safety pin

 

impression

 

Dear Recent History,

You know how a lot of artists and makers really buried the needle during the pandemic?  Churning out all kinds of daily delights?  People made dozens of pairs of socks, they repainted, they made beautiful and poignant music and youTube videos, they planted flowers, they expressed their anxiety in all kinds of wonderful ways.  I did not.  I had none of that kind of energy.  To me, it felt like I was waiting in line at the scary roller coaster, moving very slowly towards my turn in the terrifying little cart; not a time to focus on creative pursuits at all.  My mind was frantic in its existential crisis.

I know somewhere out there, there must be one other person, maybe even five or ten, who felt like I did; too sad to make much of anything.  I didn't really know before that huge global event (the event, I expect, of my lifetime, even though no one even talks about it anymore) that my impulse to make art comes from something like joy.  I wasn't feeling any joy, or even any neutral sort of okayness.  I know some of you are out there; I hope you know that our way of getting through was fine too; it's possible we may have felt some guilt about 'wasting all that free time.'  We might still feel that we ought to feel that, but, with the power vested in me as a human who did not feel like being productive during that planet-wide tragedy, I officially absolve you (& myself) from all that crap.  We did the right thing, which was no-thing at all.  Doing nothing is fine, even best in many cases.

Still, I know you were marking time in some way; I made one of these little marks at the end of each day, in this cherry wood plank that a printmaker gave me.  I didn't start right away, I had to back fill about 38 marks or so; and sometime after the second year, after the vaccines didn't evaporate the virus, I thought, oooh, this is maybe not going to end in any kind of definitive way....

I kept making marks until May of last year; when I caught the dratted crud Covid finally.  After days of illness and finally testing negative, I was so debilitatingly tired that I got disgusted with the project; I was never going to be done making marks.  My Father caught Covid for the third time, this May.  It is printed now, and 'finished' in a sense.  There could be other endings for this board, too: cutting it up, burning it, using the back- saving it until time demands to be counted in that way again.

dot & line

 

on print

 

Dear Dodo Viewers,

Get a load of this fabulous object, called The Language Infinity Sphere, that makes these prints, called 'recordings' by artist Rosa Barba:

Can you think of anything better than this?  I know I can't!  

Did you hear?

 

Dear Delight-Seekers,

Today I have a delight for all my fellow sound art enthusiasts and pipe organ fans!   It should also appeal to candle lovers and John Cage groupies.  Which actually makes me think of something I might want to make: a fan club t-shirt for John Cage.  To make it right, to make it authentic, we must subject it to an action and a period of time.  By it, I mean the shirt.  Here are three sample actions a t-shirt could endure:

car drives over

tossed out window

mop up pale blue paint spilt by a kick at 8:15 pm

If you have just no idea who the hell this guy is anyway, you must, you must investigate John Cage.  He is a person who will fill you with pride in that you share a place as a human with such a mind as his.

Try a poem.

Try a print.

Try a piece.

Bonus Track:  Water Walk again.  Watching Katelyn King perform it is a double delight, because we can compare all the delicious details.  Also, if you want to hear more Cage, try this place.

poem, print

 

Woodcut print by Bryan Nash Gill.

Dear Ones,

I bought a case, to put my odd objects into, because I felt sad that they were in boxes, and if I am not making these things for me, then who?  As an audience of one, I wanted these things presented in a vitrine, and so they are going into a cabinet.  However, some things are not going to be kept any longer.  

A shoebox of leaf skeletons, although it might be the best thing I own, will be documented and then, tossed onto the wind.  Photographing these things will have to suffice.

Also, a chocolate box filled with fabric snips.  A box of rocks.  Many boxes of shells, coral.  A stack of stamps cut from the RSVP's of my wedding invitations.  A box of conkers.  Seeds and pods.  Winged leaves.  Stems of dried bulbs.

These are the collections that are going, many more are staying: the birds' nests, more boxes of rocks.  Cut scraps of yarn.

All of this saving seems to be what gives me meaning, and that brings me to poem, which I think you should save, in a box, in a collection of poems that bring you meaning.

Tree Rings

There's no choice
near the end
but to curl in
on yourself.

That's all that
remains, but for
that around
which you curl.

- Todd Young.