budding

 

there's this guy

 

Stay, Nancy Dwyer, 1987.

Dear More,

Make way for more amazingness!  Your song for today is one I don't recall hearing- but, you know, I have forgotten lots of really good stuff.  This is one for playing loud, and you should know that I heard it from a guy on Instagram; a guy who sits there and enchants you with his feeling for music.  Here at Radio Dodo, you will get less enchantment, but you will also get the whole song, and Ms Ellison will enchant you in any case.

it's a sky blue sky

 

Threadbare/Fadenschein, Helena Hafemann.

Dear Y'All,

Did you know there was such a thing as a Horrible Mean Bad Woman?*  (I found it on the internet, of course; just like Woolworth's, it has everything!)  It's like a Feminist Killjoy but even more transgressive.  It's right up my alley.

My feeling right now is this:  ah, I see you have something there; a little crusted piece of societal expectation?  Why, I'd be delighted to smash it for you!  It's no trouble at all.  

Here is a song we can whistle while we smash; won't you join me?

*I found it on the internet, of course; just like Woolworth's, it has everything; you should try it!

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!  

The Wonderfulness.

 

Michael Johansson

Dear Viewers,

Ooh, you are going to love these sculptures!  They are just what I would make, if I could make such things.  Actually, I think I might be making these same things, but with different materials.  

What, then is the subject of these sculptures?

A: The stuff humans made that aren't being used as originally intended, being used in new, formally compelling and visually interesting ways: hair dryer, plastic brick, suitcase, flashlight, gameboard.

And the content?

A: The re-presentation of the stuff humans made and aren't using is a little sad, but also nostalgic, funny, silly, and almost, very nearly, joyful.  All the multitudinous associations and meanings of these items, but also the negation of those meanings, because they cannot be used in those ways any longer.

End of art lesson!

Crossfade- Green

Bonus observation:  What an utterly charming artist, that would describe the media so completely accurately as 'ordinary items!'

Losing track.

Dear Radio Dodo Listeners,

I may have sent you this tune, this song of the day, before; enjoy it again, or for the first time.  It's been a lot of years of sending you tunes, and I don't keep very good records.  It's funny about keeping records; all these saved letters and cards, journals and diaries, photographs, receipts, and lists; they become very thin, very pale, very tattered in time.  Like memento ghosts, because their substance has transmuted, and their original meaning is lost too.

Still, what memento shall I make today, so the dust of tomorrow will have someplace to fall?  How about this: a 4 by 4 foot cube of plaster, layered, troweled textures, planes shifting and truncating, overlapping.  Washed with a palest cobalt blue, and on it, I will write you some words, words that subvert themselves, contradict, and open out in vagueness.

Until my next transmission, be well, and be making.

House of the Illustrious.

 

Dear Radio Dodo Listeners,

Here is your song for today.  

Now, while that is playing, take a look at these sculptures of Nancy Rubins'.  I can't decide if I like them or not.  Whatever, you may say, who cares if I like them or not?  Well, that's a good point, but I am still looking to be moved by artwork, even after so much water under the bridge of meaning, the market, and whatever 'self expression' is.  (Now I think they call it 'personal narrative,' which we do care about, but only in as much as we can say we are listening.  I don't think we are supposed to want to make one ourselves; or, if we do, can we please just do it quietly?)

Now, while you decide if you like those sculptures, you can think about this photo of Josephine Baker.  What I am thinking, is this: what is it about this photo that makes it belong here, now?  I am not sure why it wants to be here, but I read a short while ago that she lived in a castle, and I have wanted to tell you so.  (If you would prefer, you can make a very short personal narrative instead of reading about the château.  This should be no more than a page long, very quiet, and written in pencil so history can erase it easily if finds your narrative inconvenient in the future).

À la prochaine!

Amazement.

Dear Friends,

This just in from a co-worker, and oh!  It is amazing!  You will gasp, laugh, and weep at the beauty and whimsy of it all.  I am reading a book, which I know you would love, called The Book of Delights, and I think maybe this film of Polly Verity heralds the beginning of a new Dodo Feature: The Delight of the Day.   It won't be everyday, of course, just like the song of the day; you will get it when it comes, and no sooner, but, be ready to be delighted!

This lifestyle.

Elliott K. Perkins

Items

 ceramic, 2019-2020

Dear Conflicted,


Raise your hand if you hate change, and are bored by sameness?  I was on the telephone a few days ago- an object I really revere, and you know that, because these pages have featured several pictures of telephones.  I like the cradled ear part, the phone part; and the guts, all filled with ringers and wires.  I love the dial, or the big square buttons.  I love the silly tangle-y corkscrew cord that connects the two.  I love the pocket under the cradle to put your hand into to carry the phone to another chair, or window.

And then there is the spatial facet of telephone conversation:  You are here, they are there.  I see the sky, the tree tops, the birds; you might see the sidewalk, someone walking a dog.  We might see the same things, a moon, a rocket plume, gathering storm clouds.

