a million

 

Untitled (Tools), Jim Dine, lithograph, 2008.

Dear Opposable Thumbs,

There is a large stack of books where I work; it's all detritus, really, and it doesn't belong to anyone, so even the spines don't get a glance.  The world would be a better place if some of them were never looked at, but a few of them could be useful to raise up a too low television set, or to chock up a short leg on a table.  Thinking larger now, perhaps combined into a solid stack of 'how to' art books, maybe painted, in say palest pink?  Illustrated on the outside with delicate red handwriting and gentle blossoms?  

Well, you know when someone says to me, "good idea," I always respond "I have a million of them!"  And you do too, which puts me in mind of a little spontaneous poem a fellow* sent me in an email.  You know how messages and letters can generate these kinds of things- a person says this, another replies that, all that thoughtful responding suddenly leaps, jumps beyond quotidian communication and becomes a gleaming poem:

Tools for the soul, or is it, a soul full of tools?

Always measuring, always fixing.  

*Thank you, D. Prochaska, for the poem!

diagrams

 

Dear Drawing,

Ooh, I love these diagrams!  I found them in a book of paintings of birds, and they are really wonderful.  They are more compelling than the actual paintings, but I give you a few of them, so you can see for yourself.  I love the compositions of the shapes, untethered from their landscape.  If you are crazy curious about the books, you can see one here, and the other, there.

The whole thing has got me thinking about the outlines, the minimum that you need to tell the tale of identity, and I am also considering the circled numbers; the corresponding text.  Is that the compelling part?  Is the appeal the way this diagram hopes to instruct?  When we see a diagram, do we get ready to receive direction?

What if, say, I took a whole lot of outlines, of things, like leaves, cups, pillows, fruit; and I put some numbers on, or near, and I painted it all up in a nice buttercup color?  That sounds like it would be swell, doesn't it?  The outlines would have maybe the barest hint of reference to them, just enough to make you think, and then we can enjoy contemplating the question posed by having these varied objects in the same picture.  

An installation of ideas.

 

Dear Like Minds,

These are images of an installation of ideas on slips of paper.  The ideas were thought of and recorded in a class I teach each Spring.  I never knew, when I first looked at Joseph Kosuth's One and Three Chairs, that I would arrive at digging conceptual art; promoting it and assigning it even.  It grew on me, I guess, like moss and Absurdist literature. 

The way that ideas, and manifestations of ideas, circulate and fold out and in and recombine is really a beautiful thing.  I have mentioned it here before, and what is the word for it?  Happenstance?  Coincidence doesn't seem quite right.  The thesaurus offers 'concomitance,' 'concordance,' and 'lumping together.'  The first two are a little officious, and the last implies a lack of elegance.  Happenstance will have to do.

One thing that lumped together to manifest as this project are the Paul Thek Teaching Notes.  Here is a place you can read a little about them, and you can look at the notes, here.  Then you can answer them, make your own list of questions, or manifest some other happenstance entirely. 

thinking of words to send you

Dear Readers,

The juice of a small white peach on my fingers rolled down my arm, almost, with patience, to my elbow.  The progressing drop decreased in size, leaving a transparent, shiny trail, a little like the beautiful track of a snail.

Our thoughts, ideas, and words head out from where we are, like an enormous army.  They keep on going and they will find sometimes a place to stay for a while, or even to die.  Or maybe they are more like seeds, many millions are blown from the spent blossom, but only a few find fertile soil.  But when?  Our words can sit fallow for many, many decades, and then, there you are, using some words that someone gave you a long lifetime ago.

I try very hard to keep the words, the thoughts, that people give me, but holding them is so difficult.  They just flow away like liquid, or dry up slowly.  And then, there you are again. 

It is the kind, praising words I want to keep the most- I repeat them, over and over, hoping to fix them very permanently in my mind.  I want to keep them for use on a rainy, diffident day; a day where a little sanative dose is needed.  Other words might stick around too long, and try as I might, I cannot get away from hearing them over and over. 

What shall we do with the latent power of our ideas and words?  Annie Dillard advises us to give the best ones now; don't save them up.  Spend it all, good and fast.

The daily grind.

Dear Ones,

Again, I can hardly believe my good fortune: see if you can credit it!  There I am, minding my own business at my job, when someone asks me for some 'ideas'!  Well, of course, I replied:  Chantilly lace, and a pretty face, and a pony tail hanging down, .... and oh baby! you know what I like!

I gave him the following ideas- I think they are fabulous, of course; really top drawer ideas; one of them is someone else's idea. I mean, that wingchair!  What a doozy!


A lilac velvet upholstered wingchair filled with a pile of pale river stones.

A secret library in the trunk of a car.

A map to the places the wee folk live.

A minotaur courts a bower bird.

Nine pairs of shoes & four mouse holes.

An atm that dispenses cupcakes all night and day.