Pretty much the stuff of landscape paintings and still lifes with the requisite bowls of fruit, or ocean scenes. In Tertullian's analysis, those who made art for a living were in league with idolaters, and served demons.
 
He also saw the teaching of literature as somehow giving praise or acknowledgement to idols and a form of idol worship. Tertullian saw secular education of any sort as a kind of idolatry or at least a path to it. This man was by any measure, a zealot. His writing has a thunderous quality to it, as if attempting to call down the fires of God's wrath upon the unrepentant.

Now lest you think this guy was just a 2nd century crackpot, it should be noted that he was an influence on no less a person than St. Augustine, and what he hath wrought upon the land is well documented. Tertullian was never canonized by the early Catholic Church. Augustine was. Which suggests to me at least that Augustine went further into madness than his predecessor did, if that's even possible.
So if you have any questions about where the thinking originated that these days leads to reflexive cuts in art and music programs in schools or what causes politicians to wax rhapsodic about eliminating funding for things like the Corporation For Public Broadcasting or the National Endowment for the Arts, it started with this guy and people like him. Like St. Augustine, whom we'll cover in Part Two of this cautionary art history lesson.

More Later,

KCD

P.S. Apologies for having been away so long. Project work and family obligations have kept me from posting. But I'm back, and there'll be all new "Maladjusted" for those of you who've been looking, in addition to the usual musings.

On the other hand, maybe Tertullian had a point.