While on the telephone we got to talking about a song my DJ just played for me, and another song.  These songs are my project for today!  Because I have been thinking about what my job is, and for once, I think I know what it is: it is to use the space of my mind to make things in.  I can make thoughts, images, all kinds of insubstantial items, and then, if a good one comes along, I can make it manifest, like a construction paper flower, and then, I can give it to you.

Principally, I am concerned with these notions in contemplating these songs:  What are they about?  Are these songs two sides of the same coin, or are they the same side?  What does the refrain "you got it, you got it" mean in (Nothing but) Flowers?  What does the maniacal laughter at the end of Big Yellow Taxi mean?  Why do we hate change, we do we fear change?  Why do we yearn and long for the new and the novel, the yet to be seen?







PS 
Still wish you had a lawnmower?  Try another version.  Thinking about the Tree Museum?  Try this version.

Love & Envy

Stop Looking Like a Sweater,

wool, 142 x 65 x 5cm, 2013,

Celia Pym

Dear Dying of Envy,

Oh I know how you feel!  You plod along for years, you think you are getting somewhere, you feel, 'yes, this little square of felt with threads through it is really saying things, this is it, I have made something relevant!' 

And then.  You find someone like Celia Pym and you know that you have wasted your efforts, because here is a her that is really making beautiful, poignant, elegant, expressive objects.  The kind you have always wished to make.

Well, tough cookies.  There is nothing you can do but try to bury your hurt and soldier on making things that are not as clearly distilled as these.  A better one made by someone else is just that; a better one made by someone else, and our job here it to minimize the suffering we cause, and that includes our endless, whingeing self-suffering.  So let's rewind, and re-phrase this post:


Dear Looking Out for Beauty,

Here it is, an artist and maker who is sending me over the moon with the wonderful things she has made!  I know you will love them too.  Let's run and get our needles right now, and start to stitch together the beautiful old broken and tattered scraps.  Let's not worry about it coming out good, let's just let each stich come like a drop of rain, with only gravity to guide it where to fall.  Let's just make little marks until we have daubed out a poem of plenty, an elegant pile of eraser rubbings, a page of smudges that mean that time happened here, and it was.









PS
Be sure you investigate a piece titled Blue Knitting.

Chance Encounters with Fragile Materials

Dear Would-Be Gallery-Goers,


      I have made these objects, dear viewers, primarily out of leftovers, scraps, and found materials.  My mind as I am making these objects is open- I try to let the materials tell me what they would like to be paired with, or attached to.  It is a kind of visual listening.  I am thinking of how lovely these little bits are in their own right: this short stubby worn stick, this little bit of watercolor sea, this calligraphic rusted and run over wire, and how perfect this little square of dark linen is with the small pink oil paint stain on it.  I would like these to feel like they grew, or accumulated, more than they were pushed or crafted into existence.

     Transitory and temporary materials are used in building these objects: branches, powdered graphite, wool batting, string.  Many of the works will change over time:  tape will unloose, grasses will shatter, threads will break.  Some pieces may go to ground entirely over the years.
    
     These funny little objects seem right to me now, during this time.  They feel like the imperfect offering in Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem.”  I hope you will find poetry and love in them.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in
-Leonard Cohen

light and shade

 

Subverted expectations.

Dear Sparkles,

I really admire the various juxtapositions represented in Kathleen Ryan's work: small things made big, ephemeral things made fixed, moldy made semi-precious.  I also like the notion that beadwork is kinda crafty and a little bit womenswork-ish, and that she has taken it to such a large scale.  What is not to like about this bedazzled, half-rotted lemon sculpture?   Doesn't it send you running out to your studio to glue some little things onto substrates?  It does me, and I have a lot of glitter that I think I have been ignoring too long now, fearing that glitter might be a bit too girly or tacky for the (ha!) 'high' art things I have been mucking around with.  Yes, I think it is time to experiment with putting on some glitz. 

Onwards, then, to our project for today: to make a little something inspired by Kathleen Ryan's work!











Want to see more?   An article, and a gallery link.

flip, flop, fly

Dear Builders,

Here's the thing:  I am completely in love with that little object in the middle- Richard Tuttle's White Rocker.  You might be thinking it doesn't look like much, but, oh!  It's absolutely perfect.

I insist.  It is a perfect sculpture.  You will need to stay with it, examine it, until you cry uncle and admit it's fabulousness. 

Once you let it into your life, you may thirst for more Richard Tuttle.  Try these works on paper, and when you have absorbed a goodish bit of that beauty, consider getting a book, like this one.  As for me, I am going out to my studio to make little Tuttle-esque watercolors, plywood assemblage paintings, and wire drawings.

Another Great Artist

Dear Reader,

Talking to yourself is encouraged here- in fact, it's all I do at the Dodo.  Yelling into the darkness of the bitter storm, while very few can hear me, and no one can answer, but I am adamant:  I do care.  There is meaning.  I want to share these important things with you. 

Today a film, about an artist I know.  This is one of those artists, those people, that really makes you want to walk like them, talk like them, etc.  I love the machines Jack Dollhausen builds, and you will too.  They are utterly charming and slightly irascible.  May they and their maker guide your every decision and thought.

In The Library.

