How to: do nothing.

 

Dear Friday,

We haven't had an episode of Your Girl Friday in a mustelid's lifespan!  Your Girl, for this Friday, is Jenny Odell.  She will gently rustle you off of your somnambulistic treadmill and into awareness.  Unless you don't read the book and in that case, well, you are taking your chances, that's sure!  Check out her conceptual and very interesting artwork on her website; click on the 'projects' button.  And, I think, if you were a very lucky one, you might have taken a class from her at Stanford (I applied there, for grad school, but along with 11 other places, I was rejected.  Let's say I almost got to go, shall we?). 

You can be almost as lucky as her students, just by reading her great book, How to Do Nothing!  Inside this wonderful book, we are invited to "...inhabit somewhat fuzzier of blobbier ideas: of maintenance as productivity, or the importance of nonverbal communication, and of the mere experience of life as the highest goal." 

I love blobbier ideas, and I love this book.  Ms Odell cites interesting examples from philosophy (Epicurious), art (David Hockney, Barnett Newman, Henri Rousseau), and scores of fascinating writers (Donna J. Haraway, Rebecca Solnit, Ursula K. Leguin, Emily Dickenson); plus, there is birdwatching as a practice towards observation, awareness, and belonging: and then, "Eventually, to behold is to become beholden to."

An image from Jenny Odell's project Satellite Collection.

PS  Yes, the racoon is not a mustelid, but a procyonid. Your mustelid can be a badger, a skunk, a weasel, or even an otter.  So, I have skunked you with my misuse of mustelid, and I weasel out of it, here on the PS, and I am badgering you to read Jenny Odell's book How to Do Nothing, because you otter!

PPS  Oh, yeah, and there is this; your song for today!

Fetishizing.

Dear Makers,

Look at this wonderful tableau!  Note the artist's feet in the near center of the image.  Explore the meticulous work of paper and wood artist Ann Wood, on her website, here.  I am a fan of the crafty re-presentation of things, of course, but Ms Wood has a very good eye for arrangement and composition that we could all learn from by studying the photographs of her work until our eyes go squinty!

Giant Stitches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Stitchers,

 

Oh!  Will you look at the beauty of these constructions by artist Sarah Amos?  I am going to go and thread my needle, print my felt and start drawing right now.... 

 

Sarah Amos - Collograph Fabric Constructions 2015 from Treeline Media on Vimeo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time is of the Essence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Persistence of Memory

Salvador Dali, 1931.

Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Bookshelf,

 

I am so very slow to get around to things, and I could just kick myself, because sometimes opportunities completely vanish and I am left with an empty void, where once there was a space filled with potential and ideas.  Yes, I do mean that people die, and our hope of meeting them, or seeing them again soon is gone in a flash.  Don't let this happen to you, run out and grab some people and tell them something good.

 

I read a few months ago, an article about Ursula K. Le Guin and I noted that she wrote a blog.  It is quite a nice blog, in fact, but I only just finally took a look at it.  Please don't wait as long as I did.

 

 

 

Ursula K. Le Guin's Blog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS

 

This post's title might be our daily mantra, except for the terrible fact that enjoying a space, a place, a time,  or a person, requires one to forget, or consciously push aside, the transient nature of the world.  A painter I once knew, said that one needed to paint both urgently, as if it was one's last painting, and as if one had all the time in the world.  

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

 



 

Mojo Dust.

Dear Friends,

Do you remember when we wanted to be magicians?  To amaze with sleight of hand, to defy perception?  I put a spell on you, and I practiced, and I had a top-notch deck of trick cards, but I also had sloppy hands and poor showpersonship, and so I sleight, defy, and amaze by following another shamanistic path:  the way of the artist.  I have never regretted my decision to be a artist/magician, but watching these three clips gave me a little pang; a small yen to be a magician/artist.

Rind Heart/Reinhardt

Dear Members,

Today, I invite you to consider initiation into a secret society.  You will need to take some time and effort during the pledge period- many will not complete the training.  The society gives you, however, a very generous amount of time to complete your quest:  The rest of your life.

To begin- study the beauty of this melon's rind:

And now, regard this Ad Reinhardt painting:

Now comes the challenge, and it cannot be completed here, online;  all I can do is to point you towards a path that will intersect an image like the next one, another Ad Reinhardt painting:

This is one of his black paintings-  It will look like nothing here, like the void, the sublime abyss.  That in itself is sufficient, plenty, more than enough, even; but, there is more to Ad Reinhardt than nothing.  To touch it, to feel it, you must visit one of these works in person.  A great pilgrimage is necessary.  You will need a spear and magic helmet- named Curiosity and Intellect.  Undertake this quest with all my best wishes.  Once you have completed your mission, seen and felt, and understood these pure paintings, you are in, you may wear your special hat and pin, and your membership is lifetime.  As it is a secret society, it has no name, and we have no meetings, except for when we stand in the glory of these paintings and meet transcendentally on the plane of appreciation.  See you at the next clambake or convocation!

PS

More about the man.  I know you will be smitten by him!  He is a delight in every way.  Be sure to enjoy his droll art comics.

Here are some places you can find a black Ad Reinhardt painting:  The Guggenheim, The Whitney, Moma, The Tate.