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Ones,

I have some of my little sculptures, some of my painter's objects, displayed now, temporarily, in a library.  They are there, among the hushed readers and the quiet books, in shadowy display cabinets.  

The objects are very comfortable in the library cases; they are things to look at where readers go- which is great, because I think my ideal looker might be a reader.  They also enjoy the chance to be museum-ized.  Their components (found objects, sticks, journal pages, old felt and casters) might get only a cursory glance in a junk shop, but in the cases they are set apart, made more precious, and the hard edges and glassy reflective surfaces of the vitrines act as a foil to their rough and tumble histories and surfaces.

They'll be there for a few months, and if you stop by to look at them, you can do some reading, too.

Packed with peanuts, citations really satisfy!

 via BuzzFeed

Dear Interested,

I am visiting some of the old haunts today.  You will recall I am not so much re-writing my history as rebuilding it into paintings, drawings, and sculptures.  I have a few drops of aluminum slag, some handspun wool and a little oval of wood that, combined with the folded pages of 3/4 of 1989, is going to become a small object that is not a book, and not for reading.  I hope the object will retain all of the love & affection, and the beauty in those pages, but that the indecision, the insecurity, the fear, and the envy will not be visible.

Before the transmutation though, I am reading it.  It's actually quite riveting, but so much of what you want to know isn't given by the author.  What about the next room?  Wait, why is that person referred to as Margarine Brain?  Who is this Paul from the gas station?  Where was this ride in the Model A?  What was Powwow Highway like?  B. brought Finger puppets so you could talk in the movies!- why can't we keep this character around longer?  What were the other three measures in the 'quadruple dose of humiliation?' 

Alas, my memory is only jogged so far, and so much is without citation.  Including this comment:  "The 800 foot Snickers Bar that we have made rock & roll into."  I knew some poets at that time, and some song-writers, too, and I went to a lot of coffee shop readings, so my best guess is it was one of the poets' lines, but the world may never know.  And there's something kind of great about that, too.

We can meditate on what it might mean:  That rock & roll is too sweet?  Too satisfying?  Too commercial?  Too packaged?  Too packed with peanuts?

Unpacking Snickers generally, the candy bar was named after the Mars' family horse.  'Nickers' (or sometimes 'whickers') is something a horse gives in communication.  This, from the Equuisite website:

The Nicker The horse creates a vibrating sound with his mouth closed, from his vocal cords. The strength and tone of the nicker vary greatly, and will tell you what the horse is saying. "Hello, good to see you" - The horse nickers fairly quietly, and moves toward the other horse or person who he is nickering to. "Hi, beautiful!" or "Woo Hoo, you're sexy!" - Usually said by a stallion. This nicker is slightly more intense than the one above, with mating in mind, and accomodated by shaking of the head. "Come closer" - This sound is most usually made by a mare to her foal. It is much softer and quieter than the "hello" nicker. This nicker is usually accomodated by a nudge from the horse's nose (usually towards her flanks to protect her foal from danger). 

I imagine that author Cheryl Sutor (What is Your Horse Saying? June, 1999) meant to use the word 'accompanied' in the places where 'accomodated' is used.

Here also is a recipe for Snickers Salad, because it obviously relates to this little grouping of ideas.  Wikipedia tells me that Snickers Salad is found in Iowa, at church suppers and the like.  I tell you, nothing could be more satisfying than loading your car up with rock & roll, a blank journal, and heading out I-o-way to find this salad in its native habitat!

Paper Wings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Flapping,

 

I saw a few works made by Arthur Ganson recently, at the MIT museum.  The flapping one above was there, slowly churning the air.  Of course, you can see how marvelous they are, and maybe you have even seen them in person.  They struck me as self-assured, and delightfully modest.  They aren't terribly loud, or showy, they just seem to bumble along like clockwork, like old machinery, or a mill wheel.  They really are just right, and I hope you spend some time on his website, watching the time flow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS

Here is a song to go with the first film, and please also look at this wonderful one: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read This!

Dear Cinderella,

I am cleaning this week, because I am having some people over-  there is a lot of dust and spider webs and paper scraps-  what my Mom and Dad always called 'schnitzels' of paper. 

I have a whole box of these paper scraps, because I think I might one day make new paper out of them.  Or maybe I will stuff them into a sculpture skin, and I only I will know that the innards are schnitzels saved over years. 

I also have bags of fabric snippings- no, I don't mean anything you could make a quilt with, I mean really small snips and threads.  They make nice little piles and I love the way they sit in rows. 

I know that I am going to have to become comfortable with the disappointment others will have in me for this behavior-  I know that collecting bottle caps has become 'hoarding' and that makes me quite ill by today's standards. 

Phooey on that, and read this, too, while you are at it.  It's long, it uses big words and it is subversive- you will love it!

Perfectly right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Everyday,

 

I go out everyday and arrange things into a kitchen sink drawing and I paste and cut and tape and mark and put it all under a Dover edition of Ulysses to dry while listening to cellos play; and this is all so terribly correct, so perfectly right, that I just had to write and let you know.  Please tell everyone for me, won't you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

PS

 

These are sculptures, not drawings, but you know that already.